Wednesday, June 26, 2019

26th June,2019 Daily Global Regional Local Rice E-Newsletter


Pakistan to get $3bn in deposits, direct investments from Qatar
Pakistan has recently received loans from the World Bank and investments from the Saudis.

Written by Dawn
Updated: June 25, 2019View Larger Image
Description: Qatar Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani with Prime Minister Imran Khan. — Imran Khan Facebook page
Qatar is making $3 billion dollars worth of new investments in Pakistan, in the form of deposits and direct investments, said Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Information and Broadcasting Dr Firdous Ashiq Awan on Monday.
The economic partnership between Qatar and Pakistan will reach $9 billion, Qatar News Agency quoted foreign minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani as saying.
“The Qatari-Pakistani economic partnership will amount to $9 billion. Qatar affirms its aspiration for further development in the relations between the two countries at all political, economic, sports and cultural levels,” said the foreign minister.
The announcement comes a day after Qatar Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani wrapped up his visit to Pakistan during which he held a one-on-one meeting with Prime Minister Imran Khan. Delegation-level talks were also held between the two sides.
The prime minister’s adviser on finance, Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh, thanked the Emir for “announcing $3 billion in deposits and direct investments for Pakistan and for Qatar’s affirmation to further develop relations between the two countries.”
Dr Awan, while talking to the media, thanked the Qatar Emir and his cabinet for the announcement, said Radio Pakistan.
She said that this amount will help Pakistan overcome its economic challenges, adding that Prime Minister Imran’s announcement to grant visa on arrival for Qatari citizens will develop tourism sector in Pakistan.
She also hailed Qatar lifting the ban on Pakistani rice, saying it was good news for rice exporters and the economy of the country, Radio Pakistanreported.
MoUs signed
On Saturday, following the Emir’s arrival, Pakistan and Qatar signed three memoranda of understanding (MoUs) on trade and investment and cooperation on financial intelligence and tourism.
The signing of the MoUs was witnessed by Prime Minister Imran and Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim.
The MoUs related to the establishment of the Pakistan and Qatar Joint Working Group on Trade and Investment, cooperation in the field of tourism and business events and cooperation in the exchange of financial intelligence related to money laundering — associated offences and terrorism financing. The last MoU was signed between Qatar’s Fina­ncial Information Unit and Pakis­tan’s Financial Monitoring Unit.
Vow to work for regional peace
On Sunday, President Dr Arif Alvi and Emir Sheikh Tamim held wide-ranging talks, particularly the Afghan issue.
Alvi lauded Qatar’s role in promoting efforts for peace and reconciliation in Afghanistan, which was a notable contribution to regional peace.
While thanking the government and leadership of Pakistan for the gracious invitation and hospitality extended to him and his entourage during his two-day visit, the Qatari emir acknowledged the sacrifices made by Pakistan in the fight against terrorism.
Taking note of the progress achieved in Afghan peace talks, the two leaders agreed to continue working closely for regional peace and stability.
President Alvi conferred Nishan-i-Pakistan upon Sheikh Tamim at a special investiture ceremony.

Farmers must change to feed world up to 2050

25 Jun 2019
Description: Man with green peppers(Image courtesy: iStock/Paul B radbury)
Last summer Europe was abnormally hot, with temperatures topping 30°C in the Arctic Circle. Fields across northern and central Europe grew parched and shrivelled and farmers faced crop failure and bankruptcy. The prolonged warm conditions are in line with anticipated trends and demonstrate the damage that climate change could inflict on food production.
So will people be going hungry by 2050 because of climate change? Some countries and crops are more vulnerable than others, a new study suggests, but with sufficient adaptation and use of technology it will still be possible to feed the planet.
Scientists have assessed how climate change might impact crop yields since the 1980s. Most studies show that the impact is likely to increase over time, and that tropical and low-income countries will be hit hardest. Meanwhile, others have investigated ways that farmers might adapt to reduce their vulnerability.

Now a team affiliated to Consortium of International Agricultural Research Centers (CGIAR) has carried out a global meta-analysis of the knowledge to date. Using 157 studies published since 1984, the researchers produced a database of over 27,000 points. This revealed country-level climate change impacts on rice, wheat and maize crops up to 2080, as well as the potential for adaptation.
Without adaptation the scientists estimate losses by the 2080s of around 12 to 15% for wheat and rice, and 20% for maize. With adaptation measures in place these losses fall to around 4 to 6% for wheat and rice, and 13% for maize.
However, the losses are not spread evenly. For maize the most vulnerable regions found by the study included South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. Rice crops were most at risk in central America and central Asia whilst wheat suffered worst in South and central Asia and Scandinavian countries.
“These regions are more vulnerable for two main reasons,” says Pramod Aggarwal, based at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center in New Delhi, India. “Firstly, their growth rate of food production already lags behind the projected demand, and secondly climate change impacts are relatively large here, which makes them even more food insecure.”
Such losses are still large enough to be extremely challenging, but the findings suggest we should still be able to meet food needs up to 2050, as long as farmers embrace adaptation measures. Typical adaptations include greater use of stress-tolerant varieties of crop, improved irrigation techniques and better fertiliser management. But such changes won’t necessarily be easy.
“It will require massive science-guided investment, along with policy and institutional support,” says Aggarwal, who published the findings in Environmental Research Letters (ERL). “In addition, the most vulnerable countries will need greater research focus to develop new crop varieties and to diversify.” The researchers also sound a note of caution, saying that localised climate extremes could potentially increase the impact on food production.
Nonetheless, the findings provide an overview of how climate change is likely to affect food production, and should enable policy makers and advisors to assess where adaptation measures are needed with most urgency.

Burying the evidence
Top of Form
Bottom of Form
Last year, scientists at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, along with researchers at the University of Washington, made a pretty important finding: They found that higher concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere lowered the nutritional value of rice.
The study, which also was done in collaboration with researchers from China, Japan and Australia was important for a number of reasons, not least because rice is the primary food source for hundreds of millions of people around the world.
An estimated 600 million people, many of them in Southeast Asia, get more than half their daily calories or protein from rice.
Published in Science Advances, the study said these CO2-induced changes would likely "exacerbate the overall burden of disease and could affect early childhood development."
One would think that sort of news would be important to share.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture apparently didn’t think so — not according to a Politico investigation, which revealed over the weekend that USDA has refused to publicize "dozens" of government-funded studies from its Agricultural Research Service that have warned about the impact of climate change.
One of those studies included findings that climate change is likely to increase agricultural pollution and nutrient runoff in the lower Mississippi Delta. That's an important issue in agriculture-driven states like Iowa and Illinois.
Another study that got little notice was a 2019 finding that increased temperature swings could already be boosting pollen levels. Ask anybody in the Quad-Cities who's an allergy sufferer whether this is something they'd want to know about.
We in the Midwest have long known the value of the Agricultural Research Service. It has been a valuable resource for farming and agribusiness, the foundation of our economy, for years.
Previous administrations also have known the value of this agency's work. Under George W. Bush and Barack Obama, the USDA publicized far more climate-related reports than it has since Donald Trump became president, according to Politico.
In 2005, during the Bush administration, the ARS published eight articles involving climate change; in 2007, it was 15. Under the Obama administration, there were even more. But as of June 7, the Trump administration had just two such reports this year. There were fewer in the previous two years.
The studies being buried aren’t about what is causing higher levels of CO2; they simply are measuring the impact of an undeniable phenomenon.
The USDA says there is no directive ordering these reports to be squelched. But we found it interesting that Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue had this to say in a CNN interview released Tuesday when asked about whether humans cause climate change: "You know, I think it's weather patterns, frankly. And you know, and they change, as I said. It rained yesterday, it's a nice pretty day today. So the climate does change in short increments and in long increments."
It would be better if Perdue and other administration officials accepted the science behind what causes climate change.
At the very least, though, we don't think USDA should be burying solid scientific studies that document the impact of changes in the atmosphere. People in southeast Asia need to know about these changes; so do people in southeast Iowa.
It is vital that these studies get attention. Hiding the consequences of climate change doesn’t make it go away; it only delays our ability to fashion effective, efficient solutions to deal with it.

