Millers baffling miniket buyers

---

FE Report
Coarse rice is becoming 'miniket', a finer variety of rice, not through a magic, hybrid or genome technology. Dishonest traders are doing it with machines.
Wholesalers and retailers told the FE that some rice millers are turning the coarse variety into finer one and selling the same as miniket. The machines are mainly imported from China.
The consumers, mainly the affluent section of the society, are being deceived as the traders sell the duplicate variety of minicate rice as they have no exact idea about real one.
Hundreds of rice millers in Pabna, Ishwardi, Naogaon, Kushtia, Joypurhat -- the main hubs of miniket supply chain - are doing the misdeeds, said the wholesalers.
"What you are thinking as a top secret is now an open secret in those areas" a wholesaler at Kochukhet Market in the city told the FE requesting anonymity.
He said the prices differ by Tk 50-60 according to quality, a 50-kg sack of duplicate miniket rice costs only Tk 50-60 less than the original variety.
Retailers at the New Market, Mirpur, Nawabganjbazar, Mohammadpur kitchen markets in the city confessed that some times even they fail to make differences.
The millers use the long and thick category of coarse rice locally known as 'tain' (BR-10) and also BR-28. In that case a special processing machine is used to turn those into miniket.
The price of the machine costs Tk 8-14 million and a few millers can afford to buy it, said a wholesaler at Jaynagar, Ishwardi in Pabna.
Aziz Uddin, a farmer of Sujanagar upazila in Pabna, told the FE miniket is produced in only a few districts.
Stock of miniket exhausts in 7-8 months. Dishonest millers take the opportunity as its demand is high, he added.
Laiyek Ali, convenor, Bangladesh Auto, Major& Husking Mills Owners' Association, told the FE Monday that he had no idea about any kind of machine which turns coarse varieties like BR-10, BR-28 etc into finer varieties.
"Millers may use polish machines (silky machine) which just increase the glace, but can't change the size or the variety, it is impossible" claimed Laiyek.
Advocate Humayun Kabir Bhuiyan, general secretary, Consumers Association of Bangladesh (CAB), said the government has to streamline its monitoring to stop such bad practices.