US rice sales to China on hold, but maybe not much longer
KEYWORDS CHINA DONALD TRUMP LIU HE RICE SOYBEANS USDA XI JINPING
China needs rice imports, U.S.
farmers are anxious to sell more rice and it might not be long before the
countries are doing business after more than 20 years of haggling over details
of opening up trade.
While there’s no guarantee,
farmers and millers are increasingly optimistic because the Chinese ban has
been lifted, a handful of U.S. rice mills have been cleared for export, and
China is looking to make the Trump administration happy with commodity
purchases.
It was in December that China
took a major step toward making that happen, changing its customs regs and
officially lifting its ban on U.S. rice. Separately, China has now officially
cleared seven of the 34 U.S. rice mills that USDA’s Animal and Plant Health
Inspection Service (APHIS) has asked China to certify under the country’s
sanitary and phytosanitary regulations, U.S. industry and government officials
tell Agri-Pulse.
The remaining mills are still under Chinese consideration, sources say.
While the ban has been lifted and
seven U.S. mills have been certified, there is one obstacle left that is
preventing rice from flowing from American farms to buyers in Beijing and
Shanghai: the U.S.-China trade war.
China slapped a 25 percent tariff
on U.S. rice last year in retaliation to U.S. tariffs that were meant to punish
the country for intellectual property theft and other trade affronts.
The tariff – enacted when the
Chinese ban was still in place – is a major barrier, but it isn’t absolute.
China also continues to levy a 25 percent tariff on U.S. soybeans, but that
hasn’t stopped the Chinese government from buying about 10 million metric tons
of U.S. soybeans over the past two and a half months.
Trump called the Chinese
purchases “a fantastic sign of faith.”
Chinese President Xi Jinping made it clear in a recent letter to
Trump that China is buying U.S. farm commodities as a gesture of good will as
the two countries continue intense negotiations to end the trade war.
“Mr. President, in our last phone
call, you said you wanted for China to buy more agricultural products,” Xi said
in a recent letter to Trump. “I have made some arrangements about which, I
believe, you might have been briefed.”
While those purchases so far have
only been of soybeans, there was talk of China buying another ag commodity when
Trump met with Chinese Vice Premier Liu He on Jan. 31 after a week of
talks by the two countries.
Trump thanked Liu for the
message that China was going to buy more soybeans “and other product that
they've just committed to us prior to the signing of the deal,” but never
specified what that other commodity would be.
“They discussed other things that
they are buying also,” Trump said.
A source involved in the
negotiations that led up to the Trump-Liu meeting told Agri-Pulse the
“other things” were definitely agricultural commodities and could possibly
be rice.
If it is rice, that would be a
major boon for the U.S. rice sector that depends heavily on exports. The U.S.
exports about half the rice it produces.
Perhaps even more important to
the U.S. rice sector than a “good faith” purchase would be an end to the trade
war and the Chinese tariffs that have impacted just about every U.S. farm
sector. China consumes about 144 million tons of rice every year and is
the world’s largest rice importing country. China imports about 5 million tons
of rice, according to USDA data, so even a small fraction of that market would
mean a lot to U.S. farmers and millers.
Chinese negotiators are in
Washington for talks this week, following fast on a week of negotiations last
week in Beijing, and the situation is looking good, Trump said Tuesday.
“Well, they are very complex
talks,” Trump told reporters. “They're going very well.”
One thing U.S. negotiators are
demanding is that China live up to pledges it made when it joined the World
Trade Organization, and that includes buying a lot of U.S. rice. China, as one
condition for its acceptance into the WTO, agreed to buy at least 2.7 million
tons of U.S. rice each year.
And there’s no reason that
shouldn’t start right now, said one U.S. rice industry representative, who
asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the ongoing trade talks.
“Now that you have the technical
ability, the next step is the political approval to import rice,” the official
said. “The importers will have to get the political nod that it’s okay to do
this.”
For more news, go to www.Agri-Pulse.com.
Palace vows
transparency in usage of P10B rice fund
By Panay
News
Thursday, February 21, 2019
Woman
farmers hand-harvest bundles of rice grain at the Batad Rice Terraces in
Ifugao, Cordillera Administrative Region. PHOTO FROM AVIANQUESTS.COM
MANILA – Malacañang on Tuesday
vowed transparency in the use of the P10-billion Rice Competitiveness
Enhancement Fund (RCEF) as safeguard against corruption.
“Good governance is the hallmark
of the Duterte administration and the President has zero tolerance against
corruption and wastage of taxpayers’ money. We continue to exercise
accountability and transparency in all levels of the bureaucracy,” presidential
spokesperson Salvador Panelo said.
Signed by President Rodrigo
Duterte on Feb. 14, Republic Act 11203 or the Rice Tariffication Act lifts the
quantitative restrictions on rice and allow private traders to import the
commodity from countries of their choice.
The measure allows unlimited
importation of rice as long as private sector traders secure a phytosanitary
permit from the Bureau of Plant Industry and pay the 35-percent tariff on
shipments from Southeast Asia.
The law earmarks P10 billion for
the RCEF, of which P5 billion will be allotted to farm mechanization, P3
billion to seedlings and P1 billion to expanded rice credit assistance.
The fund intends to ensure that
rice imports won’t drown out the agriculture sector and rob farmers of their
livelihood.
Panelo said the secretary of
Agriculture would be accountable and responsible for the Rice Fund.
He also said the Department of
Agriculture, in consultation with farmers’ cooperatives and organizations as
well as local government units, will validate and update the masterlist of
eligible beneficiaries, which include farmers, farmworkers, rice cooperatives
and associations.
The Congressional Oversight
Committee on Agricultural and Fisheries Modernization (COCAFM) shall also
conduct a periodic review of the Rice Fund.
Panelo urged rice farmer
representatives and stakeholders to participate in the discussion and review of
the crafting of the Rice Industry Roadmap and Internal Rules and Regulations
with other concerned government agencies to ensure the effective and efficient
implementation of the new measure, including assuring that safeguards aimed at
eliminating corruption are in place.
Trade secretary Ramon Lopez on
Tuesday said cheaper rice would be available in the market starting mid-March
or by the time imported rice start arriving in the country.
Lopez said the price of imported
rice could be as low as P32 per kilo.
The Department of Finance
announced on Monday that tariffed regime on rice imports will begin on March 3
as well as the transfer of the National Food Authority (NFA) to the Department
of Agriculture (DA). (GMA News)
‘Gov’t
agencies must craft rice tariffication IRR in 45 days’
By Panay
News
Thursday, February 21, 2019
MANILA – Concerned government
agencies have 45 days from the day the rice tariffication law is in effect to
promulgate its implementing rules and regulations.
President Rodrigo Duterte signed
Republic Act 11203 on Feb. 14. It will take effect 15 days after its
publication in the Official Gazette or in a newspaper of general circulation.
The Department of Agriculture,
National Economic and Development Authority and Department of Budget and
Management will promulgate the IRR in coordination with the following:
The law mandates consultations
with “directly affected stakeholders” before the IRR Is promulgated.
The measure removes the
quantitative restrictions on rice and allows private traders to import the
commodity from countries of their choice.
Private importers, however, must
secure phytosanitary permit from the Bureau of Plant Industry and pay a
35-percent tariff on shipments from Southeast Asian countries and higher rates
on imports outside the region.
The law earmarks P10 billion for
the Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund, of which P5 billion will be allotted
to farm mechanization, P3 billion to seedlings and P1 billion to expanded rice
credit assistance.
The fund intends to ensure that
rice imports won’t drown out the agriculture sector and rob farmers of their
livelihood.
A copy of the law was released by
Malacañang on Monday. (GMA News)
US rice sales to China on hold, but maybe not much longer
KEYWORDS CHINA DONALD TRUMP LIU HE RICE SOYBEANS USDA XI JINPING
China needs rice imports, U.S. farmers are anxious to
sell more rice and it might not be long before the countries are doing business
after more than 20 years of haggling over details of opening up trade.
Bill Tomson
1st phase of common facility
centre in rice mill cluster inaugurated
|
Source: The
Hitavada Date: 20 Feb 2019 12:19:28
|
Business Bureau,
The first phase common facility centre in rice mill cluster at
Navegaon Rithi village in Ramtek tehsil was inaugurated by Nitin Gadkari, Union
Minister for Road Transport & Highways, Shipping and Water Resources, River
Development & Ganga Rejuvenation. Chandrashekhar Bawankule, Maharashtra
Minister for Energy and Excise, advocate Ashish Jaiswal, Chairman of
Maharashtra State Mining Corporation, Nagpur, Mallikarjun Reddy, MLA, Ramtek, P
M Parlewar, Director of MSME-DI, Nagpur, Ashok Dharmadhikari, Joint Director of
Industries, Nagpur Division, and Prakash Chouk, Managing Director of Nagpur
Rice Millers and Packers Clusters Pvt Ltd, Ramtek were prominently present on
the occasion.
The Ministry of MSME, O/o Development Commissioner (MSME),
Government of India, has sanctioned the common facility centre under MSE-CDP
scheme for rice mill cluster, Ramtek in 2017 at the cost of Rs 1,825 lakh with
the Government of India assistance as grant in aid of Rs 1,125 lakh and State
Government grant in aid of Rs 147.67 lakh.
Accordingly, all the procedure for procurement of machineries and
equipments for the first and second phase of project have been completed and
machineries are installed the at the site. The inaugural function was organised
for the commencement of operation of common facility centre.
Speaking on the occasion, Gadkari said that like Gondia district,
in Nagpur district, places like Ramtek and Mouda, the cultivation of rice is
carried out on large scale and the quality of rice produced is of superior
quality. However, due to unavailability of advanced processing centre for the
rice processing in these places, it was not possible to produce the high
quality of rice. “But now, with the help of Government of India, Ministry of
MSME’s financial assistance, this is possible to set up the advanced facility
and therefore this rice will be exported to overseas countries. Due to export
of the rice from these places, the farmers’ standard of living will be
improved. He said, Government of India will provide assitance to farmers.
P M Parlewar, Director, MSME-DI welcomed Nitin Gadkari by
presenting bouquet along with other SPV members and briefed him about the
facilities which have been created in common facility centre. He showed the
entire facilities of CFC which include pre-processing and post-processing
plants such as de-stoner, gravity separators, polishers, sortex machines, raw
material silo, etc., of various capacities along with the advanced testing
machines set up in CFC. He also explained about importance of these machineries
which have been procured through import and will be useful for rice miller
manufacturer for the production of high grade quality rice.
In third and fourth phases, the balance machineries such as
advance packaging machines and steaming plant will be set up very soon and the
CFC will be fully operationalised from the month of May, 2019.
Members of SPV Rice Mill Cluster, Ramtek, S R Khujnare, Assistant.Director
Manish V K Jha, MSME-DI, Nagpur, Gajendra Bharati, General Manager of DIC,
Nagpur were also present. More than 2,500 persons were present during the
programme. The programme was concluded by vote of thanks by SPV members.
Clampdown on smugglers: Local rice appreciates
against foreign rice
| Published Date Feb 20, 2019 13:24 PM
No doubt rice farmers in Nigeria had never had
it so good than the last three years, it is on record that, they have never
produced in larger quantity than in the last years. It is also on record that,
rice farmers have received huge intervention under the Central Bank of
Nigeria’s Anchor Borrower programme.
These, in addition to the federal government’s
policy on rice importation have gingered rice production business in Kano
state. It also resulted in the setting up of several new mega rice mills in the
state.
ADVERTISEMENT
A visit by our reporter to some markets in the
state revealed that, local rice is enjoying a great patronage and in constant
demand. It was gathered that, despite smugglers’ attempt to defy the
importation policy, the local rice sells at a higher price than the smuggled
rice.
Rice Farmers Association of Nigeria (RIFAN)
Kano state chapter chairman Alhaji Abubakar Haruna Aliyu stated that, the measure
taken by the federal government has boosted rice business not only in Kano
state but in the whole country. He added that Nigerians are now confident in
patronising local rice as its quality has been improved greatly.
ADVERTISEMENT
Investigation in different major markets in
Kano has revealed that there is scarcity of foreign rice as the locally
produced rice floods the market. Many rice dealers in the state attributed the
development to measures put in place by the state’s Command of the Nigerian Custom
Service which they said has led to tremendous successes in checkmating
activities of smugglers of the commodity.
The Nigeria Customs Service, Kano/ Jigawa
Command, in January 2019 alone confiscated over 3,000 bags of foreign rice
smuggled into the country valued at N100 million.
Singer market’s Public Relations Officer (PRO)
of the service, Alhaji Musa Nabanki, stated that the closure of the land border
by the federal government and the clampdown on rice smugglers by the men of the
Customs were the main reasons behind the scarcity of imported rice.
According to Nabanki the activities of the
Customs had thrown a lots of marketers involved with the smuggled rice into
financial crisis while many were facing trial at courts.
He further stated that, with the rise in rice
demand the locally produced rice was gradually becoming scarce and its price
had gone up.
According to him, locally produced rice now
goes at N15,800 per bag while the foreign is now sold at N14,200.
A rice dealer Malam Musa Gantsa spoke passionately
on the situation saying that, the locally produced rice had poor quality and
not encouraging as companies empowered by the government to produce standard
and qualitative local rice had failed to do so woefully and as a result, no
marketer in his right frame of mind would want to commit his resources into
what would yield him no profit.
