Group fears NFA's 3-year-old rice stock unfit for human consumption

Civil society groups on Friday expressed fears stocks of rice imported from the United States in 2008 and are being kept at warehouses in Antipolo and Bulacan are no longer fit for human consumption. At a press conference in Quezon City, Jessica Reyes-Cantos, convener of the Rice Watch and Action Network (R1), said that an investigation her group conducted showed that the rice stock of 11 million bags (550,000 metric tons) already showed signs of discoloration. "One year after the President exposed corruption in his State of the Nation Address in 2010, the same imported stock of rice (one to three years old) is still stored in warehouses of the National Food Authority in different parts of the country, and that it is posing potential risk on public health," she said. R1 is a group of organizations advocating policy changes in rice trade and farming in the Philippines. Reyes-Cantos said the rice grains have also become "floury" and had traces of dead "bukbok" (bug). "This old-stock rice has not been tested for its safe level of chemical residues or traces due to fumigation and fogging, yet these are already being subjected to public auction for distribution to consumers," she said. Reyes-Cantos said milled rice should only be stored for six month at most. The group said the NFA usually sprays pesticides on rice that has been in the warehouse for over a year – spraying is done 16 times a year and fogging 31 times. "You can just imagine how many times more the three-year-old rice stock from the US were [sprayed] and fogged with chemicals," the group said. The R1 inspection was conducted upon the invitation of the National Food Authority to test the physical characteristics of the said imported grains. The group urged the NFA and the Department of Health to conduct further testing of the rice grains to determine if these could still be sold to the public and determine if they are fit for human consumption. Meanwhile, Jaime Tadeo of the National Rice Farmers Council expressed fears that the imported rice grains would only get wasted. He said the money that was used to buy the imported rice should have instead been used to support local farmers. The group brought up the matter in light of NFA administrator Angelito Banayo's announcement that the country could experience rice shortfall of 1.5 million metric tons next year. — LBG, GMA News