Our Pesticide Residue Test Result for Cabbage is Here

In 2019, during one of my trips, I came across a farm filled with cabbages in outskirts of Bangalore. When I went inside the farm, it had a very strong pungent smell. It literally gave me a headache. I covered my nose, and I went up to the farmer, and asked why such a strong chemical smell. He casually told me that they have just done the 10th dose of chemical sprays.

I also understood that the conventional farmers dunk their cabbages in a chemical solution called carbofuran (furadon) to give it a greenish blue shine before they take it to the mandi to sell it. After all, this is how end customers want. Shiny presentable cabbages.

The scientific literature handed out by the companies who produce it, warns that any produce on which carbofuran is used should not be consumed for a minimum of 28 days.

According to a Deccan Herald Article last year, IIHR(Indian Institute Horticultural Research) scientists say, that in vegetables like cabbage, high amount of pesticides are used.

They quoted: “Farmers use up to 25 rounds of pesticide spray to safeguard vegetables such as these. These toxic chemicals remain in the vegetable even after 35 to 45 days of harvest, thus jeopardising lives of the general public who consume them.”

A study done to check use of insecticides in Cabbage cultivation revealed that : Profenofos, fipronil, chlorantraniliprole were among predominately sprayed chemicals throughout the cabbage growing areas of Karnataka (Ravi Bidhar et al., 2020)

So given this context, we recently tested our cabbage from our farm for 60+ pesticide residue in a laboratory to make sure when we say organic we really mean chemical free. We randomly picked it from one of the harvest that arrived in our office.

Lets have a look at the results together, shall we ?

Random Sample : HB Organic Cabbage

Our test results show: Profenofos, fipronil, chlorantraniliprole among 63 pesticide residue are not detected in organically grown HB Cabbage.

Result : All 63 Pesticide Residues tested, are ND(Not Detected) in sample of HB cabbage.

A BIG Congratulations to our HB organic farmer Munisamy for all of his hard work.

As we always say, we don't want to sell anything that our own family would not consume.

These test help check safety, maintain transparency to you all as consumers and keep our farmers / suppliers in check as well. Rest assured, we stay committed to plan random sampling in the future as well. These tests are a bit expensive and hence we are not able to do for all vegetables. But, we plan to do so at least once in 3 months.

Hope you are as happy to see these results as we are !

Gautham PB

Tags: test results, pesticides, lab test, cabbage