ADULTERATION OF IM'IAN WHEAT 



HP" 



TRITK 



VUIX>AB 

 Mud and Seed* 



into refraction "in other words, percentages of impurity wen standard- 

 as unavoidable and therefore permusibl h no enhance- 



ment <>i pin ,- was paid but above win. Ii dedu. -tioiiH were an? 

 'Kal --lint of this system was the t >( (r.-i V 'i 



the charges for cleaning in Europe, l.oth of \On, h tu Id against India's 

 ess as a wheat-supplying country for Europe. Viscount Croee, at a 

 meeting held at tin- India < Mlice in 1889, pointed oat that an enormous 

 amount of dirt was in this \\ay imported annually and freight paid on it 

 as if it were wheat. Assuming an average of 3 per cent, adulteration, that 

 v. on Id rome. on the 1906-6 exports of wheat conveyed to the United 

 Kingdom, to half a million cwt. of mud, on which freight and other charge* 

 had to be paid. Voelck.-r (linprov. liui J77-8) and other* have 



shown that this state of affairs is in no way due to bad cultivation nor to 

 -tireless threshing on the part of the Indian cultivators, but is entirely * 

 consequence of deliberate adulteration to suit the requirement* of the 

 English corn trade. A similar state of affairs characterised the American 

 wheat trade, since the wheats that first came into Europe contained 

 as much as 10 per cent, of prairie oats, rye and other impurities. 

 It was sold on a standard of "fair average quality" (f.a.q.i. But 

 the American producers soon saw the necessity for reform and turned 

 out a clean wheat, and were thus able to establish the standards of 

 sale on their own side of the Atlantic. So far, India has failed to 

 attain that position, though more than one effort has been made to 

 remedy the evil of adulteration both by the Government of India and 

 the Indian merchants. 



In an official dispatch, dated November 29, 1906, the Government 

 of India sum up the present position and then add that " The replies 

 received have been considered, and the Government of India now feel 

 justified in announcing for general information that, if buyers of 

 Indian wheat desire to obtain regular supplies containing not more 

 than 2 per cent, of impurities (that term covering all foreign matter 

 other than food-grains) the mass of Indian shipments can be made 

 on that basis." 



By the opponents to reform, it has been upheld that Indian wheat is of OMMOMIU to 

 necessity less pure than the wheats of Europe, America and Australia, * 

 due to the imperfect methods and appliances of the Natives ; that ac- 

 cordingly it has to be washed, and may as well contain 2 per cent, impurity 

 as one. But if the shippers are prepared to do the cleaning in India, 

 a saving in freight would be effected that might go a long way toward 

 covering the cost of cleaning and, moreover, Native methods might 

 easily be improved. The demand for pure wheat to be made by the Dwuadtor 

 buyers in Europe would accordingly seem the natural and only solution 

 of the present anomalous state of affairs, if the further position be 

 not upheld as the ultimate result of the controversy, namely the 

 expansion of the milling interests of India and the export of flour in 

 place of grain (see p. 1101). 



Seeds found In Wheat. The seeds obtained during Indian wheat Screenings. 

 screenings are gram, polygonum, rape and piazi the last being a specie* 

 of Asiiiiniritin. which in the Fan jab is often very prevalent in the wheat- 

 fields especially in the Jhelum districts and to such an extent as to give 

 much trouble to the cultivators. [C/. Howard, Agri. Journ. 2nd., 1907, 

 i., pt. iv., 403-5 ; ii., pt. ii., 210.J 



1089 69 



i .: M 

 Porittoo 



