Coke, Pepsi lose face and fizz in India

[Guest guest]

By Siddharth Srivastava

http://atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/FL15Df03.html

 

NEW DELHI - Just like cigarettes, Pepsi and Coca-Cola cans and bottles in India

will now need to carry a warning label. The statutory label will warn consumer

that the drinks contain pesticide residues. The ruling comes from the highest

court of appeal, the Supreme Court of India. The cause, however, may have less

to do with Coke or Pepsi per se than with the skewed nature of India's

agricultural development that puts a premium on use of excessive pesticides and

fertilizers to enhance production and the consequent degradation of groundwater.

 

The ruling is a culmination of scientific studies over the past year that showed

the two soft drinks contained pesticide residues higher than international

standards. The findings were first made public in August last year when the

Center for Science and Environment (CSE), a New Delhi-based non-government

organization (NGO), first raised the issue. These pesticides are harmful to

health and can cause cancer and birth defects, CSE said. Tests of 12 leading

drinks produced and marketed in India by the two companies showed that " all

samples contained residues of four extremely toxic pesticides and insecticides:

lindane, DDT, malathion and chlorpyrifos " , the CSE report said. A furor followed

the CSE's findings, with the Indian parliament throwing out cola vending

machines from the complex. Several schools in big cities also took them off the

campuses, while many people just stopped buying colas. The cola companies denied

the charges and the government set up a 15-member parliamentary

committee to probe the allegations. Last February, the committee ruled that

CSE's findings were correct.

 

Reacting to the court order this week, Coke said in a statement: " Our products

manufactured in India are world-class and comply with all statutory

requirements. " A statement from Pepsi said: " The treated water used to make

beverages across all our plants in the country already meets the highest

international standards, including that of the EU. " Coke and Pepsi control 99%

of India's soft-drink sales and enjoy a growing US$1.5 billion market in India,

selling about 6.5 billion bottles per year. Lawyers from both companies

suggested the label could read: " The contents may have traces of pesticide which

are well below the prescribed standards. "

 

The cola episode highlights the rampant misuse of pesticides, which should make

much else of what Indians eat pretty much inedible. Coke and Pepsi are just the

tip of a festering problem, but a convenient punching bag. An editorial comment

in the Times of India said, " No company would willingly spike its products with

bug killers, let alone multinationals like Coke and Pepsi. The only reason - and

this is what bleeding-heart NGOs miss out on - colas contain pesticides is

because India's water is polluted. This groundwater pollution is so great that

even after successive steps of purification, enough pesticides get into colas to

be detectable in laboratory tests. The fact that India's water quality is dismal

is no secret. Last year, a UN report on world water development ranked nations

according to the quality of groundwater. India ranked 120 among 122 countries.

So NGOs and do-gooders should shift the focus of their campaign to the quality

of water, because that is by far a bigger

problem than colas. Everybody can do without sweetened fizzy drinks. Nobody can

do without water. Given that, the availability of quality potable water is one

of the most important development indicators worldwide. If the government is

really concerned about the well-being of Indians, it should monitor and regulate

water quality, not go sniffing around soda bottles. First, clean up the water.

Then start on cola. "

 

Arguing on behalf of the cola companies, lawyer Harish Salve said, " Agriculture

in our country is a holy cow and no government would make a law against it even

if it is in public knowledge that coffee and tea and even fruit juice contain

more pesticide than soft drinks. No pesticide is added to the soft drink in the

manufacturing process. The pesticide content of the raw material - water and

sugar - is reflected in the drink. Extensive use of pesticides in agriculture

has resulted in high degrees of their presence in sugar.'' But the court asked,

" Why would the consumer not know what he is consuming? You can declare in your

print line that the sugar used by the soft drink manufacturer contained

pesticide. "

 

The cola giants are not entirely above board either. They should have factored

in the fact that water quality is not the same across the world, as a result of

which products in different countries do not conform to the same standards.

While it is all very well to tap into the business potential of new markets such

as India, they should also be willing to invest in better methods to check

contamination than in the developed world. For a cola plant to use tap water is

one thing in the United States, quite another in India. The cola companies have

also done their image no good by getting involved in controversies over

contaminated drinking water in the states of Kerala and Uttar Pradesh. There

have also been serious allegations of metal sludge in their effluent, polluting

agricultural land. The clean-up must, therefore, start within.

 

So what will be the upshot of the court blow to cola companies? Apart from a

glitch in their image, perhaps a small dip in sales, it is unlikely that cola

consumption is going to decline much as it is generally well understood that the

quality of water itself is questionable and that virtually everything, from

vegetables to restaurants, must carry such warnings if it were to be strictly

enforced. The cola issue does bring a bigger problem into focus - the increased

use of chemicals in Indian agriculture, which can only be addressed by the

government through incentives for a systemic shift to organic and sustainable

farming.

 

Siddharth Srivastava is a New Delhi-based journalist.

 

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