Search on again for Kingdom’s
best quality rice
Chea Vannak /
Khmer Times
The Cambodia Rice Federation has urged rice millers and
exporters to join the National Rice Competition 2019 by submitting samples of
their rice.
It said in an announcement on
Friday that the best premium fragrant rice will be presented as Cambodia’s
entry to the World Best Rice Award Contest scheduled to be held in Manila, the
Philippines, from November 10 to 13.
The fourth national rice
competition will be held on November 1 and the rice millers and exporters
should submit their samples to the CRF no later than October 25, the CRF noted.
It said there are three
categories in the competition – premium fragrant rice; fragrant rice; and long
grain white rice.
Lun Yeng, CRF secretary
general, yesterday said that rice millers and exporters are encouraged to join
the contest to find the best quality rice in the country.
“Any rice miller and exporter
can apply to join the upcoming national rice competition, so that the best
quality rice will be selected by the CRF’s committee of judges,” he noted.
The competition will focus on
the quality of rice after cooking, its fragrance and appearance, Mr Yeng said.
He noted that national winners
in the fragrant rice and long grain white rice categories would be given awards
during the 7th Cambodia Rice Forum scheduled to be held in December.
Since participating in the
annual World Best Rice contest, Cambodian rice has won the top award in 2012,
2013, 2014 and last year.
Last year, Cambodia’s premium
fragrant rice won the best rice in the world contest which took place in Hanoi,
Vietnam during the 10th TRT World Rice Conference held on October 10 to 12.
According to Mr Yeng, Cambodia
faces tough competition from Thailand and Vietnam which also produce high
quality rice for export to other countries.
Cambodia exported 281,538
tonnes of milled rice during the first half of this year, an increase of 3.7
percent compared to the same period last year.
Low basmati prices worry Majha farmers
CITIES Updated: Sep 23, 2019 01:38 IST
anil.kumar@htlive.com
Low prices of the early
variety of basmati rice, PUSA-1509, have been worrying farmers of the Majha
region as against ₹2,900-3,000 per quintal last year, they are getting only
₹2,300 to 25,000 for the same produce this year.
Three of the four districts
of Majha region—Amritsar, Tarn Taran and Gurdaspur— bordering Pakistan is the
most favorable destination for cultivation of the premium quality rice. Besides
Majha, the variety is also cultivated in some parts of Hoshiarpur, Muktsar and
Fazilka districts of the state. In Haryana, basmati is largely grown in Karnal
and its adjoining districts. Punjab and Haryana collectively contribute to 75%
of the high quality rice exports.
Commission agents blame the
United States (US) sanctions on Iran for the low price while the farmers are
blaming the Centre and state governments for not fixing minimum support price
(MSP) of the crop.
The 1509 variety of basmati
had started arriving in the grain markets of Majha from September 5. Another
variety of basmati, PUSA 1121, is expected to arrive in the grain markets in
the next few days.
“A quintal PUSA 1509 and 1121
was available at ₹2,900 to 3,000 last year. This year government encouraged us
to cultivate basmati as it saves lot of water and we almost doubled the area
under its cultivation this year. However, the government failed to ensure a fair
price for our yield. We are getting only ₹2,300 to 2,500 per acre,” said
Kawalpreet Singh Pannu, convener of Kisan Sangarsh Committee (KSC), Punjab.
This year, the agriculture
department has recorded more than 40% increase in the area under the high quality
rice cultivation as compared to last year. Out of around 5,68,676 hectares
under paddy in the region, basmati was transplanted on more than 2,75,000
hectares this year. However, basmati was cultivated on 1,93,000 hectares in the
region last year.
Chief agriculture officer
(CAO), Tarn Taran, Harwinderjit Singh, said, “MSP of every crop is fixed by the
Center. Farmers are getting ₹2,500 per quintal for PUSA 1509. The price may
increase when PUSA 1121 arrives in the grain market.”
As per agriculture department,
sowing basmati also helps farmers manage stubble as the premium quality paddy
has less straw in comparison to the coarse varieties.
“If the government wants us
to sow basmati next year too, it should fix the price of the high quality rice
to more than ₹3000 per quintal,” said Nishan Singh, a farmer in Amritsar.
“Recently, the price of
basmati superfine varieties for export has dipped from ₹9,200 to ₹7,200 per
quintal, instilling a sense of worry in the mind of private players. This has
happened due to the US sanctions on Iran. Most of the basmati is exported to
Iran and Saudi Arabia,” said Rakesh Tuli, advisor of Arthia Union, Amritsar.
For Pakistan, deficit reduction is
a success but is not enough
Published: September 23, 2019
PHOTO: REUTERS
KARACHI: Maintaining a balance of
payments equilibrium is one of the top most priorities of all macroeconomic
managers and in the case of Pakistan, managing the balance of payments has been
the main economic issue for the past two years.
The
country has compromised on other macroeconomic goals such as low unemployment
and low or stable inflation in order to reduce the current account deficit.
Pakistan
received encouraging news on this front as the current account deficit narrowed
to $579 million in July 2019, which was almost a fourth of the deficit recorded
in July 2018 ($2.13 billion).
In
order to explain this improvement, let us take help of the economic concept of
J-curve.
According
to the J-curve theory, initially the current account deficit increases slightly
following devaluation of the currency but eventually this trend is reversed and
improvement comes after six to eight months. This time lag occurs because
imports and exports get adjusted with a lag. Imports slow down and exports gain
momentum but the change does not take place immediately.
The
improvement in the level of the deficit has been reflected in an improvement in
value of the currency as well. Pakistan rupee strengthened against US dollar in
August 2019 and traded at 156.75 against July close of 159.75.
The
market expects the rupee to appreciate further in September based on the Real
Effective Exchange Rate (REER) index of 91.0. This expectation will be
strengthened if the current account deficit for the month remains under
control. The above improvements are commendable but the economic team has faced
a lot of criticism while trying to achieve this. Nevertheless, the improvement
in the external sector is a feather in its cap. However, this victory of the
economic team must be translated into long-term success and to achieve that,
there is a long journey ahead.
Imports
have been choked and import-oriented businesses have paid a huge cost for
bringing improvement in the external sector. Several entrepreneurs have to shut
down their businesses, which resulted in the loss of many jobs.
However,
export volumes have not exhibited any plausible improvement, which is the
biggest challenge. Without increasing exports, the victory on the external front
is nothing but an illusion.
Increasing
exports is a long but truly rewarding journey. The country needs to take the
following measures in order to increase exports. The biggest problem with
export-oriented businesses is that they are already operating at full capacity,
hence, devaluation alone is not the solution. Policymakers must incentivise
investment in the export-oriented business.
Government
is already providing subsidised financing through the State Bank of Pakistan
(SBP) schemes, however, the country needs more than that.
Secondly,
the government needs to focus on non-traditional exports. Pakistan exports
mainly comprise of textile and rice. The government must put in efforts to
diversify exports and increase incentives for the export of high value-added
goods and services. I have always remained a great advocate of increasing the
export of services and still believe we are not leveraging the internet up to
its potential.
Import
substitution is also synonymous to export. On the other hand, using solar and
other forms of alternative energy for households and commercial sector is
something which has not been considered aggressively.
The
biggest problem in the power sector that remains unresolved is the line losses
and massive investment is required in infrastructure to arrest the losses. The
line losses are also primary contributors to the high cost of doing business in
Pakistan, which turns the country’s exports uncompetitive. But if households
and the commercial sector switch to solar energy, the problem of line losses
will automatically get resolved. Businesses will get uninterrupted power supply
and cost economics of this decision will be very lucrative.
Furthermore,
this switch to solar energy will have a positive impact on the environment as
well. It will also improve Pakistan’s external sector and the resulting
reduction in the deficit will be much more sustainable and robust.
To
summarise, it must be reiterated that the reduction in current account deficit
is indeed an outstanding achievement of the economic team. However, the real
victory will be a sustainable increase in exports through an increase in
capacity, diversification of the export portfolio and reduction in the cost of
doing business.
The
writer is a treasury dealer and teaches economics
Crop yields at risk from rising
temperature
Published: September 23, 2019
A Reuters file photo of an agricultural field.
ISLAMABAD: The agricultural
scientists have said Pakistan’s average annual temperature will rise between
1.5-2 degrees Celsius by the end of this century, which will drastically affect
crop yields of wheat, rice, and cotton.
Briefing
the Senate Standing Committee on Climate Change presided over by Chairperson
Munaza Hassan, the scientists said that rice-growing plains of Punjab will see
the mercury rise up to 2.8 degrees Celsius between the years 2040 and 2060
following which monsoon rains will be cut by 25 per cent while winter rains
will be cut by 12 per cent.
Consequently,
they added wheat production would decrease between by six-10 per cent while
rice yield will shrink by 15.2-17.2 per cent, which will be equal to 1.16
million tons of production amounting to Rs2.9 billion in losses.
The
agro scientists suggested that the country needed to add up nitrogen content in
the cultivation of rice and wheat by 15 and 25 per cent respectively to avert
the negative impacts of climate change. They also suggested that irrigation
water to the above-mentioned crops should also be cut in similar proportions to
maintain the production.
Rice
crop nursery should be shifted five days earlier and wheat must be sowed 15
days earlier than the existing time periods. The experts also stressed upon the
role of agricultural scientists and university research to combat the probable
decrease in crops.
On
this, chairperson Hassan said: “Decrement of crops is dangerous for us. To
fight this, we have to work with agro-scientists and agro-universities and come
up with solid measures and ensure its full implementation.”
Presenting
a briefing over the 10-billion tree project, Ministry of Climate Change
Secretary Hasan Zafar Jami said the ministry intended to plant 3.29 trees
during the next four years. He added the project has recently been approved by
National Economic Council’s executive committee and “we have received first
funding for the programme”.
Sindh’s
forest secretary expressed his fear over the tree plantation campaign in the
province, saying that funds have not been issued so far. “It is not feasible to
carry out plantation drive during summers,” he the secretary added. In Sindh,
“we have surpassed the target for mangrove plantation”.
It was
highlighted that committee members must also extend their support to the
provincial administration through the afforestation drive.
Zafar
also briefed the committee over the collection and preparation of information
pertaining to air pollution in Islamabad. He said the authorities information
form round-the-clock monitoring of air pollution would be highlighted and
shared on social media.
FPCCI
proposes delegation to Tokyo: Dr Baig
KARACHI:
Dr. Mirza Ikhtiar Baig, Acting President of the Federation of Pakistan Chambers
of Commerce and Industry (FPCCI), called on Consul General of Japan Toshikazu
Isomura at Japanese Consulate General in Karachi to discuss forthcoming FPCCI businessmen
delegation to Tokyo, Japan.
Dr. Baig
while discussing the bilateral trade relations informed the consul general that
a trade delegation for Japan was being proposed in October-2019 as per
discussion with Special Assistant to Prime Minister Naeem ul Haq to foster
trade and investment ties with Japan and South Korea. The proposed potential
areas to be covered are fisheries, port & shipping, textile, leather,
media, automotive and rice sectors.
Dr. Baig
requested Consul General of Japan to request Japan External Trade Organization
(JETRO) to facilitate the FPCCI delegation and arrangements of B2B meetings
with Japanese counterparts.
The FPCCI
is also taking on board new Ambassador of Pakistan in Tokyo Imtiaz Ahmad who
visited the FPCCI and also proposed said delegation.
Japan is
a potential trading partner of Pakistan with substantial Foreign Direct
Investment (FDI) in automobile sector. The forthcoming visit of FPCCI
delegation will be led by Dr. Ikhtair Baig will intensify to interaction
between private sectors of both countries particularly in the identified
sectors.
Weekly inflation
rises 1.01pc
September 21, 2019
ISLAMABAD: The Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI)-based weekly inflation for
the week ended on September 19 increased by 1.01pc as compared to the previous
week.
The SPI for the week under review
in the combined income group was recorded at 126.56 points, as against 125.29
points registered in the previous week, according to the data released by the Pakistan
Bureau of Statistics (PBS) on Saturday.
The weekly SPI with base
2015-16=100 covered 17 urban centres and 51 essential items for all expenditure
groups.
Meanwhile, the SPI for the lowest
consumption group up to Rs17,732 witnessed an increase of 0.89pc, as it went up
from 128.19 points in last week to 129.33 points during the week under review.
On a yearly basis, the SPI for
the combined income group during the week under review witnessed an increase of
18.10pc, while for the lowest group, it increased by 15.16pc, when compared
with the corresponding week of last year (Sept 2018).
The SPI for the income groups
from Rs17,733-Rs22,888, Rs22,889-Rs29,517; Rs29,518-Rs44,175 and above Rs44,175
per month increased by 0.97pc, 0.99pc, 1.04pc and 1.02pc respectively.
During the week under review,
average prices of five items registered a decrease, while that of 27 witnessed
increased, whereas the prices of the remaining 19 items remained unchanged.
The prices of the commodities
that observed a decrease in their respective prices during the week under
review included tomatoes, bananas, sugar, rice (irri-6) and tea (prepared cup).
The items which witnessed an
increase in their prices included chicken farm, LPG cylinder, potatoes, eggs
hen (farm), garlic, onions, tea, toilet soap, wheat flour, long cloth,
georgette, cooked beef, vegetable ghee (tin), gur, powder milk, pulse moong,
cooking oil, vegetable ghee (pouch), pulse gram, pulse masoor, mustard oil,
curd, mutton, pulse mash and firewood.
The average prices of the
commodities remained unchanged during the week under review included rice
basmati, bread, beef, salt powder, chillies, cigarettes, shirting, lawn, gents
sandal, gents sponge chappal, ladies sandal, electric charges, gas charges,
energy saver,washing soap, matchbox, petrol, hi-speed diesel and telephone call
charges.
Food Commodities Worth$650.252mln Exported In Two Months
ISLAMABAD, (APP - UrduPoint /
Pakistan Point News - 22nd Sep, 2019 ) :Food exports from the country during first two-month of current financial year
registered about 14.27 percent as compared the corresponding period of last
year.
According the data released by
the Pakistan Bureau of statistics different food commodities including wheat, rice, fruit,vegetables, spices, fish, fish preparations, meat
and meat products worth $650.252 million were exported as against $569.039 million of same period of last year.
During the period from July-August, 219 exports of rice grew by 48.64% as about 590,353 metric tons of rice
worth $332.836 million exported as compared the exports of 3699,633 metric tons valuing $223.819 million of same period of last year.
During the period under review fish and fish preparations
increased by 23.09% as about 16, 652 metric tons of the above mentioned
commodities worth Us $36.
393 million exported as compared 12, 396 metric tons valuing US $
29.565 million of same period of last year.
In last two months, country earned
US $ 75.731 million and US $ 23.105 million by exporting about 89,964 metric tons of fruits and 85,966
metric tons of vegetables respectively.
The exports of fruits and vegetables were recorded at64,562 metric tons
and 90,144 metric tons during the first two months of last year.
During the period under review,
the exports of meat and meat products
witnessed about 52% growth in their respective exports as about 8,364 metric tons of meat and meat products worth
US $ 48.174 million exported as against the exports of 6,877 metric tons valuing $31.536 millionof same months of last year.
The other commodities that observed
negative growth in their respective exports during the period under review included spices by 78% and
sugar by 11%.
Mindanao organic rice finds market in US
By
Digna Banzon September
21, 2019, 7:30 pm
ORGANIC
RICE. Mindanao
farmers forged a supply agreement with a US-based marketing firm to supply
American consumers with organic rice. An initial shipment of 5,000 metric tons
is expected before yearend. (Photo by MinDA)
DAVAO CITY -- Organic rice produced in
Mindanao now has access to the United States (US) after an agreement between
farmers and an American marketing group here on Friday.
Dr. Adrian Tamayo, communications head of the Mindanao Development Authority (MINDA), said Saturday the deal would allow American consumers access to organic rice and the heirloom Adlay variety produced in the Southern Philippines.
Tamayo said Andrew Bolougne, head of the US Marketing Firm, told the farmers to produce as much as they could and promised that they will market it.
Bolougne's group committed a buying price which would give farmers double what they are earning by planting commercial rice, he added.
The signing of the marketing deal with unlimited volume of White, Brown, Red and Black Rice and the exotic Adlay grown by the tribes capped the Mindanao Rice Forum organized by MinDA.
The Mindanao Rice Forum was attended by Adlay and Organic rice farmers associations and cooperatives.
Tamayo added that an initial shipment of 5,000 metric tons is expected by the end of the year.
During the forum, the participants, guided by the MinDA and the Department of Agriculture Regional Field Offices (DA-RFO) in Mindanao and the Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice), organized themselves and formed the Mindanao Organic Rice Council (MORCO). Chosen as Interim Chairman of MORCO was the Don Bosco Multi-Purpose Cooperative with Agro Eco Philippines and SRII Technology Group as vice chairmen.
Represented in the Council are organic rice farmers’ cooperatives and associations from all over Mindanao, organic fertilizer and soil ameliorants producers group, seed growers, and rice millers.
Tamayo said MinDA will be the lead government agency to support the group with the assistance of the DA and PhilRice.
MinDA will establish a database of all organic rice and Adlay farmers in Mindanao, including the geotagging of the production areas. Availability of seeds for the Black Organic Rice, which is the most sought-after product, will also be determined, including the estimated production.
