Traceability system covers eight more farm products

onion product We will soon be able to trace the life history of eight more farm products.The Indian government plans to expand the list of agriculturalproducts to eight more. The product will have a specific code, which can be used to traceits origin and pesticide residue levels if required to ensure itsquality. Agricultural products such as mango, pomegranate, onion,basmati rice, honey, poultry, groundnuts and organic products willbe included in the list. A farm product will be given a specificcode, which will provide online information about the farm whichallows an importer to trace its origin and the levels of pesticidesin the product. The traceability system was introduced by the Agricultural andProcessed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA) in2006 in order to keep track of fresh grapes exported from India toEurope. The system provided internet-based residue traceabilitysoftware system, which now covers more than 35,000 grapes farmersin India, who have been given specific codes. Poor quality grapes or those with higher than permissible levels ofpesticides can be tracked to the farms with the help of barcodesprovided on the packets. This helped ensure quality. APEDA Director S Dave said that the traceability system can provideinformation about a product such as different stages of sampling,testing, certification, and packing. According to him, this helpsexpand the market base for these products and reflects thetransparency in quality management and monitoring. New farm products which will soon come under this system are onionand honey.Such strict quality measures have improved the quality ofproducts and their exports have increased from Rs.6.47 billion in1999-2000 to Rs.24.12 billion in 2006-07.