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Unfair
trading practices in basmati exports
 “IT’S
an open secret now for five years, Indian traders have been
passing off a lower quality rice,CSR-30, as the world’s
finest long grained aromatic rice, 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,
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 stocks of
traditional grain gets depleted on Indian farms.”
This paragraph is from the Economic Times of India dated
July 6, 2007 captioned “Basmati export leaves a bad taste in
the mouth.
Indian export of non-basmati rice such as Sharbetti,
duplicate basmati and now CSR-30/Yamini as basmati has
created a big dent in Pakistan’s foreign sales. For the
price-conscious consumer, the word basmati on the bag sells,
not the actual basmati quality in the bag.
India now has a very strong basmati industry; they view
Pakistani basmati trade not as a competitor but as merely
one of the players in the supply chain.
Frankly, Indian rice industry has excelled without any
comparative advantage in basmati, as compared to Pakistan’s.
India did not make a breakthrough in basmati research, they
benefited from our research. While Pakistan switched from
Basmati-370 to Basmati-385, India got hold of Pakistan’s
Kernal Basmati and exploited it to the maximum. Pakistan
only used the name Kernal by calling its new variety Super
Kernal Basmati, India used the original Kernal Basmati.
India dominates the branded basmati markets, although not
without exceptions. Examples of such exceptions are
Bestway’s presence in the UK, as well as several good
Pakistani brands of basmati in the Gulf.
Pakistan can definitely turn the tables as it has all the
competitive advantage for basmati. This can also be done by
exposing facts about India “basmati” exports to its
consumers and also to the importing country.
The CSR-30/Yamini is fine quality aromatic rice developed
through crossing Pakistan basmati with BR-4/10 (Bura-rata, a
salt tolerant land race from Sindh). Hence, Yemeni is also
salt tolerant, and possesses some qualities of basmati. Due
to this, Yemeni is quickly replacing Basmati-386 and HBC-19
(both names given to Kernel Basmati in India). In Haryana,
Yemeni is called “pure Taraori Basmati.”
Indian basmati traders have promoted Yemeni causing
considerable damage to the Pakistani basmati market in
Europe. It has done so because the DNA protocol being used
in Europe cannot separate it from EU’s list of basmati
varieties, which get an import tax rebate.
Pakistan must find a Yemeni or Bura-rata specific market, to
separate Yemeni from Indian basmati included in EU list.
This will expose Indian trade in the international market.
What is the fallout for India in the Yemeni issue? If
CSR-30/Yamini is declared a basmati by India, even then as
per EU tax law a tax fraud has been committed, as we all
know only a few varieties from India and Pakistan are
eligible for tax exemption. Moving forward, basmati labeling
is covered by a code of practice developed by the Grain and
Feed Trade Association (GAFTA). Two companies have been
prosecuted in Britain after being charged with adulteration
after using DNA evidence.
In addition to finding a market for Yemeni, Pakistan also
needs markets to differentiate between other non-basmati
varieties of India such as Pusa Basmati and Pusa 1121, so
that Pakistan can have its own library of ‘markets’ for all
types of rice varieties that are being and will be grown in
the region.
In the parentage of Yemeni, the variety “Pakistan” is
mentioned that is none other than Kernal (Pakistan) Basmati,
which is also grown in India as Taraori, HBC-19,
Basmati-386, Amritsari Basmati, and Karnal local”. These
finding were later corroborated by the scientific community
in England, “Tilda Basmati rice behaves like Traditional
basmati variety Kernel” by Nottingham University Professor
Malcolm Bennett.
India has listed Basmati-386 and Taraori Basmati (HBC-19) in
the EU’s list of basmati. These are actually different names
of Pakistan’s “Kernal Basmati”.
Furthermore, in the EU list, Basmati-217 is also listed by
India as one of their basmati. In fact, it is also a
Pakistani basmati but not kernel basmati as grain shape is
different. The linkage of Basmati 217 to Pakistan can be
verified from the FAO report titled “New avenues for
augmenting and sustaining rice exports from India.”
The issue has become more important as India is now in the
process of patenting their commercially grown basmati
varieties, which may prove to be the last nail in the coffin
of Pakistani rice heritage. India has already misreported on
basmati varieties to the EU and Food Standard Agency (FSA),
and has misled and misinformed consumers at large.
In 2002, UK’s FSA carried out DNA tests and found that only
around 50 per cent of the basmati bags contained pure
basmati. In the year 2006, Rice Association did a similar
survey and found that around 16 per cent of the basmati was
adulterated with inferior grain.
TILDA, the flagship of Indian basmati now uses DNA testing
to gain consumer confidence. They are also performing DNA
tests all over the world and recently found an adulteration
level of around 30 to 40 per cent in bags labeled as
basmati. I am confident their DNA test does not separate
Yemeni.
At the moment, Indian basmati trade is unmatched because:
They are exporting their ‘Sharbati’ as basmati, which is
similar to our PK-386; Yemeni as traditional basmati to the
EU; Pusa as basmati, which has none of the basmati
characteristics; Pusa 1121 as basmati, which has basmati in
its lineage but not in its parentage; they are growing and
exporting our Kernel Basmati under different Indian names.
The Indian government is in the final stages of diluting the
requirements that enable rice to be labeled basmati in order
to accommodate Pusa 1121, as they are critically short of
genuine basmati. In my view, the above issue should have
been raised in the commerce minister meeting between the two
governments, as this is the most potent threat to our
basmati industry.
Pakistan has to come up with a genuine legal definition of
basmati in consultation with India or separately in case
India tries to dilute the definition.
India’s dream of monopolising the basmati trade by shipping
anything grown in India as basmati can only be shattered if
Pakistan fully embraces DNA technology to check the
adulteration in basmati. Finding a marker for CSR-30/Yamini
to separate it from genuine basmati is the first step in
this direction.
Courtesy:
The DAWN
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Pakissan.com;
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