Rice Bran Oil Production

Rencently, China Daily has posted an article about rice bran oil production on which it said China's domestic rice bran oil production is going to expand.China, the world's largest rice producer and consumer, will expand rice bran oil production to help ease shortages of edible oil supplies, a company executive said.
China, also the world's largest edible oil consumer, has to rely on imports for 66 percent of its needs, even though a large amount of rice bran is simply used for animal feed, said Tu Changming, trading director with the China operation of Wilmar International.
"Most Chinese rice mills are small in size with backward technology, and rice bran has been ignored and not fully utilized," Tu said.
Rice bran oil is the oil extracted from the germ and inner husk of rice. It is rich in vitamin E and suitable for high-temperature cooking such as stir-frying and deep-frying. It is a popular cooking oil in Japan.

China's annual rice output is about 185 million tons. If half of the rice bran production went to produce rice bran oil, it would account for 1.1 million tons of edible oil, equivalent to 5.8 million tons of soybeans, according to Tu.
China's consumption of edible oils has doubled over the past decade to 24 million tons, and consumption could rise by 10 million tons in the coming decade, Tu estimated. But limited farmland means the government has had to secure more acreage to grow cereals instead of soybeans.
China is already the world's largest soybean importer, with annual imports accounting for more than half of the world trade in the last marketing year. The country also imports large amounts of rapeseed and palm oil and soy oil, as well.
Tu said that only 10 percent of China's rice bran was used to produce edible oil, and the rest was used for animal feed.
Wilmar International has a rice mill with a daily capacity of 1,000 tons in the northeastern province of Heilongjiang, which can produce 12 tons of edible oil a day, Tu said.
We think rice bran oil is the trend of future development," Tu said.
As a result, we must follow high technology edible oil processing method and raise the production of rice bran oil.