Rice stock inspections: Loss of quality and weevil
The deteriorating rice and weevil-riddled rice found on the first day of the army's inspections bodes ill for the rest of the rice the previous government has been buying up over the past two years.
At the Peng Meng central warehouse in Muang (Surin), the inspection team found dirty rice that had been eaten by the insect. But a representative of the Public Warehouse Organization (PWO) stubbornly maintained that those critters had only eaten the husks and not the rice grains.
After the first inspection (there are 27 more to come for his team), team leader Suwit Subongbot is more concerned about the quality of the rice than the quantity. 'The rice has been stored for two years and is therefore at high risk of being damaged by weevils.'
In Buri Ram province, the inspection team also found declining rice. The province has seven warehouses, where rice is stored that has been bought by the government under the controversial rice mortgage system.
In Nakhon Ratchasima, a team inspected a warehouse in Chalerm Phrakiat, one of XNUMX warehouses in the province. Nothing unusual was found, but the rice samples that were taken still have to be DNA and quality tested in Bangkok to determine whether they match the rice that should be there according to the books.
In the central warehouse of Nakhon Si Thammarat province, the team encountered a discrepancy between the amount of rice in the warehouse and what should have been there according to the PWO. This is being investigated further. The same thing came to light during an inspection in Ban Phraek (Ayutthaya).
Chatchai Sarikallayai, deputy head of the NCPO's economic team, said yesterday that the inspection of the total of 18 million tons of mortgaged rice, which lies in 1.800 warehouses and 137 silos, will be completed by the middle of the month. After that, final conclusions can be drawn about how much rice is still in stock.
Supha Piyajitti, former deputy permanent secretary of the Ministry of Finance, estimates that about three million tons of rice are missing. Under the previous government, Supha chaired a committee that had to report on rice supplies. She aroused the irritation of the government at the time because she opened a book about the corruption in the program.
(Source: Bangkok Post, July 4, 2014)
“three million rice…..”?
three million tons?
three million grains of rice?
three million sacks of rice?
Dick: Thanks for your questions. Text has been corrected.
Morning Dick,
In my opinion they should be happy that they are missing a few bags of rice.
And just burn the other bags.
Poor quality, albeit enriched with protein-rich meat.
If you have a bunch of bags in a room with those weevils in them, you can bet the rest of his family is dining elsewhere.
Nothing spreads as fast as bugs near food.
Add the tropics to that, and you can guess the answer.
This rice can no longer be sold to anyone, because they don't have an idea in mind to sell it abroad, do they?
Better a short pain than a long one.
The whole rice thing has already cost Thailand a lot of money.
So just add this.
I will get a slap in the face here and there, but I just expressed my opinion.
I'll stick to Japanese rice or basmati rice (India)
LOUISE
@Louise,
You are right when you say that there will be many games of poor quality and it is better to follow the tactic of the 'short pain'.
But simply burning it is, in my opinion, the worst thing one could do.
I hope for the Thai government that they can sell all parties to a foreign party that can use the rice as biofuel.
Then you still get some money, while the bad rice can still be put to good use.
But things have already gone wrong in Thailand by not wanting to regulate rice production. 18 million tons of rice just lying in storage…unbelievable!
Burn that trade. That's cheap and it solves the problems. It also sends a great sign out there, so that potential buyers see that Thailand wants to sell a better product than what they have rotting in the warehouse right now. This creates confidence for the buyer and the consumer.
And all those so-called rice specialists forget ONE very important point: moist storage causes the growth of a fungus, especially aspergillus flavus. It leaves behind … call it a kind of poop: aflatoxin. With type B1 over 2 parts per billion = micrograms per kg, you can only send it to the incinerator in the EU. With the sum of species B1 +B2 +G1 +G2 of over 4 ppb… ditto.
(Maximum levels of aflatoxins (aflatoxins B1, B2, G1, G2 and M1) are laid down in Commission Regulation (EC) No 1881/2006 as amended by Commission Regulation (EU) No 165/2010.)
Biggest problem: the mold growth is not throughout the batch, but in "pockets", where it can very quickly reach 1000 ppb. Examining one sample and then declaring the entire storage correct is therefore nonsense. Only so much mixing makes the batch average again. Then test and.. into the waste incineration? ?