Bolougne said the demand for organic rice, especially the Black Rice which is reputed to have medicinal benefits, is huge and largely unfilled.
"You cannot imagine how huge is the market demand for organic food today and we will cash in on that," he said.
Don Bosco vice-chairperson and marketing officer Maria Helenita Gamela said organic rice farmers are not affected by the Rice Tariffication Law, and the unimpeded entry of imported rice that resulted in low farm gate price for commercial rice.
"We have a niche market. The price is steady whole year round but we cannot produce the needed volume," she said.
Currently, Don Bosco buys from its members organic paddy rice at PHP19 to PHP20 per kilo. This could go even higher with the forging of the marketing agreement with the US group, Gamela said.
The export deal for organic rice and Adlay is the second marketing deal arranged by MinDA for Mindanao's rice farmers. (PNA)
Dr. Adrian Tamayo, communications head of the Mindanao Development Authority (MINDA), said Saturday the deal would allow American consumers access to organic rice and the heirloom Adlay variety produced in the Southern Philippines.
Tamayo said Andrew Bolougne, head of the US Marketing Firm, told the farmers to produce as much as they could and promised that they will market it.
Bolougne's group committed a buying price which would give farmers double what they are earning by planting commercial rice, he added.
The signing of the marketing deal with unlimited volume of White, Brown, Red and Black Rice and the exotic Adlay grown by the tribes capped the Mindanao Rice Forum organized by MinDA.
The Mindanao Rice Forum was attended by Adlay and Organic rice farmers associations and cooperatives.
Tamayo added that an initial shipment of 5,000 metric tons is expected by the end of the year.
During the forum, the participants, guided by the MinDA and the Department of Agriculture Regional Field Offices (DA-RFO) in Mindanao and the Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice), organized themselves and formed the Mindanao Organic Rice Council (MORCO). Chosen as Interim Chairman of MORCO was the Don Bosco Multi-Purpose Cooperative with Agro Eco Philippines and SRII Technology Group as vice chairmen.
Represented in the Council are organic rice farmers’ cooperatives and associations from all over Mindanao, organic fertilizer and soil ameliorants producers group, seed growers, and rice millers.
Tamayo said MinDA will be the lead government agency to support the group with the assistance of the DA and PhilRice.
MinDA will establish a database of all organic rice and Adlay farmers in Mindanao, including the geotagging of the production areas. Availability of seeds for the Black Organic Rice, which is the most sought-after product, will also be determined, including the estimated production.
Bolougne said the demand for organic rice, especially the Black Rice which is reputed to have medicinal benefits, is huge and largely unfilled.
"You cannot imagine how huge is the market demand for organic food today and we will cash in on that," he said.
Don Bosco vice-chairperson and marketing officer Maria Helenita Gamela said organic rice farmers are not affected by the Rice Tariffication Law, and the unimpeded entry of imported rice that resulted in low farm gate price for commercial rice.
"We have a niche market. The price is steady whole year round but we cannot produce the needed volume," she said.
Currently, Don Bosco buys from its members organic paddy rice at PHP19 to PHP20 per kilo. This could go even higher with the forging of the marketing agreement with the US group, Gamela said.
The export deal for organic rice and Adlay is the second marketing deal arranged by MinDA for Mindanao's rice farmers. (PNA)
DA to release free palay seeds to farmers
September 21, 2019, 10:00 PM
By Chino S. Leyco
The Department of Agriculture
(DA) will start releasing the certified seeds under the rice competitiveness
enhancement fund (RCEF) to help palay farmers cope with the lower buying price
of their paddy output.
Agriculture Secretary Dr. William D. Dar (KEVIN TRISTAN
ESPIRITU, MB Photo )
In a statement, Agriculture
Secretary William D. Dar said about two million bags of certified seeds will be
distributed to rice farmers this year.
The package, which contains 20
kilos of certified seeds per bag, will roughly translate to planting around one
million hectares of rice land which can contribute in increasing the yield up
to six tons per hectare in high-yielding provinces by 2024. Among the rice seed
varieties for distribution include NSIC Rc 160, Rc 216, Rc 222, and two
location-specific inbred varieties.
Dar said among the provinces that
are considered for the program are those with high-potential for
competitiveness.
“So far, we have identified 57
provinces based on the size of area harvested, yield level, cost of production,
and share of irrigated area. These municipalities and cities must also have an
annual area planted of more than 500-ha for dry season 2019-2020,” DA said.
Farmer-beneficiaries are those
listed in the Registry System for Basic Sectors in Agriculture (RSBSA). Each
farmer receives seeds for two consecutive cropping seasons until December 2020
and is entitled to a maximum of four bags of inbred seeds depending on farm
size for the October to December planting season.
Dar said that prior to the distribution,
farmers will be provided with technical briefings on seed preparation and other
interventions and technologies from the Philippine Rice Research Institute for
them to achieve the target yield in their areas.
Festival unites cultures at Mormon Church
Sep 21, 2019
Venerable Jirayut Tonlek (left),
known as “Monk Joey” at the Chino Hills Buddhist Temple, shares a cultural
moment with Katelyn Street, 7, of Chino.
Samrridhi Sreedhar is one of
three dancers from the Chino Hills BAPS Hindu Temple who performed at a
multi-cultural festival Saturday.
The State of Chiapas, Mexico is
represented in a turtle dance featuring women holding eggs in baskets and a
single male dancer.
More than 600 residents who
streamed into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on Eucalyptus
Avenue and Peyton Drive in Chino Hills last Saturday were issued “passports”
allowing them to travel to India, China, Mexico, the Honduras, Pakistan,
Argentina, Thailand, and Pakistan.
Along the way, they were asked to meet five people to sign the
passports.
Travelers walked to the display rooms where the cultures were
represented and were greeted with mounds of tasty food like Pad Thai, chicken
adobo, pork lumpia, empanadas, pork and vegetable dumplings, Basmati rice with
peas, and milk cake.
Residents then gathered in the cultural hall and watched dancers
perform in varying traditions and costumes.An enthusiastic audience whistled
and cheered during the performances.
“The most valuable aspect of the festival was simply to get to
know each other and develop personal relationships,” said Stake President
William Rockwood. “As we get to know and become comfortable with each other, it
makes it much easier to work together on projects that strengthen the
community.”
Dr. Khalid N. Ahmed of the Baitul Hameed Mosque in Chino on
Ramona Avenue opened the performances with chanting from the Koran. The mosque
displayed copies of the Koran and brought Pakistani food including vegetable-filled
paddies, pakoras, sweet pretzels, rice and chocolate. “All served with lots of
love, care and affection to bring harmony among different religions and mankind
in general,” Dr. Ahmed said.
Mr. Rockwood said those who attended learned a great deal about
religion as well as culture. “Although we have different names and practices,
we are all people who believe in and worship God,” he said. “There is great
strength in united worship, especially when we all live in the same community.”
To Feed a Hot Planet, They’re Making More
Efficient Plants
Australian scientists are part of a worldwide
effort to boost agricultural output to meet the growing global food demand.
Wheat varieties being tested in a laboratory at Australian National
University in Canberra, Australia.CreditCreditDavid Gray for The New York Times
By Benjamin Ryan
- Sept. 21,
2019
Robert Furbank was at home in Canberra,
Australia, watching a news segment about climate change with his two teenagers
this summer when his daughter quipped, “Geez, Dad, you’ve really stuffed things
up for us, haven’t you?”
Sitting there as a proxy for the collective old
guard, the plant physiologist faced the prospect that the next generation of
Australians would be the first to wind up worse off than their parents.
But as it happens, Dr. Furbank is in a position
to help the world get ahead of the looming
food shortage crisis stemming from global climate change, as rising
temperatures, worsening drought, and changing wind and
rainfall patterns threaten agriculture’s capacity to feed the world.
Dr. Furbank is the director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Translational
Photosynthesis, an enterprise that draws on experts from
several Australian universities and the national government’s premier research
agency. In tandem with scientists in universities and private labs that span
the globe, the center has set its sights on an audacious solution to the
impending food crisis: making crops more efficient at conducting
photosynthesis.
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Photosynthesis is the process, vital to all
life on earth, by which plants use sunlight, carbon dioxide and water to
produce sugars and oxygen.
Climate change was seen as a future threat. Now, it is a reality of
the present.
Crop physiologists project that if they could
make plants just 5 percent more efficient at the process, they could boost the
yield of most crops by 20 percent.
That would be a big help in feeding the global
population, which is expected to rise from 7.5 billion today to perhaps 10 billion in 2050.
Scientists say that crop yields will need to soar by an estimated 70 percent or more to keep up with global demand.
If the sheer mathematics of recent history are
any guide, there is reason to hope. Between 1960 and 2010, global food
production rose by 175 percent, thanks to a suite of agricultural innovations
collectively known as the Green Revolution. By cultivating high-yield grains,
refining the use of nitrogen fertilizer and improving irrigation techniques,
the agricultural sector averted global famine while the world’s population
multiplied at a rapid rate.
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However, as the Green Revolution’s methods have
approached their apparent biological limits in recent years, global
crop yields have stalled. At the same time, modern agriculture has had
a destructive impact on the planet through greenhouse
gas emissions, nitrogen
fertilizer pollution, soil
degradation and the like.
Experts predict that during the coming decades,
researchers will need to cultivate crops that can achieve unprecedented bounty
in ever harsher and more unpredictable conditions and yet thrive with fewer
resources — including land, water and fertilizer — than today’s varieties.
Robert Sharwood is part of an international research effort
seeking to increase corn’s productivity.CreditDavid
Gray for The New York Times
There’s a lot more than food at stake. Climate
change’s impact on agriculture is already contributing to global crises,
experts say.
“Food scarcity and crop failures driven by
droughts and other causes in the Middle East and Central America have likely
contributed to the flooding of refugees into Europe and the United States,”
said Yaneer Bar-Yam, president of the New England Complex Systems Institute.
In Australia, agricultural scientists are in a
strong position to provide the global agricultural community with valuable
insights into what it will take to harvest successful crops in an increasingly
forbidding climate.
“As the driest continent on earth, Australia is
the proverbial canary in the coal mine,” said Nick Austin, an Australian native
and the director of agricultural development at the Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation in Seattle, which invests some $400 million annually into
agricultural development. “Much of what is learned in
Australia will have relevance to other countries as they face hotter and more
variable farming conditions.”
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The Australian government’s Grains Research & Development Corporation channels
a significant portion of its $200 million research budget toward
climate-resilient crop development. The corporation derives the majority of its
funding from a levy on farmers’ output, which encourages projects that will
increase yields.
On the photosynthesis front, Australian
scientists are grappling with improving the performance of an enzyme called
rubisco that is abundant in plants and critical to the process. Rubisco works
at a slothful pace; 20 to 40 percent of the time it picks up oxygen molecules,
rather than carbon dioxide molecules, and throws them through the
photosynthetic assembly line, wasting water and energy in the process.
In the 1960s, Australian researchers discovered
that some plants, including corn and sugar cane, manipulate rubisco into
working more efficiently, allowing those crops to thrive in less-forgiving
environments. If Dr. Furbank and his many colleagues and counterparts across
the globe could engineer high-demand crops like beans, rice, wheat and potatoes
to function similarly, the scientists could in theory improve those crops’
yields while reducing fertilizer and water demands.
The research teams from 12 institutions in
eight nations, including Australia, that comprise the Gates Foundation-funded C4 Rice Project hope to
achieve this task in rice that is ready for field planting by the early 2030s.
Robert Furbank, left, and Dr. Sharwood inspecting a wheat crop
under controlled lighting in one of their center’s growth laboratories. CreditDavid Gray for The New York Times
Robert Sharwood, a researcher in Dr. Furbank’s
center, is working on corn along with David B. Stern, president of the Boyce
Thompson Institute and a plant biologist at Cornell University. They are
leading an international research effort that has boasted early success in
increasing rubisco levels in corn — and ultimately the crop’s productivity,
according to their 2018 paper in Nature
Plants.
Wheat, which covers
more land than any global crop and provides 20 percent
of all calories and protein consumed by people worldwide, is also a major focus
of international research into increasing yields.
Advertisement
Australia’s $6
billion wheat industry is the source of about 8 percent of worldwide
exports of the grain, making the nation’s harvest an important factor in the
stability of global markets.
On a recent visit to the ARC Centre, Dr.
Sharwood and Dr. Furbank displayed an array of innovations that allow them to
cultivate crops in environments that simulate future climate conditions and
devices that closely measure and monitor crop growth.
The rich data those devices collect can help
breeders identify the most promising crop varieties and guide farmers’
midseason decision-making — for example, by determining the precise amount of
fertilizer, pesticide or irrigation needed.
The phenoMobile replaces manual assessments of crop growth that are
time consuming. Video by David Gray for The New York Times
Complementing the photosynthesis research,
Surinder Singh and Thomas Vanhercke at the Commonwealth Scientific and
Industrial Research Organization, the national government’s premier research
agency, are making progress in engineering crops that
can produce up to 30 percent of their weight in oil, thus
offering a sustainable alternative to the environmentally
destructive cultivation of palm oil. Their colleague Craig Wood is among those
seeking to cultivate plants capable of converting nitrogen from the air into a
usable form, reducing the need for fertilizer.
Addressing the variety of experiments underway
in this corner of Australia and around the world, Dr. Furbank said, “I don’t
think there’s going to be a single technological solution to any of this. We
need to have concerted action across a number of fronts.”
Eliza Berlage contributed reporting from
Canberra, Australia.
Much-delayed funds out
After six months of delay, Filipino
farmers are getting more funds aimed at financing projects that will hopefully
improve their competitiveness amid increasing rice imports, declining palay
prices, and the shift from quantitative import restrictions to tariffs.
The Department of Budget and
Management has finally released additional funds for the Rice Competitive
Enhancement Fund (RCEF), a safety net mechanism created by the Rice
Tariffication Law (RTL) aimed at helping local farmers cope with the
liberalized entry of imported rice into the country.
Around P2.038 billion was released
by the Department of Budget and Management to be used by the Philippine Rice
Research Institute (PhilRice) for the seed component of the RCEF.
Under the program, PhilRice will
develop, propagate, and promote inbred rice seeds. Mandated to promote
high-quality inbred rice seeds to about two million farmers in 57 provinces,
PhilRice will also enhance farmers’ skill and knowledge on rice production.
Government is hoping that the seed component of RCEF will contribute in
increasing yield to up to six tons per hectare in high-yielding provinces and
five tons in medium-yielding provinces by 2024. The program also aims to lower
production cost by 30 percent, reduce postharvest losses to 12 percent, and
trim down marketing cost by P1 per kilo.
Though PhilRice was expecting P3
billion, or a shortfall of P962 million, PhilRice deputy executive director
Flordeliza Bordey said they are ready to start implementing the program this
month until December.
It will be recalled that the
Philippines lifted its quantitative restrictions on imported rice as part of
the country’s obligation to the World Trade Organization (WTO). For 22 years,
WTO had allowed the Philippines to limit the entry of rice imports as the
country prepares its farmers for international competition. The WTO had granted
several extensions for special treatment on rice until it expired in June 2017,
thus, the passage of the RTL.
With the RCEF, she said PhilRice
can now afford to hire and train a new generation of rice specialists to help
rice farmers become competitive.
Under the RTL, farmers are promised
a yearly P10-billion RCEF budget for six years to be sourced from tariffs on
private rice importations, after the law removed the rice import quotas and
replaced them with import duties.
Sen. Cynthia Villar, who chairs the
Senate committee on agriculture and food, said the money is needed to jumpstart
the programs enumerated in the law aimed to make the domestic rice industry
more competitive.
Villar said the committee in the
exercise of its oversight function will make sure that the funds are allocated for
the intended purpose, as she emphasized that whether or not the Bureau of
Customs is able to collect the required amount, the farmers will be getting P10
billion a year.
Meanwhile, the Department of
Agriculture-Agricultural Credit Policy Council (DA-ACPC) and the Land Bank of
the Philippines have started the release of an additional P1 billion as
recovery assistance for rice farmers affected by falling palay prices.
Agriculture Secretary William Dar
said this was on top of an existing P1.5 billion financial allocation under the
Survival and Recovery Assistance Program (SURE Aid) for rice planters.
Dar said that with P2.5 billion for
the SURE Aid Program, rice production should improve and help 70,000 more
farmers cope with the impact of the RTL, in addition to the 100,000 farmers
that have already received assistance.
But with the program targetting
600,000 small farmers nationwide, Dar said the DA will look for other sources
of funds to cover all small farmers.
The DA has also started this month
the bidding for the mechanization component of the RTL in order to make farmers
more productive and competitive starting next year.
Under the law on the RCEF, each
farmer from a total of 947 rice-producing towns all over the country will be
receiving P5 million worth of farm equipment and machinery. The aid machinery
may be used for land preparation, crop establishment, harvesting and threshing
as well as for drying and milling.
The respective local governments
will be tasked with the maintenance of the equipment in the absence of farmer
associations in the area.
The National Food Authority (NFA),
on the other hand, has announced that the agency continues to buy palay from
farmers even if it still has four million bags of imported rice in its
warehouses.
The RTL requires NFA to maintain a
15 to 30-day buffer stock of rice based on a national daily consumption
requirement (DCR) of 651,860 bags.
