Balmore
Trust’s £60K for Malawi farmers
John Riches and Sue Bond from the Balmore Coach House with bags of
Malawi fair trade rice which they are selling in aid education for children in
the African country. Friday, Feb. 26 2010.(Photo/Chris Clark)
The Balmore Trust has been
awarded £60,000 to help develop a pedal-driven rice threshing machine for
Malawi farmers.
The trust, which imports fairly
traded rice and other produce from a number of African countries, received the
funding from the Scottish Government’s Small Grants Fund. It is the largest
single award to date.Chairman and founder of the trust, John Riches, said the
project was the brainchild of Paul Tofield, from Dumfries.He said: “Two years
ago he met Howard Msukwa, one of the farmers whose rice we sell. Paul was
deeply impressed by Howard’s determination and the sheer amount of work which
his rice farming involved.
When Howard told him that farmers
thresh their rice by beating it against a log, Paul told him about the
pedal-driven threshing machines they used to have in Orkney. That summer Paul
went to Orkney and found an old machine. That was the basis for the three
machines which have just reached Malawi.”The grant will help to get the
machines manufactured in Malawi, which will in turn provide jobs for locals.Mr
Riches added: “It will make low-cost machines available to farmers’ clubs,
freeing them from the huge burden of threshing, and allowing them more time to
develop their farms.
We think it will make a big difference,
increasing productivity without damaging the environment and like to think that
this is one of the real advantages of doing fair trade.“By building really
close links with farmers you can enlist remarkable support. People buy their
products and then help them find innovative solutions.Humza Yousaf, Minister
for Europe and International Development in the Scottish Government, said:
“These threshing machines will make a huge difference to famers and communities
in Malawi by improving crop production. It’s exciting to think that machinery
built in Scotland is being used thousands of miles away to help farmers in
other nations. We are proud to support the Balmore trust.”
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Southern California Water
Agencies Look North For Water Sale
March 14,
2015 10:42 AM
SACRAMENTO (AP) — The drought has water agencies in Southern California offering
big prices for water belonging to Northern California rice farmers.California’s
giant Metropolitan Water District and other Southern California agencies are
offering to buy up to $71 million in water from Sacramento Valley farmers, the
Sacramento Bee reported Saturday. That’s for enough water to supply between
100,000 and 200,000 households for a year.The Metropolitan agency serves 19
million people in Los Angeles and beyond.Four years of some of the steepest
droughts on record have made water increasingly scarce in California, and have
led state and federal water projects to limit water deliveries to arid Southern
California again this year.
The Metropolitan and Kern County
water agencies and other water districts are now offering farmers around
Northern California’s Feather River more for their water than farmers would
earn if they used the water to grow crops. At $700 an acre foot of water,
Sacramento Valley water holders are being offered about 40 percent more for
their water this summer than last summer.“That reflects the desperation and the
competition from the people down there,” Ted Trimble, general manager of the
Western Canal Water District in Richvale, Butte County, one of the
participating sellers, told the Sacramento Bee.
Many of the farmers involved are
rice farmers. Jim Morris, spokesman for the California Rice Commission, said
the commission wasn’t familiar with the tentative sale and couldn’t comment on
its impact on this year’s crop. “We’re still looking at what the upcoming
season will hold,” Morris said.California’s rice farmers already cut planting
by one-fourth in 2014 because of the drought. Trimble says his district won’t
idle more than one-sixth of its acres this year to take the water deal, because
that would undercut the long-term health of California’s rice industry.
California’s rice fields do more
than just grow rice; the Nature Conservancy says the rice fields provided more
than 13,000 acres of critical wetland for migratory wildfowl this winter
through a project with state rice farmers.Sandi Matsumoto of The Nature
Conservancy said Saturday that less water will mean less habitat for the birds
for a fourth straight winter. Matsumoto said she hopes the impact on wildlife
will be considered in the water sales.
