A significant portion of organic products (33%), mostly vegetables, supplied in India’s capital Delhi over the last two years contain pesticides, Crop Care Federation of India (CCFI) revealed.
The federation said that some Indian organic farms use chemical pesticides to protect their crops and stealthily pass their product into the market as organic, The Economic Times Reported.
A statement from CCFI read: "According to the IARI laboratory analysis, out of the organic products samples analysed in the national capital, the 33 per cent were found loaded with pesticides.
"Their sophisticated analysis surprisingly showed that every third sample of organic vegetables had pesticide residues proving the suspicion that the organically certified farms have always been using a variety of pesticides."
CCFI obtained this information from Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI) under the Right to Information (RTI) Act.
According to the report, IARI scientists collected the tested samples during the period from January 2012 to October 2014.
Meanwhile, CCFI chairman Rajju Shroff has urged the government to take strict action against such organic brands, reports said.