During the lean months of July to
September, more farmers are selling to the NFA to take advantage of its higher
buying price and incentives.
NFA administrator Judy Carol Dansal
said their procurement operation is a year-round activity and their field
personnel are always ready to receive palay deliveries from farmers through
more than 300 buying stations strategically located across the country.
The NFA currently buys palay at P17
per kilogram support price plus P3 per kilo buffer stocking incentive, 20
centavos per kilo drying incentive, 20 centavos per kilo delivery incentive,
and 30 centavos per kilo as cooperative development incentive fee (CDIF) or a
total of P20.70 per kilo for farmer cooperatives and P20.40 per kilo for
individual farmers.
From January to Aug. 22 this year,
the NFA had already bought 5.9 million bags of palay, exceeding its target of
5.3 million by 11 percent. The total volume is already 41 percent of the
agency’s 14.46 million bags target for the year.
Based on the country’s palay
harvest calendar, 30 percent of total annual production comes from the summer
harvest between March and May while 70 percent comes from the main harvest from
October to December.
Dansal said that this early, NFA is
already preparing for aggressive palay buying starting October, although the
agency continues to entertain farmers selling their stocks from sporadic
harvests in between the summer and main cropping seasons.
Amid the rice tariff system, the
NFA in Calapan City, Oriental Mindoro, continues to procure palay even during
the off-season palay harvest month. Assistant provincial manager Norma Harina
said more farmers are now selling their harvest to NFA at P20.40 per kilo. An
incentive of 30 centavos per kilo is given to members of accredited farmer’s
organizations if the quality of their palay meets the standards set by NFA, she
added.
Date: - 23/09/2019
Basmati Rate list
1121 steam basmati – 71.50@
1121 white sella- 61.50@
1121 golden sella- 65.50@
1509 steam – 59.00@ ( new)
1509 white sella 50.50@ (new)
1509 golden sella 55.50@ (new)
Sugandha steam- 57.50@
Sugandha sella – 47.00@
Sugandha golden 53.50@
Pussa steam – 61.50@
Pussa white sella 55.50@
Pussa golden sella 59.50@
Sharbati sella- 37.50@
Sharbati golden- 42.50@
Sharbati steam- 42.50@
Pr11/14 steam 36.00@
Pr11/14 golden- 36.00@
Pr11/14 raw- 35.00@
Pr11/14 sella 35.00@
Basmati Rate list
1121 steam basmati – 71.50@
1121 white sella- 61.50@
1121 golden sella- 65.50@
1509 steam – 59.00@ ( new)
1509 white sella 50.50@ (new)
1509 golden sella 55.50@ (new)
Sugandha steam- 57.50@
Sugandha sella – 47.00@
Sugandha golden 53.50@
Pussa steam – 61.50@
Pussa white sella 55.50@
Pussa golden sella 59.50@
Sharbati sella- 37.50@
Sharbati golden- 42.50@
Sharbati steam- 42.50@
Pr11/14 steam 36.00@
Pr11/14 golden- 36.00@
Pr11/14 raw- 35.00@
Pr11/14 sella 35.00@
Pakistan: Oil imports plummet by
over 26pc to $1.93 billion
Pakistan’s
oil imports have reduced by over 26 percent that helped to decrease the overall
imports by a one-fifth in first couple of months of the current fiscal year.
The
country’s had spent $1.935 billion on importing oil in July and August period
of the year 2019-2020 as compared to $2.642 billion in the corresponding period
of the previous year, according to the trade figures released by the Pakistan
Bureau of Statistics (PBS).
The
massive reduction in oil imports had helped in reducing overall imports of the
country. Pakistan’s imports had dropped by 21.4 percent to $7.7 billion during
the period under review.
The PBS
data showed that the import of petroleum products had shown decline of 16.42
percent to $897 million. Similarly, import of petroleum crude had reduced by
over 55 percent to $396 million. Meanwhile, imports of natural gas liquefied
had also recorded decline in the period under review. However, imports of
petroleum gas liquefied had shown increase of around 40 percent and were
recorded at $41.94 billion.
Exports of
tents, canvas and tarpaulin witnessed decrease of 4.23 percent. Meanwhile,
exports of made-up articles(excluding towels and bedwear had declined by 7.66
percent.
Meanwhile,
the exports of food commodities had recorded an increase of 14.27 percent
during first two months of the current fiscal year.
In food
commodities, exports of rice recorded growth of 48.64 percent, fruits exports
increased by 23.09 percent and oil seeds, nuts and kernels exports had gone
down by 11.23 percent.
Source: The News Pakistan
Source: The News Pakistan
Crop yields at risk from rising temperature
Published: September 23, 2019
A Reuters file photo of an
agricultural field.
ISLAMABAD: The agricultural scientists have said
Pakistan’s average annual temperature will rise between 1.5-2 degrees Celsius
by the end of this century, which will drastically affect crop yields of wheat,
rice, and cotton.
Briefing the Senate Standing Committee on
Climate Change presided over by Chairperson Munaza Hassan, the scientists said
that rice-growing plains of Punjab will see the mercury rise up to 2.8 degrees
Celsius between the years 2040 and 2060 following which monsoon rains will be
cut by 25 per cent while winter rains will be cut by 12 per cent.
Consequently, they added wheat production would
decrease between by six-10 per cent while rice yield will shrink by 15.2-17.2
per cent, which will be equal to 1.16 million tons of production amounting to
Rs2.9 billion in losses.
The agro scientists suggested that the
country needed to add up nitrogen content in the cultivation of rice and wheat
by 15 and 25 per cent respectively to avert the negative impacts of climate
change. They also suggested that irrigation water to the above-mentioned crops
should also be cut in similar proportions to maintain the production.
Rice crop nursery should be shifted five
days earlier and wheat must be sowed 15 days earlier than the existing time
periods. The experts also stressed upon the role of agricultural scientists and
university research to combat the probable decrease in crops.
On this, chairperson Hassan said: “Decrement
of crops is dangerous for us. To fight this, we have to work with
agro-scientists and agro-universities and come up with solid measures and
ensure its full implementation.”
Presenting a briefing over the 10-billion
tree project, Ministry of Climate Change Secretary Hasan Zafar Jami said the
ministry intended to plant 3.29 trees during the next four years. He added the
project has recently been approved by National Economic Council’s executive
committee and “we have received first funding for the programme”.
Sindh’s forest secretary expressed his fear
over the tree plantation campaign in the province, saying that funds have not
been issued so far. “It is not feasible to carry out plantation drive during
summers,” he the secretary added. In Sindh, “we have surpassed the target for
mangrove plantation”.
It was highlighted that committee members
must also extend their support to the provincial administration through the
afforestation drive.
Zafar also briefed the committee over the
collection and preparation of information pertaining to air pollution in
Islamabad. He said the authorities information form round-the-clock monitoring
of air pollution would be highlighted and shared on social media.
Brainstorm: The Next Generation | Masagana
2019?
BY ATTY. CAESAR
EUROPA ON SEPTEMBER 23, 2019
The Philippines importing rice was
unheard of when I was growing up in the 70s. In fact, what I remember is that
our country was exporting rice to other countries in Asia.
The present plight of our Filipino
farmers having to compete in price with imported rice is a sad, sad state of
affairs that we must do something about.
Although not directly about rice
production, I remembered a story about the sad state of Philippine Agriculture,
told me by one of my best friends, Atty. Patricia “Pinky” Nazareno, about her
father, former Department of Agriculture Assistant Secretary Lino Nazareno who
also used to teach at UP Los Baños, our country’s foremost educational
institution in agriculture.
Asec. Nazareno was on an official
trip to Thailand (or was it Indonesia?) when he visited an orange orchard that
implemented all the latest technologies at the time which raised the production
to area ratio of the farm to unprecedented levels.
Amazed at the highly efficient
implementation of proper and effective agricultural techniques and
mechanization, Asec. Nazareno asked the people in charge where they got the
know-how to do all that they did. One of the lead scientists of the farm raised
his hand and, apparently recognizing Asec. Nazareno as a former teacher,
proudly asserted “I’M A UPLB GRAD, SIR!”.
According to Pinky, Tito Lino was
aghast and caught undecided on whether to be proud that UPLB alumni achieved
such success or be ashamed that foreigners schooled in the Philippines were
able to use what they learned from us in their home nations to far outpace our
country in agricultural prowess.
Something must be seriously wrong
somewhere when we have all the best technologies and research in agriculture,
particularly with regards rice production seeing that the International Rice
Research Institute (IRRI) is also based in UP Los Baños, but we are seriously
lagging behind in production to the detriment of our Filipino farmers.
The Masagana 99 program of former
President Ferdinand E. Marcos, using one of the best rice varieties produced by
IRRI at the time, was a project that enabled the Philippines to exponentially
increase our rice production to the extent that our country was able to export
rice to other countries.
From what I have learned about it,
it eventually failed, not because of the sound science behind it but because of
the perennial cancer in Philippine society, our Big “C”, CORRUPTION. The main
reasons for the program’s failure were reputed to be the bias in favor of rich
landowners as a form of political patronage and the improper application of the
program’s credit facilities that left poor farmers in debt.
There you have it, while, of
course, there are many other factors to consider, like much needed farm to
market roads and the minimization of middle-men in the economic equation, one
of the main things that we really have to do to improve the circumstances of
small Filipino farmers is to clean up our act so that government programs and
funds intended for such farmers will actually benefit them and not the human
leeches who are always there to make money by bleeding our country’s coffers
dry.
Apart from government, one thing
that we can do as Filipinos desiring to help uplift our fellow countrymen, is
to buy Filipino meaning that we should, as much as possible, patronize
agricultural products produced in the Philippines over imported ones.
One problem though is that we
certainly cannot talk to the rice to see if it answers in Pilipino, Bisaya, or
some other local dialect. For this reason, maybe Filipino agricultural products
should be clearly marked as “PROUDLY FILIPINO” or “AGRI-PINOY” or something
like that. I know that some rice varieties are named for their origins, like
“Banaybanay Rice” from Davao Oriental, but it would be so much easier if all
Philippine made agricultural products had some kind of common marketing mark so
that the buying public can immediately know that what they are buying will
enrich the pockets of Filipino farmers and not foreign exporters.
As Filipinos, it is our duty and
responsibility to do what is right and to collectively act in support of what
is Filipino. As we used to swear in allegiance to our motherland, “SISIKAPIN
KONG MAGING ISANG TUNAY NA PILIPINO, SA ISIP, SA SALITA AT SA GAWA.”
Indonesia to
prioritise meat, rice, raw sugar imports from India
Indonesia will prioritise importing buffalo meat, rice and raw
sugar from India, which agreed to adjust crude palm oil (CPO) tariff for the
country earlier this month.
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Jakarta (VNA) – Indonesia will prioritise importing buffalo meat, rice and raw sugar from India, which agreed to adjust crude palm oil (CPO) tariff for the country earlier this month.
Indonesian Trade Minister Enggartiasto Lukita said at a recent event that India has given Indonesia an opportunity to increase its CPO exports, adding it is fair to give the South Asian nation access to the Indonesian market.
India is the largest palm oil market of Indonesia with export share of about 20 percent, equivalent to 6.71 million tonnes last year.
Previously, Indonesia’s palm oil products faced a 50 percent import tariff from India, while those from its rival producer Malaysia enjoyed a lower tariff of 45 percent thanks to a bilateral deal. India has agreed to adjust Indonesia’s tariff to match the levy faced by Malaysia.
In six months, Indonesia will ship CPO worth at least 500 million USD to India, Enggar said.
Despite prioritising India as an import origin country, Indonesia would not increase the total volume of its meat, rice and raw sugar import, he noted, saying Indonesia will only buy what it needs as long as the market can absorb the products.
He added that imports of India’s buffalo meat could fill in the gap of the 620,000-tonne meat demand as local producers can only provide about 450,000 tonnes.
As for raw sugar, Enggar stated the country had equalised India’s import duty with other countries, namely Australia and Thailand.
Meanwhile, when it comes to importing rice, Indonesia will prioritise India’s products, particularly basmati rice, the minister said, adding that the two countries were also looking at other commodities for trade, such as textiles.
The two countries are aiming for 50 billion USD in bilateral trade by 2025./.
DA to impose ‘safeguards duty’ on rice imports
Published September 23, 2019 12:30pm
As farmgate prices of palay has plunged, the Department of
Agriculture has decided to impose a general “safeguards duty” on rice imports
to prevent flooding the market as the harvest season approaches.
“We have to holistically and systematically protect the
consuming public and much more, our small farmers,” Agriculture Secretary
William Dar said.
“So, I have taken the necessary steps and the direction where we
will enforce legal measures during these times when we have greatly exceeded
the volume needed to fill up the slack in national rice supply, most
particularly in Metro Manila and major urban rice consumption centers,” he
added.
Dar said that investigations regarding the matter are ongoing
and are expected to be completed by the end of September or early October.
The safeguards duty is in line with the Republic Act 8752 or the
Anti-Dumping Act of 1999.
Under the law, the government may impose duties on any imported
product that is priced way below fair market value.
The department is also looking at the possibility of tempering
rice importations by implementing stringent sanitary and pytho-sanitary and
inspection measures.
The Philippines imports 7% of its national rice requirements,
according to the DA.
To date, 2.4 million metric tons of rice that has been imported
has already exceeded the country’s requirement.
Quantitative restrictions on rice imports have been removed and
a 35% was set for shipments from Southeast Asia.
“We will protect our small farmers by not allowing additional
imports especially this main harvest season. We want them to benefit from the
respectable farmgate prices of palay set by the government through the National
Food Authority,” Dar said. —Dona Magsino/VDS, GMA News
Finding our balance in modernizing our rice industry
September 22, 2019 | 11:35 pm
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Introspective
By Ramon L. Clarete
Public support is shifting from
rice consumers in 2018 to rice farmers this year. Last year, the country’s
inflation rate breached Central Bank’s upper band. Analysts blamed that on rice
price inflation, which carries among the largest weight in the consumer’s price
index.
Policy makers in both executive
and legislative branches reached the consensus that it was the decision — or
lack of it — on the timing of importing rice by the National Food Authority
(NFA) that caused it. The punishment was swift. In less than a year, Congress
came up with the rice tariffication law getting rid of the NFA’s monopoly in
rice imports and other regulations, ending the agency’s privileged status of
being both a referee and player in the local rice market.
The rice tariffication law is a
landmark reform. For decades, many had attempted to revisit the 1972 charter of
the NFA to get rid of the NFA’s import monopoly. They all failed. It was that
single event in 2018, the high price of rice, which brought us rice import
liberalization.
It was a big surprise indeed
since price spirals are commonplace in the local rice markets. Sometimes they
are due to the world market, but most of the times are traceable to the NFA, in
whom Presidential Decree No. 4 of the late President Ferdinand Marcos entrusted
all our rice security.
Last year’s price surge could
have passed as one among the many. It is interesting to note that the 13%
year-to-year price increase in 2018 was one of many. It ranked 13th place in the order of price
increases from 1970. The highest was a 47% increase of rice prices in 1984. The
2008 rice price crisis in the world market pushed up rice prices by 30%. But
2018 turned out to be memorable, because the spiral gave us the rice import
liberalization law that some of us, including myself had advocated.
Not all of us wanted the rice
import liberalization and the stripping of the NFA’s regulatory functions.
Those who opposed the reforms might themselves have been caught by surprise at
the swiftness by which the law was whisked through Congress. But when it
passed, they were still hoping the President would veto it, but he respected
the wisdom of our legislators and his Cabinet, with the exception of former
Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñol.
KEEPING RICE IMPORT MARKETS
CONTESTABLE
Rice importers were all ready to import rice, which they prepared for even before the IRR was issued. In the first half of 2019, rice imports swelled to nearly 2 million metric tons.
Rice importers were all ready to import rice, which they prepared for even before the IRR was issued. In the first half of 2019, rice imports swelled to nearly 2 million metric tons.
But somehow that did not do very
well. We all expected rice prices to go down to below P30 a kilo given the
current level of world prices. However, the price of well milled rice got stuck
at P36 a kilo, and some of us have urged the government to go after the rice
cartel which is blamed for not passing most of the benefits of the reforms to
rice consumers.
There are simpler explanations,
other than the cartel, for the observed prices in the first half of 2019. One
is a quality upgrade of imported rice. If importers are out there to maximize
their profits, they would likely first buy the more expensive, better quality
rice varieties, which would be attractive to households in highly urbanized
cities. Indeed, I talked to an NFA official who confirmed that they were having
a hard time selling their own stocks in the market because imported rice had
fewer “brokens” to say the least.
But more importantly, we may be
looking at a rice market in the process of finding its equilibrium under the
new rules. In a major reform like rice import liberalization, the big traders
may be the first ones to enter and thus get the larger shares of the rice
import business. Because of the large quantities they hold, their release and
price decisions influence rice prices, and there is no longer an NFA to offset
that. In economics, we call this market oligopolistic.
But for as long as the rice
import business is open to us all, its profits attract new importers, and that
process goes on until the above-normal profits are brought down to competitive
levels. And that would then be the time that rice consumers start to enjoy rice
at less than P30 a kilo.
Notwithstanding our
disappointment, it is interesting to note that the decline of rice prices in
the first half of 2019 relative to its 2018 average is the largest — 2.6% —
since 1970. Indeed, annual prices fell in only eight of nearly 50 years.