Sierra at Tahoe ski resort closes
due to lack of snow
Posted: Mar 16, 2015 5:52 AM PDTUpdated: Mar 16, 2015 5:52 AM PDT
SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. (AP) - The
Sierra at Tahoe ski resort is turning off its lifts and closing its trails due
to a lack of natural snow.General manager John Rice issued a statement saying
the resort has decided, "with a heavy heart," to suspend winter
operations starting Monday.The popular ski area on Highway 50 in Twin Bridges
is known for its varied terrain and snowmaking ability. But, Rice says, the
lack of natural precipitation has left too many bare spots on runs.Rice says
Sierra at Tahoe is prepared to resume operations if snow starts falling
again.The Sacramento Bee reports (http://bit.ly/1EUzajh ) the announcement comes on the heels of the mid-February closure
of Donner Summit for the same reason.The Northstar ski resort, another popular
Tahoe destination, remains open.Information from: The Sacramento Bee, http://www.sacbee.com
Japan launches
initiative to boost rice exports to Singapore
KYODO
MAR 16, 2015
SINGAPORE – A rice export association has launched an initiative to
sell more rice to Singapore, taking advantage of the wealthy city-state’s
appetite for Japanese cuisine.The program, titled “This is Japan Quality,” was
developed by the Japan Rice and Rice Industry Export Promotion Association in
partnership with the agriculture ministry to “expand Japanese culinary culture”
by highlighting “the merits of Japanese rice.”It aims to “ultimately increase
the amount of rice and rice products exported globally by first focusing on
Singapore,” the association’s chairman, Ryo Kimura, said Monday.
In
particular it aims to use Singapore as a “strategic springboard” to spread
Japanese culinary culture in Southeast Asia and fuel interest in Japanese rice
products.The agriculture ministry estimates that Japan exported more than 1,200
tons of rice valued at more than ¥370 million to the tiny city-state last year
— about 10 times the amount exported to China.The association has designed a
new logo for Japanese rice products and a website with information about
Japanese rice. The rice will have QR codes on the packaging that will enable
buyers to have easy access to the website.
Akira
Karasawa, director general for crop production at the Agriculture, Forestry and
Fisheries Ministry, said at the launch event that the government is trying to
promote the export of agriculture and fishery products globally.Japan’s global
export value of rice is small at only ¥1.4 billion last year. The government
has set a goal of raising the export value of rice and rice products to ¥60
billion by 2020, Karasawa said.He added that one of the reasons for launching
the initiative in Singapore is due to the nation’s high income level.
Neda
backs moves to lift rice import restrictions
Philippine Daily
Inquirer
7:26 AM | Monday, March
16th, 2015
MANILA, Philippines–Keeping the
high import duties slapped on rice while allowing the private sector to
influence the commodity’s supply would auger well for rice prices, according to
the country’s chief economist, amid calls to remove the quantitative
restriction (QR) on imports.Also, Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Arsenio M. Balisacan
told reporters last Friday that the government was looking at the possibility
of repealing RA No. 8178, or the Agricultural Tariffication Act of 1996, which
put in place the QR on rice importation.Balisacan, who is also the
director-general of the National Economic and Development Authority (Neda),
noted that the QR puts the burden of rice demand and supply on the government,
while market forces are being limited by the quota system.
The Neda chief had partly blamed
high rice prices for the higher poverty incidence registered in the first half
of last year, as the commodity accounts for a fifth of low income families’
budgets.Since the government imposes a quota on rice imports, domestic prices
are vulnerable to shocks resulting from meager supply.The World Trade
Organization last year allowed the Philippines to extend its QR on rice until
2017, in a bid to buy more time for local farmers to prepare for free trade in
light of the government’s goal of achieving rice self-sufficiency.The extended
QR slaps 35-percent duty on imported rice under a minimum access volume (MAV)
of 805,200 metric tons.
Importation outside of the MAV
limit are levied a higher tariff of 50 percent.For Balisacan, retaining the
high duties on rice is already a “very transparent, efficient and
market-friendly instrument.”The Philippines’ most favored nation or MFN
rate—the additional tariff imposed when imported outside of Asean—on the
commodity remains at about 40 percent.Importation, meanwhile, should be the
task of the private sector to allow market forces to determine prices, the Neda
chief said.Balisacan disclosed that during last Friday’s economic development
cluster meeting, various government agencies, including the Department of
Agriculture, agreed to draft their proposals geared towards potentially
scrapping the QR system.
But while RA 8178 is still in
place, and acknowledging that it may take time to repeal the law, Balisacan
said the government “needs to be vigilant in monitoring the supply and demand
of rice,” adding that “we have to find a way to reduce upward price pressures
on food.”Also, the government should focus on initiatives to increase rice
farmers’ incomes rather than just increasing their production, Balisacan said.
“We must determine if their inputs are expensive. We need to raise farmers’
productivity.”To do so, irrigation systems should be improved, and farmers
should also be given access to new agricultural technologies that yield higher
harvests, the Neda chief said.
