GM row may not affect rice exports for now; govt rules out 'contamination'

The recent controversy about the alleged contamination of rice exported from India might not have much impact on the country’s outbound shipment of the cereal.
 
This is because the European Union (EU), from where the allegation came, accounts for very little of the country’s rice export.
 
The government has stated there is no possibility of genetically modified (GM) substances mixing with the rice exported because their production is prohibited.
 
Experts said if the controversy lingered, it could have an adverse effect on one of the biggest items of India’s agricultural exports.
 
Trade and market sources said India exported annually around 300,000 tonnes of rice (mostly basmati) to Europe. Of that, 170,000 tonnes goes to the UK.
 
This is a fraction of the 4.4-4.6 million tonnes of the basmati rice India exports annually.
 
A few months ago, the European Commission’s Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed had flagged 500 tonnes of broken rice sent from India (a French company converted it into rice flour). India was identified as the origin of the broken rice.
 
“This seems to be a mischief played by someone. We have stringent GM crop production norms and the production, distribution and export of GM rice has never been allowed in India,” Vinod Kaul, executive director of the All India Rice Exporters Association (AIREA), told Business Standard.
 
Kaul said the government would look into the matter and take it up with the EU authorities.
 
However, activists and civil society groups say such contamination might have happened during field trials.

“It is not a small consignment. If the quantity traced is around 500 tonnes, it (GM) must have been cultivated somewhere and there is a possibility that contamination happened during the field trial stage,” G V Ramanjaneyulu, executive director of the Centre for Sustainable Agriculture (CSA), told Business Standard.
 
He said the field trials happened four-five years ago, mostly in Punjab, Andhra Pradesh, and Maharashtra.
 
The Centre, on its part, is clear contamination has not happened.
 
In a statement on Wednesday, it said India exported non-GM rice and there was no commercial variety of such rice in India.
 
"There is no question of exporting GM rice India. They (EU authorities) themselves are not sure of the source of the contaminant,” an official statement said.
 
“The broken white rice exported from India, which is allegedly one of the possibilities, has passed through many hands before reaching the actual processors in the EU,” the statement further said.
 
While there is a possibility of mixing or contamination at every stage, the exporter concerned has confirmed that the rice exported was non-GM. Besides, contamination, if any, could only be possible while processing the broken rice.
 
“Since there is no commercial variety of GM in India, proper testing was also done before shipment of the consignment. The possibility of GMO contamination due to white rice exported by India is not possible,” it said.