Basmati rice: the new authenticity rules aiming to remove sub-standard varieties from the market

Basmati rice: the new authenticity rules aiming to remove sub-standard varieties from the market

Subject : Agriculture

Context:

• Nearly three-quarters of the world’s basmati is produced in India, and the UK buys three per cent of it — plus substantial amounts from the second-largest producer, Pakistan.
• New rules are being introduced at the beginning of 2023 that aim to take these lesser varieties of basmati off the market.

Basmati and the code of practice:

• To qualify as basmati, grains must meet certain standards related to things like fragrance, grain length and width, as well as cooked texture.
• They must also have a mid-range level of amylose, a part of the starch in rice.
• To get around the problem of adulterations, the UK Rice Association introduced a code of practice in 2005.
• Also followed across the EU, the code specified that basmati could be no more than seven per cent impure, as well as introducing a list of 15 permitted varieties:nine traditional ones that could be imported duty free and a further six that were modern cultivars.

Inclusion of new varieties:

• In 2017 the code was updated to add 25 new modern cultivators.
• The traditional varieties are tall, low yielding plants which fall over if they are fed with too much fertiliser.
• So, the breeders introduced the ‘green revolution’ semi-dwarfing gene.

Issue with the new varieties:

• Six of the new varieties — five from India and one from Pakistan — had not been properly bred for fragrance.
• Some did not even contain the version of the BADH2 gene that makes basmati fragrance possible in the first place.

So, what has been done now?

• The Rice association has published a new code of practice that removes the six varieties from the permitted list.
• The code also adds five new varieties that fulfil the quality criteria.

About Basmati rice:

• It is one of the best known varieties of rice all across the globe.
• It is long grain rice which has its origin from India and some parts of Pakistan.
• Basmati rice has a unique fragrance and flavour due to the presence of a chemical called 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline.
• This chemical is found in basmati rice at about 90 parts per million (ppm) which is 12 times more than non-basmati rice varieties.
• Basmati rice needs specific climatic conditions to grow which is why it is cultivated in selected regions of India.

Production of Basmati Rice in India:

• India is the largest producer of Basmati rice with about 70 per cent share in global production.
• Basmati rice constitutes one of India’s significant exports both in terms of soft power and hard money.
• It is cultivated in the states of Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir and western Uttar Pradesh.
• In May 2010, GI status was given to basmati grown only in Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and parts of western Uttar Pradesh and Jammu & Kashmir.
• Major chunk of India’s basmati rice is exported to Gulf countries viz. Saudi Arabia, Iran, United Arab Emirates, Iraq and Kuwait.

GI tagged rice varieties in India: