A rice expert on Wednesday called on the government to thoroughly check its 10-year-old stockpile of rice carefully before offloading it in the market, warning of risks to public health.

Assoc Prof Dr Somporn Isvilanonda, a senior fellow at the Knowledge Network Institute of Thailand, issued the warning after Deputy Prime Minister and Commerce Minister Phumtham Wechayachai visited two rice warehouses in Surin province on March 14 and said the rice, stored there for 10 years, were still good enough for consumption.

Poonpol Trading Co Ltd’s 4th warehouse in Muang district and 2nd Kittichai warehouse in Prasat district store 32,879 sacks and 112,711 sacks of rice respectively. Each sack weighs about 100 kilograms.

On Wednesday, Phumtham affirmed his plan to sell rice from the two warehouses to spare the government the costs of renting the warehouse and storing the rice.

The rice at the two warehouses had been kept as evidence since the Yingluck Shinawatra government’s rice pledging scheme was accused of irregularities and corruption. The cases have been concluded but the government continues to shoulder the cost of keeping the rice in the warehouses.

Phumtham said he had checked the two warehouses following complaints that the rice kept there had rotted.

Random checks of several sacks found that the rice was still of edible quality, Phumtham said.

He said the two warehouses had been keeping the rice in good quality by preventing the sacks from accumulating humidity and using sprays to prevent moths.

Phumtham said that though the rice was no longer bright white like new rice, it still retained the good fragrance of jasmine rice.

He had a sample cooked and said it tasted good. Phutham believed the rice could still be used to make good fried rice or “khao mun gai”, or steamed rice with boiled chicken meat on top.

The commerce minister said he would have the Public Warehouse Organisation auction the 145,590 sacks of rice. He expected the sales to raise 300 million to 500 million baht, which would help offset the expense incurred by the rice-pledging scheme.

The money would also be used to pay for the warehouse rent and cost of maintaining the rice.

Somporn, however, doubted whether the rice could be consumed safely.

Somporn said normally jasmine rice could be stored for three to four years and if the warehouse managed humidity well and sprayed anti-moth sprays thoroughly, the rice could be stored for up to five years.

He warned that the inefficient spraying of chemicals might cause the rice to develop fungi that produce dangerous aflatoxins.

He said if the rice, which had been stored for 10 years, should be thoroughly checked for aflatoxins.

The rice should also be checked for accumulation of anti-moth sprays that had to be done every four or six months during the past 10 years, he added.

The checks should be conducted on the entire stock, not only the front rows of sacks as done by Phumtham’s delegation, he added.

Published Date: March 20, 2024