Rice import limits need
review—Neda
By | Mar. 15, 2015 at 11:20pm
The National Economic and
Development Authority said over the weekend the government should review
quantitative restrictions on rice imports because they tend to increase food
prices.Neda director general Arsenio Balisacan told reporters the limit in
importing one of the most important commodities was resulting in an upward
pressure on prices and eroding the income of most Filipino families. “As we
have noted earlier, the gains from increased incomes were unfortunately negated
by faster and higher inflation in food prices, especially of rice,” Balisacan
said.He noted that the government should weigh the benefits of the quantitative
restrictions against the inflationary pressure it put on rice.
“We have to study that because
that should not be the case. We have to cure the root of the problem, which is
the uncertainty in the... international trade for agricultural
commodities,” Balisacan said. The administration said with quantitative
restrictions, farmers were more protected from dumping, or excessive inflow of
rice at cheap prices, in the local market which may affect the livelihood of
Filipino farmers.The World Trade Organization-Committee on Trade in Goods
recently approved the Philippines’ bid to extend the implementation of the
quantity restriction on rice up to 2017.“The WTO approved our request for
extension of QR up to 2017. So we still have [time] to find a way to achieve
what we want to achieve.
Before 2017, we need to push for
measures that have been neglected. We also have a law, RA 8178, that placed
rice under a QR regime. So until the law is amended, there is still a QR on
rice,” Balisacan said.He said the government would create a technical working
group to study the benefits and the risks of the quantitative restrictions as
well as the measures needed to be in place by 2017.“We need to make sure
that we are putting in measures that will guarantee or enhance our capability
to respond to price shocks,” he said.
THAILAND PRESS-Officials probed
over rice - Bangkok Post
Mon Mar 16, 2015 1:19am GMT
Almost 30 Thai state officials,
politicians and individuals from the private sector will be investigated for
alleged involvement in a rice-pledging scheme of former Prime Minister Yingluck
Shinawatra administration, Bangkok Post reported, citing a source in the
finance ministry. (bit.ly/1GTqDOb)
NOTE: Reuters has
not verified this story and does not vouch for its accuracy. (Compiled by
Bangkok Newsroom; Editing by Subhranshu Sahu)
Rice charges
THE NATION March 16, 2015 1:00 am
PUBLIC prosecutors will tomorrow charge former commerce minister
Boonsong Teriyapirom and 20 others for having allegedly faked
government-to-government rice deals so that they could manipulate the
government's stockpiles.The prosecutors have informed the National
Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) to bring the 21 suspects to the Office of the
Attorney General tomorrow for the court arraignment. Sources said prosecutors have
submitted a request to the NACC to inform the 21 suspects to meet prosecutors.
It is not yet known if any of the suspects would appear at the
Supreme Court's Criminal Division for Political Office Holders when prosecutors
file the indictment against them.Meanwhile, the court will decide on Thursday
over whether to accept the suit filed by the attorney-general against former PM
Yingluck Shinawatra for her alleged failure to stop corruption in the
rice-pledging scheme.
Japan launches initiative to
boost rice exports to Singapore
KYODO
MAR 16, 2015
SINGAPORE – A rice export association has launched an initiative
to sell more rice to Singapore, taking advantage of the wealthy city-state’s
appetite for Japanese cuisine.The program, titled “This is Japan Quality,” was
developed by the Japan Rice and Rice Industry Export Promotion Association in
partnership with the agriculture ministry to “expand Japanese culinary culture”
by highlighting “the merits of Japanese rice.”It aims to “ultimately increase
the amount of rice and rice products exported globally by first focusing on
Singapore,” the association’s chairman, Ryo Kimura, said Monday.
In particular it aims to use Singapore as a “strategic
springboard” to spread Japanese culinary culture in Southeast Asia and fuel
interest in Japanese rice products.The agriculture ministry estimates that
Japan exported more than 1,200 tons of rice valued at more than ¥370 million to
the tiny city-state last year — about 10 times the amount exported to China.The
association has designed a new logo for Japanese rice products and a website
with information about Japanese rice. The rice will have QR codes on the
packaging that will enable buyers to have easy access to the website.
Akira Karasawa, director general for crop production at the
Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry, said at the launch event that the
government is trying to promote the export of agriculture and fishery products
globally.Japan’s global export value of rice is small at only ¥1.4 billion last
year. The government has set a goal of raising the export value of rice and
rice products to ¥60 billion by 2020, Karasawa said.He added that one of the
reasons for launching the initiative in Singapore is due to the nation’s high
income level.
