The polishing of rice into a finer variety with a view to attracting higher prices is proving costlier for the country since a sizable volume of grain is wasted whereas prices remain high and imports are required to meet domestic demand.
The warning came from Food Minister Sadhan Chandra Majumder.
“At least 5 tonnes of rice are gone if 100 tonnes of the staple food are polished, and it is the most nutritious part of the grain that gets lost,” he said.
The minister made the remarks at the inaugural ceremony of the International Nutrition Olympiad-2022 at the Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University (SAU) in Dhaka.
The Bangladesh Institute of ICT in Development (BIID) organized the two-day event, in association with the food ministry.
Using modern rice husking machine, millers cut and polish hybrid coarse variety into fine rice before whitening it with chemicals. As a result, most of the micro-nutrients get lost.
The minister said a section of traders usually sells polished rice after cutting the grain four times. But the process leaves the most nutritious parts of the grain out which vanishes into the air.
Throughout the year, around 4.5 crore tonnes of coarse rice are polished in Bangladesh. As a result, 20-22 lakh tonnes of rice are wasted, said the minister.
“But we have to import rice when natural disasters strike. The price of rice also increases due to rice polishing. But traders don’t bear the loss. It is the end consumers who bear the additional price.”
“We should keep in mind that there are no nutrients in the polished rice. If there is no nutrition in rice, people will suffer from malnutrition. It will be painful for us.”
He urged the youth members of the Nutrition Club to come forward to raise awareness about the issue.
Speaking as the special guest, Prof Md Shahidur Rashid Bhuiyan, vice-chancellor of the SAU, emphasized the changing food habit and their diversification.
“We need to focus on food diversification,” said Bhuiyan.
Representatives from 30 countries participated virtually in the inaugural ceremony, which was chaired by Food Secretary Md Ismiel Hossain.
Zuena Aziz, principal coordinator for Sustainable Development Goals at the Prime Minister’s Office, and Md Shahid Uddin Akbar, chief executive officer and founder of the BIID, also spoke at the event.
