BANGKOK, 14 May 2014, -The Rice Department is planning to hold a seminar on Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) for department officials, rice mill operators, and agricultural cooperatives, says the department director.
According to Rice Department Director, Charnpittaya Chimpalee, the seminar would educate participants on the GMP approaches, which, when put into practice, would earn operators GMP certificates, a seal of approval that guarantees the quality of grains.
Currently, there are over 38,000 rice mills nationwide, but not all of them are being supervised for quality assurance.
The Rice Department has been promoting the production of organic rice and rice with Geographic Indicator (GI) in accordance with the GMP standards. As a result, Thailand now has about 40,000 plots of land for GMP standard grain production and about 50,000 GMP-certified organic rice farms.
The department chief stated that crop quality would be further enhanced if the majority of the nation’s rice mills maintain the GMP norms, saying rice mills with low hygiene standards tend to produce low quality rice, despite having high quality grains.