The business man pleaded with the authorities
of the Nigeria Customs Service to consider their plights and sit on a round
table with them so as to further discuss and agree on better ways of doing
their business to avoid going contrary to the Customs laws in order to salvage
the situation.
According to the Customs area Comptroller Nasir
Ahamad, the ban on foreign rice was a federal government’s policy that rice
should not be imported through the land borders, so as to encourage
self-sufficiency in rice production in the country.
He said, “Reducing this will save us our
foreign exchange and create employment.”
Ahmad however encouraged the local millers to
increase their level of production so that they could flood the market with
more of their products at good price which would further cripple the demand for
the imported product.
“Once they flood the markets with their goods
at affordable price the foreign rice will naturally disappear from the markets
as no one will go for it,” he said.
Furthermore, the area comptroller said, “no
country would depend on another to feed its citizens, to even say the product
is scarce means it is still available in the market and that what is left is to
hear that, foreign rice has completely disappeared from the market.
“We owe it a duty to this country to stop the
importation of such products and become self sufficient, and we owe it a duty
to the country to ensure that unemployment, as a result of activities of
smugglers which cripples local businesses, is reduced to the barest minimum.
“We would put more officers on the roads to
look for any smuggled rice that is coming in and stop them before they get into
our markets so that from scarcity it will turn to not available that’s what we
want to hear.”
He said he would not discuss anything that has
to do with rice and other banned goods with anybody as he had no such powers.
In Memory: Michael C. Harper
USA Rice extends condolences to the
family and friends of Michael C. Harper who passed away unexpectedly last
Tuesday, February 12. He was 62 years old. Mike worked for FMC
Corporation for 39 years as an ag chemical sales rep, and most recently, as the
industry relations manager. He graduated from Purdue University in with a
degree in agriculture economics and was member of the Phi Delta Theta
fraternity. Mike was involved in Missouri FFA and the University of
Missouri School of Agriculture, and enjoyed fishing, hunting, and gardening.
"Mike was a true friend of agriculture promoting ag wherever he went," said Don Johnson, a friend and coworker at FMC. "He never met a stranger, always wore a smile, and had a great wit about him. Two years ago, Mike took over when Rick Kesler retired as our industry relations manager. In his new position, Mike was not afraid to offer up new ideas or insight on how to advance the commodity groups he worked with to make them more pertinent to the world of agriculture. Mike will truly be missed by the agricultural industry."
Expressions of sympathy may be made in Mike's honor to the Indiana FFA; Phi Delta Theta Fraternity, Theta Chapter, Purdue University; Phi Delta Theta at Purdue Alumni Relations Center (P.O. Box 7007, Alberta Lee, MN 56007-8007); and the University of Missouri School of Agriculture (please choose Division of Applied Sciences).
"Mike was a true friend of agriculture promoting ag wherever he went," said Don Johnson, a friend and coworker at FMC. "He never met a stranger, always wore a smile, and had a great wit about him. Two years ago, Mike took over when Rick Kesler retired as our industry relations manager. In his new position, Mike was not afraid to offer up new ideas or insight on how to advance the commodity groups he worked with to make them more pertinent to the world of agriculture. Mike will truly be missed by the agricultural industry."
Expressions of sympathy may be made in Mike's honor to the Indiana FFA; Phi Delta Theta Fraternity, Theta Chapter, Purdue University; Phi Delta Theta at Purdue Alumni Relations Center (P.O. Box 7007, Alberta Lee, MN 56007-8007); and the University of Missouri School of Agriculture (please choose Division of Applied Sciences).
USA Rice in the Middle of
International Trade Hub
By Sarah Moran
DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES -- The 24th Gulfood Show, going on here
from February 17-21, is the largest annual food, beverage, and hospitality
trade show in the world, attracting traders and food professionals from all
over the world. And USA Rice is in the
middle of the mix with a booth in the USA National Pavilion staffed by USA Rice
members representing all different types of U.S. rice.
"Rice is a very important food in this part of the
world," said Eszter Somogyi, USA Rice marketing program director who is in
Dubai for the show. "USA Rice is
here talking about U.S. rice quality, food safety, and logistical
reliability. We then connect potential
importers with our members."
Since its launch in 1987, the international exhibition has grown to
promote Food & Beverage trade between more than 180 countries. In 2018, Gulfood set records with 97,000
visitors attending and more than 5,000 companies exhibiting their food
products. These numbers are expected to
be bigger in 2019.
"The important thing about the Gulfood Show is that it
attracts buyers not only from the Gulf region but from all over the Middle
East, and North and West Africa," said Somogyi. "It provides a great opportunity for our
members to establish new business contacts as well as to conduct trade servicing
for existing trade partners in the region."
USA Rice members at the booth (from left): Ana Lefort, Supreme
Rice; Derek Alarcon, Farmers' Rice Cooperative, Radi Karaman, Sun Valley;
Eszter Somogyi, USA Rice; Steve Vargas, Sun Valley; Sabrina Schumacher, ACC;
and Javier Molins, The Rice Company.
USA Rice daily
Scientists Confident GMO Will Better Lives Of
Rice Farmers In Ghana
By Modern
Ghana
There are high expectations
Genetically Modified Organism (GMO) rice currently under trials in Ghana will
better the lives of ordinary rice farmers once released onto the market. Known
as the Nitrogen-use Efficient, Water-use Efficient andSalt Tolerant
(NEWEST) rice, it has been engineered to use less nitrogen, be drought
tolerant, be capable of growing in a salty environment and still give a good
yield.
“This new variety will help us
boost productivity and ensure farmers get a better yield from each hectare of
farmland,” Dr. Maxwell Darko Asante, Plant Breeder and Principal Investigator
in charge of the NEWEST rice project told Joy News in an interview.
Rice is a major staple food in
Ghana and is the second most consumed cereal after maize. But estimates from
the Ministry of Food and Agriculture indicate productivity on Ghanaian rice
farms currently is only about 46 per cent of potential yield because of
environmental and other challenges.
Soils in most parts of Africa
have high levels of nitrogen deficiency and this has been identified as one of
the major factors limiting yield on rice farms in Ghana. Farmers thus have to
apply vast quantities of fertilizer to farm fields every planting season in
other to grow rice successfully.
Additionally, poor rainfall
patterns as a result of climate change limit productivity on fields because
more than 90% of farm fields in Ghana are not irrigated. In coastal Ghana, high
levels of salt in soils also makes growing rice there difficult.
“The challenges with rice
production are several. Sometimes you apply a lot of fertilizer to the field
and nothing changes. It’s always a big challenge. And the weather is not
helping either,” rice farmer at Asutsuare in Southern Ghana John Awuku Dziwornu
complained in an interview.
These challenges are what the
NEWEST rice hopes to fix. Scientists at the Crop Research Institute of the Council
for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in Ghana are leading ongoing
trials to introduce the new variety in the country.
Through the work of
California-based Arcadia Biosciences, the International Center for Tropical
Agriculture, and the African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF), genes
responsible for water efficiency, salt tolerance and nitrogen efficiency have
been introduced into a popular rice variety in Africa, NERICA. Research
institutions in Ghana, Uganda and Nigeria are evaluating the varieties to
introduce the traits into local rice varieties.
“For this project, we have two
different products that are coming out. First is nitrogen use efficiency alone.
Then the second covers all three. We have not done field trials on the combined
traits yet.
But for the nitrogen use
efficiency, we have evaluated and screened it in the field and selected the
best fertile ones that have the trait and performing well in the field,”
Francis Onyekachi Nwankwo who is programmes officer at the AATF explained in an
interview.
“This new variety will boost
local rice production. We are looking at a space of about four years from now
because we have to do environmental safety assessment and food safety
assessment. Within four years, it should be able to get to the hands of the
farmers,” he added.
Onyekechi Nwankwo observes the
challenge with nitrogen deficiency and its impact on rice production in Africa
is worrying.
“With nitrogen use efficiency,
you are talking about nutrients. For everything you plant, you need nutrients.
With rice, nitrogen is needed in the soil to make it grow well. In a soil that
is deficient of nitrogen, you can see that you will have a poor harvest. And
looking at African environment, fertilizer which gives nitrogen is not very
much valuable and not affordable to farmers,” he explained.
Thus far, the trials in Ghana
have shown good results with one of the three desired traits. The Nitrogen
Use-efficiency (NUE) trait was introduced into an African rice NERICA and
tested alongside its conventional counterpart.
Confined field trials that
compared the new GMO variety with traditional varieties showed yield increased
by between 14 and 25 percent in favour of the new variety.
Dr. Maxwell Asante explains the
next phase of the project will see the backcrossing of the desired traits from
the GMO NERICA varieties into popular local rice varieties in Ghana.
“So far, it’s just the NERICA4
which was transformed. Once the gene is de-regulated, then we can backcross it
into most of the popular jasmine types that we have locally. That is the plan.
“If everything goes on as
planned, for most of our popular varieties, we will have NUE or NEWEST versions
of it,” the Principal Investigator Dr. Asante explained.
“You know our soils are depleted.
Farmers don’t get the productivity that they deserve. If this works, it means
farmers can get good yield by applying lower yields of fertilizer. So they save
money, and they make better yield,” he added.
When the three stack traits of
the NEWEST rice are finally introduced into local varieties of rice, other
benefits will be seen.
“Peasant farmers who don’t have
the financial strength to irrigate their fields can use these varieties and the
farms will still do well. Marginal lands that farmers couldn’t plant on could
make use of these new varieties… In the coastal area where a lot of the lands
are salty, these new varieties will do well there,” Dr. Asante added.
A recent economic study in Ghana
has predicted the adoption of the new GMO variety could add up to $75.7m
(GH₵334m) to the rice production economy over the next six years if released
this year.
The study predicts that if
regulatory processes delay the introduction of the new rice by five years, the
rice sector will lose $45.3m (GH₵200m).
Charles Afriyie Debrah who is
Biosafety Officer at the Crop Research Institute of the CSIR says ownership of
the new GMO varieties will remain Ghanaian. He assures it may be possible for
farmers to re-plant their seeds if they so wish.
“Our GMO rice that we conducted
the experiment on, that crop, we have done about four trials. And it was based
on the seed that was saved. So there are those seeds that you can re-plant like
this new GMO variety,” he explained.
Farmer John Awuku Dziwornu is
excited about the difference the new GMO rice variety will make in the country.
“A lot of work has been ongoing
to produce improved rice varieties that can help increase productivity. We
expect that the NEWEST variety to benefit farmers and Ghanaians in general,”
Mr. Dziwornu said.
It could take about half a decade
before the novel varieties are eventually available on the market for farmers
to make use of but already, players in the rice industry are expectant.
---Myjoyonline
Comments
Greg Lannit | 2/20/2019 11:37:00 PM
Has this GMO rice been subjected to rigorous safety testing? On
animals and on the environment? If not, only fools will eat it, and without a
viable market, this crop will certainly be an economic failure. Look carefully
at the experience with GMO crops in the U.S. Currently over 50% of the
population is actively avoiding GMO foods and GMO food ingredients when
shopping because of health concerns and that percentage grows every year.
Louisiana: Row Rice Gains Interest in
Northeast Parishes
February 19, 2019
Polypipe doing its work in row rice. Photo: Jarrod Hardke,
University of Arkansas
Rice farmers in northeast
Louisiana heard advice from LSU AgCenter scientists about growing their 2019
crop at a meeting in Rayville on Feb. 14.
They also heard some potentially
good news from the president of USA Rice about possible rice sales to China.
AgCenter rice specialist Dustin
Harrell said farmers who used Provisia herbicide last year
were pleased with their first-crop yields and its ability to control red rice
that had become herbicide-resistant.
Row rice is becoming more popular
with more than 100,000 acres in Arkansas and about 5,000 acres in northeast
Louisiana last year and the expectation that the practice will be more
widespread this year.
Farmer Elliot
Colvin, of Richland Parish, said it was his first year to grow
a crop using the row rice method, and he was surprised how easy it was. “I was
thoroughly impressed,” he said.
Colvin said it’s best to flush a
field after it’s planted to see if the water is flowing as expected before the
rice is growing.
AgCenter agent Keith
Collins conducted a row rice study using Colvin’s field, a
field in Morehouse Parish and a third in Tensas Parish. The method can save
water, he said.
Collins said the VandeVen farm
field in Tensas Parish used 169 pounds of nitrogen per acre, and it yielded 239
bushels, or 66 barrels, of rice per acre.
Colvin used 214 pounds of
nitrogen per acre with a yield of 235 bushels or 65 barrels of rice per acre.
At Jason
Waller’s farm in Morehouse Parish, a total of 231 pounds
of nitrogen was used, and the yield was 216 bushels or 60 barrels of rice per
acre.
All three fields were planted
with hybrid rice.
Colvin said areas of a field
where an airplane-applied fertilizer overlapped had bad disease problems and
plants falling over.
“Definitely, I’ll be going down
on my nitrogen,” Colvin said. He said he probably will use no more than 170 to
180 pounds per acre this year.
AgCenter plant pathologist Don
Groth said the sheath blight disease that has become
resistant to strobilurin fungicide has continued its spread and has been found
in Mississippi. A new fungicide, Amistar Top, was not as effective as hoped
last year, he said.
Many farmers use too much
nitrogen with the expectation of higher yields, but those yield increases can
come with a penalty. “The more nitrogen you have out there, the more disease,”
he said.
Farmers with sandy soil should be
vigilant about maintaining a flood to prevent blast disease, he said.
Groth said two lines of
Clearfield rice grown in Puerto Rico were being harvested by AgCenter rice
breeder Adam Famoso, who will plant the
seed in foundation fields this spring at the LSU AgCenter H. Rouse Caffey Rice
Research Station. Groth said both lines have better yield potential than the
variety CL153.
Groth also said a new Provisia
line harvested in Puerto Rico out-yields the current Provisia, PVL01, by 10
percent. A new conventional long-grain line is under development with yields 8
to 10 percent better than the Cheniere variety.
Ben McKnight, AgCenter research associate for weed science, said fields that
will be planted with Provisia rice should be clean in preparation for planting
by controlling weeds with a mixture of Command and Sharpen, Prowl or RiceOne
herbicides. That application will enable Provisia to be more effective on red
rice, he said.
Permit can be mixed with
Provisia, but farmers should avoid mixing Provisia with propanil, Grandstand,
Grasp or Regiment, he said. Rice at the one-to-three-leaf stage can be killed
by Provisia.
AgCenter entomologist Sebe Brown said
Fortenza seed treatment used with CruiserMaxx is comparable to Dermacor as a
seed treatment for rice water weevils. But it’s likely that Fortenza is toxic
on crawfish.
The new insecticide Tenchu is
effective on stink bugs, but it may be too cost prohibitive to use in certain
situations where a pyrethroid is a more economical option.
Brown reminded farmers that
acephate cannot legally be used on rice to control stink bugs.
Betsy Ward, USA Rice president, said hopes are high that China will follow
through on the potential purchase of American rice. She said China has approved
seven facilities in the U.S. to handle rice, and U.S. trade officials are in
China now to work on trade issues. “They feel like they’re going to throw us a
bone and buy some rice,” she said.
Ward said the new trade agreement
with Canada and Mexico doesn’t change the U.S. rice trade with those two
countries. But Mexico isn’t buying as much American rice.
Mexico, the No. 1 U.S. rice
customer, had been buying 95 percent of its rice from the U.S., but now that’s
dropped to 75 percent. “Just the rhetoric has hurt our sales there. The
Mexicans have started looking at other suppliers because they don’t know what’s
going to happen,” Ward said.
Most of the U.S. rice sold to
Europe goes to the United Kingdom, she said, so Brexit could actually help the
U.S. sell more rice there because England would not be under the trade
restrictions of the European Union.
Michael Klein, USA Rice vice president for marketing and communications,
reviewed two promotion projects.
The USA Rice “Ride with Rice
Tour” covered 5,000 miles in nine states. He said 3,000 rice cookers were given
away on the tour that started in Crowley, Louisiana, and ended in San Diego,
California. The Louisiana Rice Promotion Board and the Louisiana Department of
Agriculture and Forestry used a billboard and radio spots to promote rice in
September.
Ben Mosely, USA Rice vice president of government affairs, said crop
insurance for row rice could be available in 2021, and alternate wetting and
drying could be insurable by next year.
Rogers Leonard, AgCenter associate vice president, said the Louisiana Rice
Research Board used $1 million from a free-trade agreement with Colombia to
fund an academic chair aimed at rice research. Interest from the fund will be
used in perpetuity for research only, and the board hopes to increase the
funding later. “Those funds will never go away,” he said.
The chair is a novel approach to
funding research. “Sugarcane is trying to do the same thing, as well as some
other commodities,” he said.
Leonard said the Louisiana Rice
Research Board has funded two major rice research projects in northeast
Louisiana, and a research entomologist and a soil fertility specialist will be
hired at the LSU AgCenter Tom Scott Research and Extension Center at Winnsboro.
“There is considerable activity for rice research in this region,” he said.
AI researcher argues machine learning discoveries require checking
Feb
20, 2019 | Chris Burt
CATEGORIES Biometric R&D | Biometrics
News
The accuracy and reproducibility of scientific discoveries made
with machine-learning techniques should be questioned by scientists until
systems can be developed that effectively critique themselves, according to a
researcher from Rice University.
EurekaAlert! reports
that Genevera Allen, who is an associate professor of statistics, computer
science and electrical and computer engineering at Rice and of
pediatrics-neurology at Baylor College of Medicine recently addressed the topic
at the 2019 Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of
Science (AAAS).
Allen says that it appears that discoveries currently being made
by applying machine learning to large data sets can probably not be trusted
without confirmation, “but work is underway on next-generation machine-learning
systems that will assess the uncertainty and reproducibility of their
predictions.”
Developing predictive models has been one of the focuses of the
ML field, according to Allen.
“A lot of these techniques are designed to always make a
prediction,” she notes. “They never come back with ‘I don’t know,’ or ‘I didn’t
discover anything,’ because they aren’t made to.”
Machine learning technologies lead an explosion of new AI patent applications, according to research from
the World Intellectual Property Organization, and the Association for Computing
Machinery recently added a Conference on Fairness, Accountability and Transparency to
its lineup for 2019 to address increasing interest in how AI systems arrive at
their conclusions.
Vietnam’s
Mekong Delta may be submerged by 2100: scientists
Nearly
the entire Mekong Delta region of Vietnam – an area that makes up 50 percent of
the national rice output, 65 percent of seafood, and 70 percent of fruit –
could sink underwater by the year 2100, scientists from the Netherlands’
Utrecht University have warned.
Seawater
attacks dyke in Kien Giang
The
scientists created a delta-wide numerical model and use that as the basis of
future predictions. They found that the heavy extraction of groundwater, when
combined with the rate of sea-level increase due to climate change that is
occurring quicker than forecast, is causing significant land subsidence and
could result in the submergence of the entire delta in the future.
Philip
Minderhoud, a subsurface and groundwater systems researcher at Utrecht
University who led the study, said groundwater extraction was one of the most
important in a raft of factors causing the delta to sink on average by about
1cm per year.
In
addition, the sea level is rising at a rate of about 3 to 4mm per year.
The
Mekong Delta has many opportunities for development, but also faces a number of
challenges, especially in climate change and rising sea levels.
Facing
this situation, the Vietnamese Government has issued a decree regulating
restrictions on the exploitation of groundwater in freshwater areas in the
region. Relevant agencies are also drafting policies to cope with factors that
erode the delta’s land.
Vietnam
is scheduled to hold a forum on sustainable Mekong Delta development in
response to climate change this year.
The
delta makes up 12 percent of the nation’s total land surface area and 19
percent of its population. The region features a dense network of rivers and
canals, holding strengths in agriculture development, food industry, tourism,
and renewable energy.
The
delta is the biggest agriculture production centre in Vietnam with 95 percent
of rice and 60 percent of fish for exports.
This
is also a favourable place for trade exchanges with countries in the
Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the Greater Mekong Subregion
(GMS). –VNA
Gov’t urged to ensure support, benefits for rice farmers
Updated February 20, 2019, 10:41 PM
By Hannah Torregoza
Re-electionist Senator Juan
Edgardo “Sonny” Angara has called on the government to ensure that support and
benefits for farmers under the newly enacted Rice Tariffication Act reach farm
workers to help them cope with its impact to their livelihood.
Senator Juan Edgardo “Sonny” Angara
(Sonny Angara Facebook page / MANILA BULLETIN)
(Sonny Angara Facebook page / MANILA BULLETIN)
The newly enacted law aims to
lift the quantitative restrictions on rice imports to lower the cost of rice to
a level more affordable for Filipinos.
“The government must ensure that
support measures under the law will be fully realized for the benefit of our
local rice farmers,” Angara said while campaigning in New Ecija, which is
dubbed as the “rice granary of the Philippines.”
Republic Act 11203 or the Rice
Tariffication Act lifts the import restrictions on rice, subject to 35 percent
tariff for rice from the ASEAN and 50 percent for rice from non-ASEAN
countries.
Angara assured that the law has
built-in safeguards to protect local farmers from the impact of a free flow of
imports.
Likewise, the law mandates the
creation of a Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund (RCEF) that has an initial
funding of P10- included in the General Appropriations Act (GAA).
The RCEF seeks to provide various
forms of assistance to rice farmers, such as development of inbred rice seeds,
rice farm equipment, and skills enhancement.
The fund will also serve as a
special safeguard to protect the rice industry, which will be distributed,
accordingly – 50 percent for machinery and equipment; 30 percent for rice seed
development, propagation and promotion; 10 percent for expanded rice credit
assistance; and 10 percent for rice extension services.
President Duterte signed the
measure into law last February 14. The said law strips the National Food
Authority (NFA) of its regulatory powers.
Rice imports always contentious
The Jakarta Post
Jakarta / Thu, February 21, 2019 / 08:44 am
Stevedores unload bags of rice from a truck at
Cipinang Market in East Jakarta in this file photo. (The Jakarta Post/Ben
Latuihamallo)
The rationale behind the
government’s policy on rice stockpiling, partly from imports, which President
Joko “Jokowi” Widodo explained during the second round of the presidential
debates on Sunday, makes sense. Particularly so in view of the vulnerability of
rice crops to bad weather and pest attacks.
There are several other factors
that require the government to build up a contingency stock that can be
transported to anywhere across the archipelago to meet unexpected needs: the
country is prone to natural disasters, most of the national rice production is
in Java, subsidized rice is a component of the social assistance program and
only a few countries in the world export rice.
The government has since the early
1970s stockpiled rice through the National Logistics Agency (Bulog) with a view
to shielding consumers from food price spikes and ensuring stable prices for
both consumers and farmers.
Because rice is the main staple for
the majority of the people and most rural households are net rice consumers and
rice weighs heavily in the consumer price index (inflation), the government
does not want to take even the smallest risk of being caught unprepared when
demand rises sharply as a result of one of the factors cited above.
Waiting to import rice only after a
major shortage arises would be calamitous because what starts as an isolated
shortage can quickly escalate into a crisis during the time lag between
ordering the imports and the arrival of the shipments.
Certainly, the efficiency and
effectiveness of the management of the stocks depends on the accuracy of
domestic production and consumption so that the volume of reserves is not
excessive but simply adequate to protect the country from volatile world prices
or low production.
The present policy of controlling
rice prices within an annually reviewed range of minimum and maximum prices to
ensure fairness for both consumers and producers and importing rice only as a
contingency measure has been implemented over the past 45 years.
The perpetual subject of contention
has always been the reliability and accuracy of the data on production and
consumption which, the government itself has admitted, vary widely from one
ministry to another.
So when Jokowi said during the
debates that Indonesia produced 33 million tons last year while consumption was
estimated at only 29 million tons, Prabowo Subianto questioned why the
government still imported rice last year at the expense of domestic farmers.
We should not get lost in endless
debate as to whether Indonesia needs rice imports or not. We should instead
focus on empowering the farmers who produce that staple, providing them with
extension services, good production inputs and high-yield varieties.
Rice imports are necessary from
time to time depending on the need for stockpiling. But the fact is that
imports so far have never exceeded 10 percent of the national demand and
imported rice has never been released onto the market below the fixed minimum
price for local rice.
Philippines may
see a record level of rice imports
| Publication date 20 February 2019 | 15:50 ICT
Workers unload 10,800 tons of rice from Vietnam — one of the
world’s biggest producers of the grain and main source of Philippine rice imports.
AFP
THE Philippines may see the
biggest volume of rice imports this year at four million tonnes following the
passage of the rice import liberalisation bill.
National Food Authority (NFA)
acting administrator Tomas Escarez on Monday said the agency had already
received more than 200 applications from prospective traders and importers.
The overall volume from these
applications is seen to reach two million tonnes, 20 per cent of which has
already arrived in the country.
In addition, listed AgriNurture
Inc (ANI) president and CEO Antonio Tiu confirmed to the Inquirer that its deal
with Vinafood II, Vietnam’s largest grains exporter, would still push through
this year.
The exporter agreed to
exclusively supply ANI annually with two million tonnes of long grain rice
valued close to $1 billion.
In a text message, Tiu said the
company was only waiting for the law’s implementing rules and regulations
before it would submit an application. It plans to directly sell the staple to
the market.
Under the recently signed Rice
Import Liberalization Act, importers need to secure only a permit from the
Bureau of Plant Industry and pay a 35 and 50 per cent tariff for imports from
Southeast Asian countries and non-Asean countries, respectively.
If the imports push through, the
total volume will surpass the highest recorded rice imports in the country
during the Arroyo administration at 2.34 million tonnes.
Unlike in Vietnam and Thailand
where farmers can produce a kilo of rice at six pesos ($0.11), Filipino farmers
spend 12 pesos a kg.
Reports from the Philippine
Advisory Farmers Board showed the farm-gate price of paddy rice has already
declined to 14 pesos per kg in some rice-producing provinces. Meanwhile, in the
country’s rice granaries, the recorded farm-gate price for paddy rice was at
18-19 pesos per kg.
Based on the Philippine
Statistics Authority’s price monitoring report, the average farm-gate price of
paddy rice as of the first week of February was at 19.70 pesos per kg. This was
the fifth consecutive week of a price downtrend.
However, Agriculture Secretary
Emmanuel Pinol said on his Facebook page that the falling price of paddy rice
was not due to the recently enacted law but due to “speculation fuelled by the
anticipated ’flooding’ of the market with cheap imported rice”. PHILIPPINE
DAILY INQUIRER/ANN
Scientists
confident of GMO rice under trial in Ghana
There are high expectations
Genetically Modified Organism (GMO) rice currently under trials in Ghana will
better the lives of ordinary rice farmers once released onto the market.
Known as the Nitrogen-use
Efficient, Water-use Efficient and Salt Tolerant (NEWEST) rice, it has been
engineered to use less nitrogen, be drought tolerant, be capable of growing in
a salty environment and still give a good yield.
“This new variety will help us
boost productivity and ensure farmers get a better yield from each hectare of
farmland,” Dr. Maxwell Darko Asante, Plant Breeder and Principal Investigator
in charge of the NEWEST rice project told Joy News in an interview.
Rice is a major staple food in
Ghana and is the second most consumed cereal after maize. But estimates from
the Ministry of Food and Agriculture indicate productivity on Ghanaian rice
farms currently is only about 46 per cent of potential yield because of
environmental and other challenges.
Soils in most parts of Africa have
high levels of nitrogen deficiency and this has been identified as one of the
major factors limiting yield on rice farms in Ghana. Farmers thus have to apply
vast quantities of fertilizer to farm fields every planting season in other to
grow rice successfully.
Additionally, poor rainfall
patterns as a result of climate change limit productivity on fields because
more than 90% of farm fields in Ghana are not irrigated. In coastal Ghana, high
levels of salt in soils also makes growing rice there difficult.
“The challenges with rice
production are several. Sometimes you apply a lot of fertilizer to the field
and nothing changes. It’s always a big challenge. And the weather is not
helping either,” rice farmer at Asutsuare in Southern Ghana John Awuku Dziwornu
complained in an interview.
These challenges are what the
NEWEST rice hopes to fix. Scientists at the Crop Research Institute of the
Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in Ghana are leading
ongoing trials to introduce the new variety in the country.
Through the work of
California-based Arcadia Biosciences, the International Center for Tropical
Agriculture, and the African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF), genes
responsible for water efficiency, salt tolerance and nitrogen efficiency have
been introduced into a popular rice variety in Africa, NERICA. Research
institutions in Ghana, Uganda and Nigeria are evaluating the varieties to
introduce the traits into local rice varieties.
“For this project, we have two
different products that are coming out. First is nitrogen use efficiency alone.
Then the second covers all three. We have not done field trials on the combined
traits yet.
But for the nitrogen use
efficiency, we have evaluated and screened it in the field and selected the
best fertile ones that have the trait and performing well in the field,”
Francis Onyekachi Nwankwo who is programmes officer at the AATF explained in an
interview.
“This new variety will boost local
rice production. We are looking at a space of about four years from now because
we have to do environmental safety assessment and food safety assessment.
Within four years, it should be able to get to the hands of the farmers,” he
added.
Onyekechi Nwankwo observes the
challenge with nitrogen deficiency and its impact on rice production in Africa
is worrying.
“With nitrogen use efficiency, you
are talking about nutrients. For everything you plant, you need nutrients. With
rice, nitrogen is needed in the soil to make it grow well. In a soil that is
deficient of nitrogen, you can see that you will have a poor harvest. And
looking at African environment, fertilizer which gives nitrogen is not very
much valuable and not affordable to farmers,” he explained.
Thus far, the trials in Ghana have
shown good results with one of the three desired traits. The Nitrogen
Use-efficiency (NUE) trait was introduced into an African rice NERICA and
tested alongside its conventional counterpart.
Confined field trials that compared
the new GMO variety with traditional varieties showed yield increased by
between 14 and 25 percent in favour of the new variety.
Dr. Maxwell Asante explains the
next phase of the project will see the backcrossing of the desired traits from
the GMO NERICA varieties into popular local rice varieties in Ghana.
“So far, it’s just the NERICA4
which was transformed. Once the gene is de-regulated, then we can backcross it
into most of the popular jasmine types that we have locally. That is the plan.
“If everything goes on as planned,
for most of our popular varieties, we will have NUE or NEWEST versions of it,”
the Principal Investigator Dr. Asante explained.
“You know our soils are depleted.
Farmers don’t get the productivity that they deserve. If this works, it means
farmers can get good yield by applying lower yields of fertilizer. So they save
money, and they make better yield,” he added.
When the three stack traits of the
NEWEST rice are finally introduced into local varieties of rice, other benefits
will be seen.
“Peasant farmers who don’t have the
financial strength to irrigate their fields can use these varieties and the
farms will still do well. Marginal lands that farmers couldn’t plant on could
make use of these new varieties… In the coastal area where a lot of the lands
are salty, these new varieties will do well there,” Dr. Asante added.
A recent economic study in Ghana
has predicted the adoption of the new GMO variety could add up to $75.7m
(GH₵334m) to the rice production economy over the next six years if released
this year.
The study predicts that if
regulatory processes delay the introduction of the new rice by five years, the
rice sector will lose $45.3m (GH₵200m).
Charles Afriyie Debrah who is
Biosafety Officer at the Crop Research Institute of the CSIR says ownership of
the new GMO varieties will remain Ghanaian. He assures it may be possible for
farmers to re-plant their seeds if they so wish.
“Our GMO rice that we conducted the
experiment on, that crop, we have done about four trials. And it was based on
the seed that was saved. So there are those seeds that you can re-plant like
this new GMO variety,” he explained.
Farmer John Awuku Dziwornu is
excited about the difference the new GMO rice variety will make in the country.
“A lot of work has been ongoing to
produce improved rice varieties that can help increase productivity. We expect
that the NEWEST variety to benefit farmers and Ghanaians in general,” Mr.
Dziwornu said.
It could take about half a decade
before the novel varieties are eventually available on the market for farmers
to make use of but already, players in the rice industry are expectant.
‘Focus on rice
import rules, not NFA overhaul’
By
February 21, 2019
In
Photo: A man arranges sacks of National Food Authority (NFA) rice at the
agency’s warehouse in Quezon City in this file photo.
Last updated on February 21st, 2019 at 12:32 am
By Jasper Emmanuel Y. Arcalas
& Cai U. Ordinario
THE rice liberalization law will
take effect on March 5, but the government has not rolled out the new import
rules that will guide traders, according to a senior official of the Department
of Agriculture (DA).
In contrast, inordinate focus and
priority was accorded to restructuring the National Food Authority (NFA), a
matter that should have been the subject of a separate law, said one critic of
the rice tariffication measure.
“The real intention of the law
when you read it is to allow the importation of rice through tariffs. The
decision to insert the reorganization in the law raises questions considering
the significance of the measure. NFA is not only in charge of importation but
also food security. NFA’s food security functions were also removed from the
law,” lawyer Jose Manuel “Chel” Diokno said on Wednesday.
Agriculture Undersecretary
Segfredo R. Serrano had a similar view. He told the BusinessMirror that the
government should prioritize the crafting of new import procedures instead of
focusing on the restructuring of the NFA.
“What are the import rules [by
March 5]? The only thing clear [right now] is that the NFA is out of the
picture,” Serrano said in an interview on Wednesday.
The DA official said the import
procedures were not discussed during the last NFA Council (NFAC) meeting where
the collegial body approved a motion to fast-track the restructuring of the
food agency.
Sources told the BusinessMirror
that some importers and traders are already inquiring about the import
procedures, particularly the tariff payment process, under the new trade
regime.
NFA OIC-Administrator Tomas R.
Escarez said the food agency will stop accepting applications for its out-quota
importation program starting March 5.
The rice liberalization law only
states that interested importers must simply secure a sanitary phytosanitary
import clearance (SPIS) from the Bureau of Plant Industry (BPI) prior to
arrival of shipments.
Sought for comment, the National
Economic and Development Authority (Neda) said the importation rules for rice
have not yet been finalized and will still be subject to consultation with
stakeholders.
In a phone interview, Neda
Undersecretary Rosemarie G. Edillon told the BusinessMirror that the oversight
agency is recommending that consultations be done according to stakeholder
groups, such as farmers, millers and retailers. This proposal, however, will
still be presented to the Economic Development Cluster (EDC).
Edillon said the government aims
to complete the consultations and the implementing rules and regulations before
the law takes effect next month.
Safeguards
Diokno, a human-rights lawyer
gunning for a Senate seat under the Liberal Party, told the BusinessMirror that
the restructuring of the NFA should have been done via a separate measure.
Diokno said in an interview that
the restructuring of the NFA could jeopardize not only the livelihood of some
6,000 workers but also the country’s food security goals.
“The real intention of the law
when you read it is to allow the importation of rice through tariffs. The
decision to insert the reorganization in the law raises questions considering
the significance of the measure. NFA is not only in charge of importation but
also food security. NFA’s food security functions were also removed from the
law,” he said.
Diokno said a law usually
accompanies the government’s policy decision to restructure or abolish a
certain department. This is especially crucial for workers who depend on these
agencies for livelihood.
He noted that the new law does
not have provisions on what will be done to the affected NFA workers and
whether they will receive separation pay.
‘Ensure RCEF reaches farmers’
Because of this, Sen. Juan
Edgardo Angara prodded the Duterte administration to ensure that government
support, particularly the Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund (RCEF),
provided under the law will reach farm workers.
“The government must ensure that
support measures under the law will be fully realized for the benefit of our
local rice farmers,” Angara said.
He said the P10-billion RCEF
seeks to provide various forms of assistance to rice farmers, such as
development of inbred rice seeds, rice farm equipment and skills enhancement.
The fund, he said, will serve as
a special safeguard to protect the rice industry, which will be distributed,
accordingly: 50 percent for machinery and equipment; 30 percent for rice seed
development, propagation and promotion; 10 percent for expanded rice credit
assistance; and 10 percent for rice extension services.
Tariff rates
Serrano also said the new law did
not modify the applied rates on rice imports from Asean nations and outside
Asean countries.
The law, Serrano pointed out,
only specifies guidelines on what would be the bound rate for imported rice.
The bound rate refers to the maximum tariff that a country could impose on its
goods.
Under the provisions of the WTO
Agreement on Agriculture (AOA), a country must notify a bound rate for its
imports after it converts its quantitative restriction (QR) into ordinary
customs duties.
The applied tariff rate on rice
imports from non-Asean countries within the minimum access volume of 350,000
metric tons is 40 percent. This is stated in Executive Order (EO) 23 signed by
President Duterte in 2017, according to Serrano.
The current tariff rate of 50
percent for non-Asean rice imports will remain, Serrano added.
Rice imports from Asean
member-states will be slapped a tariff of 35 percent as negotiated under the
Asean Trade in Goods Agreement (Atiga) for both in-quota and out-quota.
“Not until there are new rates,
which are modified through procedures provided under the Customs Modernization
and Tariff Act, the applied tariff rates at present would remain,” Serrano
said.
The country’s notification of its
bound rate could be transmitted to the WTO later on, Serrano said.
RA 11203 states that the bound
rate for imports from Asean would be 35 percent. The rate for non-Asean imports
will be based on pertinent legal texts of the WTO under the AOA.
However, Department of
Agriculture (DA) Policy Research Service Chief Noel A. Padre said the
Philippines has committed a 40-percent bound rate on its in-quota rice imports
long ago.
WTO documents showed that the
Philippines scheduled the 40-percent bound rate on in-quota imports in 2005.
What the Philippines would need
to notify the WTO about is its out-quota bound rate for non-Asean imports,
which under the law would be at least 180 percent, Padre said.
The law stipulated that the bound
rate for non-Asean out-quota rice imports could be higher than 180 if it would
be determined by the Tariff Commission and approved by the Neda Board through
pertinent procedures. The law gives the TC and Neda Board 45 days to undertake
such process.
The 180-percent bound rate was a
proposal of the DA, which it computed through the formula provided under the
Annex 5 of the WTO AOA.
Rice
tariffication regime to start March 3 –DOF
By Panay
News
Thursday, February 21, 2019
“We urge the business community to thoroughly
read the measure, rather than base their positions on hearsay and opinions of
uninformed people, so that you can work with the government in explaining the
true benefits of the TRABAHO bill to the public,” says Finance secretary Carlos
Dominguez III. BWORLDONLINE.COM
MANILA – The tariffed regime on
rice imports, along with the transfer of the National Food Authority (NFA)
under the Department of Agriculture (DA), is scheduled to start next month, as
approved by the NFA Council on Monday.
March 3 is a Sunday and that is
when the tariffs on rice importation will be implemented, the Department of
Finance (DOF) said in a statement.
“The Council also approved the
transfer of the NFA functions to the Department of Agriculture as provided
under the rice tariffication law, effective March 3.”
The NFA Council convened on
Monday to fine-tune the implementing rules and regulations (IRR) of the rice
tariffication law.
Presidential spokesperson
Salvador Panelo confirmed last week that President Rodrigo Duterte approved the
measure imposing a 35-percent tariff on imports from neighbors in Southeast
Asia.
The measure allows unlimited
importation of rice as long as private sector traders secure a phytosanitary
permit from the Bureau of Plant Industry and pay the 35-percent tariff on
shipments from Southeast Asia.
The law earmarks P10 billion for
the Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund, of which P5 billion will be allotted
to farm mechanization and P3 billion to seedlings. The fund intends to ensure
that rice imports won’t drown out the agriculture sector and rob farmers of
their livelihood.
Monday’s meeting was led by
Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III as Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñol,
who chairs the Council, was unavailable.
During the meeting, the council
approved a motion instructing the NFA to submit a restructuring plan within 30
days, instead of an earlier proposal of 180 days.
“Our objective in liberalizing
rice imports is to bring down the costs of the staple. Our price is 50 percent
higher than the others, including Singapore, which does not produce rice. Will
it take us 180 days to effect a reduction in the cost of living of our people?”
Dominguez was quoted as saying during the meeting.
Also present at the meeting were
Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas deputy governor Diwa Guinigundo, Agriculture
undersecretary Ariel Cayanan, Finance undersecretary Karl Kendrick Chua, and
national treasurer Rosalia de Leon.
Monetary Board Member Bruce
Tolentino, and representatives from the NFA, NEDA, Land Bank of the
Philippines, DA, Department of Trade and Industry, and Department of Social
Welfare and Development also attended the meeting. (GMA News)
Palace vows
transparency in usage of P10B rice fund
By Panay
News
Thursday, February 21, 2019
Woman
farmers hand-harvest bundles of rice grain at the Batad Rice Terraces in
Ifugao, Cordillera Administrative Region. PHOTO FROM AVIANQUESTS.COM
MANILA – Malacañang on Tuesday
vowed transparency in the use of the P10-billion Rice Competitiveness
Enhancement Fund (RCEF) as safeguard against corruption.
“Good governance is the hallmark
of the Duterte administration and the President has zero tolerance against
corruption and wastage of taxpayers’ money. We continue to exercise
accountability and transparency in all levels of the bureaucracy,” presidential
spokesperson Salvador Panelo said.
Signed by President Rodrigo
Duterte on Feb. 14, Republic Act 11203 or the Rice Tariffication Act lifts the
quantitative restrictions on rice and allow private traders to import the
commodity from countries of their choice.
The measure allows unlimited
importation of rice as long as private sector traders secure a phytosanitary
permit from the Bureau of Plant Industry and pay the 35-percent tariff on
shipments from Southeast Asia.
The law earmarks P10 billion for
the RCEF, of which P5 billion will be allotted to farm mechanization, P3
billion to seedlings and P1 billion to expanded rice credit assistance.
The fund intends to ensure that
rice imports won’t drown out the agriculture sector and rob farmers of their
livelihood.
Panelo said the secretary of
Agriculture would be accountable and responsible for the Rice Fund.
He also said the Department of
Agriculture, in consultation with farmers’ cooperatives and organizations as
well as local government units, will validate and update the masterlist of
eligible beneficiaries, which include farmers, farmworkers, rice cooperatives
and associations.
The Congressional Oversight
Committee on Agricultural and Fisheries Modernization (COCAFM) shall also
conduct a periodic review of the Rice Fund.
Panelo urged rice farmer
representatives and stakeholders to participate in the discussion and review of
the crafting of the Rice Industry Roadmap and Internal Rules and Regulations
with other concerned government agencies to ensure the effective and efficient
implementation of the new measure, including assuring that safeguards aimed at
eliminating corruption are in place.
Trade secretary Ramon Lopez on
Tuesday said cheaper rice would be available in the market starting mid-March
or by the time imported rice start arriving in the country.
Lopez said the price of imported
rice could be as low as P32 per kilo.
The Department of Finance
announced on Monday that tariffed regime on rice imports will begin on March 3
as well as the transfer of the National Food Authority (NFA) to the Department
of Agriculture (DA). (GMA News)
2019 election: Rice farmers declare support for Buhari’s
re-election
Rahaman Abiola
Days to the presidential election,
Rice Farmers Association of Nigeria has declared support for President
Muhammadu Buhari - The president of the group, Aminu Goroyo, said the
resolution was made by the association's national body and committees across 36
states - Nigerians were urged to give adequate support to the Buhari
administration by casting their votes for him on Saturday, February 23 Rice
Farmers Association of Nigeria (RIFAN) has drummed support for President
Buhari’s re-election bid, ahead of Saturday’s presidential election. This was
the resolution of the national executives and state chairmen of the association
in the 36 states and FCT on Tuesday, February 19, in Abuja. RIFAN president,
Aminu Goroyo, told the News Agency of Nigeria, (NAN) that each of the 12.2
million members of the association had pledged their support for President Buhari.
He said the endorsement became imperative in view of the efforts the president
had made to drive the nation’s economy through mechanised agriculture. READ
ALSO: NAIJ.com upgrades to Legit.ng: a letter from our Editor-in-Chief Bayo
Olupohunda He said: “With the enthusiasm to promote good governance and corrupt
free Nation, RIFAN resolved to support the re-election of President Muhamadu
Buhari come Saturday with massive votes." According to Goroyo, the
re-election of the president is to ensure Nigeria’s self-sufficiency in food
production. He also said the step would help in moving the nation from
overdependence on crude oil to non-oil economy. He added: “We are all speaking
with one voice, exhibit unalloyed commitment in making sure that bulk of our votes
go for President Buhari to achieve the desired transformation for the
country." Goroyo said the president’s commitment to agriculture through
various schemes was an indication that Nigeria will soon end challenges of
hunger, poverty, food security and unemployment. He said before this
administration, the country was a net importer of rice to the detriment of the
economy and the farmers. Goroyo said: “The country’s dependence on food imports
in the past was hurting local production, reducing farmers’ welfare and
contributing to increasing unemployment. The difference is very clear now as
the rice import has reduced to 5 per cent and it is only done through the
informal process.” PAY ATTENTION: Download our mobile app to enjoy the latest
news update He said that in 2015, Nigerians spent not less than N1bn on rice
consumption, adding that while spending had drastically reduced, consumption
had increased because of increased local production.
Goroyo urged Nigerians to give
adequate support to the Buhari administration by casting their votes for him on
Saturday, February 23. Meanwhile, Legit.ng previously reported that Arewa youth
Forum (AYF), a northern group, said it had endorsed All Progressive Congress
(APC) candidate, President Buhari, ahead of 2019 general elections in order to
consolidate his performance in the country. The group’s national director of
public affairs, Bello Abdulhamid, made this known when addressing newsmen in
Kaduna. NAIJ.com (naija.ng) -> Legit.ng We have upgraded to serve you better
'Nobody can stop Buhari in 2019, Atiku cannot win'
Mga walang utang na loob! NYC chair wants
gov’t scholarships of ‘rebellious’ students revoked
Last updated Feb 21, 2019
National Youth Commission (NYC)
chairman Ronald Cardema wants President Rodrigo Duterte to issue an executive
order removing the government scholarships of students who have leftist
leanings.
In particular, Cardema said
students allied with the Communist Party of the Philippine should be stripped
off their government scholarships.
“Fighting the government means
fighting the majority of the Filipino People and also not fulfilling their
roles as the expected breadwinners who will uplift their families and as our
hope in strengthening our country,” he said in a statement.
Cardema, whose Facebook page
identifies him as the national chairman of the Duterte Youth party-list, issued
the call to Duterte after some government scholars suspeccted of being New
People’s Army members were caught by authorities.
Aside from removing the
government scholarships of suspected militant students, Cardema also urged
youth leaders, Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) officials and “fellow nationalistic
student leaders” to report suspected NPA members who are still in school.
It is the duty of every Filipino
Youth to become our hope, in strengthening our nation, & to fight those who
are trying to crush our Republic,” he said.
https://businessmirror.com.ph/2019/02/21/rice-tariffication-law-a-death-knell-to-phls-rice-industry/
PM orders stepping up rice purchase
Wednesday, February 20, 2019 08:33
Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc chaired a working session with
ministries and agencies in Hanoi on February 19 to discuss the acceleration of
rice purchase as a way to improve income for farmers.
Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc
at the meeting (Source: VNA)
He asked the Ministry of Industry and Trade and the Ministry of
Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) to seek greater and longer-term
markets.
In the near future, the Finance Ministry was required to buy
sufficient rice as assigned by the State while exporters must keep a volume
equivalent to at least 5 percent of their total exports in the past six months,
and soon ship 200,000 tonnes of the grain to the Philippines and 100,000 tonnes
to China as planned.
The leader said the State Bank should hold responsibility for
hiking loan quota for rice enterprises. The Commission for the Management of
State Capital at Enterprises, the Vietnam Northern Food Corporation and the
Vietnam Southern Food Corporation must pool resources to promptly buy rice for
stockpiling.
He asked the MARD to hold meetings with leaders of provinces and
agencies next week to promote rice purchase from farmers. Localities were
assigned to monitor the process to ensure farmers’ legitimate rights.
The MARD and localities must hasten the restructuring of rice
sector to deliver quality products, he said, adding that outcomes of the Mekong
Delta rice conference must be reported to him to deal with existing issues.
Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Nguyen Xuan Cuong
said the country exported 6.1 million tonnes of rice last year, earning US$3
billion.
According to him, a food production plan has been built with a
total area of 7.5 million ha, down 200,000ha from 2018, but the application of
technology will help ensure the output of 43.5 million tonnes and export of 6-7
million tonnes this year.
Rice for export is mainly from the Mekong Delta and nearly 20
percent of the total area under the grain have been harvested.
Growing market
economy threatens North Korea’s ‘socialist utopia’
BY AGENCIES
, (LAST UPDATED 2 DAYS AGO)
SEOUL: In January, thousands of North Korean students travelled to
Mount Paektu, a sacred mountain where the ruling family claims its roots and
where leader Kim Jong Un is building a massive economic hub at the alpine town
of Samjiyon.
It is one of the largest
construction initiatives Kim has launched, part of his campaign for a
“self-reliant economy” even as he seeks to convince US President Donald Trump
to lift economic sanctions at their second summit later this month.
State media painted an inspiring
picture of patriotic students braving harsh weather, eating frozen rice, and
ignoring supervisors’ worries about their health in order to work harder on the
huge building site.
Kim has visited Samjiyon, near
the Chinese border, at least five times for inspections over the past year.
He envisages a “socialist utopia”
with new apartments, hotels, a ski resort and commercial, cultural and medical
facilities by late 2020, barely four years after Kim ordered modernization of
the “sacred land of the revolution”.
North Korean defectors and human
rights activists say such mass mobilizations amount to “slave labour” disguised
as loyalty to Kim and the ruling Workers’ Party. Young workers get no pay, poor
food and are forced to work more than 12 hours a day for up to 10 years in
return for better chances to enter a university or join the all-powerful
Workers’ Party.
But as private markets boom and
more people cherish financial stability above political standing, the regime
has been struggling to recruit the young labourers in recent years, they say.
“Nobody would go there if not for
a party membership or education, which helps you land a better job. But these
days, you can make a lot more money from the markets,” said Cho Chung-hui, a
defector and former labourer.
“Loyalty is the bedrock of the
brigades but what do you expect from people who know the taste of money?”
‘BOILING BLOOD OF YOUTH’
Last year, after declaring his
nuclear weapons program complete, Kim shifted his focus toward the economy,
saying people’s well-being was a top priority.
Samjiyon is at the centre of his
new economic initiative, touted as what would be a “model of modern mountainous
city to be the envy of the world,” alongside an ongoing project to create a
tourist hotspot in the coastal city of Wonsan. here
The labour units, called
dolgyeokdae or youth brigades, were created by Kim’s late grandfather Kim Il
Sung to build railways, roads, electricity networks and other infrastructure
projects after the Korean peninsula was liberated from Japan’s 1910-45
occupation.
Open North Korea, a Seoul-based
rights group, estimated the total brigade workforce at 400,000 as of 2016. A
landmark 2014 UN report on North Korean human rights put it at between 20,000
and 100,000 per municipality, depending on its size.
“How did Kim rally manpower and
resources for so many big construction programs despite sanctions? It’s simple
— whatever you need, suck it out of the people,” said Kwon Eun-kyoung, director
of the group, who has interviewed more than 40 former brigade members.
North Korean state media has run
a series of articles over the past month appealing for young people to dedicate
their “boiling blood of youth” to renovate Samjiyon, while Kim has expressed
his gratitude to those who sent construction materials and supplies.
Articles and photos show
factories, families and individuals packaging winter jackets, tools, shoes,
blankets and biscuits in boxes to be delivered to Samjiyon.
The state provides a limited
amount of materials including cement and iron bars, leaving brigades to bring
gravel and sand from river banks themselves, Cho and Kwon said.
A 60-minute documentary on state
television, broadcast 10 times since December, shows young men carrying stones
in heavy snow and doing masonry work on a tall structure without any apparent
safety devices.
Last month, the official Rodong
Sinmun newspaper said thousands of university students produced 100 meter-high
(300 ft-high) piles of gravel by crushing rocks with nothing but hand tools on
their first day alone. It likened the feat to the efforts of forefathers who
fought against Japanese imperial forces during World War II.
“The weather was so cold the rice
were like ice cubes, but we didn’t want to waste a single precious second
heating it up. I thought of our anti-Japan revolutionary martyrs while chewing
frozen rice,” the article quoted one student’s diary.
