October 21, 2006	Saturday	Ramazan 27, 1427

ISLAMABAD, Oct 20: The export of brown rice to the European Union has reduced abruptly in the past few years primarily due to high moisture paddy resulting in Aflatoxin -- a fungus contamination -- with rejected consignments that returned to Pakistan.

Informed sources told Dawn on Friday that rice exporters had asked the government that there was inadequate mechanical drying capacity in the country, besides other problems in harvesting and watering of the crops, which contributed to the pre-harvest and post-harvest high risk situation for Aflatoxin contamination of Pakistani rice paddy crop.

The sources said India on the other hand had taken Pakistan’s share in the EU because they planned and implemented at their mandi level the requirement that farmers were not allowed to bring in paddy with moisture contents higher than 17 per cent and broken content higher than 0.5 pc as was evident from their government advertisement.

Pakistani farmers provided paddy to the mandi with moisture contents as high as 30 per cent last year and the year before it. In the current season while there have been no significant rains, the non-basmati crop in Punjab has started arriving with moisture contents of up to 24 per cent already.

“If it rains around the time basmati crop is harvested, we are facing the threat of another year with Aflatoxin problems that could be avoided simply by better and determined administration at provincial levels,” the sources said.

The sources said that Pakistan also lacked testing of rice sample for Aflatoxin. “There is an urgent need for calibration of Pakistan’s testing facilities with EU counterparts on peer to peer basis.”

The rice exporters have urged the government to establish at least permitted Aflatoxin B1, B2 levels regulations for domestic implementation for food for humans as well as animal, fish and poultry feed of all types.

It was also proposed to establish Aflatoxin level for milk and milk products in the country, specially related to Aflatoxin M1, as Pakistan is a milk-producing country. “There was a need to establish regulations for the design and acceptability of proper warehouses for storage of food and feed stuffs,” the sources added.