Can the EAT-Lancet diet work for the global south?
By Andrew Green // 25 June 2019
Description: https://res.cloudinary.com/devex/image/fetch/c_scale,f_auto,q_auto,w_720/https:/lh4.googleusercontent.com/Z-AssVzMp3yQKYEos8-lu_ZukusfFKQDL3Y_CMZ1PwtjfUdTu3vNiwGy9sHOJaqQhh69betAUIOa5MdoUXI57ikGwAp_54f49qpAlXT2BqC_o6MeUqcGXEPZKHRGu0bXPeBD0A0LA woman holds ingredients, which will be used to cook for children a nutritious porridge made from locally available products. Photo by: UNICEF Ethiopia / CC BY-NC-ND
STOCKHOLM — In January, researchers unveiled a global reference diet designed to address the twin problems of rising malnutrition rates and the food system's contributions to climate change.
This month’s EAT Stockholm Food Forum centered on the hard work of translating that diet into reality, and how governments can develop healthy, sustainable food systems while maintaining popular support.
Scientists have charted an ambitious new plan to transform the global food system by 2050. For the plan to succeed, the development community will need to join governments, businesses, and consumers.
But some participants noted that there was little discussion of issues that particularly affect countries in the global south. That includes how governments can ensure communities are still able to afford food if prices rise to reflect higher nutrition and sustainability standards — or what happens if they don’t.
“The shift from low-price, cheap, and not-so-good food to healthy food that internalizes all these costs [of sustainability] will inevitably make food more expensive,” Jean Balié, platform leader on agrifood policy for the International Rice Research Institute, told Devex. “But magically, people will not become richer in these countries.”
That left some forum participants emphasizing the need to integrate perspectives and knowledge from the global south as the work of transforming the reference diet into actual diets begins.
More than 30 researchers were involved in mapping out the EAT-Lancet Commission’s universal guidelines, of whom about a third were either from countries in the global south or have extensively focused on it during their careers. The guidelines aim to meet the nutritional requirements for most of the world's projected population of 10 billion people by 2050, while significantly reducing the climate impact.
The researchers distilled the guidelines into the image of a plate of food, more than half of it reserved for fruits and vegetables, but with segments for grains, dairy, meat and other proteins. What actually ends up filling that plate and how it is grown, will differ from community to community and from meal to meal.
"It does not give us the answers for each country or culture, nor the specific pathways for how to get there," Gunhild Stordalen, founder and president of the EAT Foundation, said at the conference.
Even in its basic composition, though, it may already be out of reach for many. While many people living in higher-income settings will need to eat less — and particularly less animal-sourced protein — people in lower-income countries would struggle to meet the standards the reference diet has set.
The recommendation of one to five eggs each week, for instance, will not be possible for many people in sub-Saharan Africa, said Jan Low, principal scientist for the International Potato Center, who has spent much of her career in sub-Saharan Africa working on integrating nutritional concerns into agriculture programs.
She said there are opportunities for flexibility within the guidelines — such as focusing on products that make the best use of soil and water resources — which may allow communities to achieve some of the recommendations.
More broadly, though, the diet’s focus on quality over quantity means lower-income countries will need to chart a different trajectory from the one the industrialized world has followed, Balié said. That comes with significant challenges, not least of which is ensuring that people are actually able to afford food.
Lower-income countries need people willing to invest in farming and food production, not snazzy new protein sources such as bugs and fake meats, advocates at the EAT Stockholm Food Forum say.
Whereas the path to development has traditionally favored making cheap but unhealthy food available to urban workers, countries in the global south will need to favor policies that encourage the availability of healthy, sustainably-grown foods — from investing in infrastructure to improve farmers' access to markets, to more extreme measures such as blocking the import of foods that are deemed unhealthy or unsustainable.
Get development's most important headlines in your inbox every day.
Top of Form
Subscribe
Bottom of Form
This will have long-term payoffs in terms of reducing environmental damage and curbing the spread of noncommunicable diseases, but it will also come at an actual cost to consumers, who will see much of their budget continue to go on food. That's because food costs will need to reflect externalities like the cost of water or soil regeneration — costs that higher-income countries have "passed to the next generation," Balié said.
It will require a paradigm shift that researchers and global institutions cannot impose on countries, who must work with their citizens to set up policies that reflect local realities and priorities instead.
"We can help articulate these tradeoffs and make sure these scenarios are well-assessed to help governments make these decisions," Balié said. "But that has to be a democratic process," which begins with making sure that governments and members of civil society are integrated into the discussions.
Some noted there was limited representation from the global south at the Stockholm Food Forum, though. Mameni Morlai, who is Liberia's government focal point for the Scaling Up Nutrition movement, said the EAT Foundation has made an effort to reach out to representatives in Asia and Africa. But in her own country of Liberia, she said, knowledge about the EAT-Lancet report remains low. Other experts at the forum also acknowledged the problem.
Fabrice DeClerck, EAT's science director, said the forum's location in Stockholm can make it difficult to engender participation, because of visa restrictions and travel costs. But he said they have made efforts to take the report elsewhere, including a launch event at the African Union in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in early February.
"We see Africa as a priority of the next five years and expect intense focus on that region," he told Devex. Ultimately, he said the goal is to create an African Food Forum, headquartered on the continent.
Representatives from the global south said they also expect to see high-income countries and corporations putting equal energy into reforming their practices to meet the guidelines — and they pointed to opportunities for mutual learning.
Bioversity International, a research-for-development organization, used the forum to launch its first-ever Agrobiodiversity Index. Juan Lucas Restrepo, the organization's director general, said agrobiodiversity is critical to the sustainability of farming efforts, boosting soil health, and increasing resilience, but it is not widely followed.
Of the 10 countries the organization considered for the index, though, India and Kenya had the highest scores in sustainable production, having made commitments and taken actions to implement agrobiodiversity.
"We will see, over time, the developing countries setting the new bar and the examples on how we can mainstream agrobiodiversity over time," Restrepo said. "It's going to be south to north and that would be fantastic."
Update, June 25: This story was updated to correct the spelling of Bioversity International.
This focus area, powered by DSM, is exploring innovative solutions to improve nutrition, tackle malnutrition, and influence policies and funding. Visit the Focus on: Improving Nutrition page for more