State media often exaggerates the
loyalty pledges of the citizens toward the leaders as part of efforts to craft
a personality cult around them.
But Cho, the defector, said the
reports were “far from reality” as most workers would not even get a safety
helmet, and labour conditions were so hostile that many ran away.
MONEY OVER LOYALTY
The untrained workers, along with
the military, provide most of the construction labour essential to accomplish
Kim’s pet economic projects.
But mounting public resistance
toward the mobilization of free labour and supplies may spell trouble for Kim’s
ambition to transform Samjiyon, defectors and observers say.
Cho said authorities offered him
party membership and college entrance if he gave three years service to the
brigades. The commitment eventually stretched to eight years before he received
the suggested rewards in 1987.
Not all promises are kept. Lee
Oui-ryok, 29, said he fled a brigade he had served for three years from age 17
and came to the South in 2010 after realizing he would never be allowed to join
the party due to his background.
In addition, human rights abuses
of brigade members are rampant, prompting many to escape or injure themselves
to be discharged, said Cho, who defected to the South in 2011 and is now an
economist in Seoul.
Nowadays, those who have money
exempt themselves from the service by sending supplies, paying someone else to
fulfil the duty, or bribing brigade leaders to turn a blind eye, Cho and Kwon
said.
Most new labour unit members are
from the most underprivileged households and harbour ill feelings about the
system and its growing inequality, said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at
Human Rights Watch.
“They will push out the
propaganda claims about these projects and the love of Kim Jong Un motivating
people to work, but the reality is punishments await those who refuse,” said
Robertson.
“It’s usually the poorest
denizens in the area who have few connections and cannot afford to pay bribes —
so they are the ones being targeted.”
The North Korean mission to the
United Nations in New York did not respond to a request for comment.
In late 2017, the US State
Department described the mass mobilization of forced labour as one of the human
rights abuses underwriting North Korea’s weapons program. It blacklisted seven
individuals and three entities, including two construction agencies.
The rise of markets and growing
public resentment toward forced labour have eroded the quality of labour at
most brigades nationwide, defectors say.
Kang Mi-jin, a defector who
regularly speaks with North Koreans for the defector-run Daily NK website, said
some construction work at Samjiyon was temporarily halted last month due to
safety problems.
“It’s inconceivable for North
Korea to complete such a large project without these brigades, but there’s no
way they have the full labour force they need, which is why they’re trying to
mobilize more through state media,” Cho said.
“But they would only continue to
see more people run away and more cracks in buildings. That’s the reality.”
Palay prices fall close to 40% due to rice import
fears from lifting of quotas
Last updated Feb 19, 2019
Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel
“Manny” Piñol blamed speculation for the fall in the buying price of rice in
anticipation of the “flooding” of the market with cheap imported rice under a
liberalized market.
Piñol said the disinformation
surrounding the newly-enacted Rice Tariffication Law’s effect on the local rice
industry, to the point that the buying price of palay has dropped from a high
of P22 per kilo last year to P14 and P15 in some parts of the country now.
Piñol, however, admitted that
initially, there would be a drop in the buying price of palay “but farmers are
expected to adjust by increasing productivity with funds coming from
tariffication.”
Piñol clarified that the law has
just been signed by President Rodrigo Duterte and is not effective yet.
“There is a period within which
the public will be notified and the Implementing Rules and Regulations (IRR)
still have to be finalized,” he explained.
And even if the importers would
want to bring in huge volumes of imported rice, the DA chief said there was not
much rice supply available in the world market.
“As it is now, the volume of rice
traded in the world market every year is only about 40-million metric tons (MT)
of which about 38-million (MT) is already committed to specific non-rice
producing countries,” he said.
“The world population is growing
exponentially while the land area is constant and this is true with rice
exporting countries like Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Pakistan and Myanmar,” he
added.
The DA chief said a few years
from now, Thailand and Vietnam will not be able to export the same volume of
rice as they do today because they also have growing populations.
“The Philippines cannot let go of
its own Rice Production Program because the moment it becomes dependent on
imported rice, even on a short term, it will end up at the mercy of the rice
exporters who could sell their produce at an even higher price than our
domestic cost of production,” he noted.
Piñol said that the view that
some economists are peddling that the
Philippines would be better off just importing rice rather than
producing it locally was “a short-sighted perspective”.
Philippines would be better off just importing rice rather than
producing it locally was “a short-sighted perspective”.
“If this view prevails, the
Philippines will face a real rice crisis a few years from now with sky-high
prices which the poor cannot afford,” he said.
Under the Rice Tariffication Law,
a provision states that the tariffs and duties collected from the rice
importation — 35 percent for ASEAN members and 50 percent for other sources —
shall be turned over to the Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund (RCEF),
estimated at no less than P10-billion annually.
National assembly to debate controversial rice bill
despite protests
·
February 19, 2019 
Despite
protests by some farmer groups and the Democrat party, the National Legislative
Assembly (NLA) is determined to go ahead with its planned deliberation of the
controversial rice bill in its second and final readings on Wednesday.
Objections
to the bill focus on Section 27/1 which empowers the Rice Department as the
sole authority for checking and approving rice seeds for cultivation to ensure
the seeds meet set standards.
Critics
claim the bill, when enacted, will deprive rice farmers of the right to trade
or exchange rice seeds among themselves because the seeds will have to be
certified by the Rice Department. They also suspect that the bill is
designed to benefit the agro industry in a way that will force farmers to rely
on their seeds for cultivation.
On
Saturday, the NLA’s committee scrutinizing the rice bill invited
representatives from 70 farmer groups to parliament to be briefed on the
content of the bill and to refute the allegations against it.
The
farmers’ representatives were told that it was untrue that farmers would face
heavy fines if they are caught in possession of rice seeds for
cultivation. Instead, they were assured that they could keep their
own rice seeds and were free to exchange their seeds with other farmers unless
they were kept for commercial purpose, in which case their seeds must be
certified by the Rice Department.
Mr.
Supachai Srila, a Democrat party member, has suggested that the NLA put the
rice bill on hold and let the post-election House of Representatives deliberate
it instead.
NATIONAL ASSEMBLY TO DEBATE CONTROVERSIAL RICE BILL DESPITE PROTESTS
Despite protests by some farmer groups and the Democrat party, the
National Legislative Assembly (NLA) is determined to go ahead with its planned
deliberation of the controversial rice bill in its second and final readings on
Wednesday. Objections to the bill focus on Section 27/1
which empowers the Rice Department as the sole authority for checking and
approving rice seeds for cultivation to ensure the seeds meet set standards.
Critics claim the bill, when enacted, will deprive rice farmers of the right to
trade or exchange rice seeds among themselves because the seeds will have to be
certified by the Rice Department. They also suspect that the bill is
designed to benefit the agro industry in a way that will force farmers to rely
on their seeds for cultivation.
Full story: https://www.thaipbsworld.com/national-assembly-to-debate-controversial-rice-bill-despite-protests/
Vietnam to export 6-7 mln tons of rice in 2019
Vietnam plans to export 6-7 million tons of rice this year,
compared with roughly 6.1 million tons worth nearly 3.1 billion US dollars last
year, according to its Ministry of Agriculture and Rural
Development on Wednesday. The country will intensify application of
advanced technologies in growing paddy rice so that it can churn out 43.5
million tons of rice from 7.5 million hectares of paddy rice-growing area in
2019, said the ministry's Department of Crop Production. Vietnam exported
400,000 tons of rice worth 180 million US dollars in January, seeing respective
year-on-year declines of 18.5 percent and 24.8 percent. Vietnamese Prime
Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc on Tuesday asked the Ministry of Agriculture and
Rural Development and the Ministry of Industry and Trade to seek bigger and
longer-term export markets for Vietnamese rice, the agriculture ministry said,
noting that Vietnam's rice export turnovers surged in such markets as
Indonesia, Iraq, China's Hong Kong and the Philippines last year.
Vietnam to export 6-7 mln tons of rice in 2019
Vietnam plans to export 6-7 million tons of rice this year,
compared with roughly 6.1 million tons worth nearly 3.1 billion US dollars last
year, according to its Ministry of Agriculture and Rural
Development on Wednesday. The country will intensify application of
advanced technologies in growing paddy rice so that it can churn out 43.5
million tons of rice from 7.5 million hectares of paddy rice-growing area in
2019, said the ministry's Department of Crop Production. Vietnam exported
400,000 tons of rice worth 180 million US dollars in January, seeing respective
year-on-year declines of 18.5 percent and 24.8 percent. Vietnamese Prime
Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc on Tuesday asked the Ministry of Agriculture and
Rural Development and the Ministry of Industry and Trade to seek bigger and
longer-term export markets for Vietnamese rice, the agriculture ministry said,
noting that Vietnam's rice export turnovers surged in such markets as
Indonesia, Iraq, China's Hong Kong and the Philippines last year.
Government
seeks to boost rice exports
Cheng Sokhorng | Publication date 21 February 2019
| 10:25 ICT
A farmer loads sacks of rice onto a truck in Moung Russey
district’s Russey Kraing commune in Battambang province on January 17,
2016. Hong Menea
Prime Minister Hun Sen said the
government will take more action to raise the Kingdom’s rice exports, including
reducing production costs and boosting market competitiveness.
Speaking at a meeting with
garment workers in Kandal province on Wednesday, Prime Minister Hun Sen said
Cambodia’s rice exports could not reach one million tonnes per annum due to
strong international market competition.
However, he said the Kingdom has
already reached one of the government’s policies as it is now a country of
surplus rice production, as it is set to reach six million tonnes this year.
“We have transformed from a
country of milled rice shortages to a Kingdom of rice production, but we cannot
reach our goal yet [exporting one million tonnes of rice annually] because
competition among our partners – such as Thailand and Vietnam – is very
strong,” he said.
Fierce competition
Hun Sen said Thailand and Vietnam
are able to export six and five million tonnes of milled rice respectively each
year, due to their capacity to buy storage and drying facilities, as well as
meet phytosanitary and sanitary measures. Production costs are also cheaper
than in Cambodia.
“We will set up a new policy to
reduce production cost such as connecting electricity supply to regions with
water access, by replacing diesel machines with electric ones,” he said.
Hun Sen also encouraged studying
domestic fertiliser production to produce cheaper options for the rice industry
and reduce production costs.
Relevant ministers, including
those leading the Commerce and Agriculture, and Forestry and Fisheries departments,
need to expand and seek new markets as Cambodia has world-famous, high-quality
rice, he said.
Cambodia Rice Federation
vice-president Vong Bun Heng welcomed the move and believed that the Kingdom
will reach the one-million-tonne target if the new policy on production costs
is well implemented.
“Our issue is production costs.
If the government takes more action to remedy production costs, I believe our
rice exports will reach the government’s objective."
“We already have quality rice. If
the [issue] is truly resolved, we will be able to compete with Vietnam and
reach new markets,” he said.
Food and Agribusiness Webinars
Webinar
Series Produced by University of Arkansas System Division of
Agriculture
Host and Interviewer
Bobby Coats
Professor - Economics
University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture
Department of Agricultural Economics and Agribusiness
Executive Producer
Mary Poling
Coordinator of Interactive Communications
University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture
Office of Information Technology
Upcoming Webinars:
Date: Thursday, Feb. 21, 2019
Time: 3:00 PM CST
Title: Global Economy, Trade and Mother Nature Driving Agriculture Markets
Description: : Agriculture and rural America will face significant challenges in 2019-20 as the U.S. and global economies slow and trade uncertainties continue. Large commodity supplies and slowing demand growth will put much of the potential for market opportunities in the hands of mother nature as producers realign their acreage intentions. Financial stress in some regions and commodities is likely to continue and increase the focus on cost control, marketing strategies and realignments in food, fiber and agriculture supply chains.
Presenter: Terry Barr, a nationally recognized economist, is senior director for CoBank’s Knowledge Exchange Division, an information- and knowledge-sharing initiative created in 2009. Knowledge Exchange draws on the expertise & insights of customers, experts within the bank and people from across the Farm Credit System to develop industry-specific strategic information & research. Dr. Barr’s principal focus is assessing the interactions between the U.S. & global economy and the global food, energy, fiber and agriculture markets. Particular emphasis is placed on factors shaping the rapid structural transformation of U.S. agriculture and agribusiness and the implications for commodity markets, trade, farmer cooperatives and rural infrastructure. Previously, Dr. Barr served as chief economist for the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives in Washington, DC. Prior to joining NCFC, Terry held several positions during a 14-year tenure at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. He served as chairman of the World Agricultural Outlook Board, which is responsible for coordinating USDA’s commodity forecasts and for publishing its monthly World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates. He also served in the Office of the Secretary of Agriculture as director of economic analysis, where he prepared economic analyses and assessments of the impacts of alternative farm policy options & decisions. Terry holds a doctorate in economics from Washington State University.
Time: 3:00 PM CST
Title: Global Economy, Trade and Mother Nature Driving Agriculture Markets
Description: : Agriculture and rural America will face significant challenges in 2019-20 as the U.S. and global economies slow and trade uncertainties continue. Large commodity supplies and slowing demand growth will put much of the potential for market opportunities in the hands of mother nature as producers realign their acreage intentions. Financial stress in some regions and commodities is likely to continue and increase the focus on cost control, marketing strategies and realignments in food, fiber and agriculture supply chains.