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/03/16/business/economy-business/japan-launches-initiative-to-boost-rice-exports-to-singapore/#.VQiT-dLF_Jc
Drastic fall in paddy cultivation
in Karimnagar
Karimnagar district, which
emerged as the rice bowl of Telangana, now faces a bleak future as the area
under paddy cultivation has declined drastically, causing concern among farmers
and others.Severe drought condition, a depleting groundwater table and poor
inflows into the irrigation projects are cited as reasons for diminishing area
under paddy cultivation in the rabi season. Since 2006, Karimnagar began to
find a place on the paddy cultivation map as it registered good production. The
area of paddy cultivation increased from 1.38 lakh hectares to 2.98 lakh hectares.But this rabi season, paddy cultivation came
down drastically due to deficit rainfall and poor inflows into the major
irrigation projects of SRSP and the Lower Manair Dam. In-charge Joint Director
(agriculture) Shatru Naik told The
Hindu that paddy cultivation
came down to 90,850 hectares compared to 1.38 lakh hectares.In the usual
course, paddy cultivation would have been taken up in over 2 lakh hectares had
the district received good rains. The agriculture official said that poor
rainfall would certainly impact production. He said 40 per cent of the paddy
produce was meant for producing seed, 20-25 per cent for sale while the
remaining is consumed by farmers.S. Komuraiah, a farmer from Chenjarla village of
Manakondur mandal, said that he had cultivated paddy only in one acre of land
for domestic use as the water in the well had depleted.
He had to leave the remaining
four acres idle. He said he was facing hurdles in watering the crop due to
depletion of the groundwater table.Annamaneni Sudhakar Rao, director of
Karimnagar district rice millers association, said that the drought had cast
its shadow on the rice mills as well with several of them having closed down in
the district.People who had purchased harvesters to eke out a living are also
at the receiving end due to low production of paddy, he added.
http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/telangana/drastic-fall-in-paddy-cultivation-in-karimnagar/article6997770.ece
Existing system of paddy procurement will be continued, says
Chandy
Seeking to allay the concerns of
paddy farmers, Chief Minister Oommen Chandy has assured that the existing
system of paddy procurement will not be discontinued.Launching the harvest of
the puncha crop at the Chithira Lake paddy fields in Kainakary on Sunday, Mr.
Chandy said that an allocation of Rs. 300 crore has been made in the State
budget for paddy procurement that was being undertaken at a rate of Rs. 19 per
kg.“While the Centre provided Rs. 13.60 per kg for paddy procured, the
remaining amount was disbursed by the State government as subsidy. The burden
borne by the State accounted for Rs. 300 crore annually.
Considering its financial limitations, the
government could not afford to extend the subsidy any further. However, the
Central government has been requested to hike the price being provided for
paddy,” he said.Mr. Chandy added that the promotion of neera production has
worked wonders for the coconut sector of the State. According to him, every coconut
tree has been bringing huge returns of up to Rs. 3,000 per month for the
farmers. Such initiatives are expected to transform agriculture into viable
sources of income for the farming community, he said.
He also called for reviving paddy
cultivation in the adjacent Rani Lake fields during the current year. The Chief
Minister also directed the district administration to pursue options in
introducing a collective model of farming in the Chithira fields. The
technique, if found successful, could become a model to emulate for the other
parts of the State, he said.Presiding over the function, Agriculture Minister
K.P. Mohanan directed the District Collector to convene a meeting to assess the
ongoing harvest activities. Speaking on the occasion,
District Collector N. Padmakumar
said that the Supplyco will undertake the procurement of paddy harvested from
the Chithira fields. The government agency had refused to procure paddy
initially. Around 600-700 metric tonne of paddy was expected from the nearly
100 hectares of cultivated field.
In
Memory: Richard Bell
Richard E. "Dick"
Bell
The U.S. rice industry is deeply saddened by the passing of Richard
E. "Dick" Bell, 81, in Stuttgart, Arkansas on March 13. Bell was president and CEO of Riceland Foods
for more than 23 years. In 2005, he was
named Arkansas's first Secretary of Agriculture, a post he held until he
retired in 2012. Bell joined Riceland in 1977 as executive vice president and
chief operating officer, and was elevated to the chief executive position in
1981. He retired from Riceland in
2004.Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, in a statement following Bell's
death, said, "His vast knowledge of the entire agricultural landscape, and
the respect he earned from everyone in the agri-world, made him the best choice
to launch our state's Agriculture Department when it was created."
Bell,
a native of Illinois, earned graduate and undergraduate degrees from the
University of Illinois-Urbana, and joined the U.S. Department of Agriculture's
Foreign Agriculture Service in 1959 as an agricultural economist. Bell served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of
Agriculture and then as Assistant Secretary of Agriculture for International
Affairs and Commodity Programs from 1973-1977.
