Foie Gras Import Ban: Should The Government Decide What You Eat?

In a controversial move, the Government of India has banned the import of Foie Gras – a food product made from the liver of a duck or goose that has been specially fattened. Foie Gras has been a contentious issue because of the way it is produced.

Foie gras is a popular and well-known delicacy in French cuisine. Ducks are forced to endure the pain of force-feeding, which is done to enlarge their livers, and are ultimately killed to extract the liver which is described as rich, buttery, and delicate, unlike the liver of an ordinary duck.

Force-feeding of birds dates as far back as 2500 BC, when the ancient Egyptians used to deliberately fatten them for food. Today, France is the largest producer and consumer of foie gras, though it is produced and consumed worldwide, particularly in other European nations, the United States, and China.

Although the move to ban the import of foie gras has won India accolades from the animal rights groups across the world, it has raised many eyebrows at home as some people feel that the Government should leave it to consumers to decide what they want to eat.

One feels compelled to ask: What about lakhs of chickens and goats which are slaughtered daily in the country? Will the Government ban them too? Such a thing is not practically possible. People are capable of making the right moral and personal choices for themselves. The Government has no business prescribing food habits.

According to The Wall Street Journal, an official said that the ban is a result of complaint by an animal activist group. “Import policy of the item ‘foie gras’… is revised from ‘free’ to ‘prohibited’,” the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) said in the notice on its website. “The decision takes immediate effect,” said SP Roy (Joint Director General of Foreign Trade at the Directorate).

Animal Equality, a London-based animal activist group, has been campaigning for a ban on foie gras across the world since 2012. A spokesperson of Animal Equality, Amruta Ubale, told the Wall Street Journal, “India is the only country to ban imports, whereas countries such as Israel, Germany and England have only banned the production of foie gras.”

While people can be made aware or educated, the Government taking decisions on their part — that too about something as personal as food habits — doesn’t make sense.

While a ban on import of narcotic drugs is logical, one wonders why the Government should ban an import when there is no national interest or economic interest at stake.

Any ban is executed by the bureaucracy. That’s the level where corruption seeps in with bureaucrats giving a free hand to few in exchange for bribes. In case of a ban on an import such as this, custom officials get several easy opportunities to facilitate smuggling of the banned products.

Every ban implies greater regulation and more government and hence goes against the grain of the mantra that this Government has adopted from day one: Minimum Government, Maximum Governance”.

Source:- niticentral.com