Mill operators ask for gov't help in tainted rice scandal
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E-mail Xinhua, May 30, 2013
Three rice mills in central China's Hunan Province that were hit hard by a scandal involving cadmium-tainted rice have asked the government to find the cause of the contamination and help them bring their businesses back to normal as the summer harvest approaches.
Three mills in Youxian County in the city of Zhuzhou were ordered to recall their products and suspend business operations in March after a food safety inspection in the city of Guangzhou in south China's Guangdong Province found excessive amounts of cadmium, a carcinogenic industrial chemical, in their rice products.
Almost three months after the incident, the cause of the contamination is still unclear. The uncertainty has worried both local mill operators and farmers.
"Production has been suspended for more than two months at our mill and we still have over 1 million yuan (161,760 U.S. dollars) to recover from our buyers in Guangzhou," said Liu Xiangji, owner of the Daban Rice Mill.
The rice processed by the mill is purchased from farmers, Liu said, adding that the processes used in his mill are all physical processes that do not allow for contamination.
"The government should examine the paddy rice, soil or water quality. They should tell us what went wrong and how to solve the problem," Liu said.
Wang Qizai, mamager of the Tianxing Rice Mill, sold five tonnes of rice to buyers in Guangzhou at a price of 3.8 yuan per kg in early March and had to resell it at the price of 2.6 per kg to an industrial alcohol manufacturer after the rice was returned.
"I lost 8,000 yuan after calculating the transportation costs. Thirteen tonnes of rice were sealed up by authorities after that," Wang said.
Another 150 tonnes of rice that remains in storage has also been a problem for Wang.
A food safety inspection conducted in the first quarter showed that 44.4 percent of rice and rice products in Guangzhou contains excessive amounts of cadmium, according to a statement issued by the Guangzhou Food and Drug Administration.
An initial investigation found the tainted rice came from Zhuzhou and Hengyang in Hunan Province.
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