Bell also served as president of the USDA's Commodity Credit Corporation
and Chairman of the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation. In recognition of his
accomplishments in the international trade arena, Bell was awarded the USDA's
Distinguished Service Award in 1975.
"Dick Bell greatly expanded the
economic importance of the rice industry in Arkansas and the United
States," said USA Rice President & CEO Betsy Ward. "He combined a
deep expertise in agriculture with a keen understanding of farm and food policy
that made him an effective advocate."
Information on services is not yet available.
Courtesy
:USA Rice Federation
Growing appetite for Japanese rice in Singapore
Consumption here has doubled to 1,359 tonnes from 2011
PUBLISHED ON MAR 17, 2015 7:36 AM
FairPrice saw 50 per cent growth in demand last year from 2013
for its housebrand FairPrice Japonica Rice. Industry players attribute the
popularity of Japanese rice to factors such as the growth in the number of
Japanese expatriates and restaurants here as well as the rising affluence of
Singaporeans. -- ST PHOTO: LIM SIN THAI
BY JESSICA LIM CONSUMER
CORRESPONDENT
The short-grained, sticky Japanese rice has become more popular
here despite its higher cost, with consumption more than doubling since
2011.Last year, Singaporeans consumed 1,359 tonnes of rice from Japan, up from
602 tonnes in 2011, figures from state trade promotion arm International
Enterprise Singapore show.Singapore is the second largest importer of Japanese
rice in the world after Hong Kong, going by data from the Ministry of
Agriculture Forestry and Fisheries Japan (MAFFJ).People here ate eight times as
much Japanese rice as the amount exported to China and 26 times that to
Malaysia.
Industry players point to increasing affluence, the booming number
of Japanese restaurants and the growing number of Japanese expatriates in
Singapore as reasons for the increase.Others said the recent surge in the
prices of Thai rice, leading to falling demand here, led to more consumers
switching sources.India, for instance, overtook Thailand as the biggest rice
supplier to Singapore for the first time in 2013.
Thailand, famous for its premium grade of Jasmine rice, has been
the top source of the staple here since at least 1998."When prices of Thai
rice went up, some consumers switched to Japanese rice and did not switch
back," said Mr Andrew Tan, 35, chairman of the Singapore General Rice
Importers Association.At Meidi-ya supermarket, a 5kg bag of Royal Umbrella Thai
rice costs $18.95; and a 2kg bag of Niigata Uonuma rice from Japan costs
$21.However, he also pointed out the fast jump in figures should be taken with
a pinch of salt given that they started from a low base.Singapore consumed a
total of 325,860 tonnes of rice last year, with Japanese imports not even making
up 1 per cent.Mr Akira Karasawa, MAFFJ's director-general of crop production,
said the greater consumption of Japanese rice here could be because there are
more Japanese expatriates and restaurants here, as well as the affluence of
Singaporeans.
The Japanese ministry has launched the This Is Japan Quality logo,
which will be tagged onto all Japanese rice products here. It has a QR code
that links to a website with information about the merits of Japanese
rice.Supermarkets are also seeing brisk sales.At Giant, demand for Japanese
rice has grown each year since 2011, with its spokesman reporting "high
single-digit percentage growth" year on year.FairPrice saw 50 per cent
growth in demand last year from 2013 for its housebrand FairPrice Japonica Rice.Consumers
like Ms Jane Wong, 36, started buying more Japanese rice last year to make
Japanese meals for her four children to take to school because "it is
healthier", she said.However, replacing the Vietnamese rice they eat for
their daily meals with Japanese rice is not an option for now. "The price
is still too high," she said.
USA Rice Talking Trade
Again in Havana
Marvin Lehrer meets with Yudith Viera Gallardo North American division,
ministry foreign trade (l),
and
Aniurka Ortiz Marquetti
HAVANA, CUBA -- USA Rice's Marvin Lehrer was here last week for
meetings with the Cuban food buying agency, ALIMPORT, and the Ministry of
Foreign Trade. Lehrer also visited
several hard currency supermarkets, ration card stores, and public markets to
see how rice is currently being sold in Cuba."I was here to re-establish
the long-standing close relationships with the government entities charged with
rice imports that we've developed over the years, and to take the pulse of
trade in general," Lehrer said.
