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27th September,2019 Daily Global Regional Local Rice E-Newsletter
Odisha Sets Bumper
Target For Paddy Procurement
By OB Bureau
September 26, 2019
Reading Time: 3 minutes
Bhubaneswar: The Odisha Cabinet on Thursday approved the food and
procurement policy of the state government to procure 60 lakh metric tonnes
(LMT) of Kharif and Rabi paddy within the Kharif Marketing Season (KMS)
2019-20.
The main features of the policy are:
Target
—A tentative target of 41 LMT in terms of rice has been fixed. In
terms of paddy, this comes to around 60 LMT.
—For Kharif, the tentative target for procurement of paddy would be
50 LMT and for Rabi 10 LMT. There is no restriction for procurement of any
higher quantum if more paddy comes to mandis (procurement centres) from
registered farmers. The Food Supplies and Consumer Welfare (FS & CW)
Minister has been authorized to revise this target if needed.
— In2018-19, the
procurement of Kharif and Rabi was 65.49 LMT while in terms of rice, it was
44.42 LMT.
Procurement period
— While Kharif paddy will be procured from November 2019 to March
2020, the Rabi paddy will be procured from May to June 2020. The districts will
schedule their procurement periods within these broad timelines. Last year, the
time limit for Kharif procurement was till April-end.
Farmer registration
—Paddy will be procured from registered farmers in the online
portal of FS & CW department. The farmers will have to provide the plot
details for their registration. The plot details will be verified by
integration with Bhulekh database maintained by the Revenue and Disaster
Management Department.
—Aadhaar card shall be the only ID proof for a farmer to sell
paddy.
—The procuring societies PACS (Primary Agricultural Credit
Society)/LAMPCS (Large Area Multi-Purpose Cooperative Societies (LAMPS)/WSHGs
(Women Self-Help Groups/Pani Panchayat) shall endeavour to bring more and more
small and marginal farmers and actual tillers including sharecroppers into the
procurement fold so that they receive the benefit of the minimum support price
(MSP).
Emphasis on actual tillers including sharecroppers, small and
marginal farmers
There would be no imposition on farmers to keep aside a certain
portion of their produce for personal consumption needs. This will facilitate
entry of more small and marginal farmers and actual tillers of soil including
sharecroppers into the procurement fold.
Minimum Support Price (MSP)
Paddy will be procured as per MSP declared by the Centre. The MSP
of common variety will be Rs 1815 per quintal and the Grade-A variety Rs 1835
per quintal.
Quality of paddy
—Paddy to be procured must conform to FAQ (Fair Average Quality)
specifications declared by the Centre. Besides, rice to be delivered by custom
millers must conform to the FAQ norm.
—Purchase of FAQ paddy at prices below MSP shall be punishable
under the Essential Commodities Act- 1955.
—Wide publicity will be made for the farmers to bring FAQ paddy to
the procurement centres.
Role of OSCSC and other agencies
The Odisha State Civil Supplies Corporation (OSCSC) will procure
paddy in all districts. Besides, other state agencies, if necessary, will be
deployed in rice-surplus districts only.
Role of PACS/LAMPCS/WSHGs/Pani Panchayats
—The Odisha State Civil Supplies Corporation (OSCSC) and other
agencies shall procure through PACS/LAMPCS/WSHGs/Pani Panchayats.
—More WSHGs shall be engaged in paddy procurement operations.
Payment of farmers’ dues
—Payment of farmers’ dues on account of paddy sold shall be
transferred directly to their bank accounts through online mode.
—All such payments shall be made within 24 to 48 hours of the sale
of paddy.
Participation of millers
100% delivery of CMR (custom milled rice) of the previous year by
the custom millers is a precondition for participation in procurement
operations in 2019-20 KMS. Rice millers, who owe any dues to the state
agencies, shall not be allowed to participate in the procurement process.
Evacuation of surplus rice
Odisha requires 24 LMT of rice for its public distribution system
(PDS). Surplus rice will be delivered to the central pool through the Food
Corporation of India (FCI).
P-PAS
Paddy procurement process in 310 procuring blocks will be conducted
through Paddy Procurement Automation System (P-PAS). There is no procurement in
four blocks in view of lack of marketable surplus. The P-PAS-based computerised
procurement process will reduce human intervention and will make the whole
process simple, hassle-free and transparent.