Gambia commences creation of next generation of plant breeders

Tuesday, June 25, 2019
Young research scientists of breeders and agronomists working on variety development or testing in the public and private sectors, yesterday commenced another five-day training course on rice, maize and groundnut breeders in The Gambia. The training is on the Concepts and Principles of Plant Breeding and Participatory Varietal Selection (PVS) at the NARI head office in Brikama.
Twenty-six participants from the National Agricultural Research Institute (NARI), The Gambia College School of Agriculture, National Seed Secretariat, National Coordinating Organisation of Farmer Associations Gambia (NACOFAG) and variety release committees are currently participating in the course. Some two weeks ago, another crop of senior and junior research scientists also underwent similar training at NARI, both targeting to develop the next generation of young home-grown agricultural breeders to adapt modern tools for enhancing the precision and efficiency of their breeding programmes.
The course component is part of the European Union (EU) funded 20.5 million Euro, about 1.2 billion dalasis from its 11th European Development Fund implemented by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations under its “Agriculture for Economic Growth and Food Security and Nutrition to mitigate migration programme and WFP.
Director general of NARI Ansumana Jarju reminded the young research scientists at the start of the course on Monday that the training was just the beginning and that they do not have to become professors to be breeders. “We count on you for agricultural researches.”
The course will provide theoretical background on modern breeding methods and techniques including use of biotechnology, experimental techniques, planning, information management tools and software to able to adopt good principles of breeding methodologies and to improve the quality of their research.
Project consultant and FAO senior breeder Moussa Sie said the course became a requirement and need because currently there is no breeder at NARI and the University of The Gambia is not providing breeder programme. “We need to improve capacity by combining both practical and theoretical trainings. Due to climate change, some plants cannot work here but they can be nurtured to produce new varieties.”
He said the course will also provide opportunity to share experiences with other crop breeders and enable the young scientists to provide latest updates on areas relevant to rice breeding and the worldwide exchange of rice genetic resources. 
Gambia is a net importer of food and produces only half of its national requirements of staple foods. The government’s effort to address the deficit in the agriculture sector has resulted in designing a project aimed at creating sustainable production and productivity of crops and livestock; reduce food insecurity, malnutrition and create enabling environment for improved national economy.
Kebba Drammeh, NARI director of Crop Research admitted that the agriculture research institute has been handicapped in the area of research for a long time and the training will help in the creation of next generation of researchers. “For more than 30 years NARI have been depending on outside expertise for crop breeding. This is expected to lift the burden of hiring outside breedership on NARI.”
Reviving indigenous seeds: A silent revolution in India’s rice growing states
The Save our Rice Campaign, launched in India in 2004, has been able to revive 1,500 indigenous seeds in various regions in India.
·       Sridhar Radhakrishnan 
·       Tuesday, June 25, 2019 - 16:21Description: https://www.thenewsminute.com/sites/default/files/styles/news_detail/public/Nel-Jayaraman_paddy750.jpg?itok=ayoxzyHy
In the first week of June, in the predominantly paddy growing village of Thiruthuraipoondi in Thiruvarur district (erstwhile part of Thanjavur district, the rice bowl of Tamil Nadu), 10,000 farmers came together in the biggest ever seed sharing event – the Nel Thiruvizha or Paddy Festival. A festival that began in 2007, it has been organised every year ever since. The aching difference in its 13thedition was the absence of “Nel” Jayaraman, as he was popularly known, the pioneer seed saver and organiser of the event. Young at 52, he passed away in December 2018, after a two-year battle with cancer.
Indigenous seeds, or naattu ragangal (desi seeds) as they are known in Tamil Nadu, has been the key motivating factor behind the success of the Nel Thiruvizha. In the 2018 edition of the Thiruvizha, 8,200 farmers had come to look at the 174 varieties conserved by the Save our Rice Campaign and CREATE, the local organisers in Tamil Nadu. The farmers collect 2 kg of their preferred varieties which they return doubled the next year. Usually, 60% farmers return the seeds for further distribution, some bringing them in sacks out of their commitment to the campaign. This article looks at how it all started, why indigenous seeds are making a comeback, and what motivates farmers to move from the Green Revolution High Yielding Varieties (HYVs) and Hybrids to indigenous seeds.
The 2004 Kumbalangi workshop
The paddy seed conservation efforts in Tamil Nadu was an outcome of the Save our Rice Campaign (SoRC) launched in India in 2004, the same year the world celebrated the second International Year of Rice (IYR2004). This campaign aimed to empower communities to build a sustainable food security movement in the rice regions of India.
The campaign was launched by Thanal, a voluntary group based in Kerala, through an Indian Workshop on Rice (IWR2004) at a small village called Kumbalangi in Kerala. This village itself has the heritage of an indigenous agroecological paddy cultivation system of paddy-fish rotation – called Pokkali, which today has a Geographical Indication tag. More than 140 practitioners and experts from 10 states attended the three-day workshop. At the end, it came up with the Kumbalangi Declaration, and a five point agenda:
  • conserving rice ecosystems
  • sustaining rice culture and diversity
  • protecting traditional wisdom
  • preventing GMOs and toxics
  • ensuring safe and nutritious food
Green Revolution and negative effects
The significance of the Kumbalangi workshop can be understood in the backdrop of the degrading rice ecosystems in India. In 2004, under the initiative of the United Nations and the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the world celebrated the second International Year of Rice (IYR2004).
At that time, Thanal, which was actively engaging with the Asian Rice Campaign (a pan-Asian initiative of the Pesticide Action Network - Asia and the Pacific (PANAP)), was concerned about the sustainability aspect of farming and about the safety and sovereignty issues in agriculture. Before IYR2004, the First International Year of Rice (IYR1966) was also the year when the Green Revolution (GR) was launched in India. GR brought in a productivity centric approach in farming, supplemented by the introduction of chemical fertilisers and chemical insecticides, which today is blamed for poisoning our food and ecosystems, a few even banned, and hundreds designated as Highly Hazardous Pesticides, and have to be banned.
GR surely increased productivity, as we now know, by about 50%, but has left behind poisoned food, water and depleted groundwater, brought down soil quality, reduced returns for farmers due to higher cost of cultivation and failing crops, and impacted the health of the ecosystem and its people. GR undoubtably delivered on production, but at the cost of our natural resources and the quality of life of farmers, which formed the backbone of the agrarian systems in India. Today as much as the soil degradation is a documented disaster, so is the life and welfare of the farmers, whose crop losses and mounting debts has led to the agrarian crisis – a fatal one, with farmers taking their lives in large numbers every day in the nation.
The worst impact, owing to its irreversibility, the Campaign felt, was on agro-biodiversity. India, which had some 1.5 lakh varieties of paddy, that had evolved over 10,000 years of its farming history, ended up with a few thousands after GR, eliminated aggressively through government programmes for pushing High Yielding Varieties (HYVs). And lost with it were varieties that could have addressed some of the most critical concerns of today’s agriculture – productivity, climate resilience, special nutritional needs, pest and disease resistance, etc. For instance, in the 1980s India’s top rice scientist, Dr Richharia, found that in his collection of 19,000 indigenous varieties of paddy, 8% had High Yielding potential. This essentially means that even in such a relatively small collection, the total number of HYVs far outnumber all the lab-created HYVs ever developed under GR in India.
Highlights of the Kumbalangi workshop
The discussions at IWR2004 went deep into the problem caused by GR as well as the global paradigms propounded by the IYR2004 as well. This covered aspects from rice ecosystems, seed, knowledge, culture, threats to rice, and safety aspects for farmers and consumers. Food policy experts like Devinder Sharma, and organic farming experts like Dr Nammalvar and Vanaja Ramprasad led sessions that charted the course of the campaign.
Description: https://www.thenewsminute.com/sites/all/var/www/images/save_our_rice_workshop650.jpg
Two major developments on the rice genome globally was seen to be a threat. One was an attempt by agri majors to patent the rice genome. The other was the attempt to introduce the first genetically modified rice – Golden Rice. Both were mired in controversy, the first on issues related to the Intellectual Property Rights of a staple crop that is predominantly an Asian crop and in the public commons. The other related to the biosafety aspect of Golden Rice, both at the environment and health levels and of its IPR issues.
Warning about the attempts by major agribusiness corporations to appropriate the rights over the rice genome, Devinder Sharma said in the workshop, “The daylight robbery of genetic wealth – appropriately termed as biopiracy – continues unabated in connivance with top scientists, international organisations and policymakers.” He added, “The International Year of Rice 2004 is in reality a celebration of the private control of one of the mankind’s most precious heritage – the rice plant.”
The IYR2004 did carry a larger agenda – not much on the critical aspects of ecology and sustainability of the farming systems or the welfare and returns to the farmers, but more about the appropriation of rice as a property and innovations that could benefit rice scientists, breeders and major agri-business houses.
In 14 years, SoRC has expanded diversely in conception and practice in various regions in India – mainly Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, West Bengal, Orissa, Chhattisgarh, and parts of Jharkhand and Madhya Pradesh.
Together from all these regions it has been able to revive and drive 1,500 indigenous seeds back into the farmers’ fields. This was made possible through various efforts by many NGOs, farmers, seed savers and other passionate social entrepreneurs. The seeds thus revived are maintained in 26 community level seed banks run by farmers and 26 Rice Diversity Blocks (RDBs) that cultivate and propagate the seeds among fellow villagers. Seeds and rice are also traded locally through 21 organic rice trading networks, some formal, others informal.
Description: https://www.thenewsminute.com/sites/all/var/www/images/Nel-Jayaraman_paddy650c.jpg
Jayaraman with students
“Seeds are a common heritage of the community, they have to be saved, used and controlled by the farmers, especially the women in the community. With diverse people, we had diverse methods, many that they developed, and that is the beauty of this campaign,” says S Usha, a horticulturist who walked out of a stable government job and later found and led SoRC.
Some of these groups even formed formal companies like the Thaiman Traditional Agri Producer Company, started by Jayaraman and colleagues, to market their indigenous organic rice. Many resourceful farmers and seed savers have by experience become resource persons and have established formal and informal Rice Resource Centres in their villages. In many states, governments and institutions have also responded to the groundswell and changed policies. For instance, in Tamil Nadu the state government now procures indigenous varieties of paddy from farmers for distribution in their official seed supply programme, which once used to be only HYVs.
This silent revolution happening in villages in these states stems from a holistic understanding of the agrarian life in India. India’s production challenge and food security is not as much about improved seeds as it is about the local climate, culture, social relations, natural resources, and its unique legacy of farming evolved over thousands of years. Correcting the mistakes of the myopic GR policy and moving forward through reviving time-tested indigenous seeds, practices and farmer-level knowledge was the key. This could ensure continuum of the process of experience and adaptation, and enable evolving local, adoptable sustainable farming practices specific to each agro-ecological region.
How Nel Thiruvizha is reforming farming in Tamil Nadu
In 2004, both Nammalvar and R Ponnambalam of CREATE (then FEDCOT, a pan-TN consumer federation) attended the Kumbalangi workshop. Nammalvar saw in it a potential to revive indigenous seeds in the landscape of Tamil Nadu’s toxic agriculture. He encouraged Jayaraman, at that time a young farmer and trainer at FEDCOT, to set up a centre and start conserving indigenous varieties of paddy.
In 2006, Jayaraman got a patch of land, leased out to CREATE by a philanthropist in his village Adhirengam in Thiruvarur district, and started with the 15 varieties they collected. In the collection were two versatile varieties called Kattuyanam and Mappilai Chamba. Farmers who adopted Kattuyanam found that it was both drought resistant and flood tolerant, a property unheard of in any HYVs known till then. Mappilai Chamba was traditionally known to have medicinal value and was good for improving muscle strength; it was also a variety with comparably good yield.
Description: https://www.thenewsminute.com/sites/all/var/www/images/Nel-Jayaraman_paddy650b.jpg
Jayaraman conducting training on indigenous storing of paddy
Jayaraman’s collection of seeds was highlighted in a farm magazine, and soon he got calls from all over Tamil Nadu. At least 600 farmers wanted the varieties. This is what led to the Nel Thiruvizha. That year, 2007, they had 600 farmers come, collect 2 kg of an indigenous variety of their choice and promise to return 4 kg the next year for further distribution. This became an annual event. Each year it grew in numbers of seed varieties and farmers.
Slowly the Nel Thiruvizha became a flagship programme of the SoRC in Tamil Nadu. Through the years, SoRC also conducted farmer field schools, train the trainer workshops for organic farming and indigenous seed conservation, outreach programmes for schools, colleges, etc. It even maintained an insitu field of varieties every year, cultivating them in a RDB. A local seed bank was also maintained.
Many farmers voluntarily started maintaining RDBs and seed banks. One of them is Sriram Ramamoorthy, an IT professional turned farmer.
“When I first went to the Nel Thiruvizha some 6 years ago, my farm was a conventional one. Listening to Nammalvar Ayya and others, my father and I shifted to organic farming and started using indigenous varieties. Now it’s become the SVR Organic Way Farm and is even a regional council for organic certification,” says Sriram, whose says his life changed through the Thiruvizha. He now conserves about 65 varieties of paddy and experiments on various methods of cultivation including System of Rice Intensification (SRI).
Today many of the varieties that have been revived, conserved, multiplied and adopted by farmers across Tamil Nadu are picking up in the consumer market as well. Mappilai Samba, Kattuyanam, Kichadi Samba, Thooyamalli and Mysore Mallige have become preferred in various regions in Tamil Nadu. Ever since the Green Revolution, we have not had rice being demanded by names of varieties. It is happening now.
One of the concerns addressed by SoRC is the downgrading of rice from a nutritious staple to a mere starch, filling people with only carbohydrates. This was clearly post-GR and is squarely blamed on the reforms in the milling process, where modern mills removed all the bran and started selling polished rice. The bran that was removed went to the food supplement and pharma industry, and the oil from the bran became rice bran oil. Ironically all these were termed “value addition” of rice, where rice brought in more economic value, but at the cost of nutrition to the consumers.
The downgrading of rice has even become a health issue, as polished rice is now blamed for the rise in diabetes in the rice regions of India. SoRC ran various programmes to highlight the dangers of polished rice and the need to consume semi-polished and unpolished rice as an important source of nutrition. Red rice melas and Desi rice melas were conducted to highlight the importance of red rice and indigenous rice. Now black rice, the most nutritious variety, is picking up in the market, especially ones like Karuppu Kavuni in Tamil Nadu.
SoRC at the national scale has a story to tell from each region, where parallel adoption of indigenous seeds was seen. The silent seed revolution has only begun, and Nel Jayaraman’s efforts in Tamil Nadu has triggered many more seed festivals across Tamil Nadu. On a count last year, it was at least 100. But for Jayaraman himself, the health and self-reliance of the farmer household was priority. He once said, “Our biggest success perhaps is that farmer families have started eating the rice that they grow. Earlier in the Thanjavur delta region, farmers produced paddy only for the Public Distribution System or the markets, while they bought cheap rice from the market to consume. With indigenous rice, we are now consuming what we produce and only selling the surplus.”
That makes farming a matter of culture, one that has a belonging, an emotional connect, not a mechanical job to produce for the nation. It’s through this culture of agriculture that even a nation can benefit along with the farmers.
Sridhar Radhakrishnan is Programme Director at Thanal and Coordinator (Campaign & Policy) of the Save Our Rice Campaign. His work is focussed on agriculture, food sovereignty, environmental policy and advocacy.
Views expressed are the author’s own