"There have been many personnel changes
throughout the Cuban government, especially at ALIMPORT, and we wanted to
exchange ideas with these new people, jump start a close
relationship."Lehrer also wanted to check in with people here to learn
what they really think about the changing dynamic between the United States and
Cuba."We certainly achieved our goals and established a warm dialogue with
new people," he said.
"It
will form an excellent foundation moving forward.""We thank USA Rice
for their visit," said Aniurka Ortiz Marquetti, General Vice President of
ALIMPORT and in charge of U.S. purchases.
"We are well aware of their long history in working to open trade
both here in Havana and in the U.S., and we know we can count on their
guidance, support, and under new conditions, sales in the future. We have had a lot of turnover the past couple
of years at ALIMPORT, and re-establishing contact face-to-face is very
important.
""Cuban
rice imports are not as large as a few years ago as they report that local
production has increased as a result of technical assistance from Cuba's Asian
trading partners, but milled rice imports are still quite significant,"
Lehrer explained. "Cubans know
about our quality, and logistic advantage, but our ability to break into the
market once again will depend upon significant changes to the embargo. We need genuine two-way trade and some type
of credit needs to be extended to the Cuban government."Cuba currently
receives credit from main rice supplier Vietnam, as well as credit terms from
Spain, Brazil, and some others.
"My
sense is that they want U.S. rice, but we cannot be competitive due to
restrictive terms imposed by the embargo," said Lehrer.Lehrer also met
with several foreign press contacts and the U.S. Interests Section in Havana in
order to get a better feel for their views on progress towards normalization
with the U.S., as well as a sense of any changes in Cuba which might affect
future sales of U.S. rice.
Contact: Michael Klein (703) 236-1458
CME
Group/Closing Rough Rice Futures
|
System
of Rice Intensification earns food security prize
By Lucy Fisher
Norman Uphoff, left, shows the respective heights and root systems
of randomly selected rice plants from a regular field in his hand while a
farmer from West Nuwagoan village in Tripura state in India holds a plant from
an SRI field.The System of Rice Intensification(SRI), an agro-ecological method
of growing rice that enhances crop yields and is resilient to the adverse
effects of climate change, has been awarded the international Olam Prize for
Innovation in Food Security. SRI is being recognized for its impact on the
availability, affordability, accessibility and adequacy of food.
Norman
Uphoff, professor emeritus of government and former director of the Cornell
International Institute for Food, Agriculture and Development (CIIFAD), who has
been working with SRI for over 20 years, accepted the prize during the third
Global Science Conference on Climate Smart Agriculture March 16 in Montpellier,
France. The Olam Prize provides $50,000 to support further SRI research.“The
main factors that explain the impacts of SRI management are the development of
larger, more effective root systems and the promotion of greater abundance and
diversity of beneficial soil organisms, which are factors outside the Green
Revolution paradigm,” says Uphoff. He noted that SRI concepts and methodologies
are being extended to crops such as wheat, millet and sugarcane under the broader
System of Crop Intensification.
Uphoff
first learned about SRI in Madagascar in 1993 while serving as director of
CIIFAD. Farmers there were getting paddy rice yields of 2 tons per hectare from
their very poor soils with conventional methods. Using SRI methods, farmers
averaged 8 tons. In 1997, after three years of such results, Uphoff began
working with researchers in Madagascar and other countries to develop
scientific explanations for this unexpected productivity and to get the methods
evaluated elsewhere and, if successful, adopted.
SRI
methods have been shown to increase crop yields by 20 to 50 percent – often as
much as 100 percent and more – with significant reductions in water
requirements and seed. SRI began spreading globally after 2000, in large part
due to Uphoff’s initiatives and efforts, as the Olam Prize recognizes. The
effectiveness of SRI methods has now been demonstrated in more than 50
countries.
In
2010, a gift from Jim Carrey’s Better U Foundation supported establishment of
the SRI International Network and Resources Center (SRI-Rice) at Cornell within
CIIFAD. The program now operates within International Programs of the College
of Agriculture and Life Sciences. Uphoff serves as a senior adviser for the SRI
team, which promotes knowledge and advances research on SRI and SCI as freely
and widely as possible.
The
SRI-Rice website gives extensive information on the origins, practices, impacts
and research evaluations of SRI. SRI-Rice provides online access to global SRI
knowledge resources, guidance for researchers, practitioners and farmers, and
technical support to a World Bank-funded program to improve and scale up SRI in
13 West African countries.Global agribusiness Olam International partnered with
the Agropolis Fondation to launch the Olam Prize for Innovation in Food
Security in celebration of its 25th anniversary to address global food security
through agricultural innovation and the development of sustainable supply
chains.Lucy Fisher is the communications director for SRI-Rice.
