By SHERIDAN MAHAVERA.

SERDANG: Tests on samples from bags marked as imported white rice have found that between 45% and 50% of them have been mixed with local grains, says the Malaysian Agricultural Research and Development Institute (Mardi).

This practice confirmed previously-held suspicions that certain bags of imported white rice had actually been diluted with local rice, especially varieties that were subsidised by the government, senior officials of the nation’s top agricultural research agency said.

However, for now, there is no specific law to counter this, they said, but added that the revelation will provide an impetus to improving the laws governing the industry.

Checks at local supermarkets found that imported rice is typically sold at higher prices than local grains.

The 5,000 samples that were tested came from 55 bags that had been sent to Mardi from various rice factories throughout the country, said Mardi.

These samples were sent between September 2023 and March 2024 by enforcement personnel from the Agriculture and Food Security Ministry’s padi and rice control section and the Domestic Trade and Cost of Living Ministry.

“Between 45% and 50% of the 5,000 samples we received showed evidence of local rice being mixed in with imported rice,” said Dr Muhammad Zamharir Ahmad, who heads Mardi’s biotechnology and nanotechnology research centre.

Molecular DNA tests that were run on these samples found that bags labelled as imported but which had been diluted, had between 30% and 70% local rice, said the centre’s senior research officer Mohd Shahril Firdaus Ab Razak.

“In our database, there are about 50 DNA markers of our local rice varieties, of which 10 of them are the most common,” Mohd Shahril Firdaus said at the centre’s laboratories here yesterday.

One local variety, called MR297, is among 10 that is most commonly planted in Malaysia and for which the government provides subsidies, he said.

When the centre tested the samples, some of them contained grains of MR297, even though the samples came from bags labelled as imported rice, he revealed.

The results had been sent back to the government’s combined ops task force on local white rice for further action.

“The problem is, although this practice happens, we don’t have a specific law that forbids it. So the ministry is using this evidence to craft laws to better regulate our rice industry,” he added.

Muhammad Zamharir said that going forward, the centre will need more funds if it is to conduct additional tests of more rice samples and to ensure that these are completed quickly.

“The obstacles to doing so, for us, are always financial,” he said, noting that the cost of testing those 5,000 samples was about RM80,000.

Published Date: February 27, 2025