The new grain management law retains grain trader licences and establishes a traceability system for imported rice

The Council of Agriculture's plan to scrap grain merchant licenses has drawn both support and opposition, but Chen Chien-pin, deputy director-general of the Agriculture and Food Agency, said yesterday at the Legislative Yuan that the newly revised draft of the Grain Management Act will only make grain merchant licenses paperless; registrations will be processed without issuing registration certificates, and the grain merchant license registration system will not be abolished before the end of this year.

Chen Chien-pin further said, "Abolishing licenses requires long-term planning. The minister may have been speaking too quickly in order to look after farmers." To protect domestic rice, the Council of Agriculture will establish a traceability system for imported rice and guide the restaurant and group meal catering sectors to voluntarily label the place of origin.

Grain merchant licenses still retained

Council of Agriculture Minister Chen Bao-ji said early this month that grain merchant licenses are no longer appropriate, and that to strengthen the competitiveness of small farmers, grain merchant licenses would be abolished entirely. But yesterday Chen Chien-pin changed his tune, saying that grain merchant licenses have lasted 5 or 60 years and that abolishing them requires careful assessment; for now, the plan is to first study making grain merchant licenses paperless, while still retaining the current rules, under which anyone storing more than 300 kg of rice per day must apply for a license. After paperless conversion, the basic information of each grain merchant can be searched online.

Taiwan currently has about more than 8,000 grain merchant licenses, but fewer than half are actually in operation. Chen Chien-pin said the Council of Agriculture will conduct a full review, requiring grain merchants to report voluntarily, after which the Agriculture and Food Agency will inspect them; those who fail to report will automatically lose their grain merchant qualification.

However, Weng Liang-cai, former chairman of the Taiwan Rice Growers Association, believes that grain merchant licenses are not the point. For small farmers to set up rice mills to produce and mill their own rice, problems abound; besides price, they also include land acquisition, land use change, factory profit-seeking enterprise registration and other regulations, which are extremely cumbersome. These are not problems that abolishing grain merchant licenses can solve.

Establishing a traceability system for imported rice

In addition, to protect domestically produced rice, the draft of the Grain Management Act also stipulates that domestic rice and imported rice should be packaged and sold separately and must not be mixed for sale; a traceability management mechanism for imported rice should be established, requiring grain businesses to register separately the purchases and sales of domestic rice and imported rice; and packaged rice, in addition to labeling the responsible company name, should also label the manufacturing factory, to facilitate tracing the source and flow of rice.

As for reports that future spot inspections will adopt a joint liability system for retail outlets, Chen Chien-pin also clarified that only outlets selling substandard rice will be announced, and no penalties will be imposed on the outlets. He hopes outlets can take responsibility for gatekeeping so that consumers have the right to know.

In response to the fact that much imported rice flows into snack shops and group meal caterers, the Agriculture and Food Agency said that some restaurant and group meal caterers already use different forms or supplementary promotional materials to indicate the place of origin of the rice used to consumers. Agricultural authorities will also continue to guide operators to voluntarily label the place of origin of the rice used, and are considering doing so by setting uniform labeling or certification marks.

For processed rice food products, the Agriculture and Food Agency also encourages operators to label the place of origin of raw materials, allowing consumers to choose for themselves and boosting confidence in eating rice. It is currently collecting relevant regulations and guidance measures for the management of commercially sold rice in Japan, South Korea and other countries as a reference for future amendments.