Gambia commences creation of next generation of plant breeders

Tuesday, June 25, 2019
Young research scientists of breeders and agronomists working on variety development or testing in the public and private sectors, yesterday commenced another five-day training course on rice, maize and groundnut breeders in The Gambia. The training is on the Concepts and Principles of Plant Breeding and Participatory Varietal Selection (PVS) at the NARI head office in Brikama.
Twenty-six participants from the National Agricultural Research Institute (NARI), The Gambia College School of Agriculture, National Seed Secretariat, National Coordinating Organisation of Farmer Associations Gambia (NACOFAG) and variety release committees are currently participating in the course. Some two weeks ago, another crop of senior and junior research scientists also underwent similar training at NARI, both targeting to develop the next generation of young home-grown agricultural breeders to adapt modern tools for enhancing the precision and efficiency of their breeding programmes.
The course component is part of the European Union (EU) funded 20.5 million Euro, about 1.2 billion dalasis from its 11th European Development Fund implemented by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations under its “Agriculture for Economic Growth and Food Security and Nutrition to mitigate migration programme and WFP.
Director general of NARI Ansumana Jarju reminded the young research scientists at the start of the course on Monday that the training was just the beginning and that they do not have to become professors to be breeders. “We count on you for agricultural researches.”
The course will provide theoretical background on modern breeding methods and techniques including use of biotechnology, experimental techniques, planning, information management tools and software to able to adopt good principles of breeding methodologies and to improve the quality of their research.
Project consultant and FAO senior breeder Moussa Sie said the course became a requirement and need because currently there is no breeder at NARI and the University of The Gambia is not providing breeder programme. “We need to improve capacity by combining both practical and theoretical trainings. Due to climate change, some plants cannot work here but they can be nurtured to produce new varieties.”
He said the course will also provide opportunity to share experiences with other crop breeders and enable the young scientists to provide latest updates on areas relevant to rice breeding and the worldwide exchange of rice genetic resources. 
Gambia is a net importer of food and produces only half of its national requirements of staple foods. The government’s effort to address the deficit in the agriculture sector has resulted in designing a project aimed at creating sustainable production and productivity of crops and livestock; reduce food insecurity, malnutrition and create enabling environment for improved national economy.
Kebba Drammeh, NARI director of Crop Research admitted that the agriculture research institute has been handicapped in the area of research for a long time and the training will help in the creation of next generation of researchers. “For more than 30 years NARI have been depending on outside expertise for crop breeding. This is expected to lift the burden of hiring outside breedership on NARI.”

UK scientists develop climate-ready wheat to survive drought conditions

Description: Rachel Martin Profile Picture
Jun 25, 2019, 8:00am
  

UK scientists have found that engineering bread wheat to have fewer pores on their leaves makes more efficient use of water, potentially helping farmers facing more frequent drought conditionsDescription: UK scientists develop climate-ready wheat to survive drought conditions
Scientists at the University of Sheffield’s Institute for Sustainable Food found that engineering bread wheat to have fewer stomata helps the crop to use water more efficiently while maintaining yields.
On average, it takes more than 1,800L of water to produce 1kg of wheat.
As droughts become more common even in the UK, farmers will need to produce more food than ever with even fewer resources to feed a growing population.
Wheat uses stomata to regulate its intake of carbon dioxide for photosynthesis, as well as the release of water vapour.
When water is plentiful, stomatal opening helps plants to regulate temperature by evaporative cooling – similar to sweating.
In drought conditions, plants normally close their stomata to slow down water loss – but wheat with fewer stomata has been found to conserve water even better, and can use that water to cool itself.
During the study, which has been published in the Journal of Experimental Botany, the scientists grew wheat in conditions similar to those expected under climate breakdown – with higher levels of carbon dioxide and less water.
Compared to conventional wheat, the engineered plants used less water while maintaining photosynthesis and yield.
The research builds on the Institute for Sustainable Food’s work to develop climate-ready rice, which found that rice with fewer stomata used 40% less water than conventional breeds and was able to survive drought and temperatures of 40ºC.
Julie Gray, professor of Plant Molecular Biology at the Institute for Sustainable Food, said: “Wheat is a staple food for millions of people around the world – but as extreme droughts become more frequent, farmers face the prospect of dwindling yields.
Developing wheat that uses water more efficiently will help us to feed our growing population while using fewer natural resources – making our food systems more resilient in the face of climate breakdown.
In a separate study published in Plant, Cell and Environment, scientists at the institute also found that plants engineered to have fewer stomata are less susceptible to diseases. They hope to be able to replicate these findings in crops such as wheat and rice.

Newly identified rice gene could help develop drought-tolerant biotech crop varieties

ISAAA | June 25, 2019
Description: rice varitiesImage: Krishi Jagran
Drought is one of the abiotic factors that affect the yield of crops. Studies have shown that basic leucine zipper motif (bZIP) transcription factors play an important regulatory function in plant drought stress responses. However, the functions of bZIP transcription factors in rice are still mysterious. Scientists from Shanghai Agrobiological Gene Center identified and characterized a novel drought stress-related bZIP transcription factor in rice—OsbZIP62. The findings are published in BMC Plant Biology.
Results showed that the expression of OsbZIP62 was induced by drought, hydrogen peroxide, and abscisic acid (ABA). Overexpression of OsbZIP62-VP64 (OsbZIP62V) led to improved tolerance to drought and oxidative stress exhibited by transgenic rice …. Furthermore, analysis showed that the expression of several stress-related genes was upregulated in OsbZIP62V plants.
The findings imply that OsbZIP62 is important in ABA signaling pathways and positively regulates rice drought tolerance by controlling the expression of stress-related genes, and this gene could be used to genetically engineer important crops with better drought tolerance.
Read full, original article: Crop Biotech Update, June 20, 2019
Punjab pushes ‘pesticide free’ Basmati
Basmati exporters and Basmati growers in the state are now working together to use less pesticides in order meet the new guidelines of the European Union (EU) and other countries regarding the Basmati import from India.
Written by Anju Agnihotri Chaba | Jalandhar |
Published: June 25, 2019 8:38:41 am



RELATED NEWS

Non-basmati rice exports get 5% MEIS benefit for four months

MSP increase could hit non-basmati rice exports

New committee of agricultural scientists to weigh Madhya Pradesh’s claim to GI basmati tag
basmati rice, basmati pesticide free, basmati farmer, basmati cultivation, punjab basmati, punjab news, indian express
This effort is to achieve total compliance with EU Maximum Residue Level (MRLs). (Express photo)
To save Basmati export to Europe, USA and Arab countries, Punjab, which is highest user of fertilisers and insecticides per hectare in the country — much above the national average, has launched a ‘pesticide-free’ Basmati campaign in the state.

Basmati exporters and Basmati growers in the state are now working together to use less pesticides in order meet the new guidelines of the European Union (EU) and other countries regarding the Basmati import from India.

This effort is to achieve total compliance with EU Maximum Residue Level (MRLs).

