Cargo of insect infested rice is finally ready for off-loading at Imbituba port

On November 28th, the rice that had arrived at the Port of Imbituba (SC) with live insects in mid-November began to be unloaded, after having been treated. At the time of the ship’s arrival, according to the port’s press office, an inspection by the Ministry of Agriculture identified the live insects, which prevented the port operation from going ahead.

According to two commercial representatives who work at the port, the rice still smells bad, even after the treatment, and is very broken and mixed with red rice varieties. “I don’t know who they are going to sell this rice to. Maybe those who bought it will return the cargo or mix it a lot with other varieties ”, said one of them.

The 19,600-ton cargo of rice left Georgetown, Guyana, and docked at the Port of Imbituba on November 15th. The name of the trading company that made the purchase was not disclosed, but, of the total, 16,000 tons are going to  Urbano Alimentos. Paraná cooperatives acquired the remaining volume.

Contacted upon arrival of the ship, Urbano stated that it made the purchase because the Guyanese rice is similar to Brazilian rice. Renato Franzner, the company’s commercial director, stated that the product was being “properly treated”. Before reaching the consumer, the product will be treated, he said.

On September 9th, the Executive Management Committee (Gecex) of the Foreign Trade Chamber (Camex) decided to zero the import tax rate for paddy and processed rice until December 31 of this year in an attempt to contain inflation on the product. As a result, from January to October, Brazil imported 675,000 tons of paddy rice, 6.8% more than in the first ten months of 2019. Exports totaled 1.7 million tons in the period, up 57.4%

The following graphs show rice import and export volumes per month since 2017 and the origins of Brazilian rice in 2020:

Source: Valor Econômico

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