But if prices remain stuck at
levels significantly higher than what the 35% tariff rate implies, it may be
time for the Philippine Competition Commission to compute rice import
concentration ratios to check if the import business remains as strongly
contestable as the rice tariffication law envisioned it to be. That inquiry
should include those who continue to regulate the rice import business with the
sanitary and phyto-sanitary import licenses for regulatory capture.
SAFEGUARDS AND NFA PALAY
PROCUREMENT
Falling palay prices apparently kicked public’s support from rice consumers to the rice farmers in 2019. The decline of farm gate prices of palay in the first six months of 2019 was unprecedentedly sharp. If one measured the fall from its average price in 2018 to its lowest monthly level in 2019, that would be 22%. Its near second occurred in 2015, when prices fell by 19% from its average in 2014 to its lowest monthly in 2015.
Falling palay prices apparently kicked public’s support from rice consumers to the rice farmers in 2019. The decline of farm gate prices of palay in the first six months of 2019 was unprecedentedly sharp. If one measured the fall from its average price in 2018 to its lowest monthly level in 2019, that would be 22%. Its near second occurred in 2015, when prices fell by 19% from its average in 2014 to its lowest monthly in 2015.
Three percentage points worse,
yet the intensity of the debate on the appropriateness of its cause is beyond
measure. We hear muted calls of reversing the rice tariffication law, and
Congress seems, for now, to prefer to give more time for the law to succeed.
The clearer message of concerned
stakeholders to the government is to help rice farmers who are hurting from low
palay prices. They apparently appreciate the importance of keeping rice prices
low for the country’s rice consumers, many of whom are likewise as poor as the
farmers. About 20% of household expenditures of the poor is just on rice.
Asking Congress to repeal the rice tariffication law without a good solution to
keep rice prices low and predictable is unacceptable, even to many who are
unhappy about the law.
There are three safeguards in the
law to protect rice farmers. One is the tariff rate of 35% if we are importing
rice from ASEAN. If one is importing from India or countries outside of ASEAN,
he or she pays 180%. No one is likely to do that in commercial quantities.
Two, this can be raised by up to
25% with the special safeguards law, which is all within the power of the
Agriculture Secretary. There are two versions of it depending on the trigger
mechanism used, the volume and price triggers. It is easier to invoke the
volume safeguards, but it may also be lifted at the end of the calendar year.
But that works well for us? It is
very likely that the volume trigger is breached by the third quarter of the
year. Private traders would have completed their importation in the first half
of the year, so that by the time of the main harvest in the last quarter,
import tariffs will be higher to discourage rice imports.
Three, the NFA can still procure
rice from the local markets for buffer stocking. The relatively deep fall of
palay prices indicates that traders and rice millers are not buying locally
temporarily. They may first be assessing how the import liberalization would
play out. Like the rice market, the palay market is in the process of finding
its equilibrium under the new rules. Withdrawal of commercial rice traders and
millers from the local palay market may be significant as to bring down palay
prices sharply.
I support the contingent measure
of stabilizing the farmgate price of palay for this main harvest season, or for
any other time when the low palay markets show some instability affecting
incomes of rice farmers.
Two measures in support of
procurement are in order. One, the NFA Council instructs the NFA to buy at an
official farmgate price, calibrated to provide incentives to plant rice to rice
farmers. I believe this is done. The NFA Council had decided the procurement
price to be at P19 a kilo. Two, the national government gives the NFA a bigger
budget for palay procurement to prop up demand of palay in the main harvest.
Historically, procurement has
been about two to three percent of local production. But there were years when
this reached 6% as in 1990. The higher this volume, the faster the NFA can
arrest the free fall of palay prices in the main season.
Aside from cost consideration, we
may also have to ask about the absorptive capability of the NFA. The NFA is
limited by its logistics capacity. I talked to an NFA official who confirmed
that they may go into leasing private sector warehouses to absorb more
procurement, and that entails a cost to the national government.
We may start with a 5%
procurement rate. This shift in demand for palay can benefit other farmers with
a more stable palay price.
It is a contingent measure for
when the private sector is finding its bearings following a fundamental change
in the rules of the industry at a time just before the main planting season.
Conditional cash transfers to
rice farmers could have been another way to help rice farmers. However, without
the proper identification of rice farmers, and rules to ensure its integrity,
NFA procurement is the less costly measure to mitigate the fall of rice farm
incomes. In procurement, identification of intended beneficiaries is built into
the program.
CREATIVE WAYS OF USING RCEF
We look forward to Secretary William Dar putting in place out-of-the-box ideas in the use of RCEF or the rice competitiveness enhancement fund. RCEF, which can accumulate at least P10 billion a year, is expected to give the rice farmers the opportunity to retool and make rice farming in the country more productive. With the fund, adjustment costs of rice farmers can be lowered, resulting in fewer farmers exiting the industry — giving meaning to the phrase “inclusive trade reform.” An ingenious way of using RCEF is key to modernizing the rice industry, and raise rice farm incomes.
We look forward to Secretary William Dar putting in place out-of-the-box ideas in the use of RCEF or the rice competitiveness enhancement fund. RCEF, which can accumulate at least P10 billion a year, is expected to give the rice farmers the opportunity to retool and make rice farming in the country more productive. With the fund, adjustment costs of rice farmers can be lowered, resulting in fewer farmers exiting the industry — giving meaning to the phrase “inclusive trade reform.” An ingenious way of using RCEF is key to modernizing the rice industry, and raise rice farm incomes.
Ramon L. Clarete is a professor
at the University of the Philippines School of Economics.
Border closure: Nigerians shouldn’t panic over scarcity of rice ―
RIFAN ON SEPTEMBER 22, 20197:44 PMIN NEWSBY VICTOR OGUNYINKA
FacebookTwitterEmailWhatsAppPinterestShare Says artificial scarcity caused by
saboteurs To harvest 6 million metric tonnes of rice in 3 weeks By Gabriel
Ewepu THE Rice Farmers Association of Nigeria, RIFAN, Sunday, allayed fears of
Nigerians over the scarcity of rice as land borders remain closed. Foreign rice
seized by Ogun Command This assurance was made by the National President,
RIFAN, Aminu Goronyo, in a telephone chat with Vanguard on the alleged price
increase of rice across markets in the country. According to Goronyo rice
processors and farmers have met and resolved that border closure would not
affect the price of the commodity, rather will maintain prices despite the
closure of land borders. He further stated that there is enough rice paddy for
millers in their warehouses, which they cannot quantify and disclose that in
three weeks over 6 million metric tonnes of rice would be harvested, which will
be added to the 4 million metric tonnes already harvested and that put together
is over the current annual consumption of 7.5 million metric tonnes. He said:
“The rice processors have met and assured Nigerians that the issue of border
closure will not affect the prices of rice they sell to Nigerians. There are
prices ranging from N13, 500- N14, 000 per bag of rice and they promised to
maintain that price. With the cooperation of Nigerians, God willing the prices
will start coming down. “Secondly, the farmers who produce, grow and cultivate
this rice did not add a kobo to the normal price they use to sell their paddy.
I see no reason why Nigerians should panic and try to create unnecessary
artificial scarcity of this commodity. “The paddy we have on ground now that is
in our warehouses we can’t even quantify the quantum of it. “The rice that is
on the field that is going to be harvested in the next two, three weeks it is
only God who knows the quantity. We have enough factories in Nigeria that are
now milling to international standards and enough for Nigerians to buy and
consume.” He also added that “The dry season is around the corner, by November
we will start cultivating again the dry season farming as usual.” He also
appealed to Nigerians, “All we need is to exercise patience. The border closure
is not about rice only but about all the commodities, but rice stands to be the
most important. “We have rice in abundance in the country. All the prices are
still maintained. The bag of paddy is still being sold at N7, 000-N7, 500 and
maximum of N8, 000. We did not change it and is still the price maintained.”
However, the RIFAN chief accused people whom he called enemies of the country
who are the ones creating artificial scarcity and are against the country
attaining self-sufficiency in production. “Like I said there are enemies of the
progress we are making who are trying to make it difficult for the common man
to get this commodity at a cheaper rate, who are not happy with this
development that we are achieving rice self-sufficiency in the country. They
are the ones creating this fake and artificial scarcity and rumour going around
the country. “But from the farmers and millers, we are meeting all the times,
and we are trying to make it possible for any Nigerians to have access to this
commodity at affordable prices. We want to make it available, accessible and
affordable.” “I want to assure you that the ones coming into our stocks from
the fields is a bumper harvest and we are even growing more than what we
consume,” he said. On flood currently ravaging parts of the country he (Goronyo)
said the disaster cannot stop production, availability, accessibility and
affordability, “Rice is being grown on the lowland but there are also areas we
cultivate rice on the upland, so even if there is flood I don’t think it will
make an impact that will create scarcity of rice in the country. “It is not
healthy rice they bring as foreign rice into the country because we call it a
foreign disease. This rice is kept over seven years in their silos and every
quarter they spray chemicals on it to preserve it and this is the rice they
pack from their silos and send it to Nigeria and people are not eating fresh
ones rather they are eating disease. Most of the diseases killing people in the
country today including cancer, diabetes, kidney failure, blindness and others
are traceable to this rice they call foreign rice that is actually disease is
the source of them. Nigerians should be careful with this foreign disease sent
to Nigeria”, he added
Read more at: https://www.vanguardngr.com/2019/09/border-closure-nigerians-shouldnt-panic-over-scarcity-of-rice-%E2%80%95-rifan/
AfricaRice
Holds Smart Valley Innovation Forum with Farmers
By
-
September 23, 2019
36
Dr. Inoussa Akintayo partakes in the harvest exercise with the
farmers.
The Smart Valley Rice Project
(SVP) under AfricaRice with funding from the Japanese Government on Thursday,
September 12, 2019 concluded a daylong rice innovation forum on improved
lowland rice production for farmers, agriculture extension workers from the
Ministry of Agriculture (MoA), and researchers from the Central Agriculture
Research Institute (CARI).
The training, which brought
together 50 participants in all, was held at CARI in Suakoko District, Bong
County.
AfricaRice Representative to
Liberia, Dr. Inoussa Akintayo, told the trainees that many still wonder why
Liberia is yet to feed itself as the country continues to import US$200 million
worth of rice annually, though it has 4.6 million hectares of arable land that
covers over 40 percent of the rain forest in the Sub-region.
“We have all the requirements to
grow enough rice, including good climatic conditions. If only we can top up on
those potentials, then we can feed ourselves and the neighboring countries,”
Dr. Akintayo said.
Akintayo said it is now time that
the Liberian government prioritizes lowland rice cultivation, which has the
potential to produce more yield to at least feed some of the population.
“Lowland rice production entails
big investment and, as such, the government alone cannot do all. AfricaRice has
introduced the “SAWAH” approach, which is the low cost lowland development
where the farmers used local materials to develop the land. SAWAH is also a
man-made, improved rice-growing environment with demarcated, bunded, leveled,
and puddled fields for water control,” he said.
Dr. Akintayo informed the
participants that the project would have phased out by the end of September
2019, but because of the success stories of lowland rice productions by the
farming groups in the selected communities, AfricaRice through the Japanese
Government decided to extend the project by an additional three months.
“We have tried this “SAWAH”
method in many countries in the sub-region, and it worked well. This same
technique is working well with the farming groups that we are working with in
the country,” Dr. Akintayo said.
Africa Rice Center (AfricaRice),
is a leading pan-African research organization with a mission to contribute to
poverty alleviation and food security in Africa through research, development
and partnership activities.
“In the Southeast, the government
has developed hundreds of hectares of lowland with donors’ support, but
unfortunately, those lands have not been used. Interestingly, in other parts of
the country, farmers are yearning for such environments to cultivate,” Dr.
Akintayo said.
He added, “If a household can
apply the “SAWAH” approach by using the local materials to cultivate the
lowland or swamp, it breaks the chains of poverty by generating capacity for
local production, processing and marketing of rice and rapidly decreasing
dependence on world markets.”
The AfricaRice training, which brought together 50 participants
in all, was held at CARI in Suakoko District, Bong County.
An official from MoA said that
the government is committed to increasing rice production, “and this forum will
provide more information regarding the process to production of the rice.”
He encouraged farmers to take the
SMART VALLEY Project training “very serious” so as to go in their various
communities and train other farmers.
Smart Valley Project Coordinator,
Dr. Roland Nuhu Issaka, said the project has established 20 farming groups in
Bong, three in Nimba County and one in Margibi County.
Dr. Issaka said the projects are
to improve inland valley rice production of smallholder farmers through area
expansion and increased productivity in the targeted counties to achieve
augmented, and stable yields through improved site-specific agronomic
practices, and to build the capacities of farmers about lowland farming,
especially on rice productions and soil management.
He named lack of interest (not
interested in group ownership), infiltration by individuals with ulterior
motives and physical and land tenure as some challenges in the production of
lowland rice.
He said over the months his
institution has provided to the farmers wellington boots, shovels, hoes,
cutlasses, seed rice, sand bags, twine, the periodic supply of rice fertilizer
and pesticides, as well as on the job training of water management, agronomy
and pest management.
Earlier, Bong County
Superintendent Esther Y. Walker urged SVRIF to focus on options that would
intensify the project by enhancing production in rice-based systems in a
sustainable manner.
She said that it is time for
Liberians to engage in “serious” agriculture activities.
Search on again for Kingdom’s
best quality rice
Chea Vannak / Khmer Times Share:
The Cambodia Rice Federation has
urged rice millers and exporters to join the National Rice Competition 2019 by
submitting samples of their rice.
It said in an announcement on
Friday that the best premium fragrant rice will be presented as Cambodia’s
entry to the World Best Rice Award Contest scheduled to be held in Manila, the
Philippines, from November 10 to 13.
The fourth national rice
competition will be held on November 1 and the rice millers and exporters
should submit their samples to the CRF no later than October 25, the CRF noted.
It said there are three
categories in the competition – premium fragrant rice; fragrant rice; and long
grain white rice.
Lun Yeng, CRF secretary general,
yesterday said that rice millers and exporters are encouraged to join the
contest to find the best quality rice in the country.
“Any rice miller and exporter can
apply to join the upcoming national rice competition, so that the best quality
rice will be selected by the CRF’s committee of judges,” he noted.
The competition will focus on the
quality of rice after cooking, its fragrance and appearance, Mr Yeng said.
He noted that national winners in
the fragrant rice and long grain white rice categories would be given awards
during the 7th Cambodia Rice Forum scheduled to be held in December.
Since participating in the annual
World Best Rice contest, Cambodian rice has won the top award in 2012, 2013,
2014 and last year.
Last year, Cambodia’s premium
fragrant rice won the best rice in the world contest which took place in Hanoi,
Vietnam during the 10th TRT World Rice Conference held on October 10 to 12.
According to Mr Yeng, Cambodia
faces tough competition from Thailand and Vietnam which also produce high
quality rice for export to other countries.
Cambodia exported 281,538 tonnes
of milled rice during the first half of this year, an increase of 3.7 percent
compared to the same period last year.
https://www.khmertimeskh.com/50645419/search-on-again-for-kingdoms-best-quality-rice/ Mindanao farmers to export rice to US
DAVAO. During the Mindanao Rice Forum held on September 20 at
Grand Regal Hotel, a marketing deal was forged for export of unlimited volume
of White, Brown, Red and Black Rice and the exotic Adlay to the United States.
Organized by Mindanao Development Authority (MinDa), the forum was participated
by organic rice and adlay farmers, who organized themselves to form the
Mindanao Organic Rice Council (MORCO), with Don Bosco Multi-Purpose Cooperative
as interim chair and Agro Eco Philippines and SRII Technology Group as vice
chairmen. (Photo courtesy of Mindanao Development Authority)
DAVAO. During the Mindanao Rice Forum held on September 20 at
Grand Regal Hotel, a marketing deal was forged for export of unlimited volume
of White, Brown, Red and Black Rice and the exotic Adlay to the United States.
Organized by Mindanao Development Authority (MinDa), the forum was participated
by organic rice and adlay farmers, who organized themselves to form the
Mindanao Organic Rice Council (MORCO), with Don Bosco Multi-Purpose Cooperative
as interim chair and Agro Eco Philippines and SRII Technology Group as vice
chairmen. (Photo courtesy of Mindanao Development Authority)
DAVAO. During the Mindanao Rice Forum held on September 20 at
Grand Regal Hotel, a marketing deal was forged for export of unlimited volume
of White, Brown, Red and Black Rice and the exotic Adlay to the United States.
Organized by Mindanao Development Authority (MinDa), the forum was participated
by organic rice and adlay farmers, who organized themselves to form the
Mindanao Organic Rice Council (MORCO), with Don Bosco Multi-Purpose Cooperative
as interim chair and Agro Eco Philippines and SRII Technology Group as vice
chairmen. (Photo courtesy of Mindanao Development Authority)
DAVAO. During the Mindanao Rice Forum held on September 20 at
Grand Regal Hotel, a marketing deal was forged for export of unlimited volume
of White, Brown, Red and Black Rice and the exotic Adlay to the United States.
