Rice to dust

Bangkok Post reporters go along to an inspection of a rice warehouse in Chachaoengsao.

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Rice dust and grains pour out of its decayed sack while a porter is restacking a pile for counting at a warehouse of the Marketing Organisation for Farmers in Chachoengsao on Tuesday. (Photos by Pattanapong Hirunard)

Pledged rice turns to dust in Chachoengsao

Wassana Nanuam
Sonthanaporn Inchan

CHACHOENGSAO — Inspectors checking supplies of rice stockpiled under the former government’s failed rice-pledging scheme opened a locked warehouse here to find bags of dust mixed with insect waste.

Authorities said they were disappointed to find that a substantial portion of rice at the Marketing Organisation for Farmers (MOF) facility in Chachoengsao's Phanom Sarakham district had deteriorated, spoiled and been eaten by weevils.

The inspection team enters the locked warehouse.

Inspector-general of the Interior Ministry Wasiwa Sasisamit said MOF had been storing 88,005 sacks of government rice since 2012. The inspection team, which included soldiers from the 111th Infantry Regiment, arrived to find a scattered pile of rice sacks that supposedly contained 5% broken white rice.

Inspectors ordered the bags restacked so they could be counted. As workers did so, some sacks broke open, shooting dusty clouds of what used to be rice into the air. It was then the officials noticed how many of the bags seemed flatter than normal.

As inspectors moved further inside the warehouse, they found plenty of rice dust, dead weevils and bug waste covering many sacks and the floor. Similar damage was noticeable in another pile of 1,792 sacks of 25% broken white rice.

The view from inside the Chachoengsao warehouse. Suspicions were raised when many of the sacks appeared flatter than normal.

Boromwit Waruprapha, deputy commander of the 111th Infantry Regiment, planned to file a complaint with local police, but members of the inspection team convinced him to wait for a quality test and calculation of how much rice was damaged.

Col Boromwit said that soldiers earlier had inspected the warehouse and found rotten rice, so they had locked the MOF facility until ministry officials could examine it. The same depot made headlines last year after local cassava farmers reported the strong odour of weevil waste emanating from the warehouse.

A Senate rice sub-committee had even visited the warehouse and found rice dust damaged by weevils and insect waste on the floor.

Warehouse staff, addressing concerns about missing rice, said good-quality rice had been sold, but that other dating back to 2012 had deteriorated. Thus, the Interior Ministry's Mr Wasiwa said, rice may not have been stolen. It simply had been eaten by weevils.

After assuming power, the National Council for Peace and Order ordered a check of the quality and quantity of government rice stocks. About 100 inspection teams are checking stockpiles nationwide, a task not expected to conclude until September.

You can read the full story here: http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/local/421789/pledged-rice-turns-to-dust-in-chachoengsao

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