‘Agricultural industry players need to comply with GPL practice’
KUALA LUMPUR: The Federal Agricultural Marketing Authority ( Fama) has advised all agricultural product wholesalers, exporters and importers to comply with the Grading, Packaging and Labelling ( GPL) practice, to improve the quality of these products marketed locally and abroad.
Fama Regulatory Enforcement Division director, Sabri Naseh said the matter was important to ensure that locally produced agricultural products were marketed with efficient grading, packaging and labelling.
He said that in an integrated operation carried out at the Kuala Lumpur Wholesale Market from 10pm on Tuesday until 4am yesterday, Fama found there were still parties in the industry who failed to comply with the GPL rules.
“Fama issued a total of 15 warning letters to the truck drivers bringing vegetable and fruit supplies, of which the producers failed to fully comply with the GPL rules like incomplete labelling, imperfect packaging and selling lowquality vegetables,” he told a press conference after the GPL enforcement operation conducted under the National Blue Ocean Strategy ( NBOS), at the wholesale market.
Sabri said although the number of cases reported was low, Fama viewed the matter seriously and would intensify the enforcement operation to curb breaching of the GPL rules.
He said the operation which targeted farms, wholesale markets, public markets and hypermarkets was also aimed at protecting consumers from buying low- quality agricultural produce at high prices.
The six- hour integrated operation involved 50 officers and staff members of Fama, the Royal Malaysia Police, Kuala Lumpur City Hall, Immigration Department and the Department of Environment. — Bernama