Organized by Mindanao Development Authority (MinDa), the forum was participated
by organic rice and adlay farmers, who organized themselves to form the
Mindanao Organic Rice Council (MORCO), with Don Bosco Multi-Purpose Cooperative
as interim chair and Agro Eco Philippines and SRII Technology Group as vice
chairmen. (Photo courtesy of Mindanao Development Authority)
DAVAO. During the Mindanao Rice Forum held on September 20 at
Grand Regal Hotel, a marketing deal was forged for export of unlimited volume
of White, Brown, Red and Black Rice and the exotic Adlay to the United States.
Organized by Mindanao Development Authority (MinDa), the forum was participated
by organic rice and adlay farmers, who organized themselves to form the
Mindanao Organic Rice Council (MORCO), with Don Bosco Multi-Purpose Cooperative
as interim chair and Agro Eco Philippines and SRII Technology Group as vice
chairmen. (Photo courtesy of Mindanao Development Authority)
DAVAO. During the Mindanao Rice Forum held on September 20 at
Grand Regal Hotel, a marketing deal was forged for export of unlimited volume
of White, Brown, Red and Black Rice and the exotic Adlay to the United States.
Organized by Mindanao Development Authority (MinDa), the forum was participated
by organic rice and adlay farmers, who organized themselves to form the
Mindanao Organic Rice Council (MORCO), with Don Bosco Multi-Purpose Cooperative
as interim chair and Agro Eco Philippines and SRII Technology Group as vice
chairmen. (Photo courtesy of Mindanao Development Authority)
+
A A
-
September 22, 2019
MINDANAO organic farmers and a U.S.-based marketing group forged
an agreement Sunday, September 22, 2019, which would allow American consumers
access to organic rice and adlay produced in the Southern Philippines.
“Produce as much as you could and we will market it,” said Andrew Bolougne, head of the U.S. marketing firm which is also importing green and matured coconuts from the Philippines.
The signing of the marketing deal with unlimited volume of white, brown, red and black rice and the exotic adlay grown by the tribes capped day-long Mindanao Rice Forum organized by the Mindanao Development Authority (MinDa) held at the Grand Regal Hotel.
The Mindanao Rice Forum, sponsored by Seedworks Philippines and AMO Organic Fertilizer, was attended by adlay and organic rice farmers associations and cooperatives.
During the forum, the participants, guided by the MinDa and the Department of Agriculture (DA) regional offices in Mindanao and the Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice), organized themselves and formed the Mindanao Organic Rice Council (MORCO).
Chosen as interim chairman of MORCO was the Don Bosco Multi-Purpose Cooperative with Agro Eco Philippines and SRII Technology Group.
Represented in the Council are organic rice farmers’ cooperatives and associations from all over Mindanao; organic fertilizer and soil ameriolants producers group, seed growers and rice millers.
MinDa will be the lead government agency to support the group with the assistance of the DA and PhilRice.
MinDa will establish a database of all organic rice and adlay farmers in Mindanao, including the geotagging of the production areas.
Availability of seeds for the black organic rice, which is the most sought-after product, will also be determined, including the estimated production.
Bolougne, who led the U.S. group which signed the marketing agreement with Don Bosco Multi-Purpose Cooperative, said the demand for organic rice, especially the black rice which is reputed to have medicinal benefits, is huge and largely unfilled.
“You cannot imagine how huge is the market demand for organic food today and we will cash in on that,” he said.
Bolougne's group committed a buying price which would give farmers double what they are earning by planting commercial rice.
Don Bosco vice chairperson and marketing officer Maria Helenita Gamela said organic rice farmers are not affected by the Rice Tariffication Law which allowed the unimpeded entry of imported rice which resulted in low farm gate price for commercial rice.
"We have a niche market. The price is steady whole year round but we cannot produce the needed volume," she said.
Currently, Don Bosco buys organic paddy rice from its members at P19 to P20 per kilo. This could go even higher with the forging of the marketing agreement with the U.S. group.
The export deal for organic rice and adlay is the second marketing deal arranged by MinDA for Mindanao's rice farmers.
Earlier, MinDA arranged the export of Mindanao premium rice to Papua New Guinea.
An initial shipment of 5,000 metric tons is expected before the end of the year. A delegation from Papua New Guinea, led by Central Province Governor Robert Agarobe, is now in Mindanao to inspect the production areas and the processing facilities. (PR)
“Produce as much as you could and we will market it,” said Andrew Bolougne, head of the U.S. marketing firm which is also importing green and matured coconuts from the Philippines.
The signing of the marketing deal with unlimited volume of white, brown, red and black rice and the exotic adlay grown by the tribes capped day-long Mindanao Rice Forum organized by the Mindanao Development Authority (MinDa) held at the Grand Regal Hotel.
The Mindanao Rice Forum, sponsored by Seedworks Philippines and AMO Organic Fertilizer, was attended by adlay and organic rice farmers associations and cooperatives.
During the forum, the participants, guided by the MinDa and the Department of Agriculture (DA) regional offices in Mindanao and the Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice), organized themselves and formed the Mindanao Organic Rice Council (MORCO).
Chosen as interim chairman of MORCO was the Don Bosco Multi-Purpose Cooperative with Agro Eco Philippines and SRII Technology Group.
Represented in the Council are organic rice farmers’ cooperatives and associations from all over Mindanao; organic fertilizer and soil ameriolants producers group, seed growers and rice millers.
MinDa will be the lead government agency to support the group with the assistance of the DA and PhilRice.
MinDa will establish a database of all organic rice and adlay farmers in Mindanao, including the geotagging of the production areas.
Availability of seeds for the black organic rice, which is the most sought-after product, will also be determined, including the estimated production.
Bolougne, who led the U.S. group which signed the marketing agreement with Don Bosco Multi-Purpose Cooperative, said the demand for organic rice, especially the black rice which is reputed to have medicinal benefits, is huge and largely unfilled.
“You cannot imagine how huge is the market demand for organic food today and we will cash in on that,” he said.
Bolougne's group committed a buying price which would give farmers double what they are earning by planting commercial rice.
Don Bosco vice chairperson and marketing officer Maria Helenita Gamela said organic rice farmers are not affected by the Rice Tariffication Law which allowed the unimpeded entry of imported rice which resulted in low farm gate price for commercial rice.
"We have a niche market. The price is steady whole year round but we cannot produce the needed volume," she said.
Currently, Don Bosco buys organic paddy rice from its members at P19 to P20 per kilo. This could go even higher with the forging of the marketing agreement with the U.S. group.
The export deal for organic rice and adlay is the second marketing deal arranged by MinDA for Mindanao's rice farmers.
Earlier, MinDA arranged the export of Mindanao premium rice to Papua New Guinea.
An initial shipment of 5,000 metric tons is expected before the end of the year. A delegation from Papua New Guinea, led by Central Province Governor Robert Agarobe, is now in Mindanao to inspect the production areas and the processing facilities. (PR)
India's forex
reserves declines by US$ 0.65 billion in the week ended 13 September
Capital Market Last Updated at September 20, 2019 20:50 IST
·
ALSO READ
India's forex reserves declines by US$ 1.11
billion in the week ended 12 July
India's forex reserves jumps US$ 4.37 billion
in the week ended 26 April
India's forex reserves jumps by US$ 1.62
billion in the week ended 09 August
India's forex reserves jumps by US$ 2.23
billion in the week ended 05 July
India's forex reserves jumps by US$ 3.60
billion in the week ended 15 March
·
Forex reserves eases to US$ 429.0 billion as on 13 September 2019
India's foreign exchange reserves declined by US$ 0.65
billion to US$ 428.96 billion in the week ended 13 September 2019. The foreign
exchange reserves had stood at US$ 429.61 a week ago.
Within the foreign exchange reserves, the foreign currency assets
fell to US$ 396.80 billion in the week ended 13 September 2019 from US$ 397.20
billion a week ago. The gold assets also declined to US$ 27.10 billion from US$
27.35 billion a week ago. SDRs were flat at US$ 1.43 billion in the week ended
13 September 2019.
India's foreign exchange reserves increased by US$ 16.09 billion
over March 2019, while jumped US$ 28.47 billion over a year ago level.
Powered by Capital Market - Live News
(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is
auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Non-availability of local rice threatens
FG’s programme
Local rice traders, especially in Lagos and its environs, are
lamenting the non availability of local rice as demand and price for the
product increases due to the shutting down of land borders in order to curtail
the influx of smuggled rice, which was already threatening the survival of the budding
Nigerian rice industry.
The traders are warning that the continuous scarcity of the
product will greatly undermine government’s efforts to groom Nigerians off
imported foreign rice to our locally cultivated rice. Consumers most especially
affected by the border closure are those in border towns who have for many
years depended on the foreign par boiled long grain rice.
However, with the border closed and no more rice smuggled in,
those consumers who hitherto consumed such rice have no option other than to
turn to our very nutritious organic rice. But the problem is that we do not
seem to have enough to go round everybody. The population of Lagos State alone
according to the National Population Commission of Nigeria as at 2016 is over
21million.
Market survey in major rice markets in Lagos, like Daleko Mushin
market, Iddo Terminus and G CAPPA Iddo, revealed the numerous rice brands in
Nigeria. What more, no foreign rice was on display except what the traders
dubiously refer to as the ‘Nigerian foreign rice’, whereby local rice is
deceptively bagged in foreign branded rice bags like, Royal Umbrella, Caprice
and for those consumers who still insist on buying foreign rice, the traders
direct you to such bags. They sell for about N18,000 per 50kg bag while local
rice branded Nigeria sells for between N14,500-N17,000. Though if they see you
are ready to pay any high amount for the real foreign rice, they retreat inside
the market and produce it for between N20,000-N23,000.
However, all the traders are complaining of lack of rice to sell
to consumers. As at last week Tuesday and Wednesday when the reporter visited
the markets, the traders disclosed that things have generated to the level that
even rice manufacturers have stopped receiving money to supply rice to the
traders.
In an interview with one of the big rice dealers at No. 1,
Taylor Rd. G-CAPPA rice market, Idowu Omogbemi, he said manufacturers like
Olam, Stallion, Big Bull, Umza, Famous, Tomato King, amongst others, declined
to take money from traders explaining they had run short of rice.
“A majority of rice dealers who paid for truck load of rice
since the last two weeks have not received their order. If you pay for 11
trucks, you get just one truck in order to make room for other traders. In fact
at the moment, manufacturers are rationing the rice,” regretted the rice
dealer.
“Rice manufacturers are overwhelmed by the demand. They cannot
meet up. Labana, Three Brothers, Super Champion, Al-Hamsad, etcetera are no
longer taking money from traders. I tried to pay them today for consignment of
rice but they refused to accept money,” lamented Mrs. Nky Okoro at the Iddo
Terminus rice market.
At Daleko market in Mushin, many traders were complaining
bitterly that they could not find rice to buy. They complained that the major
distributor of the product, Madam Jumilar, was not giving them enough to buy.
She is rationing 10 bags to each trader daily through her agent, Tokunbo. If
Tokunbo does not like your face, he will not sell to you. Those he does not
sell to, patronise the traders he sells to at a higher price, resulting to
un-uniformed rice price in the market. Besides, what is 10 bags of rice? One
customer alone can buy them all and your shop becomes empty,” cried Mrs. Ethel
of shop 409/416.
The same tales of demand and the same tales of scarcity were
everywhere. Of course, this has greatly affected the price. Virtually all the
local rice brands sell between N14,500-N17,000 per 50kg bag. “The price keeps
escalating,” lamented Mrs Effiong Orji.
Acknowledging the scarcity and attributing the increasing price
of rice to rice farmers who increased the price of Rice Paddy, President,
Association of Rice Distributors in Nigeria, Mrs. Esther Akinsoye, said that
government needs to stop owners of Paddy from hoarding the product and
increasing the price.
“Rice millers are complaining that farmers are increasing the
price of Paddy because of high demand and as such forcing the millers to also
increase their price, resulting in further increase by the manufacturer,”
regretted Mrs. Akinsoye. “They should make the Paddy or rough rice to be
surplus for the manufacturers and millers.”
Reacting to the development, Nigeria’s leading rice merchant,
the Iya Loja of Daleko Market, Chief Mrs. Ibilola Solaja popularly called Madam
Jumlar, appealed to Nigerians to be patient. “Rome was not built in a
day. There is bound to be teething problems as we are just starting. In a few
years time, we shall have more than enough rice to eat and export.”
Admitting the scarcity, she said it will soon be over as many
farmers have gone back to farms and millers have also gone back to their
business due to the demand for local rice now. “I encourage the consumption of
local rice so that we can grow our economy. I give to traders on credit and
they remit money back to me when they sell,” said the delectable lady.
However, in a telephone interview with the National President,
Rice Millers Association, Arc Kabir, though he admitted that he heard of
shortage of rice in some parts of the country, he said they were not
experiencing much shortage in the north.
In Enugu State, another big player in the rice industry,
Ogbonnaya, regretted that the price of local rice has gone slightly up since
the closure of the border but added that consumers in the eastern part of the
country were not feeling it. “People here prefer nutritious local rice to
foreign rice. Price went up because there is increased demand from places like
Lagos State.”
Another analyst, however, pointed out that majority of rice
mills in the country are located within eastern and northern states. “It is
only Olam that has a mill in Lagos State because consumers here preferred
foreign rice. Rice farmers in the west send their rice Paddy to east and
northern mills. Even Lagos State Lake rice is milled in Kebbi State. However,
with the promise of Lagos State to open a mill in the state come March 2020,
maybe we shall have enough rice for the residents.”
To ease the immediate problem of scarcity in major states,
stakeholders should find cheaper ways to transport rice from the hither lands
to the metropolis. Investigations revealed that a truck load of rice from Kano
town to Lagos is about N350,000 and this price is deterring some people. All
hands should please be on deck to make this government’s noble project to
succeed.
Mindanao organic rice finds market in US
By
Digna Banzon September
21, 2019, 7:30 pm
Share
·
·
ORGANIC
RICE. Mindanao
farmers forged a supply agreement with a US-based marketing firm to supply
American consumers with organic rice. An initial shipment of 5,000 metric tons
is expected before yearend. (Photo by MinDA)
DAVAO CITY -- Organic rice produced in
Mindanao now has access to the United States (US) after an agreement between
farmers and an American marketing group here on Friday.
Dr. Adrian Tamayo, communications head of the Mindanao Development Authority (MINDA), said Saturday the deal would allow American consumers access to organic rice and the heirloom Adlay variety produced in the Southern Philippines.
Tamayo said Andrew Bolougne, head of the US Marketing Firm, told the farmers to produce as much as they could and promised that they will market it.
Bolougne's group committed a buying price which would give farmers double what they are earning by planting commercial rice, he added.
The signing of the marketing deal with unlimited volume of White, Brown, Red and Black Rice and the exotic Adlay grown by the tribes capped the Mindanao Rice Forum organized by MinDA.
The Mindanao Rice Forum was attended by Adlay and Organic rice farmers associations and cooperatives.
Tamayo added that an initial shipment of 5,000 metric tons is expected by the end of the year.
During the forum, the participants, guided by the MinDA and the Department of Agriculture Regional Field Offices (DA-RFO) in Mindanao and the Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice), organized themselves and formed the Mindanao Organic Rice Council (MORCO). Chosen as Interim Chairman of MORCO was the Don Bosco Multi-Purpose Cooperative with Agro Eco Philippines and SRII Technology Group as vice chairmen.
Represented in the Council are organic rice farmers’ cooperatives and associations from all over Mindanao, organic fertilizer and soil ameliorants producers group, seed growers, and rice millers.
Tamayo said MinDA will be the lead government agency to support the group with the assistance of the DA and PhilRice.
MinDA will establish a database of all organic rice and Adlay farmers in Mindanao, including the geotagging of the production areas. Availability of seeds for the Black Organic Rice, which is the most sought-after product, will also be determined, including the estimated production.
Bolougne said the demand for organic rice, especially the Black Rice which is reputed to have medicinal benefits, is huge and largely unfilled.
"You cannot imagine how huge is the market demand for organic food today and we will cash in on that," he said.
Don Bosco vice-chairperson and marketing officer Maria Helenita Gamela said organic rice farmers are not affected by the Rice Tariffication Law, and the unimpeded entry of imported rice that resulted in low farm gate price for commercial rice.
"We have a niche market. The price is steady whole year round but we cannot produce the needed volume," she said.
Currently, Don Bosco buys from its members organic paddy rice at PHP19 to PHP20 per kilo. This could go even higher with the forging of the marketing agreement with the US group, Gamela said.
The export deal for organic rice and Adlay is the second marketing deal arranged by MinDA for Mindanao's rice farmers. (PNA)
Dr. Adrian Tamayo, communications head of the Mindanao Development Authority (MINDA), said Saturday the deal would allow American consumers access to organic rice and the heirloom Adlay variety produced in the Southern Philippines.
Tamayo said Andrew Bolougne, head of the US Marketing Firm, told the farmers to produce as much as they could and promised that they will market it.
Bolougne's group committed a buying price which would give farmers double what they are earning by planting commercial rice, he added.
The signing of the marketing deal with unlimited volume of White, Brown, Red and Black Rice and the exotic Adlay grown by the tribes capped the Mindanao Rice Forum organized by MinDA.
The Mindanao Rice Forum was attended by Adlay and Organic rice farmers associations and cooperatives.
Tamayo added that an initial shipment of 5,000 metric tons is expected by the end of the year.
