Scientific Workshop Series
Workshop on Quality Control of Rice (Focus on Pesticides Contamination)
Rice (Oryza Sativa L.) is a strategic and leading staple food crop for more than 50% of the world’s population, providing 15% of protein and 21% of dietary energy per capita particularly in the rice-growing area of the developing country, where 90% of the rice is produced and consumed. Therefore, the emergence and development of new and more accurate standards in the most leading countries in rice production and trade is the result of several factors. The most important of these factors are the growth of rice trade in developing countries, attention and awareness of consumer health, scientific consensus and regulations on best risk management approaches, and recognition of standards at every stage of the food chain.
The process of trade liberalization has created incentives to implement new and stricter standards, and some countries may use stricter standards to curb imports by reducing customs tariffs. One of the problems with rice pesticide residues is the possibility of transmission of pesticides through the surface and underground leaching, resulting in contamination of water resources. Therefore, by identifying pesticides that have the potential to transfer to water resources and food chains in paddy fields, high-risk areas can be identified and managed. Due to the process of the health of agricultural products, this issue is very important in all parts of the supply chain to achieve the health of agricultural products in domestic consumption and trade, and rice is an important position in this field due to its import and export in the country. The challenges of pesticide extraction and analysis require multi-residue studies of pesticides, the complexity of matrices (for example, matrices of dry, high fat and different acidity, etc.), and the maximum residue limit (also maximum residue level, MRL). The low and strict export target countries and the permissible limits of MRL in the countries were heterogeneous. Because the movement of laboratories in the world is towards extraction and multi-residue analysis, our country should also be able to consider all pesticides registered in the strategic products in national monitoring programs.
”Processing and Quality Control of Rice ” workshop conducted from June 19, 2021, in the Rice Research Institute of Iran (RRII), Rasht, Iran. In this workshop, the experts of rice sectors, academic members of Rice Research Institute of Iran, and the standard organization participated. The speaker of this workshop was Dr. Ramezani, Assistant Professor of the Plant Protection Research Institute.
In this workshop participants were introduced to the fate of pesticides used in rice paddy fields after spraying, leaching and transfer potential to rice pesticide sources, challenges of extraction and residual analysis of pesticides in rice, the need to unify global rice standards in line with Codex, Plant Health (SPS) and International Related to rice health standards and their impact on the trade of rice, the maximum residue limit (also maximum residue level, MRL) of pesticides, and the challenges in these standards and a report of a comprehensive study conducted in 2017 by the World Food Organization on the permissible limit of rice pesticides Presented in 17 countries, including Iran.
ّFor more information please contact: kazem.ramezani@iripp.ir, kazem.ramezani@gmail.com