Rice is the main foodstuff for the majority of Earth population. It is cultivated at all continents. It is the main crop for China, India, Japan, Vietnam, Pakistan, Bangladesh and other countries, taking 80% share of the food ration.
Rice high caloric value, easy digestion and dietary properties make it a leader among all other crops. Being easier digested then many other products it is widely used as a diet and baby food.
50% of rice market in Ukraine is filled by import. However, researches show that imported rice often happens to be harmful for health.
Some Western European countries, as well as Russia, established limitations for paddy import from the countries of Asia and Africa (Pakistan, India, Thailand, Egypt and Vietnam). In 2006 Russia has fully given up on rice import, thus lots of pesticides and genetically modified products were detected in the crop brought to the country. Recently imported by the United States rice was genetically modified, which resulted in Russia, as well as European countries, turning down rice imported from USA.
If countries of European Union and Russia found harmful substances in imported rice, there is quite a risk that those substances are present in the crop coming to Ukraine. Thing is that no one can anyone whether it will be checked by our sanitary and epidemiological inspectorates, and corresponding measures will be taken at governmental level.
At the moment there are no regulations on laboratory activity that can carry out analysis on the quantity of harmful pesticides, transgenes in production imported from abroad. Political and economic situation in Ukraine encourages sale of such products.
Furthermore, a new dangerous tendency has recently formed in Ukraine - some unscrupulous companies buy foreign rice and repack it, using well-known brands of Ukrainian producers. Rice cultivated in Ukraine does not benefit from such a “tradition”, because imported paddy is mostly of a low quality and shakes people’s faith in local manufacturer.
Association of Ukrainian rice producers has been recently established; it is called to increase supervision of rice quality produced in, and defend interests of domestic manufacturers at governmental level.
A customer, wishing to buy ecological rice, should give preference to domestic goods, thus rice cultivation technologies are controlled at the governmental level and are certified by Association of “Rice producers” sign that proves domestic paddy to be safe. High international assessment of the crop proves the following fact: European Market Research Centre (Brussels, Belgium), having conducted Ukrainian rice expertise, approved it for sale at international market and gave Quality Certificate in 2005, proving its correspondence to the world standards.
To sum up, we would like to give you a few tips on telling the difference between domestic and imported rice:
Firstly, almost all cultivating areas are taken by the Japanese sort of rice that is characterized by close-to-round form of the grains. Indian (long-grain) rice production is limited in our country, and this paddy sort is mainly imported (excluding domestic rice marked by the Association “Rice producers” sign);
Secondly, Ukrainian crops undergo grinding and have white color. A crop having any other color (yellow, brown, black etc.) was produced abroad;
Thirdly, ground rice or paddy grains of domestic production have no smell. A smell appears whether if the crop has been stored for a long time or if it has been fumigated (storage pests treatment).
SHPAK Dmitry Vasilevych, Rice Institute UAAS (Ukrainian Academy for Agricultural Sciences), Head of Selection Department, Agriculture PhD