—Procurement operations shall be conducted on a real-time online
basis in procuring societies (PACS/LAMPCS/WSHGs/Pani Panchayats) where stable
net connectivity is available.
Distress sale
The District administration/state agencies shall take all necessary
steps to prevent distress sale of paddy.
During the current fiscal,
Basmati rice exports realisations stood at Rs. 75,589/MT for 4M FY2020, only 2
per cent higher than the previous fiscal.
Indian basmati exports are
facing headwinds in the current fiscal, after two years of strong growth, said
an ICRA note released on Thursday. The ICRA note says that
with uncertainty over level of exports to Iran as well as likely moderation in average export
realisations, basmati rice
exports are expected to be muted in FY2020. This is after basmati
rice exports in FY2019 were at an all-time high at Rs. 32,806 crore, primarily
led by aggressive buying by Iran, that enabled healthy growth in volumes
besides favourable pricing.
Elaborating further, Mr. Deepak Jotwani, Assistant Vice President, ICRA, says,
“There is increased uncertainty over level of imports by Iran going forward in
light of ongoing trade sanctions; and tighter pesticide residue norms
continuing to weigh on exports to European Union (EU). Also, some changes in
import policies proposed by Saudi Arabia are likely to come into effect by the
end of the year. While EU is a comparatively smaller market, Iran and Saudi
Arabia are leading destinations, accounting for 50-55 per cent of Basmati rice
exports from India.”
During the current fiscal, Basmati rice exports realisations stood at Rs.
75,589/MT for 4M FY2020, only 2 per cent higher than the previous fiscal. This
is considerably lower than the increase in export realisations by around 23 per
cent in FY2018 and 12 per cent in FY2019. Also, on a comparative basis, Basmati
rice exports in 4M FY2020 stood at Rs. 10,847 crore, 6 per cent lower than Rs.
11,575 crore in the corresponding period in the previous fiscal, largely
attributable to lower import volumes by Iran, the leading importer of Basmati
rice from India. Adds Mr. Jotwani, “This can be partly explained by aggressive pre-emptive
buying by Iran in the first half of FY2019, due to anticipated
impact on its global trade with re-imposition of US
trade sanctions later in that year.”
According to ICRA, a more long-term concern is that the reserves (receivables
against crude oil exports to India done earlier) being utilised by Iran for paying
for its Basmati rice imports, are declining with crude oil imports by India
from Iran discontinued since June 2019. This enhances the uncertainty on future
trade with Iran, considering the ongoing trade sanctions. While some comfort
can be drawn from the fact that basmati rice forms a part of the staple diet of
Iran and Saudi Arabia; however, any considerable decline in level of imports by
these countries can have a depressing impact on basmati rice prices and exert
pressure on the industry participants.
On the supply side, basmati paddy prices continued to firm up for three years
in a row. However, given the better earnings garnered by farmers in the last
season, Basmati paddy production is estimated to be higher in the current
fiscal. This coupled with delay in resumption/lower level of imports by Iran,
if any, is likely to keep paddy prices under check in the current year’s
procurement season. This will have a bearing on Basmati rice prices in the next
calendar year as well as overall Basmati rice exports in FY2021.
Consumers
have expressed concern as the price of rice has continued to increase, a
development, which has left vendors and consumers bitter, JANE CHIJIOKE writes
Early this year, former Agriculture and Rural Development
Minister Audu Ogbeh said the country had attained 90 per cent of rice
production.
He said the country had moved from being a major importer of
rice to being self-reliant in its production. He said it did not only have the
capacity to feed itself, but had also become a major player in agricultural
export to other countries.
Like Ogbeh, the Rice Farmers Association (RIFAN) said the
country had attained a yearly production of eight million metric tonnes of
rice, with a target of 18 million metric tonnes by 2023.
The contrast
These indices seemed to be farfetched from what was obtained in
some markets visited. Rice vendors lamented the shortage. Since the border
closure, they claimed that manufacturers and distributors had distributed short
supply and the goods were rationed to get an even distribution in various
markets across the country.