The Department of Agriculture, through its network of field officers, would recruit fresh agriculture graduates to fan out to all the Basmati clusters in the state and directly remain in touch with the farmers.

Farmers too are happy with this joint move of government and exporters as they said that they always wanted to have precise knowledge about the usage of pesticides and fertilisers.

In Punjab, farmers mainly grow Basmati Varieties 1509 and 1121, the sowing of which would be started in July.

The state has also asked pesticides companies to strictly comply with the instructions of PAU and not to pitch the sale of banned pesticides for the Basmati crop.

Basmati farmer Satnam Singh of Tanda in Hoshiarpur, said that such step of government would be a big help for farmers who are being fleeced by the private companies to sell their pesticides and some times they overused them due to lack of knowledge.

BEST OF EXPRESS

After Mamata order, TMC leaders face demands for refund of ‘cut money’

Jharkhand attack: Police recorded ‘confession’ on theft, didn't mention assault

At Ground Zero of AES, govt schemes have little impact
“We have been spending huge amount on the pesticides and if we can grow Basmati without using that, it would be a great achievement,” said another farmer Ajit Singh of Salempur Masanda Village in Jalandhar.

Punjab uses highest fertilisers per hectare in the country at 212 kg, while the usage of insecticides has come down by 40 per cent in past two decades but still it is high with 556 gm pesticides per hectare.

“Rice exporters and Punjab government with active collaboration with Agriculture Export Development Authority (APEDA) under the Ministry of Commerce have joined hands this year to launch traceability (Backward Integration) through Internet services to register the Basmati farmers across Punjab,” said Punjab Agriculture Secretary KS Pannu, adding that this service would link the Basmati farmers for all backup services including update on the use of pesticides and fertilisers from exporters and the department.

He stressed upon that the Basmati growers must go by the advice of the APEDA for judicious use of only recommended pesticides by the Punjab Agriculture University (PAU), Ludhiana and the Department of Agriculture as any excessive use of prohibited chemicals would thwart our efforts to export this Basmati in large quantities.

MORE EXPLAINED

Simply Put: Why world is debating data flow
The president of Punjab Rice Millers and Exporters Association Arvinder Pal Singh said that the area under Basmati cultivation will go up from 5.68 lakh hectares to 6.5 lakh hectares as the price of Basmati had touched a new high last season.

He added that though government’s efforts started last year, exporters became a part of the campaign only this year.

Director of the Association Ashok Sethi said the awareness programme would continue from July onwards till October end and will include farmers’ workshops and camps involving experts from APEDA and the PAU.

Agricultural sustainability for a growing population

SPONSORED CONTENT
JUN 25, 2019

On a sunny weekend during rice-planting season, the people of Japan’s largest rice-producing prefecture, Niigata, welcomed ministers and delegates from the 20 major economies of the world as well as six invited countries and eight organizations, as the G20 Niigata Agriculture Ministers’ Meeting was held there on May 11 and 12.
At a news conference held on the second day of the event at Toki Messe Niigata Convention Center located in the heart of the city of Niigata, Agriculture Minister Takamori Yoshikawa said that the meeting concluded successfully because of a declaration that aims to ensure the sustainability and productivity of the agri-food sector to feed a growing global population.
“The G20 meeting confirmed the importance of encouraging innovation in agriculture through the utilization of new technologies, including the latest information and communication technologies, artificial intelligence, and robotics,” said Yoshikawa.
He also noted that discussions included topics such as developing human resources to include women and younger generations; agro-food value chains; as well as collaborations with nonfarm businesses, the public sector and academia.
“I introduced efforts made by Niigata Prefectural Agricultural College to obtain Global G.A.P. certification as an example of best practice of human resource development during the meeting,” said Yoshikawa. The college has engaged its students in the process of obtaining the Global G.A.P., a worldwide standard for good agricultural practices, for the rice and strawberries they produce.
The meeting also confirmed that society needs to tackle issues concerning food loss and waste, measures against food price volatility and animal and plant health at the global level. Participants also confirmed a need to keep striving for alleviating hunger and malnutrition in line with the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goals.

Students have their say

During the plenary session held on the first day, students from Kohshi Secondary School presented a proposal addressing imbalances in the food supply among advanced and developing countries. “Some countries suffer from food shortages while others face problems surrounding food loss and waste,” said one of the presenters, expressing her shock when learning about the tremendous gap between the students’ lives and those of the 821 million undernourished people in the world. The students also explained there are many areas in the world where there is not enough water for conventional irrigation systems.
Then, they suggested that drip irrigation can reduce water usage to one-fifth of conventional irrigation use. At the same time, they proposed a bold and novel idea of what they call the “agricultural Olympics” to help solve the financial difficulty in introducing drip irrigation technology. “Developed countries form teams with developing countries with similar climate and geographical conditions, and work together to improve irrigation, promote mechanization and develop infrastructure,” a presenter said. This may serve as an opportunity for researchers and providers of advanced technologies to test the full capabilities of new machinery, products and services and for participating developed countries to win international recognition for their contributions.

‘Japan’s Farming Village’

At a reception following the first day of summit proceedings, guests sampled various delicacies made using seasonal ingredients from Niigata Prefecture and areas hit hard by the Great East Japan Earthquake such as Fukushima and Miyagi prefectures. Yoshikawa mentioned at a news conference the following day that serving high-quality products from disaster-hit areas was significant in demonstrating their recovery to the world and encouraging ongoing support from the global community.
The theme of the reception was “Japan’s Farming Village in Early Summer.” Displays and stalls depicted fields, forests, a pond and a farmer’s house. Guests enjoyed tea ceremony presentations and picking tomatoes and strawberries.
Niigata Gov. Hideyo Hanazumi greeted guests at the beginning of the reception and highlighted Niigata’s significance as one of Japan’s major agricultural prefectures in hosting the meet where sustainability of agriculture was discussed. “Niigata continues to try new things in the agricultural sector such as using yukimuro (snow rooms) to age and improve the flavor of various foods and has developed a new varietal of rice, Shinnosuke,” he said.
Niigata Mayor Yaichi Nakahara made a toast, saying that it was an honor for Niigata as a city with a good balance of advanced urban functionality and rich nature. Koshi no Kanbai Junmai Daiginjo Kinmuku made by Ishimoto Sake Brewery in Niigata was used for the toast.
The area’s Restaurant Bus was also there to offer a space for guests to enjoy different foods, such as sweets using local Echigohime strawberries. The bus is used in area tours as one element of Niigata’s “Gastronomy Tourism” campaign, which offers special experiences of Niigata’s gourmet, culture and history for tourists.
Reception guests were also treated to displays of traditional and contemporary performing arts originating from the prefecture.
The first performance was Niigata Furumachi Geigi, a 200-year-old performing art and important cultural legacy drawing from local geisha history, consisting of traditional singing, dancing and music by female professional performers in kimono. The second performance was a dance and Japanese drum parade by participants of the Niigata Soh-Odori, one of Japan’s largest dance festivals that started in 2001. Guests enjoyed taking pictures and some even joined in playing wadaiko Japanese drums with the performers.

A warm welcome

During the two-day ministerial meeting, local children and volunteers warmly welcomed delegates with flowers and plenty of photo opportunities at Niigata station and airport, the entrance of the meeting venue and other places.
Colorful welcome message cards drawn by children from 37 elementary and junior high schools in Niigata Prefecture decorated a large panel in the atrium. Another panel at the entrance of the venue was adorned with a mosaic made up of about 1,500 photos of Niigata residents smiling; representatives from all participating countries and organizations took an official photo in front of the panel.
Some of the delegates posted photos and videos on social media to express their delight to people back home.

A MICE destination

The city of Niigata contributed to the success of the event with warm hospitality, efficient traffic control and transportation arrangements, as well as appropriate security both inside and outside the venue, displaying the city’s pride and capability as one of the G20 Summit MICE (meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions) venues in Japan.
Toki Messe previously hosted the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Ministerial Meeting on Food Security in 2010 and Group of Seven Agricultural Ministers’ Meeting in 2016.
Toki Messe stands on what used to be a small island called Bandaijima but is now connected to the mainland. It lies at the mouth of the Shinano River. Japan’s longest river that also flows through the city of Niigata into the Sea of Japan. The area has long been prosperous as a port town, especially during the Edo Period to the Meiji Era when it was one of the ports of call for kitamaebune, cargo ships that traveled on the Sea of Japan.
The city of Niigata continues to be a key point for transportation, with easy access from Tokyo by shinkansen; via air, it is accessible from many of Japan’s major cities including Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, Sapporo and Fukuoka as well as from cities overseas including Taipei, China’s Harbin and Shanghai, and Seoul.
Toki Messe is five minutes by taxi and 15 minutes by bus from Niigata Station on the JR Joetsu Shinkansen Line. The venue is about 20 minutes on foot from the station, and makes for a pleasant walk during fine weather. It takes about 20 minutes by taxi from the airport to Toki Messe. Buses are also available between the airport and Niigata Station.
The Toki Messe convention complex is comprised of an exhibition hall, 13 conference rooms of various sizes and the Hotel Nikko Niigata. A panoramic view of the city of Niigata with the vast Niigata Plain in the background can be enjoyed from the observatory on the 31st floor of the hotel.
During the G20 Summit ministerial meeting, students of Miyaura Junior High School in Niigata offered guests a thorough explanation of Niigata’s climate, geography, history, culture and nature as they showed visitors a 360-degree view of the city from the observatory.

