BOBS drafts vegetable grading standards

Standardisation of fruit and vegetables will improve food safety
Standardisation of fruit and vegetables will improve food safety

Botswana Bureau of Standards (BOBS) is developing grading standards for fruits and vegetables to facilitate both internal and external trade, and serve as a regulatory instrument for food safety.

The standard will be called GOOD Agricultural Production (GAP). BOBS fruits and vegetable technical committee chairperson, Otsoseng Oagile, told Business Monitor that fruits and vegetables on the market are not graded under any regulating body. He said their quality and grading systems are not guaranteed, so the GAP will allow regulating authorities to monitor farmers and ensure set grading standards are met. “Our concern is that we don’t know how these vegetables are planted and which chemicals were used.

This is mainly because we do not have the laws and standards to enable us to test these grading systems,” said Oagile.

Editor's Comment
Who watches the watchdog?

For a fact, in a democratic society such as Botswana, the media plays a crucial role of being watchdog, holding the powerful to account and exposing all possible wrongdoing for the benefit of the public.There has been a nagging question about who watches the watchdog after all? Perhaps, the investigations into alleged wrongful acts implicating those supposed to be playing the watchdog role will shed more light into what has happened such that the...

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