PM advises critics to avoid going” very much.”
Srettha Thavisin, the prime minister, promises that the government will send samples of the decade-old corn for laboratory tests to ensure its health.
The grain, left over from former Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra’s leadership, has been kept in stores in Surin.
He told the media on Saturday,” We will take it for a lab test that will be conducted by a trustworthy agency.”
He was responding to requests for the authorities to permit separate organizations to inspect the quality of the rice to establish whether it is actually safe to consume, as the government had claimed.
Following a rice-eating stunt carried out by Deputy Prime Minister and Commerce Minister Phumtham Wechayachai on Monday during a rice-eating trip to Surin, Mr. Srettha himself afterwards on Thursday created a second rice-eating prank in an apparent bid to persuade the public that the grain left from the contentious rice-pledging system ten years ago is also edible.
” Do n’t go too far. We treat customer safety as very significant. So, if it]the old rice ] is proved to be unsafe to eat, we are n’t going to sell it. The prime minister stated that the government has a very obvious position on this.
He made comments on reports that Mr. Phumtham was thinking about exporting the decade-old corn to Africa, while some critics suggested the government should use it instead to make drinking or vinegar.
The PM claimed that it would be preferable if all parties could participate in the grain tests.
According to government official Chai Wacharonke, the Department of Medical Sciences may be contacted to conduct tests on the wheat at the Surin warehouses in order to disprove many social media claims made by critics who believe the rice is illegal to eat or be sold.
A well-known natural science expert, associate professor Weerachai Phutdhawong, who was asked by a media outlet to analyze samples of Surin rice, recently claimed that his initial analysis using a test set revealed aflatoxins on the rice.
Aflatoxins are a class of toxins that are typically found on agricultural crops and have a higher risk of liver cancer.
According to Assoc Prof Weerachai, a laboratory will conduct a second chemical test on the rice samples starting on Monday.
Mr. Chai said making claims that the government is trying to devalue the rice without providing any credible scientific evidence that it is not safe to eat amounts to an attempt to devalue it and deceive the general public about it.
Assoc Prof Weerachai’s claim, made in a video clip circulating widely on social media, lacks clarity, said Mr Chai, urging the chemistry expert to disclose more details about the rice testing he had conducted which found aflatoxins in the government’s rice.
Because not everyone can enter the warehouse and test the rice, Mr. Chai added, he questioned how the academic managed to get the samples from the warehouses.
Assoc. Prof. Weerachai should have stated how high the aflatoxins he found in the rice samples were, as Mr. Chai said, are considered safe for consumption because no more than 20 parts per billion ( ppb ) are known to be present.