The Hindu Business Line : Basmati: Grains of confusion

Remaining rooted to the current definition of basmati rice risks ending any programme for improvement in the quality of the fine cereal. India's exporters want the Super variety notified as basmati, as Pakistan has done, with APEDA and the All India Rice Exporters' Association backing the move. India's crop scientists are also sceptical about the current definition of basmati rice which is not motivated to preserve the purity of the traditional variety or improve the evolved strain. G. SRINIVASAN on the basmati issue.

Basmati rice is sui generis to India and Pakistan and its appeal to the epicure the world over can hardly be overstated. But a controversy is raging over the very definition of what constitutes basmati rice, with the Government having two categories of the fine cereal — traditional and evolved. Any new basmati rice varieties that are bred should have one traditional strain, land race, as a parent to get the status of an evolved variety.

Yet crop scientists, backed by the Ministry of Agriculture, insist on a change in this definition because clinging to the current definition risks ending any programme for improvement in the quality of basmati rice.

With the basmati rice market growing in the European Union (EU) and other parts of the developed world and West Asia, where non-resident Indians reside in large numbers, domestic basmati rice traders are keen to grow the opportunity. These traders depend on the Government to guide them through sundry Acts and Rules and Regulations such as the Seed Act, 1966 and the Export (Quality Control and Inspection) Act 1963 and the notification to the latter Act, on January 23, 2003 on Basmati Rice (Quality Control and Inspection) Rules 2003. The Seed Act, 1966 empowers the Department of Agriculture and Cooperation to undertake the business pertaining to the basmati rice seed and to identify the variety, set the limits of germination and purity, as also labelling and marking the seeds.

In fact, the Basmati Rice (Quality Control and Inspection) Rules, 2003 of the Department of Commerce adopts all the 11 basmatirice notified under the Seed Act — six traditional and five evolved varieties.

APEDA Plan

However, the Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA) initiated a proposal in February 2006 to include a super-variety of basmati in the above definition so that Indian exporters could export this variety to the EU at zero duty.

In an interesting development, the Founders Group of the Rice Exporters' Association of Pakistan stated in a presentation to the EU recently that Pakistan's Super basmati is an authentic variety developed as per the original methods under which Basmati-370 was approved for the first time. Basmati-370 was first found at Kolu Tarrar in Hafizabad district in 1926. India did not grow basmati in commercial quantities as early as the 1970s and eventually developed a variety called Pusa.

After this, there was no turning back and India is now the largest producer and exporter of basmati rice; of the production of 10-15 lakh tonnes a year, two-thirds is exported.

APEDA argued that while Pakistan has been exporting Super basmati to the EU and enjoying a good market position, India was exporting only the Pusa variety and not the Super variety, though grown in some parts. Super has been promoted and notified by the Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana, and the Punjab Government and hence no Certificate of Authenticity (as basmati) could be issued by India for it unless a notification of Super variety as `basmati' under the Seed Act is issued by the Department of Agriculture followed by a notification by the Department of Commerce to amend the Export of Basmati (Quality Control and Inspection) Rules, 2003.

That was why APEDA had contended that Super, if notified as `basmati', would become a basmati rice common to both India and Pakistan as in the case of Basmati-370 from which a number of varieties have been created. Indian rice exporters are keen to obtain Super notified as basmati with APEDA and the All India Rice Exporters' Association, fully backing the move.

Taking cognisance of the Export Inspection Act which overrides other laws, APEDA proposed an insertion to the Export of Basmati Rice (Quality control and Inspection) Rules, 2003 to enable the Export Inspection Agency issue certificates of authenticity for export of Super variety as basmati rice.

Pak reaction

Once the Department of Commerce notified this last year, queries did surface about the expediency of such a move. Presumably so, as Super is a variety developed and nurtured by Pakistan and, India ran the risk of being accused of bio-piracy. Islamabad could demand royalty fee for the commercialisation of the Super variety by India.

Leaving aside this potential risk, by succumbing to traders' pressure in notifying Super as basmati, an impression has been allowed to gain ground among importers that Pakistan would be in possession of a superior basmati rice even if it was sourcing secondary quality of Super basmati rice as also other Pakistani varieties. The image India so sedulously built up that its own basmati rice is superior to Pakistan's would be shattered by the inclusion of Super as basmati rice in India's list of varieties.

The Indian move has provoked Pakistan so much that it has refused to hold parleys with New Delhi for filing joint applications for the registration of Geographical Indication (GI) of basmati rice. Basmati rice is primarily cultivated in Pakistan and India and the Himalayan foothills are said to yield the best basmati. The Super basmati, a premium variety from Pakistan as also Dehra Dun is the most prized of the basmati varieties. While Dr Majeed of Pakistan is the scientist who developed the Super variety rice in 1996, scientists at the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), Pusa, took the traditional basmati and evolved a cross-bred called Pusa Basmati-1, which had most of the salutary features of traditional basmati such as grain elongation, fragrance and alkali content.

Now rice exporters of Pakistan have been blaming Islamabad for what they called its failure to contest Indian registration of Super basmati for export. Even as this predicament dogs Islamabad, India's crop scientists are sceptical about the prevalent definition of basmati rice which appears to underpin the commercial interests of traders and is not motivated by scientific temper to preserve the purity of the traditional variety or improve the evolved variety. Also, the disturbing fallout of such a notification of Super on Indian rice scientists undertaking research and development cannot be ignored.

The National Farmers Commission Chairman, Dr M. S. Swaminathan, is on record, calling for an expert group comprising officials from the Commerce and Agriculture Ministry to review the definition of basmati rice to forestall any controversy from cropping up.

Restricting Clauses

Undoubtedly, the extant definition of basmati rice is impeding scientists from developing new evolved basmati rice variety as it constricts the scope of backcrossing by infusing the condition, `one direct traditional or land race variety' among the parent. It restricts the scientists to transfer the appropriate gene with adequate features to the new evolved basmati rice variety. Backcrossing is mostly to inject some specific characteristics in basmati rice.

This is why experts conversant with basmati rice do not countenance the current definition at a time when there is an overwhelming need to impart greater push to growers of such exotic rice varieties to enable them realise premium price for their aromatic produce.

Analysts say that the Department of Agriculture must keep pace with the need for encouraging real research into basmati rice varieties — both traditional and evolved — so that the definition confusion is removed and Indian basmati rice is seriously protected by Geographical Indications (GIs).

Such patent shortcomings as lack of clarity in variety, such as long list of names and numbers for basmati rice, lack of exact definition about traditional variety, premature notification of variety developed in Pakistan under pressure from domestic traders and simultaneously seeking Islamabad's support for joint registration of basmati for GIs at the World Trade Organisation all show up the deplorable lack of vision on the part of the authorities.

It is time the Centre took the initiative to make the Agriculture Ministry proactive in this process so that the heritage image of basmati as an Indian brand is not threatened.

A white paper on basmati rice is also a desirable policy roadmap if India due to the over-zealousness of the Commerce Ministry, is not to get drawn into trade rows with other producers of similar rice.