During the forum, the participants, guided by the MinDA and the Department of Agriculture Regional Field Offices (DA-RFO) in Mindanao and the Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice), organized themselves and formed the Mindanao Organic Rice Council (MORCO). Chosen as Interim Chairman of MORCO was the Don Bosco Multi-Purpose Cooperative with Agro Eco Philippines and SRII Technology Group as vice chairmen.
Represented in the Council are organic rice farmers’ cooperatives and associations from all over Mindanao, organic fertilizer and soil ameliorants producers group, seed growers, and rice millers.
Tamayo said MinDA will be the lead government agency to support the group with the assistance of the DA and PhilRice.
MinDA will establish a database of all organic rice and Adlay farmers in Mindanao, including the geotagging of the production areas. Availability of seeds for the Black Organic Rice, which is the most sought-after product, will also be determined, including the estimated production.
Bolougne said the demand for organic rice, especially the Black Rice which is reputed to have medicinal benefits, is huge and largely unfilled.
"You cannot imagine how huge is the market demand for organic food today and we will cash in on that," he said.
Don Bosco vice-chairperson and marketing officer Maria Helenita Gamela said organic rice farmers are not affected by the Rice Tariffication Law, and the unimpeded entry of imported rice that resulted in low farm gate price for commercial rice.
"We have a niche market. The price is steady whole year round but we cannot produce the needed volume," she said.
Currently, Don Bosco buys from its members organic paddy rice at PHP19 to PHP20 per kilo. This could go even higher with the forging of the marketing agreement with the US group, Gamela said.
The export deal for organic rice and Adlay is the second marketing deal arranged by MinDA for Mindanao's rice farmers. (PNA)
New study opens the door to flood resistant
crops
·
·
Sep
20, 2019
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Of the major food crops, only
rice is currently able to survive flooding. Thanks to new research, that could
soon change — good news for a world in which rains are increasing in both
frequency and intensity.
The research, published recently
in "Science," studied how other crops compare to rice when submerged
in water. It found that the plants – a wild-growing tomato, a tomato used for
farming and a plant similar to alfalfa – all share at least 68 families of
genes in common that are activated in response to flooding.
Rice was domesticated from wild
species that grew in tropical regions, where it adapted to endure monsoons.
Some of the genes involved in that adaptation exist in the other plants but
have not evolved to switch on when the roots are being flooded.
“We hope to take advantage of
what we learned about rice in order to help activate the genes in other plants
that could help them survive waterlogging,” said study lead Julia
Bailey-Serres, a UC Riverside professor of genetics.
In the study, the team examined
cells that reside at the tips of roots of the plant, as roots are the first
responders to a flood. Root tips and shoot buds are also where a plant’s prime
growing potential resides. These regions contain cells that can help a plant
become more resilient to flooding.
Drilling down even further, the
team looked at the genes in these root tip cells, to understand whether and how
their genes were activated when covered with water and deprived of
oxygen.
“We looked at the way that DNA
instructs a cell to create particular stress response in a level of
unprecedented detail, across evolutionarily different species,” said one of the
lead researchers, UC Riverside’s Mauricio Reynoso.
The genes involved in flooding
adaptations are called submergence up-regulated families (SURFs). “Since
evolution separated the ancestors of rice and these other species as many as
180 million years ago, we did not expect to find 68 SURFs in common,” said
co-author Neelima Sinha, professor of plant biology at UC Davis.
Though the SURFs were activated
in all the plants during the flooding experiments, their genetic responses
weren’t as effective as in rice. The wild tomato species that grows in desert
soil withered and died when flooded.
Climate change also produces
periods of excessive drought, and separate efforts are under way to examine
crop resilience to those conditions as well. However, Bailey-Serres said
flooding responses are understudied compared to drought, making this work all
the more important.
The group is now planning
additional studies to improve the survival rates of the plants that currently
die and rot from excess water.
This year is not the first in which
excessive rains have kept farmers from being able to plant crops like corn,
soybeans and alfalfa. Floods have also damaged the quality of the crops they
were able to grow. As the climate continues to change, this trend is likely to
continue. Without efforts to ensure our crops adapt, the security of the
world’s food supply is at risk.
“Imagine a world where kids do
not have enough calories to develop,” said Bailey-Serres. “We as scientists
have an urgency to help plants withstand floods, to ensure food security for
the future.”
Scientists to help grains besides rice survive
flooding
UPI
20 Sep 2019
Sept. 20 (UPI) — Currently, rice is the only crop staple that can
withstand flooding. But with floods in some parts of the world expected to
increase in severity and frequency as a result of climate change, scientists
are working hard to develop more resilient crops.New research, published this week in the journal Science, suggests long dormant genes can be turned on to help crops survive extreme weather.
Rice was domesticated from a wild species native to the tropics, where the grain evolved to endure heavy rains and flooding. Other grains possess the same genes as rice, but they remain silenced even when the crops experience flood conditions.
For the study, scientists analyzed gene expression in the root cells from rice plants, as well as the root cells of a wild-growing tomato, a tomato used for farming and a plant similar to alfalfa. Scientists made a list of the many genes activated in the root cells of flooded rice plants.
“We looked at the way that DNA instructs a cell to create particular stress response in a level of unprecedented detail,” Mauricio Reynoso, researcher at the University of California, Riverside, said in a news release.
When scientists compared the genetic response of the rice plants with the tomato and alfalfa plants, they found the plants share 68 families of the activated rice genes in common.
“This is the first time that a flooding response has been looked at in a way that was this comprehensive, across evolutionarily different species,” said Siobhan Brady, an associate professor of plant biology at the University of California, Davis.
The genes responsible for flood resilience are called submergence up-regulated families, or SURFs. Though the tomato and alfalfa plants host many of the same flood-proofing genes, they fail to activate the SURFs in response to flooding.
In followup studies, scientists at UC Davis and Emory University activated SURFs in the tomato and alfalfa plants. The SURFs proved to be no use to the wild tomato species, which prefers desert soil. The wild tomato withered and died when flooded. The other two plants appeared to benefit from the activated SURFs, but their genetic responses were not as effective as in rice.
Scientists are currently conducting similar analysis and tests involving genes responsible for drought and heat resistance.
The researchers aren’t giving up on flood-resistant crops. They hope additional studies will reveal new strategies for boosting genetic defenses against flooding in grains and other staple crops.
Technology important for 4th
agricultural revolution’
September 22, 2019
“The
reality of digitalizing agriculture is won or lost at the farmer level, where
applicability and sustainability have to be tested.”
Dr. Glenn B. Gregorio, director
of the Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in
Agriculture (Searca), said this before more than 350 scientists, researchers
and educators at the opening of the 25th Federation of Crop Science Societies
of the Philippines (FCSSP) and the first Federation of Plant Science
Associations of the Philippines (FPSAP) Scientific Conference in Davao City
last week.
FPSAP is composed of the Crop
Science Society of the Philippines, the Philippine Seed Industry Association
Inc., PhilFruits Association Inc. and the Philippine Association of Plant
Tissue Culture and Biotechnology.
With the theme, “Converging
Sustainability and Precision to Create Digital Plant Science Innovations,” the
conference is convened at the Apo View Hotel and until September 21.
“At Searca, we are working toward
elevating the quality of life of farmers by improving their access to new,
sustainable, resilient production technologies and systems, and help them
integrate with modern postharvest and logistics systems,” Gregorio said.
He explained the importance of
using technology to achieve Agriculture 4.0, but pointed out that there is
resistance to adapt to change by adopting modern technologies because of
perceived risks associated with them.
“We have to embrace these changes
to actually change the lives of farmers. Let’s give these technologies and
changes a chance so that we can have a better chance of changing the current
state of our farmers,” Gregorio said.
The theme of the conference
highlights this need.
“Advances in plant science through
the form of biotechnology or agro-engineering technology can create various
impacts in our society and environment, and thus, should incorporate
sustainable designs for future generations,” FPSAP President Ryan Rodrigo P.
Tayobong said.
“Plant science and agriculture
must be able to cope with how fast new knowledge is generated and technologies
change,” Gregorio affirmed.
Speaking from more than 30 years
of experience as crop scientist and research manager in international and
private institutions, Gregorio urged the conference participants: “We must be
innovative to change for a purpose.”
In the next five years, he said
Searca will focus its efforts to facilitate interconnectedness among the
academe, industry and government in order to contribute to the sustainable
development goals, particularly on quality education; industry, innovation, and
infrastructure; and partnerships for the SDGs, among others.
Gregorio challenged the
participants to begin innovative approaches in transforming the agricultural
sector.
“We have to make
agriculture attractive and this begins with changing the mindset of farmers
from being producers to agripreneurs and in having a holistic approach to the
agricultural value chain,” he said.
The conference is jointly
organized by FPSAP with the University of Southeastern Philippines, and
Southern Mindanao Agriculture, Aquatic and Natural Resources Research
Development Consortium.
It is cosponsored by Searca,
Philippine Council for Agriculture, Aquatic and Natural Resources Research and
Development; Philippine Rice Research Institute; Corteva Agriscience; Monsanto
Philippines-Bayer Crop Science; and CropLife Philippines.
New research paves way to make
more crops resilient to floods
2 min read . Updated: 21 Sep 2019, 04:48 PM IST
·
In a new research
published in peer-reviewed journal, Science, scientists studied how other crops
behaved when submerged
·
The rice variety
chosen for research was one that is grown in tropical countries like India
A view of the flood affected areas, in
Kochi on Sunday. Photo: PTI
New Delhi: With the increase in
frequency and intensity of extreme rainfall events causing severe damage to
crops worldwide, a new study has paved way to enhance flood tolerance of more crops
species through genetic engineering.
In a new research published in peer-reviewed journal, Science,
scientists studied how other crops behaved when submerged in water and found
that the plants- a wild-growing tomato used for farming and a plant similar to
alfalfa - all share at least 68 families of genes in common that are activated
in response to flooding.
The rice variety chosen for research was one that is grown in
tropical countries like India where it is well-adapted to endure monsoons and
water-logging. Scientists found that some of the genes involved in that
adaptation exist in few other plants but have not evolved to switch on when the
roots are being flooded.
"We hope to take advantage of what we learned about rice in
order to help activate the genes in other plants that could help them survive
water logging," said lead author Professor Julia Bailey-Serres at
University for California, Riverside.
The team examined the cell structure at the tip of the roots of
the plant which are first to respond to excess water and contain cells that can
help a plant become more resilient to flooding. They studied the genes in these
root tip cells to understand whether and how their genes were activated when
covered with water and deprived of oxygen.
"We looked at the way that DNA instructs a cell to create
particular stress response in a level of unprecedented detail," said
co-author Mauricio Reynoso from UC Riverside.
The genes involved in flooding adaptations are called
submergence up-regulated families (SURFs).
"Since evolution separated the ancestors of rice and these
other species as many as 180 million years ago, we did not expect to find 68
SURFs in common," said co-author Neelima Sinha, professor of plant biology
at UC Davis.
Though the SURFs were activated in all the plants during the
flooding experiments, their genetic responses weren't as effective as in rice.
The wild tomato species that grows in desert soil withered and died when
flooded.
The group now plans additional studies to improve the survival rates
of the plants that currently die and rot from excess water. “Imagine a world
where kids do not have enough calories to develop," said Bailey-Serres.
"We as scientists have an urgency to help plants withstand floods, to
ensure food security for the future."
Tired of eating
rice? Try these healthy alternatives
By - Created: Sep 21, 2019, 15:44 IST
White rice or the regular rice we consume on
a daily basis is linked to a lot of harmful effects. White rice lacks many of
the essential vitamins and minerals. Because it is faster to digest, white rice
fills you faster thus increasing your appetite. Rice is broken down to sugar
very fast by our body, which is why it also linked with weight gain. Studies
also show that consuming white rice for more than 5 times a week, puts you on
high risk of type 2 diabetes. But since rice makes up for a staple meal for a
lot of people, it becomes difficult to avoid it. However, healthier substitute
of white rice is available so that you do not have to compromise on taste for
health. Take a look at these 8 foods you should eat in place of rice for a
healthier diet.
Quinoa
Quinoa seeds are gluten free and are abundant in proteins, iron and fibre. They are also rich in amino acids. Quinoa seeds are complete proteins, which means they have all the nine essential amino acids, which makes them a very rich source of proteins, especially for vegetarians.
Quinoa
Quinoa seeds are gluten free and are abundant in proteins, iron and fibre. They are also rich in amino acids. Quinoa seeds are complete proteins, which means they have all the nine essential amino acids, which makes them a very rich source of proteins, especially for vegetarians.
Brown Rice
Much healthier and wholesome nutrition provider than rice is its brown counterpart, brown rice. Brown rice contains fibres that help in effective digestion. It is also linked with reducing the risk of type 2 diabetes.
Barley
Along with lowering the cholesterol levels in body, barley is also rich in selenium, a rarely found mineral in other food items. Additionally it also contains manganese, phosphorus and copper. Though it takes more time to cook than white rice, barley is a much healthier substitute for rice.
Cauliflower rice
Prepared easily just by crushing cauliflower in a food processor, cauliflower rice is a low carb, low calorie alternative of rice. One serving of cauliflower can provide you with enough vitamin C required for the whole day. It also contains vitamin K that prevents blood clots and reduces the risk of hemorrhage. If you are on a keto- diet this is the perfect substitute of rice for you.
Amaranth
Amaranth is a rich source of fibre and a much healthier alternative for rice. This gluten free grain contains more protein than all other grains. It is also linked with reducing the risk of cardiovascular diseases and lowering cholesterol levels.
Buckwheat
Also gluten free, regular consumption of buckwheat improves heart health and reduces blood sugar levels. It is rich in fibre and is even known to fight against cancer. It contains much lesser calories than rice, and is effective for weight loss.
Govt losing the game of rice
GOVT LOSING THE GAME OF RICE
BEN
KRITZ
FOR decades, the Philippine
government has assumed that management of the supply and market for rice is one
of its critical responsibilities, but it seems that the harder it tries to meet
this obligation to anyone’s satisfaction, the more spectacularly it fails to do
so. It should be obvious to all concerned that a comprehensive rethink of the
government’s entire approach needs to be undertaken.
The situation at the moment is
this: Average retail prices of rice, despite the implementation of Republic Act
11203, or the “Rice Tariffication Act,” in early March, have hardly budged
despite expectations that they would be reduced by P2 to P7 per kilo as a
result of increased supplies of imported rice. As of the end of last month, the
average retail price was between P38.38 and P42.71 per kilo; that was 7 to 9
percent (depending on the type of rice) lower than the average retail price
year-on-year, but relatively unchanged from prices just prior to the start of
import liberalization.
Meanwhile, palay (unmilled rice)
prices from domestic farms have gone into a tailspin, and now average about
P17.60 per kilo nationwide, with prices in some areas falling to as low as P7
to P8 per kilo, against an average production cost of P12 per kilo. For the six
months ending August, the Philippine Chamber of Agriculture and Food Inc.
(PCAFI) estimated that Filipino rice farmers have incurred P95 billion in
financial losses as a result of falling prices, which the PCAFI attributes
entirely to the new tariff scheme.
To try to counter the divergent
yet simultaneous effects of crashing wholesale prices and stagnant retail
prices, the Department of Agriculture, through the National Food Authority
(NFA), has taken two steps. To address the low farmgate prices, it has boosted
its buying price for palay to P19 per kilo, and to address elevated retail
prices has ordered the release of 3.6 million bags of rice (180,000 metric
tons) from the NFA’s imported stockpile at P25 per kilo, to be sold at a retail
price of P27 per kilo.
The apparent reason for the high
retail price and low domestic farmgate price of rice is the stockpiling of
imported rice by large-scale traders — an estimated 2.5 million bags, or about
125,000 metric tons. What importers have evidently done is bought rice from
export suppliers, primarily Thailand and Vietnam, at a time when supplies are
at their highest in those places and wholesale prices are consequently lower.
Those peaks of supply (periods immediately after harvests) roughly correspond
to elevated supply in the Philippines, the climates of the countries being
similar, and so the traders kept their stocks for release at a time when
supplies are at their lowest here, which typically occurs toward the end of the
year, when wet-season supplies are exhausted and the next dry-season crop is
still in the fields.
If that rice had been released to
the retail market as it arrived, which is what the post-tariffication price
projections of the Department of Finance assumed, it would have lowered retail
prices, but that would have made it unprofitable to the importing traders. By
holding it back until domestic supply drops, they can be assured of earning a
reasonable profit; from the consumer point of view, rice prices would appear to
be relatively steady. Domestic farmers, however, lose out; their harvest, which
would normally be bought by those traders to build up their inventories ahead
of the low season, is now largely unneeded, and so the traders are only buying
it at a discount.
Buy low, sell high: That’s the
free market at work, and while “rice hoarders” and “middlemen” are regarded as
demons, they are actually doing exactly what they are supposed to be doing,
since their only mandate is to run their own businesses as efficiently and
profitably as they can. The government, on the other hand, can only satisfy its
mandate to support both suppliers and consumers by doing the impossible,
working in the complete opposite direction — buy high, sell low.
Trying to operate in a hybrid
space between a free market and a controlled one is obviously not working, and
so the government ought to make a firm choice one way or the other: Either let
the free market determine price and supply, or take full control of the rice
market and manage both price and supply according to social, rather than
economic, requirements.