How space and sensory technology
can boost rice production
EU-funded researchers are developing hi-tech methods
for monitoring rice crops in order to increase yields and encourage sustainable
farming.
New ways of monitoring
rice crops could provide growers with better information – including early
warnings of possible threats – and enable more accurate yield predictions.
These are some of the key objectives of the EU-funded ERMES project, which is
set to hold its first annual meeting from 26 to 27 March 2015.The event will be
held in Valencia, Spain and will give ERMES partners from Italy, Greece, Spain
and Switzerland the chance to discuss progress made in developing new hi-tech
methods for monitoring crops.
The project aims to compile satellite and sensory
data using advance smart applications and technologies.The data collected will
be used to develop two new services to improve crop production in Europe. Both
of these products will be distributed to local and regional users through two
web-based services: a Local Rice Service (LRS) and a Regional Rice Service
(RRS).The LRS will be targeted at farmers and the agricultural service sector.
This will provide added value information for farmers on yield variability,
risk alerts and crop damage at the farm scale. The service will help farmers
plan where to spread pesticide, what rice varieties might grow best and what
parts of the field might require fertilisation.
To aid the collection of this kind of information,
customised smart applications for mobile phones and/or tablets are being
developed. These apps will enable farmers and field operators to collect data
and automatically upload it to the ERMES database. It will also allow them to
send geotagged messages and pictures with information of particular field
conditions.The RRS on the other hand will be a customised agro-monitoring
resource for crop mapping, yield estimating and risk forecast. This information
is meant to be used by regional authority experts to support, for example, the
production of digital bulletins on rice crop risks and yield forecasts. The
service will allow regional operators to receive, visualise and analyse
information at the regional scale.
The three Mediterranean countries responsible for 85
% of Europe’s total rice production have been selected for trials: Italy (51.9
%), Spain (25.4 %) and Greece (7.0 %). Local farmers will provide vital field
information, and act as sounding boards throughout the project (which runs from
2014 to 2017). The aims and objectives of the ERMES project were recently
presented at the 18th European Weed Research Society (EWRS) scientific
conference, held in Crete from 3 to 4 March 2015.
ERMES, coordinated by CNR-IREA (Institute on
Electromagnetic Sensing of Environment) in Italy, involves partners from four
European countries with strong expertise in different scientific domains such
as remote sensing, crop modelling agronomy and IT. In the long run, the project
hopes to make a lasting contribution towards sustainable and competitive
agriculture in Europe, through reducing production costs, achieving
efficiencies and minimising the sector’s environmental impact.For further
information please visit:
Root and branch
The prime minister is overhauling
the powerful farm co-operatives, with some success
Mar
13th 2015 |
TOKYO | AsiaONE
reason to take seriously recent moves by Japan’s government to reform the
country’s vast, quasi-statist system of agricultural co-operatives is a
personal story. The politician pushing hardest for reform—alongside Shinzo Abe,
the prime minister—is Yoshihide Suga, the chief cabinet secretary and Mr Abe’s
consigliere. Mr Suga’s late father was a struggling farmer from Akita
prefecture, among the poorest, who in middle age gave up trying to make a
living from growing rice. He switched to strawberries, starting a growers’
union outside the dominant co-operative system, Japan Agriculture (JA).
Mr Suga has described how he watched his father free himself
from JA’s tentacles. He is not alone in his dislike: JA is popular with few
outside its 240,000 employees, and many farmers criticise it. It was set up in
1947, when land reform under the American occupation meant that many peasants
suddenly became landowners. But even as the farming sector declined, JA
mushroomed into a vast bureaucracy. More than half of the 10m members who use
its many services, ranging from banking and insurance to funerals and wedding
halls, are not even farmers. Yet JA-Zenchu, the lobbying group that sits at the
heart of JA, wields disproportionate clout in setting Japan’s agricultural
policy.
Mr Abe is now mounting a serious challenge to its influence.
Last month his government announced that JA-Zenchu would lose its privileged,
semi-public status. It will also forgo its right to audit and guide Japan’s 700
local farm co-operatives, which will be prodded towards greater independence. A
local JA co-operative in Echizen, in Fukui prefecture, has already broken
business ties with its parent organisation. The government sees it as a model
for the rest.The government also says it would like to overhaul JA’s
monopolistic marketing division, JA Zen-Noh—which charges farmers above-market
prices for fertiliser and other products—into an ordinary public company. The
organisation is currently exempt from an anti-monopoly act. But the government
appears to have backed down from removing the exemption.