Tasty technology

Dozens of companies and organizations set up booths to display their agricultural technologies and products outside the hall where the ministerial meeting took place.
The G20 Niigata Agriculture Ministers’ Meeting Promotion Council displayed agricultural, forestry and fishery products of Niigata including 88 kinds of sake, tomatoes and a variety of edamame called chamame, mangoes grown in greenhouses heated with hot spring water of 64 degrees Celsius. Various “functional” foods promoted by the prefecture including food processed using high-pressure techniques, food designed to be eaten during disasters and during rescue operations, and low-protein rice for patients with kidney problems were also displayed.
A project featuring smart agriculture conducted in the city of Niigata was also on display. Several companies specializing in new technologies useful in agriculture such as remote sensing systems to monitor crop conditions using satellites and drones, and farm management application for PCs and smartphones collaborated to support the event.
The council also showcased Niigata crafts such as Niigata lacquerware, delicate wood carvings from Murakami and hammered copperware from Tsubame.
Niigata’s Shirone district is famous for its giant kite battle, an annual event dating back about 300 years. In the ministerial meeting atrium, two of the giant kites used in actual battles were displayed. There was also a booth introducing Niigata’s Sado Island, two-and-a-half hours travel by ferry from Niigata Port. It is a picturesque island blessed with nature that has been designated as a Globally Important Agricultural Heritage System by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
Students of Niigata Prefectural Kaiyo High School had a booth displaying a soy sauce made using local marine ingredients such as salmon and kelp, which they produced with their teachers.

Hands-on fun

Additionally, a field tour took delegates to several notable locations on May 12.
At the Northern Culture Museum, delegates participated in various cultural experiences including tea ceremony. The museum used to be a private residence of Niigata’s wealthy, land-owning Ito family during the Meiji Era (1868-1912). The delegates enjoyed their time as they took commemorative photos with full-blown Japanese wisteria behind them.
The delegates then went to Komehachi, a company that grows rice, soy beans, wheat, vegetables and other produce through smart agriculture utilizing cutting-edge information and communications technology; a demonstration of an unmanned rice-planting machine was among the activities.
Description: https://cdn.japantimes.2xx.jp/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/z9-niigata-m-20190627.jpg
Chohan grills Sharifs for ‘deceiving’ nation
LAHORE: The Punjab government spokesperson Fayaz-ul-Hassan Chohan has warned that any harm to the health of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif will be the result of his love for eating.
He demanded Punjab Assembly Speaker immediately cancel the Production Order of Opposition leader in PA Hamza Shahbaz for violating the rules. Talking to media outside Punjab Assembly immediately after the press conference of Opposition leader Hamza Shahbaz, Fayaz-ul-Hassan Chohan stated that for last 10 days Nawaz Sharif had been constantly eating mutton and rice.
He said that a patient having cardiac issue should avoid meat but the food menu of former prime minister between June 11 and June 21 clearly showed that he had been eating mutton. Besides, he said he had been dubbed as diabetic by his family but the former PM, instead of avoiding rice was regularly consuming them.
Chohan went on to say that the daughter of the former prime minister, Maryam Safdar tried to gain sympathy of the nation in her press conference just like the characters of Star Plus dramas. He said both father and daughter were deceiving the nation.
Chohan stated it was strange that Maryam Safdar was comparing former Egyptian President Muhammad Mursi with her father Nawaz Sharif adding one devoted his life for Islam and other was declared ‘Sicilian mafia’ by the court.
He added that Nawaz Sharif was declared guilty and disqualified by the Supreme Court for life time on the charges of money laundering and his nephew Hamza Shahbaz should stop lying to the nation.
Grilling Opposition leader in Punjab Assembly Hamza Shahbaz, Fayaz Chohan said when Imran Khan was playing cricket and earning name and fame for the country, Hamza was seen roaming in the streets of Gawalmandi.
To a question over the ban imposed in National Assembly to call Prime Minister as “selected PM” he said the “defected Bhuttos” and “disqualified Sharifs” were raising objections against an elected Prime Minister of the country. He said Imran Khan had come to power through people’s vote.
To a query related to bar PML-N workers from seeing their leader Nawaz Sharif, he said when a person is ill, he is advised to take rest and avoid seeing visitors but in this case, Hamza and Safdar wanted more people to visit him.
The Punjab government spokesperson on the occasion also requested to immediately cancel the Production Order of Hamza Shahbaz Sharif for breaching rules of procedures. He said according to his information, a person on Production Order couldn’t address media but Hamza Shahbaz wasn’t following the rules.

Rice exports face tough time amid huge global supply

Update: June, 25/2019 - 08:25

Description: http://image.vietnamnews.vn/uploadvnnews/Article/2019/6/25/20635_HP2.jpg
Farmers harvesting rice in the Mekong Delta. Photo english.vietnamnet.vn
HCM CITY — With an abundant global supply and high inventory in major exporting countries, Việt Nam is expected to struggle to secure exports of rice in the second half of the year, speakers said at a conference held in HCM City on Monday.
Trần Quốc Khánh, deputy minister of Industry and Trade, said that Việt Nam’s rice exports in the first half of the year experienced great challenges due to a drop in demand from major importers. 
Except for the Philippines, the country’s three major traditional rice importing countries such as China, Indonesia and Bangladesh all imported much less in the first half of the year. 
image: http://image.vietnamnews.vn/uploadvnnews/Article/2019/6/25/20634_HP1.jpg
Description: http://image.vietnamnews.vn/uploadvnnews/Article/2019/6/25/20634_HP1.jpg
Speakers at a conference held yesterday in HCM City discuss the status of Viet Nam's rice exports in the first half of the year. VNS Photo Bồ Xuân Hiệp

The trend is expected to continue for the rest of the year because of the high inventory in China, an election year in Indonesia, and Bangladesh’s ongoing recovery from flooding, Khánh said.
The decline in imports from these markets has also affected two other leading rice exporters, India and Thailand.
In the first five months, Việt Nam exported a combined 239,000 tonnes of rice to China, Indonesia and Bangladesh, compared with 1.44 million tonnes over the same period last year, according to the Export and Import Department under the Ministry of Industry and Trade.
In recent years, many rice importing countries have imposed rice tariffs and allowed other rice suppliers to participate in the G2P (government-to-private) tenders in order to buy rice of higher quality at more competitive prices.
Meanwhile, countries such as Myanmar, Cambodia, and Pakistan are trying to increase their rice export output. 
In addition, China is not only the largest rice importer, but also one of the world’s major rice exporters. 
Solutions
The Ministry of Industry and Trade is working with agencies such as Việt Nam Food Association and rice exporters to implement solutions, such as reviewing policies of foreign markets, according to Deputy Minister Khánh.  
While negotiating bilateral and multilateral free trade agreements, the ministry has discussed with foreign partners about tax reductions and removal of trade and technical barriers for Vietnamese rice products.
The ministry has also updated information for local enterprises and associations about regulations on food hygiene and safety, quality control and traceability.
Many programmes on trade promotion and brand development have been luanched, including trade fairs in mainland China, the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong, as well as France, the Netherlands, Ghana, Ivory Coast and the US.
To assist businesses in studying customer demand and promoting exports, the ministry has worked with localities that produce high outputs of rice, such as An Giang, Long An, and Kiên Giang provinces, Cần Thơ City, and HCM City.
Experts have recommended that Vietnamese exporters diversify export and import markets and avoid dependence on only certain markets.
New decree
Taking effect in October last year, Decree 107/2018/ND-CP, which replaced an older decree, aims to remove legal barriers for rice businesses to expand to foreign markets. 
According to the new decree, rice-exporting businesses will no longer be required to own rice storage or paddy milling and grinding facilities with processing capacities of 5,000 tonnes of rice and 10 tonnes of paddy per hour, respectively.
Instead, they now can rent such facilities from other agencies and organisations. The capacity volume requirements have also been removed. 
Trần Văn Công, deputy director of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development’s Agro Processing and Market Development Authority, said the new decree would help rice traders cut costs significantly.
Khánh said the decree was a breakthrough in institutional policy regarding rice export activities, removing difficulties for rice firms.
The decree also stipulates additional regulations on the responsibilities of ministries, sectors and localities in rice export management. 
According to the General Department of Customs, Việt Nam’s rice exports reached 2.76 million tonnes in the first five months, down 6.3 per cent compared to the same period last year. The country earned US$1.18 billion worth of exports in the period, a decline of 20.4 per cent over the same period last year. 
The country’s rice products are exported to 150 countries and territories, including the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, mainland China, Cuba, Hong Kong, Singapore, Iraq, Ivory Coast, Ghana and Mozambique. — VNS
Think Rice?  Think Summer Programming  
By Michael Klein

BEAUMONT, TX - USA Rice has teamed up with Texas AgriLife Extension Service for their annual "Read and Feed" summer food program that provides lunch and educational activities for children ages 18 and younger.  The program is designed to educate students on nutrition and highlights the "Path to Plate" concept which explores how and why food grown in the United States is safe, and how to prepare more natural and less processed foods.