Historically, the latter approach
has never worked well or for very long, because it discourages production
efficiency, and the result is either shortages or increasing poverty. On the
other hand, a completely laissez faire approach risks abusive behaviors; the
accusations of “hoarding,” which are misplaced now, might become
self-fulfilling prophecies.
There is no easy answer, and
there probably won’t be as long as rice is such a critical commodity. The
difficulty the government has in managing it now, however, may have a positive
effect: If rice continues to be such a headache to suppliers and consumers
alike, it could encourage the diversification of crops and diets, which would
alleviate many of the present difficulties. That is not, however, something
anyone should expect to happen overnight, or even within a generation, unless
the country collectively decides to take drastic action. Unfortunately,
Filipinos, to their own detriment much of the time, have demonstrated they can
absorb a lot of punishment before anything resembling drastic action to make it
stop is even considered.
ben.kritz@manilatimes.net
Twitter: @benkritz
Twitter: @benkritz
Rice safeguard duties to be imposed next month — DA
Catherine Talavera (The Philippine Star) - September 22, 2019 - 12:00am
MANILA, Philippines — The
government is set to place general safeguard duties on rice imports by the end
of the month or early October.
In a statement, Agriculture
Secretary William Dar said the Department of Agriculture (DA) has already
started the process of investigations that would lead to the imposition of a
general safeguards duty on rice imports and arrest their influx, particularly
in the forthcoming main harvest season.
“We have started investigations and
we expect to complete them by end of September or early October,” Dar said.
The imposition of a safeguard duty
on rice imports is one of the measures that the DA is banking on to stabilize
the supply and price of rice.
Currently, the Philippines produces
93 percent of its total national rice requirements, with the remaining seven
percent imported.
“We have to holistically and
systematically protect the consuming public and much more our small farmers,”
Dar said.
“So, I have taken the necessary
steps and the direction where we will enforce legal measures to at least double
the current tariff of 35 percent, during these times when we have greatly
exceeded the volume needed to fill up the slack in national rice supply, most
particularly in Metro Manila and major urban rice consumption centers,” Dar
said.
The measure is in line with
Republic Act 8752 (Anti-Dumping Act of 1999), where government can impose
anti-dumping duties on imports of any product, including rice and other basic
food items, that are priced way below the current fair market value.
Under the Rice Tariffication Law,
the government may “increase, reduce, revise” import duty rates given certain
conditions consistent with national interest and the “objective of protecting
Filipino farmers and consumers.”
By raising tariffs, imports will
become more expensive, thereby providing room for local traders to dispose of
their stocks and buy again from farmers at higher prices.
Dar said at present, 2.4 million
metric tons of rice are imported, or way above what is needed by the country.
“We will protect our small farmers
by not allowing additional imports, especially this main harvest season. We
want them to benefit from the respectable farmgate prices of palay set by the
government through the National Food Authority (NFA),” Dar said.
Local farmgate prices of palay have
been dropping since the implementation of the Rice Tariffication law in March.
Based on latest figures from the
Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), average price of palay fell 4.4 percent
to P16.68 per kilo as of end-August.
This is an annual decrease of 27.4
percent from its level of P22.98 per kilo in the same week of the previous
year.
Apart from raising tariffs, the DA
added that another option is to impose stringent sanitary and pytho-sanitary
(SPS) inspection measures for rice imports.
“We have asked BPI (Bureau of Plant
Industry) to implement protocol in import regulations regarding pesticide
residue, presence of storage pests before the issuance of SPS certificate for
imported rice,” Dar earlier said.
DA is also looking at the
imposition of a suggested retail price “when figures don’t reflect true value
of price” to ensure traders do not take advantage of the situation by managing
the inflow of supply to domestic market.
Dar said the government would
legislate an increase in rice buffer stock from 30 days to 90 days to provide
higher government budget for buying of palay and ensure better income for
farmers.
“We will enjoin LGUs to engage in
the business of buying palay, milling, storing and distributing with the
objective of immediately releasing rice stocks so that turnover of the value of
rice may be realized, bringing multiple profits to Filipino farmers and other
stakeholders,” he said earlier.
Mindanao
farmers to export rice to US
DAVAO. During the Mindanao Rice Forum held on September 20 at
Grand Regal Hotel, a marketing deal was forged for export of unlimited volume
of White, Brown, Red and Black Rice and the exotic Adlay to the United States.
Organized by Mindanao Development Authority (MinDa), the forum was participated
by organic rice and adlay farmers, who organized themselves to form the
Mindanao Organic Rice Council (MORCO), with Don Bosco Multi-Purpose Cooperative
as interim chair and Agro Eco Philippines and SRII Technology Group as vice
chairmen. (Photo courtesy of Mindanao Development Authority)
DAVAO. During the Mindanao Rice Forum held on September 20 at
Grand Regal Hotel, a marketing deal was forged for export of unlimited volume
of White, Brown, Red and Black Rice and the exotic Adlay to the United States.
Organized by Mindanao Development Authority (MinDa), the forum was participated
by organic rice and adlay farmers, who organized themselves to form the
Mindanao Organic Rice Council (MORCO), with Don Bosco Multi-Purpose Cooperative
as interim chair and Agro Eco Philippines and SRII Technology Group as vice
chairmen. (Photo courtesy of Mindanao Development Authority)
DAVAO. During the Mindanao Rice Forum held on September 20 at
Grand Regal Hotel, a marketing deal was forged for export of unlimited volume
of White, Brown, Red and Black Rice and the exotic Adlay to the United States.
Organized by Mindanao Development Authority (MinDa), the forum was participated
by organic rice and adlay farmers, who organized themselves to form the
Mindanao Organic Rice Council (MORCO), with Don Bosco Multi-Purpose Cooperative
as interim chair and Agro Eco Philippines and SRII Technology Group as vice
chairmen. (Photo courtesy of Mindanao Development Authority)
DAVAO. During the Mindanao Rice Forum held on September 20 at
Grand Regal Hotel, a marketing deal was forged for export of unlimited volume
of White, Brown, Red and Black Rice and the exotic Adlay to the United States.
Organized by Mindanao Development Authority (MinDa), the forum was participated
by organic rice and adlay farmers, who organized themselves to form the
Mindanao Organic Rice Council (MORCO), with Don Bosco Multi-Purpose Cooperative
as interim chair and Agro Eco Philippines and SRII Technology Group as vice
chairmen. (Photo courtesy of Mindanao Development Authority)
DAVAO. During the Mindanao Rice Forum held on September 20 at
Grand Regal Hotel, a marketing deal was forged for export of unlimited volume
of White, Brown, Red and Black Rice and the exotic Adlay to the United States.
Organized by Mindanao Development Authority (MinDa), the forum was participated
by organic rice and adlay farmers, who organized themselves to form the
Mindanao Organic Rice Council (MORCO), with Don Bosco Multi-Purpose Cooperative
as interim chair and Agro Eco Philippines and SRII Technology Group as vice
chairmen. (Photo courtesy of Mindanao Development Authority)
DAVAO. During the Mindanao Rice Forum held on September 20 at
Grand Regal Hotel, a marketing deal was forged for export of unlimited volume
of White, Brown, Red and Black Rice and the exotic Adlay to the United States.
Organized by Mindanao Development Authority (MinDa), the forum was participated
by organic rice and adlay farmers, who organized themselves to form the
Mindanao Organic Rice Council (MORCO), with Don Bosco Multi-Purpose Cooperative
as interim chair and Agro Eco Philippines and SRII Technology Group as vice
chairmen. (Photo courtesy of Mindanao Development Authority)
September 22, 2019
MINDANAO organic farmers and a U.S.-based marketing group forged
an agreement Sunday, September 22, 2019, which would allow American consumers
access to organic rice and adlay produced in the Southern Philippines.
“Produce as much as you could and we will market it,” said Andrew Bolougne, head of the U.S. marketing firm which is also importing green and matured coconuts from the Philippines.
The signing of the marketing deal with unlimited volume of white, brown, red and black rice and the exotic adlay grown by the tribes capped day-long Mindanao Rice Forum organized by the Mindanao Development Authority (MinDa) held at the Grand Regal Hotel.
The Mindanao Rice Forum, sponsored by Seedworks Philippines and AMO Organic Fertilizer, was attended by adlay and organic rice farmers associations and cooperatives.
During the forum, the participants, guided by the MinDa and the Department of Agriculture (DA) regional offices in Mindanao and the Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice), organized themselves and formed the Mindanao Organic Rice Council (MORCO).
Chosen as interim chairman of MORCO was the Don Bosco Multi-Purpose Cooperative with Agro Eco Philippines and SRII Technology Group.
Represented in the Council are organic rice farmers’ cooperatives and associations from all over Mindanao; organic fertilizer and soil ameriolants producers group, seed growers and rice millers.
MinDa will be the lead government agency to support the group with the assistance of the DA and PhilRice.
MinDa will establish a database of all organic rice and adlay farmers in Mindanao, including the geotagging of the production areas.
Availability of seeds for the black organic rice, which is the most sought-after product, will also be determined, including the estimated production.
Bolougne, who led the U.S. group which signed the marketing agreement with Don Bosco Multi-Purpose Cooperative, said the demand for organic rice, especially the black rice which is reputed to have medicinal benefits, is huge and largely unfilled.
“You cannot imagine how huge is the market demand for organic food today and we will cash in on that,” he said.
Bolougne's group committed a buying price which would give farmers double what they are earning by planting commercial rice.
Don Bosco vice chairperson and marketing officer Maria Helenita Gamela said organic rice farmers are not affected by the Rice Tariffication Law which allowed the unimpeded entry of imported rice which resulted in low farm gate price for commercial rice.
"We have a niche market. The price is steady whole year round but we cannot produce the needed volume," she said.
Currently, Don Bosco buys organic paddy rice from its members at P19 to P20 per kilo. This could go even higher with the forging of the marketing agreement with the U.S. group.
The export deal for organic rice and adlay is the second marketing deal arranged by MinDA for Mindanao's rice farmers.
Earlier, MinDA arranged the export of Mindanao premium rice to Papua New Guinea.
An initial shipment of 5,000 metric tons is expected before the end of the year. A delegation from Papua New Guinea, led by Central Province Governor Robert Agarobe, is now in Mindanao to inspect the production areas and the processing facilities. (PR)
“Produce as much as you could and we will market it,” said Andrew Bolougne, head of the U.S. marketing firm which is also importing green and matured coconuts from the Philippines.
The signing of the marketing deal with unlimited volume of white, brown, red and black rice and the exotic adlay grown by the tribes capped day-long Mindanao Rice Forum organized by the Mindanao Development Authority (MinDa) held at the Grand Regal Hotel.
The Mindanao Rice Forum, sponsored by Seedworks Philippines and AMO Organic Fertilizer, was attended by adlay and organic rice farmers associations and cooperatives.
During the forum, the participants, guided by the MinDa and the Department of Agriculture (DA) regional offices in Mindanao and the Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice), organized themselves and formed the Mindanao Organic Rice Council (MORCO).
Chosen as interim chairman of MORCO was the Don Bosco Multi-Purpose Cooperative with Agro Eco Philippines and SRII Technology Group.
Represented in the Council are organic rice farmers’ cooperatives and associations from all over Mindanao; organic fertilizer and soil ameriolants producers group, seed growers and rice millers.
MinDa will be the lead government agency to support the group with the assistance of the DA and PhilRice.
MinDa will establish a database of all organic rice and adlay farmers in Mindanao, including the geotagging of the production areas.
Availability of seeds for the black organic rice, which is the most sought-after product, will also be determined, including the estimated production.
Bolougne, who led the U.S. group which signed the marketing agreement with Don Bosco Multi-Purpose Cooperative, said the demand for organic rice, especially the black rice which is reputed to have medicinal benefits, is huge and largely unfilled.
“You cannot imagine how huge is the market demand for organic food today and we will cash in on that,” he said.
Bolougne's group committed a buying price which would give farmers double what they are earning by planting commercial rice.
Don Bosco vice chairperson and marketing officer Maria Helenita Gamela said organic rice farmers are not affected by the Rice Tariffication Law which allowed the unimpeded entry of imported rice which resulted in low farm gate price for commercial rice.
"We have a niche market. The price is steady whole year round but we cannot produce the needed volume," she said.
Currently, Don Bosco buys organic paddy rice from its members at P19 to P20 per kilo. This could go even higher with the forging of the marketing agreement with the U.S. group.
The export deal for organic rice and adlay is the second marketing deal arranged by MinDA for Mindanao's rice farmers.
Earlier, MinDA arranged the export of Mindanao premium rice to Papua New Guinea.
An initial shipment of 5,000 metric tons is expected before the end of the year. A delegation from Papua New Guinea, led by Central Province Governor Robert Agarobe, is now in Mindanao to inspect the production areas and the processing facilities. (PR)
LSU AgCenter plans crawfish
workshops in South Louisiana
Crawfish caught in the
Mardi Gras Pass area on the Plaquemines Parish east bank (Source: John Snell)
BATON ROUGE, La. (WAFB) -
Starting Monday, the LSU AgCenter will help crawfish producers get ready for
the upcoming with five crawfish meetings in south Louisiana.
The meetings are scheduled ahead
of the season, which runs from November to July. Louisiana is home to more than
90 percent crawfish farms in the United States, according to the Louisiana Sea
Grant.
Pond management, such as water
and vegetation management, will be some of the discussion topics.
Greg Lutz and Mark Shirley, both LSU AgCenter and Louisiana Sea
Grant crawfish specialists, will lead the discussion and answer questions.
A healthy aquatic environment,
according to Lutz, keeps crawfish reproducing and growing throughout the
season.
The meetings will be held:
· Sept. 23 at the Jefferson Davis Parish LSU AgCenter
extension office in Jennings at 1006 S. Lake Arthur Ave. at 6 p.m.
· Sept. 25 at the Acadia Parish LSU AgCenter extension
office in Crowley at 157 Cherokee Drive at 6 p.m.
· Oct. 1 at the Evangeline Parish LSU AgCenter
extension office in Ville Platte at 230 Court St. at 6 p.m.
· Oct. 2 at the Vermilion Parish LSU AgCenter extension
office in Abbeville at 1105 W. Port St. at 6 p.m.
· Oct. 3 at the Lafourche Parish LSU AgCenter extension
office in Raceland at 115 Texas St. at 6 p.m.
How second cropping rice affects
crawfish yields will be another discussion topic.
The AgCenter H. Rouse Caffey Rice
Research Station in Crowley created two demonstration ponds to show the effect
of second cropping.
The upcoming season will be the
first after Governor Joh Bel Edward signed a law in June that requires restaurants and distributors that
offer cooked or prepared crawfish or shrimp to notify customers if the seafood
items came from outside the United States. The notice must be printed on menus.
Crawfish farmers were
disappointed with the result of last season’s harvest. Because the supply was
low, prices were high for the seafood item.
Dar assures safeguards in place on rice imports
By
Lilybeth Ison September
23, 2019, 4:35 pm
Agriculture
Secretary William Dar (PNA file photo)
MANILA -- Agriculture Secretary
William Dar on Monday assured that safeguards are in place, such as increasing
tariff on imports, against over importation of rice as one of the
measures to stabilize the supply and price of the commodity.
This,
as the DA has started the investigation on the excessive importation of rice
particularly with the forthcoming main harvest season.
“We
have started investigations and we expect to complete them by (the) end of
September or early October,” Dar said in a statement.
Currently,
the Philippines could only produce 93 percent of its total national rice
requirements, while the remaining 7 percent is imported.
“We
have to holistically and systematically protect the consuming public and much
more, our small farmers,” Dar said.
“So,
I have taken the necessary steps and the direction where we will enforce legal
measures during these times when we have greatly exceeded the volume needed to
fill up the slack in national rice supply, most particularly in Metro Manila
and major urban rice consumption centers,” he added.
This
measure is in line with Republic Act 8752 (Anti-Dumping Act of 1999), where
government can impose anti-dumping duties on imports of any product, including
rice and other basic food items, that are priced way below the current fair
market value.
Another
option is to impose stringent sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) and inspection
measures of rice imports.
Dar
said that to date, some 2.4 million metric tons (MT) of rice has already been
imported, which has gone beyond what is needed by the country.
“We
will protect our small farmers by not allowing additional imports especially
this main harvest season. We want them to benefit from the respectable farmgate
prices of palay set by the government through the National Food Authority
(NFA),” he said.
Meanwhile,
Dar assured farmers the delivery of high-quality equipment and machinery as
part of the rice tariffication law.
“I
am now directing the regional directors and the Philippine Center for
Postharvest Development and Mechanization (PhilMech) to see to it that the
equipment, facilities, and machinery that we give as grants must be of
high-quality standards,” he said.
“We
have to be stricter on the standards and quality of the equipment that we are
giving," he noted.
Dar
warned employees and officials of the DA that they would be dismissed if found
guilty of corruption.
He
also encouraged the agriculture stakeholders to report any incident of
corruption.
390 kgs of rice stolen from Niigata Pref
farm
NIIGATA
About 390 kilograms of premium
Koshihikari rice have been stolen from a farm in Sanjo, Niigata
Prefecture, police said Sunday.
