Japan Press Weekly

Tweet

2008 October 22 - 28 [AGRICULTURE]

Agriculture Ministry instructed its local offices to make use of tainted imported rice as staple food

A government document shows that the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (MAFF) instructed its local agricultural administrative offices to do their utmost to treat imported rice tainted with residual pesticides and mold as “rice for use as staple food” and to sell it to wholesalers as such.

Japanese Communist Party member of the House of Councilors Kami Tomoko received a copy of the document “Implementation Guidelines for Dealing with Tainted Commodities,” dated March 30, 2007 and signed by the director of the MAFF General Food Policy Bureau from the Agriculture Ministry on October 24.

This suggests that the recent scandal involving wholesaler Mikasa Foods’ inappropriate sales of rice contaminated with pesticides and mold may have been in line with the directive set forth in this guidance.

According to the document, tainted rice that was imported under the World Trade Organization (WTO) minimum access agreement, and homegrown rice with problems, which the government keeps, should be made use of as staple food as much as possible.

This fact contradicts the government explanation that such rice was sold as a non-food item.

The Agriculture Ministry and the Health Ministry have so far explained that tainted rice was prevented from being distributed in the country by having the Port Quarantine Station director order the importer that tainted rice should be either “returned to the shipper, scrapped, or sold in the country for non-food purposes.”