Excessively high or prolonged exposure to aflatoxin increases the risk of liver cancer.
In Thailand there is a limit of 30 ppb (if it is ever really tested, and looking at all publications... NEVER NEVER; at most the filled hand is checked for sufficient THBs)
In the NL the average consumption of rice is 1,4 kg per person per year; in TH: 60 kg pp/pj or: 43 times as high.
If you also put the aflatoxin value at a 15-fold, you have a 642x higher risk of liver cancer.
So I haven't bought rice from Thailand for a while, even though I get money.
For TH there are very large (government and top-rich) interests at stake. That in 10 -20 years there will be a few thousand extra liver cancer cases... who cares about that NOW.
The first time I found the word “fungus” in any publication in Thailand:
http://englishnews.thaipbs.or.th/fungus-tainted-rice-found-phitsanuloke-warehouse/
And to think how many people are starving in the world.
Better in 10 years an increased risk (!) of liver cancer than tomorrow already starving to death.
@want to:
totally agree.
But now the step: who pays the distribution costs to send it to…. to bring ?
And how many then end up in a big bow in.. Rotterdam, while the Thais are just trying to restore confidence in their rice quality after having just donated, for example, 12 million tons = as much as US$ 12 billion in value in old poor quality rice ?
And you bet... in no time very social NL / B / D etc will be on the barricades: you are giving away poisonous food..
Not to mention the upper class from the receiving regions, who for centuries have not given boot to the starving in their own country, but DO want food security of the goods present in their region.
I would say: keep it close to home, it saves on transport costs: hand out rice at the local temple: to everyone with an income under 5 THB per month 500 kg, under 6000 THB 400 kg, etc.. .
Of course I urge everyone not to sell the bags to the local restaurant or the 7-11, etc.
Oh, those pockets of 20,000 ppb (or micrograms) afla per kg of rice: mix very well, because a single intake of 1700 micrograms a day is enough for a certain liver problem. So of the customers at the temple… a few will surely die within half a year (or those of the restaurant 500 meters away, where those farangs like to eat cheaply).
And yes… those pockets do occur. Not the first time that several dozen people suddenly died in a village in Africa.
Afla reduction IS possible, but not so far down that it passes the EU inspection. Afla is classified by the EU in the highest risk, far above that bacteria, which only gives you some diarrhea (yes, and grandma is leaving the retirement home for good, saves that mandatory monthly visit)
a) begin to gently flow all the bags onto a belt: generously remove the moldy / discolored / clumped heaps.
b) take the rest over a sortex (this is done as standard with all export rice): damage to the grain results in gloss reduction/discoloration and deformation, so… blow out all less gloss grains (you probably remember the Duyvis peanuts commercial : Assess peanuts piece by piece on: colour, gloss, shape 3x okay = Duyvis peanut (and the same for all other brands, thanks to the Keur. v Waren / FAVV etc.).
Yes, that also happens in real life: countless plastic tubes next to each other, each with an electronic eye and a blowpipe: not okay = blow out. In addition to a lot of good peanuts / rice grains, you also blow out a lot of bad ones, but the end product is a lot lower in afla.
Then 4 x 10 kg sample each from at least 50 bags and tests: 1x above 2 or 4 ppb respectively and the lot goes into the peanut press (peanut oil does not absorb Afla) and for rice: the waste incineration, despite the fact that it contains a lot of good contains grains. (from 100 ppb to eg 4000 and the rest to 25-30 or so, sufficient for all of SE Asia).
Oh.. poultry can't handle afla very badly. This is how people were put on the trail: the entire turkey farm was extinct overnight.
Morning Harry,
As I said at the beginning, to avoid all these dangers you mention, set fire to it.
Accompanied by a bunch of soldiers.
Of course with love to the poor people, but in this case you can't risk this and you already gave the reasons (sale) yourself.
And it will just disappear across the border and liver misery occurs in one of those countries and this can be switched back to Thailand!!!
Well, then Thailand can really hang its throat on the coat rack, because then this can never be justified again.
LOUISE