USA Rice provided a collection of resources including "U.S. Rice in the Culinary Classroom" school curriculum binders, K-2nd coloring books, 4-6th grade "U.S.-Grown Rice in the Classroom" activity books, rice samples, and a variety of promotional items.

"I am grateful to USA Rice for their continued support of the enrichment component of the program," said Jefferson County Precinct Four Commissioner Everette "Bo" Alfred.  "Any assistance you provide to educate the youth of our community is greatly appreciated."

USA Rice's "U.S. Rice in the Culinary Classroom" was used as the underlying curriculum of the week-long program and presentations to the students were created based on it.

"Any opportunity where USA Rice can educate students living in a rice-growing state on the work that goes into producing rice and the importance of choosing U.S.-grown is a win/win scenario," said USA Rice Domestic Promotion Manager Cameron Jacobs.  "The fact that this summer program also provides lunch to these students is the cherry on top."
Throughout the summer, USA Rice will continue to support Texas AgriLife Extension Service for additional programs at area libraries, youth camps, and the Community Health Program.  USA Rice will follow-up in the fall at the county's Child Care Conference helping out with a breakout session focusing on farm-to-table and rice production.  This summer the Three R's get a boost from another smart R: Rice

Rice in Schools

USA Rice provides all the resources you need to create healthy, satisfying school meals. From breakfast to lunch and after-school meals, rice-based dishes deliver nutritional benefits and the great tastes your students want.
Description: school-recipes

K–12 Recipe Ideas

To browse our library of K–12 recipe ideas, click here »

 

 

Rice fields help threatened California snakes

By Joshua Rapp Learn

Posted on June 19, 2019
Description: https://wildlife.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/SM-rice-snakes-2-620x264.jpgGiant garter snakes have lost most of the historical range in Central California. ©Matt Meshriy, USGS
Federally threatened garter snakes in California are using flooded rice paddies as refuges, but irregular management practices may limit the help these agricultural landscapes can provide the reptiles.
“They probably wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for the rice,” said TWS member Brian Halstead, a research wildlife biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey’s Western Ecological Research Center and the lead author of a study published recently in Global Ecology and Conservation. But he believes that better rice farm management practices might give the snakes a better buffer from the threats they continue to face.
Giant garter snakes (Thamnophis gigas), listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, were traditionally found in Central California’s Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys. The snakes thrive in wetland areas where they hunt frogs, tadpoles and fish.
But development over the years meant much of the former wetlands were converted to orchards and row crops. The snakes, once abundant in the San Joaquin Valley, were almost extirpated other than a few remnant populations due to the landscape changes. The snakes had also suffered a huge blow to their range with the drying of the Tulare Lake in the 20thcentury due to its tributary rivers being rerouted for municipal water supplies and to irrigate crops. These changes have caused the snakes to lose about 95% of their historical habitat.
At some point, farmers in the Sacramento Valley began growing rice, and the rice fields provided snakes with the right conditions. “The rice agricultural system provides surface water during the summer when the snakes are active and marsh-like conditions provide the cover, habitat and prey that the snakes need,” Halstead said.
In 2014, Halstead and his colleagues wanted to see how the snakes would deal with the drought in the area. During dry years, farmers choose not to and sometimes cannot plant rice, instead selling off their water as it brings a higher price than the yield from the rice itself would, Halstead said.
“The original intent was to see whether the snakes were going to be able to move to where there was water,” he said.
Halstead and his colleagues trapped snakes in rice farms and equipped those weighing more than 7 ounces with radio transmitters. They tagged 58 snakes, only four of which were males due to the males’ smaller size, and tracked their daily activity and survival.
They found that the snakes made the most use of rice fields only after the rice plants had grown large enough to break through the surface of the water around early June, remaining in this habitat until September when farmers drain the fields.
Snakes typically had higher survival rates when more rice fields were within 1640 feet of their home range.
“If they were chronically exposed to less rice, then their risk of mortality was higher and their survival was lower,” Halstead said.
But the snakes weren’t actually found much in the fields themselves, but rather in the water canals that ran alongside the fields and fed into them.
Halstead believes this higher survival rate may be due to the effect rice fields have on dispersing wading birds and other predators that feed on garter snakes. When the fields are flooded, many of these predators will disperse away from the canals where the snakes concentrate. But when the fields are dry, the canals become crowded with a whole assortment of threats to garter snakes.
It might also be due to a spillover effect. “These rice fields are really shallow, warm aquatic environments, and they’re highly productive,” he said. They export nutrients and invertebrates into nearby canals which in turn feed snake prey like frogs, fish and tadpoles.
Halstead and his co-authors also found that the snakes didn’t actually use rice fields during the spring after emerging from hibernation — a period that also showed the lowest snake survival rates. This might reflect snake vulnerability, since the reptiles basically don’t eat from October through March and perhaps into April.
In a natural system, snowmelt from the mountains would typically ensure an abundance of good habitat for the snakes to forage in during these spring months when they emerge.
But many farmers now prefer to keep their rice fields dry during this period.
“There is the difference from the historical conditions, which puts stress on the snakes at this time of year,” Halstead said.
“Rice is great for the snakes compared to nothing, but that rice probably isn’t the best thing for the snakes,” he said, adding that this is due to the incongruity between when the water is delivered and when the snakes need it.
This relationship could be improved, he said, if farmers could adjust their seasons to get water into the fields a little earlier and with more consistency over the years.
Joshua Rapp Learn is a science writer at The Wildlife Society. Contact him at jlearn@wildlife.org with any questions or comments about his article.


Rice exports shrink in first five months

By Hung Le   June 25, 2019 | 08:55 am GMT+7
Grains are seen on assembly line of a rice processing factory in Vietnam's southern Mekong Delta city of Can Tho. Photo by Reuters/Kham.

Vietnam’s rice exports fell 6.3 percent in volume and 20.4 percent in value in the first five months of 2019 compared to the same period last year.

The Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT) said at a conference in Ho Chi Minh City on Monday that the country exported a total of 2.76 million tons of rice worth around $1.18 billion in the first five months.
Apart from the Philippines, Vietnam's exports to its main markets like China, Indonesia and Bangladesh fell during this period.
Vietnam exported only 239,000 tons of rice to these three markets, compared to 1.44 million tons in the same period last year, a six-fold drop.
This situation is expected to drag on until the end of the year, as a result of various reasons including high levels of rice inventory from China’s last harvest, Indonesia having general elections this year, and the recovery of post-flood production in Bangladesh, the ministry said.
Export prices of rice also fell sharply this year, averaging only $427.5 per ton, a decrease of $77 per ton over last year.
According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Vietnam is the third biggest rice exporter in the world behind India and Thailand, selling the grain to some 150 countries and territories.
In 2018, rice exports grew 5.1 percent in volume (6.1 million tons) and 16.3 percent ($3.08 billion) in value year-on-year.
Monsoon covers most parts of cane, cotton, soybean fields in India
JUNE 25, 2019 / Mayank Bhardwaj
3 MIN READ

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Monsoon rains have covered most parts of cane, cotton, and soybean fields in western India and some parts of rice-sowing areas in central and northern India, the country’s weather office said on Tuesday.

FILE PHOTO: A woman takes photographs with her mobile phone against the backdrop of monsoon clouds at a beach in Kochi, India June 8, 2019. REUTERS/Sivaram V
After a limp start, the rains have covered nearly half of the country, a weather department official told Reuters on Monday.

A shortfall in monsoon rains has narrowed to 37% of the long-term average against 44% between June 1 and June 19, the office said.

Conditions are now favorable for the southwest monsoon to further advance into the western state of Gujarat, and a few morusene parts of the central state of Madhya Pradesh and northern states of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, the weather office said.

Monsoon rains are crucial for farmers who plant cane, corn, cotton, rice and soybean in June and July, with harvests from October.

Nearly half of India’s farmland lacks irrigation and the monsoon season delivers about 70% of the country’s annual rainfall - key to the success of the farm sector in Asia’s third-biggest economy.

The agriculture sector accounts for about 15% of the country’s $2.6 trillion economy, but employs nearly half of India’s 1.3 billion people.

The India Meteorological Department defines average or normal rainfall as between 96% and 104% of a 50-year average of 89 centimeters for the entire four-month season beginning June.

Poor rains have delayed planting of summer-sown crops, but experts say crop yields could be robust if rains pick up in the next two weeks.

Water is typically scarce in the summer months, but the situation has been particularly grim this year in western and southern states that received below-average rainfall in the 2018 monsoon season.

Farmers have planted summer-sown crops on 9.1 million hectares, as of June 21, down 12.5% compared with the same period a year ago, according to provisional data from the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare.

Cotton sowing was down 12%, while soybean planting has lagged by 57% during the period.

India is the world’s biggest exporter of rice and the top importer of vegetable oils.

India imports about 60% of its vegetable oil needs at an annual cost of up to $10 billion – its third-biggest import item after crude oil and gold. A drop in oilseed output could lift the country’s imports of edible oils such as palm oil, soyoil and sunflower oil, dealers said.


Policy makers are keeping their fingers crossed.

The water resources minister on Monday warned that a water shortage could cut food exports from India, which has emerged as a leading supplier of a number of food products to the world.