The rice, which had been just
harvested and was ready for shipment, was stolen from a storage facility early
Saturday morning, Sankei Shimbun reported. The value of the stolen rice is
estimated at about 390,000 yen, according to the farmer who is in his 70s.
The farmer noticed that 13 bags of
rice were missing when he went to the storage facility at around 5:15 a.m.
Saturday. Each bag weighs around 30 kgs. The farmer told police he had not
locked the facility when he was last there at around 5:30 p.m. on Friday.
Honey I shrunk my husband (and you can too!)
How wife of top TV chef Giancarlo Caldesi reversed his type 2 diabetes with
delicious low-carb recipes
Lunch at Katie Caldesi’s house is a glorious
affair —richly flavoured, bite-size samples from her latest recipes are set out
on the table, an enticing smorgasbord of savoury, piquant and subtly sweet. But
all is not quite as it seems.
The squares of beef cottage pie, studded with
diced swede, turnip and carrot, are topped not with traditional mashed potato,
but with a crust of nutty celeriac.
The bread rolls, still warm from the oven,
contain no flour. Instead, they are made from ground almonds and eggs. And
Katie’s rosemary and apple mini muffins slathered in cream cheese frosting are
neither cloying nor sugary. They, too, are flour-free and their delicate, herby
sweetness is derived only from fruit.
Katie Caldesi with her husband, top TV
chef, Giancarlo. Katie has revealed the delicious low-carb recipes that
reversed her husband's type two diabetes
Food writer Katie — who, with her husband
Giancarlo, runs two restaurants and a London-based cookery school, La Cucina
Caldesi — is Britain’s most accomplished exponent of low-carbohydrate cooking.
Today, as we bring you the first batch in a
series of tempting low-carb autumn recipes she’s devised exclusively for the
Mail (see Weekend magazine), Katie explains the extraordinary health benefits
of an eating regimen that involves neither self-denial nor calorie-counting,
but could help you lose weight and more importantly, reverse type 2 diabetes.
As part of this month’s Good Health For Life
series helping to put patients back in control of their health, Katie has
teamed up once again with NHS GP and diabetes expert Dr David Unwin in a
brilliant series of pullout guides for the Mail on how to use a low-carb
approach to tackle a problem that affects nearly four million Britons. (A study
this week even revealed one in eight new cases of type 2 diabetes in the UK is
now in the 18-to-40 age group because of the obesity epidemic.)
One patient was Katie’s husband Giancarlo.
Tall, serene and softly spoken, her outward calm belies a restless creative
energy that drives her to rise at dawn to cook or write.
Today, Katie glides around the kitchen of the
family home in Buckinghamshire, quietly assembling food on plates, while the
younger of her two sons, 17-year-old Flavio — rangy and lean — cooks a brunch
of spicy sausage and homemade tomato sauce, piling it artistically on to a
trencher.
She has been devising low-carb recipes since
2011, when Giancarlo was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. Yet, despite following
a private doctor’s advice (endorsed by the NHS) to cut back on sugar and reduce
his portion sizes, he actually worsened.
By coincidence, Katie, 56, stumbled on the
real link between her husband’s diet and the disease. Suffering from bloating
herself, she decided to eliminate gluten (a protein found in wheat) from the
family’s diet. And, when she cut out starchy foods — not just wheat-based
products such as flour and pasta, but rice, potatoes and other carbs — as well
as sugar-laden puddings, the effect on Giancarlo, 66, was miraculous.
Although his favourite pasta and profiteroles
were gone, he didn’t miss out, thanks to the regimen Katie devised.
Her recipes are abundant and flavoursome:
full-fat yoghurt, cream, cheese and butter in place of processed low-fat
spreads and skimmed milk. Nor is there a prohibition on rich, meaty ragu sauces
or aromatic, warming stews.
Under this new eating plan, not only did
Giancarlo’s waistline shrink — he lost 3 st — and his old energy return, but
his type 2 diabetes went into remission. The low-carb diet saved his life.
Type 2 diabetes is a condition that makes it
difficult for the body to process sugar, so its levels become too high.
Associated with obesity and lethargy, diabetes can, if uncontrolled, also cause
sight loss and diabetic neuropathy (nerve damage), which, in extreme cases, can
lead to amputations.
Almost four million people in the UK have
diabetes, of whom around 90 per cent have type 2. Two out of three will go on
to die from its complications if it is not reversed.
Katie recalls its effects on her husband.
‘When I met Giancarlo 21 years ago, he was so lively and energetic his
customers called him Tigger,’ she says.
‘But we both loved food and were overweight.
We had our sons, Giorgio, now 19, [who is living in Japan and learning the
language before he begins a business studies degree] and Flavio [still at
school].
‘Then, in 2005, we opened a cookery summer
school in Tuscany. We were getting married there six weeks later in
Montepulciano, where Giancarlo grew up.
‘Life was frantically busy, and it was all
being televised [for BBC series Return To Tuscany], so I really wanted to lose
weight for the wedding. I was so terrified of not being able to fit into the
dress that I burst into tears at the fitting.’
She continues: ‘I was a busy mum running two
cookery schools and I exercised a lot. I got down to my lowest-ever weight, 10
st (I’m 5 ft 9 in), for our wedding.
Giancarlo and Katie before his type two
diabetes diagnosis. Speaking about her husband, Katie said: 'He had frequent,
excruciating attacks of gout, arthritis in his hands, and everything was an
effort'
‘But Giancarlo didn’t lose weight. He kept
piling it on. And he’d say: “I’m getting old. Everything aches.” He started
taking afternoon naps. He also said his feet were numb and stopped playing
football with the boys — though he loved it — as his feet didn’t “work
properly”.
‘He had frequent, excruciating attacks of
gout, arthritis in his hands, and everything was an effort. He’d come home from
work like a bear that hadn’t been fed, saying: “I need to eat! I need to eat!”
‘He’d cook himself pasta and gorge on it
straight out of the saucepan, or devour the entire contents of the fruit bowl —
one-and-a-half melons, bananas.’ He was also incredibly thirsty.
‘Now we know he had the classic symptoms of
type 2 diabetes, but at the time, we hadn’t a clue what was wrong,’ says Katie.
‘Then he started to complain of blurred vision. And, one day in 2011, his sight
went as he drove home.
‘He phoned me and said: “Something odd has
happened. I can’t see properly.” He was really shaken. We wondered if it was a
stroke. He waited in a lay-by until his sight came back and he drove home.’ A
private GP ran tests — which revealed Giancarlo was diabetic.
‘The doctor gave him a choice. He said: “I
can give you tablets, or you can avoid sugar to try to control it.” Giancarlo
said he’d cut back on sugar, which just meant he stopped taking it in his
coffee,’ says Katie.
‘No one explained the crucial fact that
starch — in bread, pasta, rice and potatoes — releases sugar molecules into the
body, causing a surge in blood sugar just as quickly as cakes, sweets and
biscuits.’
So Giancarlo, who at more than 16 st (he’s
5ft 9in) was clinically obese, continued to eat bowls of pasta.
In 2013, a second set of tests confirmed his
blood sugar levels had risen. Then, a year or so later, Katie chanced upon the
solution.
Suffering from irritable bowel syndrome,
feeling bloated and also needing to lose weight), on the advice of nutritionist
Jenny Phillips, she began to cook gluten-free food.
This meant banishing Giancarlo’s favourites
of pasta, bread, pizza and profiteroles. To begin with, he was bereft. ‘But,
within three days, he started to lose weight,’ says Katie. ‘He was also brighter,
less sleepy and his energy came back.’
She researched low-carb diets and discovered
a GP, Dr David Unwin, who had achieved successes in reversing type 2 diabetes
among patients in his Southport practice. She asked if he would collaborate on
a cookery book and, with Giancarlo, they produced The Diabetes Weight-Loss
Cookbook, serialised in the Mail this year.
Five years after his diagnosis, tests showed
Giancarlo’s diabetes was in remission. ‘By 2017, he had lost 3 st and no longer
had numbness in his feet or blurred vision,’ says Katie.
Crucially, Giancarlo also relishes his new
way of eating, and low-carb options — among them courgetti spaghetti, pan-fried
king prawns and vegetable ribbons, salami with air-dried salted beef and
grilled veg — now feature in the menus at the family’s restaurants in Bray,
Berkshire, and Marylebone, London.
Katie, too, has shed a stone in weight (she
is now a healthy 10 ½ st) since going low-carb. She was, she says, acutely
aware of her family’s propensity for weight gain — her adored mum Elizabeth
became obese in old age and was suffering from health problems — among them
vascular dementia and high blood pressure — when she died at the age of 86.
Elizabeth was also an excellent cook, and it
was she who imbued Katie with a passion for food.
Her father Jim ran his own bookshop, but the
business struggled in the Eighties. ‘My parents lost everything,’ says Katie.
‘I was at art school with an overdraft and they sent me £10: such a generous
gesture when they had so little.’
Meanwhile, her mother continued to ail: she
had a knee replacement and, at size 24 and weighing 22 st, was urged by doctors
to lose weight.
But the dietary advice she was given, Katie
realises, was ill-informed. ‘Mum was advised not to have so much butter on her
bread, so she changed to low-fat spreads.’ These are now known often to contain
high levels of fats associated with heart disease.
‘Mum would have been better off cutting down
on bread and putting butter on her vegetables instead.’
Katie had wanted to become a chef, but back
then, there were few opportunities, so she pursued her passion for painting. It
was art that drew her to Giancarlo when she was commissioned to paint a mural
for his London restaurant.
‘He says as soon as he shook my hand, he
decided that he was going to marry me and we’d have two children,’ she smiles.
They set up home in two cramped rooms above
the restaurant and Katie began working in its kitchen, acquiring the skills
that have equipped her to run their cookery schools and restaurants.
Eleven years ago, they moved to their current
home, where Katie’s parents lived with them until they died. In her parents’
former sitting room, she now writes her books —13 to date.
Punjab
CM tells farmers to stop burning stubble, use ‘Happy Seeders’, they oppose him
This led to sharp reaction from farmers as some of them started
interrupting his speech while others claimed that it was not true that wheat
productivity increases with Happy Seeders. Others said that they never received
any machines from government.
Written by Divya Goyal |Ludhiana |Updated: September 22, 2019
3:01:53 pm
Chief Minister Amrinder Singh checks the varieties of maize during
Kisan Mela at PAU, Ludhiana. (Gurmeet Singh)
Chief
Minister Captain Amarinder Singh Saturday faced opposition from farmers when he
told them to stop burning paddy stubble and start using ‘Happy Seeder’ machines
being distributed by the Punjab government to sow wheat and increase
productivity.
“Stop
burning paddy stubble. Government is providing Happy Seeder machines. It gives
more wheat productivity. Start sowing wheat with Happy Seeders,” Amarinder said
addressing the Kisan Mela which commenced at Punjab Agricultural University in
Ludhiana.
This
led to sharp reaction from farmers as some of them started interrupting his
speech while others claimed that it was not true that wheat productivity
increases with Happy Seeders. Others said that they never received any machines
from government.
“Eh
koi tareeka nahi hai, har gall nu edda taal dena. Eh karna hi payega kisi nu
pasand hove ja na hove. Nahi taan tuhada hi kharcha vadu. Dunia aggey vadhdi
hai. Koshish taan karo. Jina ne nahi kita oh karke vekho (You will have to do
this whether you like it or not. You can’t shift the onus. Else only your input
costs will increase. Everyone moves ahead with time. At least try once. Those
who have never tried must try it once),” Amarinder retorted.
Amarinder
said that instead of putting the blame on government, farmers must change their
mindset. He said that if they face any issues in using Happy Seeders or other
straw management technology, they must contact PAU scientists and seek
solutions instead of showing unwillingness to adopt new technology at all.
The
two-day Mela is dedicated to 550th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak Dev.
“Guru
Nanak had said that we won’t have a future if we don’t save our waters, air and
earth. Neither the river waters nor the groundwater is left in Punjab. If we
don’t want Punjab to turn into a desert in 20 years, then the only option is to
save water. Farmers have think of adopting new crop varieties, which consume
less water, and adopt techniques like drip irrigation,” he said.
The
CM said that PAU and Punjab took on its shoulders to feed the entire country
and started research in 1970s, which led to the Green Revolution and country
became self-sufficient in producing foodgrains. But, he said, the water
guzzling paddy was never Punjab’s own crop. “No one ate rice in Punjab. It was
not our staple diet or crop. It has taken a toll on our waters. Now, farmers
must think about growing about maize, sugarcane, pulses and other vegetables,”
he said.
PAU
vice-chancellor Dr BS Dhillon said that Guru Nanak Dev had given a solution to
all problems of farmers in just one line: ‘Pavan Guru Pani Pita, Mata Dharat
Mahat (air is the Guru, water the father and the earth is our great mother)’.
“From water to air, soil to pesticides, we are facing many challenges in
agriculture today but solutions are also being found through research,” he
said.
Urging
farmers not to spray basmati rice with pesticides, he said, “Bear some loss but
don’t add to the loss of country and Punjab.” He said that farmers should not
go after higher income or higher yield but towards ‘higher profit’ and hence must
adopt diversification, value addition and agro-processing.
Meanwhile,
Cabinet minister Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa said that he has urged CM to write a
protest letter to Centre which is planning to import milk from New Zealand.
“Where will our own farmers go? Dairy farmers in Punjab and entire country will
be finished. We won’t let this happen,” he said.
diversification
tuns worse if they don;t get good remuneration. “In my own constituency, there
is great production of cauliflowers but I feel ashamed seeing faces of farmers
when they sell it for Re 1 per kilo,” he said.
Later
speaking to The Indian Express, he said, “Work of PAU is to research and give
new varieties and technologies to farmers but they are lacking funds. We will
soon grant it funds for research.”
Meanwhile,
CM also inaugurated three-day Regional Agriculture & Pashu Palan Mela
(Livestock Fair) at the adjoining campus of Guru Angad Dev Veterinary and
Animal Sciences University (GADVASU). The theme of GADVASU mela was ‘Suchaja
Pashu Palan Apnao, Sehatmand Atey Khushaal Samaj Banao’ (Prosperity and Health
Through Better Livestock Production) with several stalls related to cows,
buffaloes, goats, fish, pigs on display for farmers.
Some
farmers protested and raised slogans against Congress government and said that
‘VIP culture’ dominated the PAU fair as they were not allowed entry due to
beefed-up security for CM. Some gates of the varsity and the main ground were
closed after CM’s arrival and farmers were not allowed to enter. Farmers
started raising slogans against CM and Congress. “Farmers are not being allowed
to enter a fair which is for them while VIPs are being given special
treatment,” a farmer said. Later, Ludhiana MP Ravneet Singh Bittu asked
security personnel to open the gates and let farmers in.
Strong
baht battering rice shipments
published : 23 Sep 2019 at
06:44
newspaper section: Business
writer: Phusadee Arunmas
Thai rice exports are tipped to
decline by 35% this year as a consequence of the stronger baht. (Bangkok Post
photo)
Thai rice exports are likely to stay below targets as the strong
baht weakens competitiveness in the world market.
Chookiat Ophaswongse, honorary president of the Thai Rice
Exporters Association, said Thai rice shipments may slip to as low as 8 million
tonnes this year, led by a sharp drop in white rice exports.
He predicts that the continued strong baht -- which makes Thai
rice more expensive than grains from other countries -- will lower white rice
shipments by up to 35% from 5.49 million tonnes last year.
"Thai rice purchase orders look inactive now," Mr
Chookiat said. "Exports totalled only 6 million tonnes at the end of
September."
The free-on-board prices of Thai 5% white rice are quoted at
US$400 a tonne, while those of Vietnamese rice are quoted at $320 a tonne.
Prices for paddy rice in Vietnam are also much lower at 5,600
baht a tonne, while Thai paddy rice prices are quoted at 7,500-7,800 baht a
tonne.
Mr Chookiat said the Vietnamese currency has been quite stable
since last year. "Given the strong baht, we expect buyers like the
Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia to switch to buying rice from Vietnam
instead of Thailand," he said.
Normally Thailand's rice exports average 10 million tonnes a
year, with white rice making up half the amount.
Mr Chookiat said white rice shipments may reach just 3 million
tonnes this year.
In July, the association cut its target for annual rice exports
from 9.5 million tonnes to 9 million. Of the total, white rice will account for
3.9 million tonnes, followed by parboiled rice at 2.8 million tonnes, hom mali rice at 1.3 million tonnes, aromatic rice at
600,000 tonnes and glutinous rice at 400,000 tonnes.
Key threats to Thai rice exports include the strong baht and
lower purchase demand from China, which holds hefty rice stocks.
Major rice-importing countries have also changed their
rice-buying policies.
For instance, the Philippines has allowed its private sector to
play a greater role in rice imports, stiffening competition in the domestic
market.
The drought will cut the country's overall rice production and
may result in higher rice prices, according to the association.
"Given the strong baht, exporters themselves have yet to
see a light at the end of the tunnel to raise export volume," Mr Chookiat
said. "The stronger currency is killing us."
According to the latest report by the Commerce Ministry,
Thailand's rice exports in the first eight months fell by 26.3% to 5.3 million
tonnes. Export value slid 22% to $2.87 billion.
In a move to boost rice exports, the Trade Policy and Strategy
Office will ask the commerce minister to pay a visit soon to Asian buyers like
the Philippines and China.
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