World Grain - June 2014 - 98

RICE QUARTERLY

Rice

News Roundup
Group changes name to
Food Fortification Initiative

ATLANTA, GEORGIA, U.S. - Considering the potential for fortiﬁed rice to improve the nutrition of billions of people, the Flour
Fortiﬁcation Initiative (FFI) said on May 15 that it is adding rice
to its focus and changing its name to the Food Fortiﬁcation Initiative. Since rice is most commonly eaten as whole kernels, it is not
reﬂected in FFI's original name.
FFI's strategy is to support national partnerships with advocacy
resources and technical assistance for planning, implementing and
monitoring fortiﬁcation programs. This will not change; rice will
simply be added to FFI's traditional focus on industrially milled ﬂour.
"We must ﬁnd practical solutions for rice fortiﬁcation, because
literally billions of people live in countries where health burdens
are high and rice is a staple food," said Scott J. Montgomery, FFI
director. "Rice is the new frontier in food fortiﬁcation, and with our
partners we are discovering ways to make fortifying it feasible. With
our name change, we are trying to be clear to country leaders from
every sector that we are another resource for them as they explore
rice fortiﬁcation."
In 59 countries, an average of more than 75 grams of rice per person per day is available for human consumption, according to the
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. The highest average is in Bangladesh with 475 grams.

Grains are commonly fortiﬁed during the milling process to reduce the risk of anemia caused by nutritional deﬁciencies and neural
tube birth defects caused by insufﬁcient folic acid. The highest concentrations of children and women with anemia are in South Asia and
Central and West Africa, based on a study published in The Lancet
Global Health in July 2013. Countries in these regions are among the
highest in average rice availability.
"People around the world get most of their calories and carbohydrates from wheat, rice, and maize. To the extent that we can fortify
the milled products of these grains, the greater health impact we will
have," said Reynaldo Martorell, Woodruff Professor of International
Nutrition and senior advisor at the Global Health Institute at Emory
University in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Martorell is also a member of
the FFI executive management team.
The reasons to fortify are the same, regardless of the grain, and the
planning and monitoring processes are similar for each grain. Only
the technical process of fortiﬁcation is different for rice.
Capital costs to begin rice fortiﬁcation vary depending on the type
of technology used. The recurring costs to fortify 1 tonne of rice
range from $6 to $20, depending mainly on the complexity of the
mix of vitamins and mineral added. These costs are expected to decrease as rice fortiﬁcation becomes more common.

India's basmati exports to Iran slow
TEHRAN, IRAN - India's basmati exports have dropped signiﬁcantly since January after Iran has insisted Indian exporters get quality approval from several global agencies.
India's basmati exports to Iran in ﬁscal year 2014 accounted for
40% of its total exports of the grain. Exports dropped from 130,000
tonnes in January to 89,387 tonnes in February and 55,210 tonnes in
March, according to data from the All India Rice Exporters' Association (AIREA).
Iran has asked exports to supply a series of documents on good
agricultural practices, ISO 22000, and has revised the accepted level
98

of arsenic from 150 parts per million (ppm) to 120 ppm. Exporters
have been asked to tag each shipment for ensuring traceability in
case arsenic is found at more than the speciﬁed limit.
Vijay Setia, former president of AIREA and a leading exporter of
the basmati variety, said shipments to Iran were likely to decline marginally in the current year.
Meanwhile, the commerce ministry has asked Iran to send a team
of experts to inspect rice procurement and processing facilities in the
country. The ministry expects this will help allay Iran's apprehensions over the quality of Indian rice
June 2014 / World Grain / www.World-Grain.com

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World Grain - June 2014

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