Network Approach : Prevention of Food Adulteration

Group : 5

Members:
1. Enamul Hoque Tauheed
2. Tahrima Binte Tarique
3. Mahira Gazi Turna
4. Hrivu Mondol
5. Ishaq Bin Ibrahim
6. Rongon Richard Areng

Adulteration is illegal means of selling food that does not meet legal standards. One form of which is addition of steroids to increase amounts at production stage, which can potentially result in loss of quality. Another form is use of preservatives and colourants to make food last longer and look fresh. This seriously endangers public health, and violates right to safer food. We are attempting to eliminate food adulteration with a network approach.

Actors Involved:

We have identified the following actors who will engage in the network approach, specifically for the responsibilities listed below:

Ministry of Agriculture:

• Develop agricultural policies, plans, regulations, acts, etc. for sustainable agricultural development and for food sufficiency;
• Monitor implementation of agricultural policies, plans, projects, programmes and regulations;
• Provide administrative and policy support to MOA agencies for planning and implementation of the development programmes/projects and coordinate with donors and development partners for funding and technical assistance;

Ministry of Food:

• Formulation, review and execution of legislation, policies, plans, procedures, standing orders and guidelines relating to overall food system, food policy.
• Establishment of a dependable national food security system.
• Procurement, storage and movement of food-grains, such as Paddy, Rice, Wheat, Maize, etc. in order to maintain an adequate public food grain stock for national food security as well as for distribution through Public Food Distribution System (PFDS) as price incentive for domestic production and price support for consumers.
• Inspection, analysis and maintenance of quality and standards of food grains imported or exported by this Ministry.
• Stabilization of the price of food-grains.
• Recommend development of market infrastructure, such as storage, transportation handling and marketing facilities to encourage and support private sector food grains trade
• Maintaining database on food production, food availability, food accessibility, consumption pattern, food stock and food reserve and establishing inventory control and food management information system
• Food planning research and monitoring
• Import and export of food stuff and civil supplies.
• Administration of Food Safety Act, 2013
• Rationing
• Liaison with regional and international organizations, and matters related to treaties and agreements with other countries and world bodies relating to subjects allotted to this Ministry

Ministry of Health and Family Welfare:

• Providing healthcare of international standard to all classes of people as it is their right
• Providing quality and easily available healthcare to rural communities

Ministry of Home Affairs:

• Providing internal security, protection of citizens from fraudulent practices
• Formulating, approving, implementing Domestic policies

Ministry of Information:

• Diffusion of information

Ministry of Primary and Mass Education:

• To ensure 100% enrollment of school aged children
• To reduce the trend of drop-out rate of the enrolled students, so that achievements translate into comparable completion rates;

Ministry of Religious Affairs:

• Enhancing moral and ethical values
• Institutional development of religious institutions and organizations;
• Public awareness activities for preventing militancy and terrorism

We have a diagram here that addresses the food adulteration problem in Bangladesh and tries to set up a network among different ministries and government agencies in order to eliminate the problem.

Overall, we have set up a hybrid network system consisting of Problem Solving Networking Unit and Information Diffusion Networking Unit. The problem solving networking units consists of Ministry of Home Affairs, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and Ministry of Women and Children Affairs. The Network Diffusion Networking Unit consists of Ministry of Primary and Mass Education, Ministry of Information and Ministry of Religious Affairs.

Food Adulteration is a national phenomenon. Laws and regulations have to be strictly applied and practiced to reduce and to ultimately eradicate the problem. Ministry of Home Affairs will play the part of enforcing regulatory laws within the problem solving unit. Ministry of Health and Family Welfare will provide necessary help and services to the population who are directly affected by the food adulteration problem. As children are more valuable and exposed to this problem, Ministry of Women and Children Affairs will step up to address the necessary issues regarding their health. Although, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and Ministry of Women and Children Affairs will have different workload, there will be a weak tie between them to avoid overlapping actions.

Regulations and laws will have no impact whatsoever if the mass people are unaware and uneducated about the problem. Information Diffusion Network will be appointed with the duty to inform the general mass about healthy food habit and lifestyle. Ministry of Primary and Mass Education, Ministry of Information and Ministry of Religious Affairs connected with a weak tie will confirm that the information that is being provided has consistency and not contradicted. We require Ministry of Religious affairs as religious leaders and local heads of religious activities have a direct buy in and relatability to masses especially in rural communities. We have seen historically when awareness campaigns regarding population or hygiene are conducted, collaboration with religious figures gives smooth results and these collaborations have seen success in past.

These two networks will ultimately fuse into Ministry of Food and Ministry of Agriculture which with the help of PIU( Project Implementation Unit) will provide macro and grassroots services through BSTI, Directorate of National Consumer Rights Protection, Islamic Foundation and other major religious foundations, Public Schools, Medical Hospitals.

Challenges we might face:

Because there are so many actors involved in a highly bureaucratic policy formulation and implementation program, it’s going to slow down the process. This is the key challenge this enterprise is expected to face. Coordination between ministries is significant to make this work, however that itself is a challenge, if centre is not quick and efficient at approving plans set up by various sections of the network, very naturally the project will be at a standstill. This is especially a challenge as there are two ministries in the centre, food and agriculture. If we want to eradicate food adulteration it needs to be done both during production and distribution. If these two ministries at the centre are not on the same page there’s going to be contention and it will trickle down to problem solving and information diffusion units of the network.

Even if there is no contention and the two ministries at centre are in perfect coordination, the process of plan formulation, and implementation may become slow if all ministries don’t have the same momentum as centre.

The second challenge we might face is, potential resistance from food distribution unions/syndicates/stockies. Food products are not streamlined directly into the market from the producer, there are a lot of middle men involved. Food products and grains are brought into the market by various businessmen associations and syndicates, who are significantly powerful, known for increasing prices in the market by controlling supply. A greater percentage of food adulteration is principally done through middle men especially use of strong preservatives that endanger public health. If regulations are set up on these middle men by the home ministry, we will face resistance from them.