Indian Basmati export adulteration unveiled

For five years, Indian traders have been passing off a lesser quality rice, CSR 30, as Basmati, in key markets like the US, Canada and the EU. And this with the full knowledge of the trade and the government. In the process, the rice exports enjoy the duty exemption accorded to pure Basmati in the EU, thousands of consumers get duped both in the domestic and export markets,
and the stock of traditional grain gets depleted on Indian farms.

CSR 30 has only 80% of traditional Basmati aroma and is shorter and broader - but is as grainy and tasty when cooked. Its presence in Basmati export consignments to the EU was brought up in May by European Commission DG Jesus Zorrila, in a meeting with India's government-cum-trade delegation to Brussels.

EU laws take a stringent view of fraudulent activities on the Basmati front and the EC regulation No. 972/2006 provides for the introduction of a control system based on DNA analysis at the border and transitional arrangements for imports of Basmati rice pending that. In London, the
delegation had to countenance similar queries.

An alert on the Basmati hoax was put out by key world rice newsletters in June. "A DNA rice authenticity verification service in India has concluded that more than 30% of the Basmati rice sold in the retail markets of the US and Canada is adulterated with inferior quality grains," the June 19 Oryza newsletter said. It referred to a survey in public interest conducted by
Ricesearch, a state-of-the-art DNA testing facility set up by Tilda, exporter of premium Basmati that has a major footprint in the US, Canada,the UK and west Asian markets.

Ironically, BEDF and Apeda as well asExport Inspection Council, which issues the authentification certificate, are likely to be aware that CSR 30 now dominates Basmati area in key states. A November 2006 satellite-based acreage estimation by the Birla Technical Services annually for Apeda reveals that in kharif 2006, at 70,489 hectare, it covered 197% of the land
covered by HBC 19 in Haryana, where big exporters source a big chunk of their produce. That translated to 229% of the production (at 2,22,759 tonne) of notified varieties (97,365 tonne).

Overall, in the Basmati-growing regions of Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Uttaranchal and Jammu & Kashmir, however, CSR 30 accounted for a total of 2,59,181 tonne in 2006 compared to the traditional Basmati produce of 5,37,174 tonne, i.e., 48% of the total produce. This was sufficient to have raised alarm bells in official quarters who certify rice exports as Basmati.

The adulteration issue could, even while significantly downmarking the heritage association with Indian Basmati, impact attempts ostensibly being made by the Centre to register the Geographical Identification (GI) of Basmati. GI registration would allow all evolved varieties similar to the traditional Basmati and grown in the specified region (11 in all, with six
traditional and five evolved varieties) for similar duty exemptions. However, traders would have to pay the same price to the farmer here for all the varieties labelled Basmati. Currently, traders typically pay Rs 700 less per quintal of CSR 30 paddy to the farmer compared to the price for
traditional Basmati variety, even while passing off the two varieties as the same abroad.

Agri scientists and geneticists, meanwhile, are worried that the high premium placed on the traditional Basmati by traders even while they pass of the extensive research-backed hybrids varieties as land race or pureline rain, will take away from decades of hard scientific work that went into ceation of the evolved varieties.