Rice exports face tough time amid huge global supply

Update: June, 25/2019 - 08:25

Description: http://image.vietnamnews.vn/uploadvnnews/Article/2019/6/25/20635_HP2.jpg
Farmers harvesting rice in the Mekong Delta. Photo english.vietnamnet.vn
HCM CITY — With an abundant global supply and high inventory in major exporting countries, Việt Nam is expected to struggle to secure exports of rice in the second half of the year, speakers said at a conference held in HCM City on Monday.
Trần Quốc Khánh, deputy minister of Industry and Trade, said that Việt Nam’s rice exports in the first half of the year experienced great challenges due to a drop in demand from major importers. 
Except for the Philippines, the country’s three major traditional rice importing countries such as China, Indonesia and Bangladesh all imported much less in the first half of the year. 
image: http://image.vietnamnews.vn/uploadvnnews/Article/2019/6/25/20634_HP1.jpg
Description: http://image.vietnamnews.vn/uploadvnnews/Article/2019/6/25/20634_HP1.jpg
Speakers at a conference held yesterday in HCM City discuss the status of Viet Nam's rice exports in the first half of the year. VNS Photo Bồ Xuân Hiệp

The trend is expected to continue for the rest of the year because of the high inventory in China, an election year in Indonesia, and Bangladesh’s ongoing recovery from flooding, Khánh said.
The decline in imports from these markets has also affected two other leading rice exporters, India and Thailand.
In the first five months, Việt Nam exported a combined 239,000 tonnes of rice to China, Indonesia and Bangladesh, compared with 1.44 million tonnes over the same period last year, according to the Export and Import Department under the Ministry of Industry and Trade.
In recent years, many rice importing countries have imposed rice tariffs and allowed other rice suppliers to participate in the G2P (government-to-private) tenders in order to buy rice of higher quality at more competitive prices.
Meanwhile, countries such as Myanmar, Cambodia, and Pakistan are trying to increase their rice export output. 
In addition, China is not only the largest rice importer, but also one of the world’s major rice exporters. 
Solutions
The Ministry of Industry and Trade is working with agencies such as Việt Nam Food Association and rice exporters to implement solutions, such as reviewing policies of foreign markets, according to Deputy Minister Khánh.  
While negotiating bilateral and multilateral free trade agreements, the ministry has discussed with foreign partners about tax reductions and removal of trade and technical barriers for Vietnamese rice products.
The ministry has also updated information for local enterprises and associations about regulations on food hygiene and safety, quality control and traceability.
Many programmes on trade promotion and brand development have been luanched, including trade fairs in mainland China, the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong, as well as France, the Netherlands, Ghana, Ivory Coast and the US.
To assist businesses in studying customer demand and promoting exports, the ministry has worked with localities that produce high outputs of rice, such as An Giang, Long An, and Kiên Giang provinces, Cần Thơ City, and HCM City.
Experts have recommended that Vietnamese exporters diversify export and import markets and avoid dependence on only certain markets.
New decree
Taking effect in October last year, Decree 107/2018/ND-CP, which replaced an older decree, aims to remove legal barriers for rice businesses to expand to foreign markets. 
According to the new decree, rice-exporting businesses will no longer be required to own rice storage or paddy milling and grinding facilities with processing capacities of 5,000 tonnes of rice and 10 tonnes of paddy per hour, respectively.
Instead, they now can rent such facilities from other agencies and organisations. The capacity volume requirements have also been removed. 
Trần Văn Công, deputy director of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development’s Agro Processing and Market Development Authority, said the new decree would help rice traders cut costs significantly.
Khánh said the decree was a breakthrough in institutional policy regarding rice export activities, removing difficulties for rice firms.
The decree also stipulates additional regulations on the responsibilities of ministries, sectors and localities in rice export management. 
According to the General Department of Customs, Việt Nam’s rice exports reached 2.76 million tonnes in the first five months, down 6.3 per cent compared to the same period last year. The country earned US$1.18 billion worth of exports in the period, a decline of 20.4 per cent over the same period last year. 
The country’s rice products are exported to 150 countries and territories, including the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, mainland China, Cuba, Hong Kong, Singapore, Iraq, Ivory Coast, Ghana and Mozambique. — VNS


SunRice sees Top End rice bowl, but ag support base needed
Description: Andrew Marshall
25 Jun 2019, 1:30 p.m.
Description: SunRice chairman, Laurie Arthur, in an irrigated rice crop he helped grow in the Kimberley in Western Australia's far north in 2010.
 SunRice chairman, Laurie Arthur, in an irrigated rice crop he helped grow in the Kimberley in Western Australia's far north in 2010.
Northern Australia's opportunity to bloom as an export food bowl may have to wait another decade or two because the support service networks required to make that dream really grow simply don't exist.
Australians, also, do not yet fully understand the reality of global food security and Australia's need to service a hunger for more agricultural production, says SunRice chairman, Laurie Arthur.
"Unfortunately, the infrastructure to build new farming industries just doesn't arrive overnight," Mr Arthur said.
Although a keen advocate of northern Australia's potential for irrigated cropping and more livestock industries, Mr Arthur said there was more to growing the Top End's agricultural export capacity than just adding cheap water tapped from huge Lake Argyle's 10.7 gigalitre reserves on the Ord River.
Everything from machinery spare parts to processing industries and scientific backup tended to be thousands of kilometres from the continent's remote northern regions.
Even so he was confident Northern Australia could eventually deliver big volumes of grain, cotton, horticultural crops and meat for hungry near neighbours.
If I had a problem with a rice harvester, the replacement parts were probably 4500 kilometres away- Laurie Arthur, SunRice
Mr Arthur knew first hand as a former rice grower in Western Australia's Kimberley region, the north had potential, but at present it was still a challenging and often expensive place to be a pioneer.
He developed irrigated country for rice at Kununurra a decade ago, but retreated home to the NSW Murray Valley after just two seasons.
"If I had a problem with a rice harvester, the replacement parts were probably 4500 kilometres away in southern NSW, or maybe just 3000km away (in Perth or North Queensland) for other farm equipment," he said.
Equipment suppliers, spare part services, skilled technicians and a host of other farm inputs, product handling infrastructure and back up businesses all took time to evolve in agricultural communities - just as they had when Australia's rice industry emerged in the 1920s, eventually underpinning the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area's success.
Description: https://nnimgt-a.akamaihd.net/transform/v1/crop/frm/32XghFRykTWK8psrWNhdBMC/4433b919-061e-4156-a51d-ae430a18426e.JPG/r432_18_2636_2981_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg
Northern crop processing options were still limited.
Mr Arthur and partners had to send their first harvest to Papua New Guinea, in shipping containers, to be milled.
Their second crop was baled for cattle feed after being infected with rice blast disease in the tropical conditions.
"You can certainly grow rice in the north - in about two thirds the time it takes in NSW - but while the water's cheap, it's still a high cost proposition because of many factors, including new pests and diseases we need to understand and research," he said.
SunRice's northern focus
In North Queensland SunRice has been rebuilding the rice industry's former toehold in the Burdekin, Tully and Gordonvale regions, backing new research into varietal breeding, crop nutrition needs and disease management.
Description: SunRice chairman, Laurie Arthur, in an irrigated rice crop he helped grow in the Kimberley in Western Australia's far north in 2010.The farmer-owned company, one of Australia's best known export food names, has also invested in production and research in PNG and recently bought a processing mill in Vietnam where it has farmers growing crops under contract.
"I think we're in a great position to take serious steps towards having rice as part of the northern agricultural picture," Mr Arthur said.
"Our industry is well positioned to grow a lot of food for markets around the world, but agribusiness will have to do a lot of other leg work first.
"When Australia gets serious about understanding global food security there'll be more attention focused on what needs to be done in the north.
Description: Laurie Arthur during his northern rice harvest.
 Laurie Arthur during his northern rice harvest.
However, I'm not sure if that issue will bite home for maybe another 20 years or so."
Trusted globally
Description: https://nnimgt-a.akamaihd.net/transform/v1/crop/frm/32XghFRykTWK8psrWNhdBMC/039e9b48-7c74-4679-a0e8-f42db1c5deda.JPG/r961_0_3077_2976_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg
Fortunately, SunRice enjoyed enormous trust in export markets because of Australia's clean farm product image, and it was building market share on that reputation.
Yet "like all Australian food production", the rice industry had its challenges delivering enough prized Australian product to export buyers, with drought adding to that challenge.
SunRice had subsequently adapted to market and seasonal pressures, finding additional supply sources and buying subsidiary businesses in the US, Jordan and Vietnam to service its customer base with product carefully matching the company's brand reputation.
"We enjoy a strong brand presence in many of the world's premium markets, including Japan," he said.
"Consumers want to trust where their rice comes from.
"Within a year we will even be able to show consumers, on the pack, exactly where their SunRice purchase was grown."
Mr Arthur said the company took seriously its responsibility to reliably meet consumer expectations, build premium markets and strengthen its value-added processing commitment in regional Australia.
"I regard our industry as the very model of what good Australian agribusiness should be - diverse, innovative, sustainably-focused and driven hard by research and development." 
  • Start the day with all the big news in agriculture! Click here to sign up to receive our daily Farmonline newsletter. 


No comments:

Post a Comment