Presenter: Terry Barr, a nationally recognized economist, is senior director for CoBank’s Knowledge Exchange Division, an information- and knowledge-sharing initiative created in 2009. Knowledge Exchange draws on the expertise & insights of customers, experts within the bank and people from across the Farm Credit System to develop industry-specific strategic information & research. Dr. Barr’s principal focus is assessing the interactions between the U.S. & global economy and the global food, energy, fiber and agriculture markets. Particular emphasis is placed on factors shaping the rapid structural transformation of U.S. agriculture and agribusiness and the implications for commodity markets, trade, farmer cooperatives and rural infrastructure. Previously, Dr. Barr served as chief economist for the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives in Washington, DC. Prior to joining NCFC, Terry held several positions during a 14-year tenure at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. He served as chairman of the World Agricultural Outlook Board, which is responsible for coordinating USDA’s commodity forecasts and for publishing its monthly World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates. He also served in the Office of the Secretary of Agriculture as director of economic analysis, where he prepared economic analyses and assessments of the impacts of alternative farm policy options & decisions. Terry holds a doctorate in economics from Washington State University.
Register Now
Date: Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2019
Time: 8:00 AM CST
Title: The Rice Market Outlook: the Long and Short Term of it with Emphasis on the big Rice Picture
Description: We are coming through a tough period for rough rice: the longest shutdown in US history, interminable rainy periods, not much land prep so far, record cold days, unprecedented trade war with China, nothing is profitable to grow now, some record low volatility readings, not so bullish bean price, uncertain rice plantings. All this spells “rice bottom” but the real answer is to have an action plan that improves your average return with high or low prices you will face during the spring. Watch closely South America, Asia not so much.
Presenter: Milo Hamilton, President & Founder Firstgrain. Milo Hamilton is an agricultural economist by training and president and founder of Firstgrain, an advisory service for the world rice industry. Previously, he ran one of the largest rice buying teams for retail food products in the world. Mr. Hamilton has been involved, in one way or another, in the rice markets for 33 years. He has been instrumental in the birth and development of the CME Group rice futures contract in Chicago. He has served on the boards of many rice associations, advises customers throughout the global rice marketing chain, and is senior editor of the weekly publication, the Firstgrain Rice Market Strategist. As a global authority on rice, world wire services regularly quote his ideas. Mr. Hamilton has written many articles for various agricultural publications. His expert viewpoints have been featured in The Wall Street Journal, CNN, Reuters, Dow Jones and DTN The Progressive Farmer news services. Over the years, Mr. Hamilton has spoken at many conferences both within the U.S. and abroad about the market outlook for rice. He is passionate and knowledgeable, a true storyteller. Milo Hamilton lives in Austin, Texas with his wife, Jan, and his little Pomeranian, Penney. He is surrounded by his children and their families.
Time: 8:00 AM CST
Title: The Rice Market Outlook: the Long and Short Term of it with Emphasis on the big Rice Picture
Description: We are coming through a tough period for rough rice: the longest shutdown in US history, interminable rainy periods, not much land prep so far, record cold days, unprecedented trade war with China, nothing is profitable to grow now, some record low volatility readings, not so bullish bean price, uncertain rice plantings. All this spells “rice bottom” but the real answer is to have an action plan that improves your average return with high or low prices you will face during the spring. Watch closely South America, Asia not so much.
Presenter: Milo Hamilton, President & Founder Firstgrain. Milo Hamilton is an agricultural economist by training and president and founder of Firstgrain, an advisory service for the world rice industry. Previously, he ran one of the largest rice buying teams for retail food products in the world. Mr. Hamilton has been involved, in one way or another, in the rice markets for 33 years. He has been instrumental in the birth and development of the CME Group rice futures contract in Chicago. He has served on the boards of many rice associations, advises customers throughout the global rice marketing chain, and is senior editor of the weekly publication, the Firstgrain Rice Market Strategist. As a global authority on rice, world wire services regularly quote his ideas. Mr. Hamilton has written many articles for various agricultural publications. His expert viewpoints have been featured in The Wall Street Journal, CNN, Reuters, Dow Jones and DTN The Progressive Farmer news services. Over the years, Mr. Hamilton has spoken at many conferences both within the U.S. and abroad about the market outlook for rice. He is passionate and knowledgeable, a true storyteller. Milo Hamilton lives in Austin, Texas with his wife, Jan, and his little Pomeranian, Penney. He is surrounded by his children and their families.
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Date: Thursday, Feb. 28, 2019
Time: 8:00 AM CST
Title: Climate Change and Food Security: Challenges and Solutions.
Description: : Energy, climate and water have been an integral part of food security in the 20th century. The reliance of modern agriculture on these three parameters is the basis for the green revolution paradigm. This paradigm requires cheap energy (i.e. fertilizer), available water (i.e. irrigation), and a stable climate in order to provide the food, fiber and fuel needs for a population of approximately 7 billion people. Unfortunately, it is increasingly clear that all three parameters are changing rapidly and unpredictably. Consequently the ability to maintain, not only the current food supply (principally cereals), but to meet the caloric needs of the additional 2 billion individuals anticipated by 2040 is quickly being recognized as a global “stress test” of science and agriculture. Here I will overview both the direct (water, climate) and indirect (nutrition, pollinators) factors that are likely to contribute to changes in cereal productivity. In addition, I will outline a set of probable strategies that can, potentially, address these challenges; including polyculture, energy efficiency, CO2 breeding and improved pest management.
Presenter: Dr. Ziska is a Plant Physiologist with the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service in Beltsville, Maryland. After graduating from the University of California, Davis, he began his career as a Smithsonian fellow, and then took up residence as the Project Leader for global climate change at the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines before joining USDA. Since joining USDA, Dr. Ziska has published over 100 peer-reviewed research articles related to climate change and rising carbon dioxide that address: (1) Agriculture and Food Security; (2) Weeds and weed management; (3) Invasive species; (4) Plant biology and public health. Dr. Ziska is a contributor to the 2014 International Panel on Climate Change report (Food Security Chapter); the 2014 National Climate Assessment (Public Health Chapter); and most recently, The Impacts of Climate Change on Human Health in the United States: A Scientific Assessment. His work has appeared in Scientific American, USA Today, CBS Nightly News, CBS’ Sunday Morning, National Geographic, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal. He is the author of Weed Biology and Climate Change (with Jeff Dukes, Wiley Press) and the editor of Invasive Species and Global Climate Change (with Jeff Dukes, CABi Press). His most recent book is: Agriculture, Climate Change and Food Security in the 21st Century: Our Daily Bread, through Cambridge Scholars publishing.
Time: 8:00 AM CST
Title: Climate Change and Food Security: Challenges and Solutions.
Description: : Energy, climate and water have been an integral part of food security in the 20th century. The reliance of modern agriculture on these three parameters is the basis for the green revolution paradigm. This paradigm requires cheap energy (i.e. fertilizer), available water (i.e. irrigation), and a stable climate in order to provide the food, fiber and fuel needs for a population of approximately 7 billion people. Unfortunately, it is increasingly clear that all three parameters are changing rapidly and unpredictably. Consequently the ability to maintain, not only the current food supply (principally cereals), but to meet the caloric needs of the additional 2 billion individuals anticipated by 2040 is quickly being recognized as a global “stress test” of science and agriculture. Here I will overview both the direct (water, climate) and indirect (nutrition, pollinators) factors that are likely to contribute to changes in cereal productivity. In addition, I will outline a set of probable strategies that can, potentially, address these challenges; including polyculture, energy efficiency, CO2 breeding and improved pest management.
Presenter: Dr. Ziska is a Plant Physiologist with the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service in Beltsville, Maryland. After graduating from the University of California, Davis, he began his career as a Smithsonian fellow, and then took up residence as the Project Leader for global climate change at the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines before joining USDA. Since joining USDA, Dr. Ziska has published over 100 peer-reviewed research articles related to climate change and rising carbon dioxide that address: (1) Agriculture and Food Security; (2) Weeds and weed management; (3) Invasive species; (4) Plant biology and public health. Dr. Ziska is a contributor to the 2014 International Panel on Climate Change report (Food Security Chapter); the 2014 National Climate Assessment (Public Health Chapter); and most recently, The Impacts of Climate Change on Human Health in the United States: A Scientific Assessment. His work has appeared in Scientific American, USA Today, CBS Nightly News, CBS’ Sunday Morning, National Geographic, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal. He is the author of Weed Biology and Climate Change (with Jeff Dukes, Wiley Press) and the editor of Invasive Species and Global Climate Change (with Jeff Dukes, CABi Press). His most recent book is: Agriculture, Climate Change and Food Security in the 21st Century: Our Daily Bread, through Cambridge Scholars publishing.
400 NFA employees to lose jobs due to rice tariffication law
Published February 20, 2019 8:44am
Around 400 National Food Authority (NFA) employees will lose
their jobs due to the rice tariffication law.
According to a report on GMA News' Unang Balita by Sandra
Aguinaldo on Wednesday, employees will lose their jobs as the food regulatory
function of the NFA will be removed following the ratification of the law.
It was earlier reported that the NFA will be transferred to and
placed under the Department of Agriculture (DA) by March 3.
The NFA also said state-subsidized rice, which was priced at P27
per kilo, would only be available in markets until August of this year.
"So 'yung natitira naming mga around 14 million bags ngayon
are still to be sold at P27 per kilogram. It depend on the Council
really...," said NFA officer-in-charge administrator Tomas Escarez.
The measure allows unlimited importation of rice as long as
private sector traders secure a phytosanitary permit from the Bureau of Plant
Industry and pay the 35-percent tariff on shipments from Southeast Asia.
The measure drew criticisms, especially from farmer groups, with
Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas saying that the measure was “equivalent to a
death sentence for the local rice industry and rice farmers.”
A worker stacks sacks of rice inside the NFA warehouse in Quezon
City on Tuesday, February 19, 2019. Officials of the National Food Authority
lamented on Tuesday the 'definite' layoffs in the agency following President
Rodrigo Duterte's signing of the Rice Tariffication Law. GMA News
The Department of Finance (DOF), for its part, said the new law
would result in cheaper price of rice, adding that it will also contribute in a
lower inflation rate.
"We need very good governance mechanisms and we'll make
sure that the funds are appropriated correctly," said DOF Assistant
Secretary Tony Lambino.
The government also vowed to provide assistance to local
farmers. —Anna Felicia Bajo/KG, GMA News
Gov’t moves to implement rice tariff act, projects P7-11B collection
February 20, 2019 | 12:30 am
REUTERS
RICE IMPORTS starting March 5
will be covered by new tariffs under a newly signed law, with the measure
expected to generate at least P7 billion in its first year of implementation.
An inter-agency body led by the
National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) is drafting the IRR for
Republic Act No. 11203, or the Rice Tariffication Act that was signed by
President Rodrigo R. Duterte on Feb. 14.
The measure imposes the following
tariffs: 35% for rice imports coming from members of the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN); 40% for imports within the 350,000 metric-ton
minimum access volume (MAV), regardless of country; and 180% for above-MAV
imports from non-ASEAN countries.
In a statement, the Department of
Finance (DoF) said the government expects to raise P7-P11 billion from tariffs
in the first year of the law’s implementation.
State offices involved in drawing
up the IRR include the NEDA, Department of Budget and Management and the
Department of Agriculture.
The DoF also clarified that the
new tariff scheme will take effect March 5 — 15 days after the law was
published on Monday — and not March 3 as the department had initially reported.
Finance Secretary Carlos G.
Dominguez III, however, said that the new tariffs can take effect even without
the IRR in place.
“There are parts of the law that
are clear up front and can be implemented earlier than the parts of the law
that require an IRR to implement. The heart of the reform, which tariffies rice
importation with the least government intervention, will be implemented as soon
as possible to bring down rice prices for more than 100 million Filipino rice
consumers,” Mr. Dominguez said in a Viber message to reporters.
Other provisions of the law,
which include restructuring of the National Food Authority (NFA) to take it out
of grains trading, will be covered by the IRR.
Mr. Dominguez said the NFA now
has a P145-billion debt, mainly due to the agency’s practice of buying palay at
a high price and then selling it at a low retail price.
In a separate statement, NEDA
Secretary Ernesto M. Pernia said the first draft of the IRR was completed last
week and presented at the NFA Council’s meeting last Monday. It will be revised
and subjected to public consultations.
NEDA said the current draft
carries provisions on NFA’s new mandate and the streamlining of import
requirements. It also spells out details of safety nets for farmers affected by
the removal of import limits via the Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund
provided by the law.
While the law gives a 180-day
limit for crafting an IRR, Mr. Dominguez said 30 days would be “sufficient to
make a plan.”
The DoF expects rice prices to
drop by P2-7 per kilogram with the influx of cheap rice. In turn, the central
bank estimates a 0.6 percentage point reduction in the headline inflation for
2019.
CONCERNS
One lawmaker on Tuesday cautioned against implementing the law without rules to ensure proper enforcement.
One lawmaker on Tuesday cautioned against implementing the law without rules to ensure proper enforcement.