The current plan merely urges local co-operatives not to force
farmers to buy from JA.JA-Zenchu’s chairman, Akira Banzai, plays down the
impact of the government’s assault on it. And indeed the government’s reforms
stop short of reining in the group’s financial services or fully freeing
regional co-operatives from its grip. Initial and more radical proposals, via a
reform committee, had included abolishing JA-Zenchu outright. In the end,
concessions were made to JA’s many friends in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party
(LDP).Even so, Mr Abe deserves credit.
JA-Zenchu was once thought untouchable because of its ties to
the LDP. A precipitous decline in productive farming (the average age of a
Japanese farmer is 66) has underlined the chronic failure of its policies, which
have kept most Japanese farms tiny and inefficient. Behind the scenes, the
government’s reformers won over local agricultural co-operatives, as well as
Diet members who might otherwise have sought to block any change. JA-Zenchu
found itself rather isolated.Takeshi Niinami, an expert on agricultural reform
who sits on a key economic-policy council, argues that Mr Abe’s methods compare
favourably to those of Junichiro Koizumi, Japan’s prime minister from 2001 to
2006. Mr Koizumi pushed through the bold reform of privatising the postal
system, a vast collector of household savings. Yet postal reform was largely
undone after Mr Koizumi left office.
By seeking broader
support, including from the local co-ops, Mr Niinami says, Mr Abe can expect
his changes not to suffer the same fate.Another key test of resolve may come
soon with the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a 12-country free-trade
agreement. Negotiations are coming to a head. In Japan, JA-Zenchu has
stubbornly opposed lowering Japan’s high tariffs on rice, beef and other foods.
It has whipped up other industries in Japan, including the medical business, to
oppose the agreement. Weakening the organisation is one way for Mr Abe to speed
up TPP negotiations. If a deal is struck, deeper agricultural reform must
follow if Japanese farmers are to compete. The most significant would be
allowing companies to own farmland, a move currently blocked by JA as well as
by farmers. A diminished JA-Zenchu would help.
Officials probed over rice
Two investigative panels to be set up
16 Mar 2015 at 07:12
A file
photo shows a National Legislative Assembly member in January voting to impeach
former prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra, charging her with dereliction of
duty in running the rice-pledging scheme. The Supreme Court is set to decide on
Thursday on whether to accept the case for trial. CHANAT KATANYU 
Almost 30 state officials, politicians and
individuals from the private sector will be investigated for alleged
involvement in the Yingluck Shinawatra administration's rice-pledging scheme,
says a Finance Ministry source.Compensation may be sought against them if they
are found guilty of deliberate or serious reckless acts as stipulated in the
Act on Liability for Wrongful Acts of Officials, and their acts aimed at
illegally taking advantage for their own and others' benefits as stated in the
Criminal Code's Section 1.If the examining panel finds no grounds of
corruption, the state officials need not take responsibility for financial
damages, the source said.The case will mark the first time that state officers
could face damage claims from carrying out government policy, the source said.This
would cause a climate of fear among state officials in executing the policies
of future governments, the source said.
The Yingluck government's rice-pledging scheme,
which set the price pledged to farmers at 40-50% higher than the market price,
caused an estimated 536 billion baht in losses, while the administration
stockpiled 17.5 million tonnes of pledged rice. The Office of the
Attorney-General last month indicted Ms Yingluck for alleged dereliction
of duty related to the losses incurred and corruption in the scheme.Two
investigation panels will be established. One is attached to the Finance
Ministry, which will carry out the probe related to Ms Yingluck, and the other
panel, overseen by the Commerce Ministry, will investigate the case linked
to former commerce minister Boonsong Teriyapirom.The two panels will base
their probes on the allegations filed by the National Anti-Corruption
Commission.
The two committees could be set up within 10
days and the investigation would be wrapped up by Sept 1.The findings will be
sent to another committee, which will decide on compensation.However, another
source said that state officials had to act cautiously in proceeding with the
rice-pledging policy as the project had been warned twice by the anti-graft
commission, and frequently by academics.If any of the state officials have
evidence that they were opposed to the project after learning that it had
problems, they can submit it for deliberation. Legal action against the state
officials will be taken in three ways — criminal charges if corruption or
neglect of duties have been found, sacking as a disciplinary punishment, and
demand for compensation.Get full Bangkok Post printed newspaper experience on
your digital devices with Bangkok Post e-newspaper. Try it
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