They said sometimes they were out of goods because the
manufacturers did not have rice to sell. The shortfall they noted has
been the major cause for the constant increase in price as manufacturers cannot
meet up with the demand.
Barely three weeks after the closure of the border, the price of
Nigerian rice skyrocketed from N12,000 – N13,300 to N15,000. At the moment, it
is being sold for between N17, 000 and N19,000, depending on the brand. Brands,
such as Famous, Lake Rice, Bigbull, Al-hamzad, Humza, and Olams Labana fall in
this category. A derica of rice sells for N350 to N400. It is
believed that, in few days, the price would go beyond N20,000.
Following the disappearance of foreign rice from the market,
some rice vendors refill empty foreign rice bags with the local rice, branding
it as ‘foreign’. Such rice is sold for N21,000 and N23,000.
At various markets visited, traders and consumers lamented the
increase. They said it had become difficult to eat rice, adding that the food
item was going out of their reach. They appealed to President Muhammadu Buhari
to reopen the borders as the country was yet to attain self-sufficiency in food
production.
For a consumer, Mrs. Gift Maduka, the increasing price of rice
is a nightmare to cope with in her family of six.
Traders lamented that rice had become a scarce commodity.
A trader at Iddo Rice Market, Mr. Yemi Jelil said: “I requested
for 25 bags of one brand of rice, they refused to sell to me. I only got 10
bags at N17,800 per bag. There is no rice. What they have is not sufficient.
They ration the ones they have. It is not just about the popular brands, the
scarcity affects all brands. When you request for a particular quantity, you
get something lesser or, at worst, they tell you they don’t have.
“On our part the sellers, we make do with the little we have
pending when we are able to get some to sell. So the scarcity inflates the
price and this is greatly affecting us. Our customers are complaining. They buy
at a particular price, by the time they come again, the price would have
increased. There is no regulation on the price. Going by the way the price is
rising, it will surely exceed N20, 000 in few days,” he said.
Another wholesale trader at the market, Mrs. Suliat said she had
not been able to buy rice since last week.
“I have booked for supply since last week, but no response
yet. At the moment, I don’t have rice to sell. I am a wholesaler that
supplies to other traders in the market. So, imagine me unable to get rice, so
how much more for traders who buy in little quantity from me to resell in
the market?” When it eventually becomes available, the price will skyrocket.”
A trader at Orile Market, Iyana Ipaja, Lagos, who refused to
mention his name, said the government ‘s initiative to force Nigerians to
consume homegrown rice was not realistic given that there is shortage of
supply and production nationwide.
Though a good initiative, he said the escalation of price was a
testament to the short fall of basic requirements needed in the rice value
chain.
“How many rice farmers or millers do we have? How much of rice
is produced on a daily basis. In what ways is government
making agriculture attractive for the young one to venture into? Are
there seed or soft loans for them? Do we have enough mills in the country? Is
the government subsiding rice paddy or regulating price? he asked.
He lamented that a state with large population, such
as Lagos, depended on rice produced in the North. Also, the infrastructural
deficit makes it difficult to ferry goods cheaply to their
destinations.
He advised the government not to depend on data from rice
farmers, millers and distributors but also monitor the markets to get feedbacks
from sellers and even consumers.
This will help them to get robust information to use to boost
rice production, he added.
There is no scarcity of rice
The Iyaloja of
Daleko Rice Market, Mrs Jumlar Solaja, said there was no shortage of rice. She
said new rice paddy would soon be out. She remarked that the market always
received trailers of rice.
Asked why the price is constantly on the increase she said: “The
issue is that many people are not on the farm. We need more hands in the farm
because there is market for it. When we have enough hands producing rice, there
would be enough rice paddies and the price will crash. This is our reality.”
On his part, the National Vice President of Rice Farmers
Association (RIFAN), Mr Segun Atho, explained that there was no scarcity of
rice as farmers were growing rice almost four times yearly.
He noted that there was surplus rice paddy. Asked why the price
is high, he said: “I will not speak on that. What I am sure of is that there is
rice in the country. Let us be patient with ourselves.”
Updated: 26-09-2019 20:39 IST Created: 26-09-2019 20:39 IST
Odisha government on
Thursday fixed a target to procure 60 lakh metric ton of paddy during
the kharif marketing season (KMS), 2019-20. This was decided at the Cabinet meeting
presided over by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik.