“Hindi na po pala hihintayin
ang pagsagawa ng IRR (It seems the government will no longer wait for
an IRR before it implements the law)…,” Butil Rep. Cecilia Leonila V. Chavez
told reporters in a briefing in the House of Representatives, citing the need
to make sure hefty annual allocations to the Rice Competitiveness Enhancement
Fund will really be used for farmers’ benefit.
“Nakakalungkot pong isipin na
sa laki ng kailangan na assistance ng magsasaka ay sinimulan
sa P10 billion at in-earmark sa ahensya ng
gobyerno na hindi tayo sigurado kung maaaring makapagdownload ang
mga ahensya na ‘to diretso sa mga magsasaka(It’s sad to think that we
cannot be sure if the P10 billion earmarked annually for this fund for the next
six years will go to farmers).”
The law provides that the P10
billion will be allocated through attached agencies of the Department of
Agriculture like the Land Bank of the Philippines (LANDBANK), among others.
Half of the allocation will
support acquisition of rice farm machineries and equipment through the
Philippine Center for Postharvest Development and Mechanization (PhilMech), a
third will support rice seed development, propagation and promotion through the
Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice), 10% will be for expanded rice
credit assistance through LANDBANK and the Development Bank of the Philippines
and the remaining 10% for rice extension services through PhilMech, PhilRice,
Agricultural Training Institute and the Technical Education and Skills
Development Authority.
OVERSIGHT WATCH
Sought for comment, Finance Assistant Secretary Antonio Joselito G. Lambino II said in a mobile phone message that “the heart of the reform, which tariffies rice importation with the least government intervention, will be implemented ASAP to bring down rice prices for more than 100 million Filipino rice consumers.”
Sought for comment, Finance Assistant Secretary Antonio Joselito G. Lambino II said in a mobile phone message that “the heart of the reform, which tariffies rice importation with the least government intervention, will be implemented ASAP to bring down rice prices for more than 100 million Filipino rice consumers.”
Speaker Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo
told reporters on Tuesday that she will discuss with House of Representatives
Agriculture committee chair Jose T. Panganiban, Jr. of the ANAC-IP partylist
how the oversight committee can help in the implementation of the law.
“I will ask his ideas but I think
it will be good because it’s an important bill and now we’ll make sure it’s
implemented,” Ms. Arroyo said.
“So I supposed the implementation
details and what to do will depend on Chairman Panganiban. I’ll talk to him
because I want to see him. He’s going to chair an oversight on free irrigation
sometime next week. So when he does that, I’ll ask him about it.” — Melissa
Luz T. Lopez and Charmaine A. Tadalan
RECOMMENDED
Vietnam to export 6-7 mln tons of rice in 2019
Source:
Xinhua| 2019-02-20 16:56:34|Editor: xuxin
HANOI, Feb. 20 (Xinhua) -- Vietnam plans to export 6-7 million
tons of rice this year, compared with roughly 6.1 million tons worth nearly 3.1
billion U.S. dollars last year, according to its Ministry of Agriculture and
Rural Development on Wednesday.
The country will intensify application of advanced technologies
in growing paddy rice so that it can churn out 43.5 million tons of rice from
7.5 million hectares of paddy rice-growing area in 2019, said the ministry's
Department of Crop Production.
Vietnam exported 400,000 tons of rice worth 180 million U.S.
dollars in January, seeing respective year-on-year declines of 18.5 percent and
24.8 percent.
Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc on Tuesday asked the
Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and the Ministry of Industry and
Trade to seek bigger and longer-term export markets for Vietnamese rice, the
agriculture ministry said, noting that Vietnam's rice export turnovers surged
in such markets as Indonesia, Iraq, China's Hong Kong and the Philippines last
year.
Hun Sen calls on farmers to do rice
farming only one time due to drought
Mom Kunthear / Khmer Times
Prime Minister Hun Sen has called
on local authorities to advise farmers to cultivate dry-season rice once due to
dry spell and water shortage this year.
Speaking to thousands of workers
at Chengdu Bayi (Cambodia) Trade Center in Kandal province’s Ang Snuol district
on Wednesday morning, Mr Hun Sen said that according to the Ministry of Water
Resources and Meteorology, Cambodia will face drought and water shortage this
year.
“I want to appeal to all
authorities to advise all people not to do dry-season rice farming for several
times. Please do farming only one time this year because we do not have enough
water,” he said.
. .
The Kingdom will be indirectly
affected by the El Nino phenomenon which will cause temperatures to rise to
between 40 degrees and 42 degrees Celsius in April and May.
Kingdom sees
minimal change in rice exports between 2016-2018
Hin Pisei | Publication date 20 February 2019 |
07:30 ICT
A Cambodian farmer pushes his bicycle loaded with rice from the
paddy field during the harvest season in Takeo province on November 29, 2008.
TANG CHHIN SOTHY/AFP
The Kingdom’s rice exports saw
little change during the last three years to 2018 as the sector appears to face
new challenges requiring the government and private sector to work harder to
keep the industry healthy.
The challenges are centred around
the EU market as the bloc imposes tariffs on Cambodia’s rice, added on to
existing issues such as higher production costs and a lack of infrastructure.
However, industry insiders said
the volume of this year’s rice exports will remain steady due to a new quota
from China and Vietnam.
Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry
and Fisheries figures show that the Kingdom exported 626,225 tonnes of rice
last year, decreasing 1.5 per cent from 635,679 tonnes in 2017.
The figures show that the main
destinations were the EU with a total of 269,127 tonnes and China with 170,154
tonnes.
Cambodia exported 542,144 tonnes
of rice in 2016, a 0.7 per cent increase from 2015. The nominal increase
followed a growth spurt in 2015 that saw exports climb by 39 per cent from
387,000 tonnes in 2014.
Amru Rice (Cambodia) Co Ltd
chairman and CEO Song Saran on Tuesday said the Kingdom’s export volumes were
not higher due to focusing on premium rice – or fragrant rice – for the last
three to four years.
Referring to the additional
100,000-tonne quota provided by China, Saran said Cambodia’s rice exports would
not be hurt.
“The Kingdom’s rice exports this
year could maintain a similar yield as last year because China agreed to buy
more rice from us. That would push Cambodian’s premium rice market,” he said
adding that the Kingdom exports almost 90 per cent of its premium rice to the
international market.
Premium competition
Cambodian premium rice is sold
from $950 to $960 per tonne while normal rice – or indica rice – is sold at
about $420 per tonne, Saran said. However, he said Cambodia still faces
challenges due to competition.
“We still need more time to
promote our rice products to the international arena,” he said, adding that
Cambodia’s agricultural sector is still young compared to leading countries.
Centre for Policy Studies
director Chan Sophal said that while the country has missed its target export
of one million tonnes since 2015, its rice exports stand at around 600,000
tonnes. He said the higher production costs and the lack of the sector’s
infrastructure are limiting competition.
“For this year’s exports, [I]
predict that they may not increase because tax needs to be paid to export
Cambodia’s fragrant rice to the EU market,” he said.
Sophal said that while the
government is trying to boost the sector by cutting production costs to improve
its competitiveness, it needs to improve infrastructure – roads and irrigation
systems.
Faced with the EU’s decision to
impose import tariffs, Cambodia’s rice could face a much more serious issue if
the EU’s preferential Everything But Arms agreement is withdrawn.
Sophal said it is preferable if
the Kingdom diversifies its export destinations, rather than rely on any one
market.
After the EU imposed tariffs on
rice imported from Cambodia, China agreed in January to increase its import
quota for Cambodian rice to 400,000 tonnes this year from the previous 300,000
tonnes.
The move was followed by Vietnam,
which agreed this month to expand its import quota for the Kingdom’s rice to
300,000 tonnes.
Hun Lak, vice-president of the
Cambodia Rice Federation and chairman of Mekong Oryza Trading Co Ltd, said the
Kingdom currently has a G2G (government to government) agreement with only
China and Vietnam, which allows duty-free rice exports.
He expressed his hope that
Cambodia’s rice exports this year could yield a similar amount to last year,
with Cambodia receiving a higher quota from China.
“By exporting to China, we could
reach the target. The government is currently putting in place supporting
measures to reduce production costs,” he said.
Ministry of Commerce spokesman
Seang Thay said the ministry is always looking for new markets for the
Kingdom’s products.
He said despite the Kingdom
having quota agreements with only two countries, it is also working bilaterally
with many others.
“Cambodia has good diplomatic
relations. It currently exports to many destinations around the world,” he
said.
Philippines may
see a record level of rice imports
| Publication date 20 February 2019 | 15:50 ICT
Workers unload 10,800 tons of rice from Vietnam — one of the
world’s biggest producers of the grain and main source of Philippine rice
imports. AFP
THE Philippines may see the
biggest volume of rice imports this year at four million tonnes following the
passage of the rice import liberalisation bill.
National Food Authority (NFA)
acting administrator Tomas Escarez on Monday said the agency had already
received more than 200 applications from prospective traders and importers.
The overall volume from these
applications is seen to reach two million tonnes, 20 per cent of which has
already arrived in the country.
In addition, listed AgriNurture
Inc (ANI) president and CEO Antonio Tiu confirmed to the Inquirer that its deal
with Vinafood II, Vietnam’s largest grains exporter, would still push through
this year.
The exporter agreed to
exclusively supply ANI annually with two million tonnes of long grain rice
valued close to $1 billion.
In a text message, Tiu said the
company was only waiting for the law’s implementing rules and regulations
before it would submit an application. It plans to directly sell the staple to
the market.
Under the recently signed Rice
Import Liberalization Act, importers need to secure only a permit from the
Bureau of Plant Industry and pay a 35 and 50 per cent tariff for imports from
Southeast Asian countries and non-Asean countries, respectively.
If the imports push through, the
total volume will surpass the highest recorded rice imports in the country
during the Arroyo administration at 2.34 million tonnes.
Unlike in Vietnam and Thailand
where farmers can produce a kilo of rice at six pesos ($0.11), Filipino farmers
spend 12 pesos a kg.
Reports from the Philippine
Advisory Farmers Board showed the farm-gate price of paddy rice has already
declined to 14 pesos per kg in some rice-producing provinces. Meanwhile, in the
country’s rice granaries, the recorded farm-gate price for paddy rice was at
18-19 pesos per kg.
Based on the Philippine
Statistics Authority’s price monitoring report, the average farm-gate price of
paddy rice as of the first week of February was at 19.70 pesos per kg. This was
the fifth consecutive week of a price downtrend.
However, Agriculture Secretary
Emmanuel Pinol said on his Facebook page that the falling price of paddy rice
was not due to the recently enacted law but due to “speculation fuelled by the
anticipated ’flooding’ of the market with cheap imported rice”. PHILIPPINE
DAILY
National assembly to debate controversial rice
bill despite protests
National assembly to debate
controversial rice bill despite protests Despite protests by some farmer groups and the Democrat party, the National Legislative Assembly (NLA) is determined to go ahead with its planned deliberation of the controversial rice bill in its second and final readings on Wednesday.
Objections to the bill focus on Section 27/1 which empowers the Rice Department as the sole authority for checking and approving rice seeds for cultivation to ensure the seeds meet set standards.
Critics claim the bill, when enacted, will deprive rice farmers of the right to trade or exchange rice seeds among themselves because the seeds will have to be certified by the Rice Department. They also suspect that the bill is designed to benefit the agro industry in a way that will force farmers to rely on their seeds for cultivation.
Full story: https://www.thaipbsworld.com/national-assembly-to-debate-controversial-rice-bill-despite-protests/
Rice bill critics not clued up on latest draft, says minister
- 20 Feb 2019 at 04:00 24 comments
- NEWSPAPER
SECTION: NEWS
| WRITER: PHUSADEE
ARUNMAS
- +
Deputy Commerce Minister Chutima Bunyapraphasara tried
Tuesday to placate opponents of the controversial rice bill, saying critics are
mistakenly commenting on the previous draft, not the recently updated version.
"Efforts have been made to present confusing and not-up-to-date
information [about the bill] to the public through various media
channels," Ms Chutima posted on Facebook.She stated that her opinions of the original bill late last year had also been picked up by the media, which could be misleading.
According to Ms Chutima, the Commerce Ministry advised the
National Legislative Assembly (NLA) to amend the bill late last year since it
disagreed with various aspects of it.
The bill, which will be deliberated by the NLA today, has been updated
in line with most of the ministry's recommendations, she said.The deputy minister insisted the updated bill would not put farmers at a disadvantage.
Protesters have hit out at Section 27 of the bill, which they said prohibits the trading of rice seeds that have not been approved by the Rice Department.
They say this section was designed to benefit large-scale commercial producers and small-scale farmers, who have developed and relied on indigenous rice varieties, would get into trouble.
Ahead of the bill's second and third readings today, farmers and activists in various provinces have come out to demand the legislation be scrapped.
Some farmers' groups have threatened to stage a major rally next month if the bill is not withdrawn this month.
Democrat deputy leader Korn Chatikavanij, meanwhile, criticised the NLA's haste to deliberate the bill on his own Facebook page, writing that they should wait until after the election instead.
"It is not clear how farmers will benefit from this legislation," Mr Korn, also a former finance minister, wrote.
According to him, the legislation should have included elements that really address farmers' problems, such as easy access to markets and capital and technology that could help develop crop production.
TAGS
https://www.bangkokpost.com/news/general/1631666/rice-bill-critics-not-clued-up-on-latest-draft-says-minister
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