The Centre has banned the export of broken rice, mostly used as animal feed and as a component for ethanol production, in view of the domestic demand and production scenario of rice. The export of broken rice had increased by 4178% during the months between April 2022 and August 2022 compared to same months of 2019. The export is mainly to China, Senegal, Vietnam, Djibouti and Indonesia. The country exported about 21.31 lakh metric tonnes of broken rice in the last five months.
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Justifying the reason to ban export, Secretary, Department of Food and Public Distribution (DFPD) Sudhanshu Pandey said here on Friday that the move would ensure adequate availability of broken rice for consumption by domestic poultry industry and for other animal feedstock; and to produce ethanol for successful implementation of Ethanol Blending Programme.
Mr. Pandey added that the country was likely to witness a shortfall of about 6% in area and production of paddy during the ongoing kharif season. “The final area for Kharif in 2021 was 403.58 lakh hectares. So far, an area of 325.39 lakh hectares has been covered. In domestic production 60 to 70 lakh metric tonnes [LMT] estimated production loss is anticipated but due to good monsoon rains in some pockets, the production loss may reduce to 40 to 50 LMT, however, this would be at par with last year’s production,” Mr. Pandey said.
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Poultry feed
Approximately 50 to 60 LMT of broken rice is produced annually in India, which is mainly used as poultry feed and feed for other animals. It is also used as a feedstock by the grain-based distilleries for producing ethanol, which is used for blending with petrol. “There has been a rise in global demand for broken rice due to geo-political scenario which has impacted price movement of commodities, including those related to animal feed. The export of broken rice has increased by more than 43 times in past four years. About 21.31 LMT of broken rice was exported from April-August, 2022 compared to 0.41 LMT in the same period in 2018-19,” Mr. Pandey said.
He said in the current Ethanol Season Year, against the contracted quantity of 36 crore litres, only about 16.36 crore litres (August 21) had been supplied by distilleries due to low availability of broken rice for ethanol production. Also, domestic price of broken rice, which was ₹16 for a kilogram in the open market had increased to about ₹22 per kilogram in States because of exports due to higher international prices. “Poultry sector and animal husbandry farmers were impacted the most due to price hike of feed ingredients as about 60-65% inputs cost for poultry feed comes from broken rice and any increase in prices will be reflected in poultry products like milk, egg, meat etc,” he said.
Mr. Pandey said the domestic prices of rice were also showing increasing trend and it might continue to increase due to low production forecast and 11% increase in export of non-basmati rice. He added that the Centre had not made any changes in the policy relating to the export of par-boiled rice, basmati rice so that farmers continue to get good remunerative prices.