The cabinet approved the Food and
Procurement Policy for kharif season, 2019-20 where it was decided that
the farmers will get payments within 24 to 48 hours
of the sale of paddy to the government. "A tentative
target of 41 lak MT in terms of rice has been fixed. In terms of paddy this
comes to around 60 LMT, 50 LMT during Kharif and 10 LMT in rabi season. There
is no bar for procurement of any higher quantum if more paddy comes
to mandies from registered farmers," Chief Secretary A K Tripathy told
reporters after the meeting.
Tripathy said Food Supplies and
Consumer Welfare Minister has been authorised to revise target if the need so
arises. In KMS 2018-19, paddy to
the tune of 65.49 LMT was procured. This is equivalent to 44.42 LMT, the
official said adding that paddy is
procured for farmers by payment of Minimum Support Price (MSP)
and is milled through Customers Millers.
The rice is supplied for state's
public distribution system (PDS) and the surplus rice is delivered to the
central pool through the Food Corporation of India (FCI). The state
requires 24 LMT of rice for its PDS. Meanwhile, above 12 lakh farmers have
already registered their names with Odisha State
Civil Supplies Corporation to participate in the paddy procurement,
Tripathy said.
Kharif crop will be procured
during the period between this November, 2019 and March, 2020 and Rabi crops
to be procured between May to June, 2020. Tripathy said paddy will
be procured at the Minimum Support Price (MSP) rate declared by the central
government.
While the MSP for common variety
is set at Rs 1815 per quintal, it is Rs 1835 per qiuintal for Grade - A
variety. Odisha SCSC along with other agencies PACS,
LAMPCS, WSHGs and Pani Panchayats will procure paddy in
all the districts of the state.
Meanwhile, district administrations have been ordered to
take all necessary steps to prevent distress sale of paddy. The Cabinet also
approved a proposal for construction of an Inter State Bus Terminal (ISBT) at
Baramunda in Bhubaneswar.
A bus terminal will be developed at Khandagiri for
shifting of the the existing Odisha State
Road Transport Corporation (OSRTC) depot from Baramunda. The Bhubaneswar Development Authority (BDA) has been
entrusted with the development of the project on EPC mode on the basis of a
transparent bidding process. Bridge and Roof Company India Ltd, a central undertaking, will execute the project at a cost of Rs
160,66,54,000.
The Cabinet also
approved eight other proposals, Tripathy said..
(This story has not been edited
by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Myanmar rice exports should focus
on raising productivity, quality
SIDDHARTHA BASU AND SUDHANSHU SHARMA 27 SEP 2019
Photo
- EPA
Myanmar’s
rice industry can be reignited by reforms. However, key challenges need to be
addressed for the country to re-establish itself in the international market.
Myanmar once held the distinction
of being the world’s largest exporter of rice, accounting for one-third of the
global rice trade in 1934-35. However, post-independence nationalisation of the
industry resulted in a vicious cycle where low-quality inputs led to
low-quality outputs, which soon became uncompetitive in the international
market.
Reforms
to the sector and the wider economy over the past decade have led to a revival
of Myanmar’s rice export industry. With a target set by the Myanmar Rice
Federation to achieve four million tonnes in exports by 2020-21, it is vital to
build on this momentum by addressing the critical challenges that remain for
the industry.
Of
the many challenges facing the rice sector in Myanmar, issues of productivity
and quality are key.
Productivity
along the supply chain
Low
productivity at the farm level contributes to low yields in Myanmar’s rice
industry. Many determinants of farm-level productivity relate to inputs,
including seed, fertiliser and irrigation.
Since
1977, the Myanmar government has promoted high-yielding varieties (HYVs) of
rice seed. However, the performance of HYVs in the country is frequently
undermined by factors such as relying on harvested paddy for seed – which leads
to seed degeneration over time – improper fertiliser use, insufficient
irrigation and lack of drainage facilities.
For
instance, the use of fertiliser is prevalent among Myanmar rice farmers but
generally in low amounts, with the quality, cost and availability of
fertilisers as frequent constraints. The situation is compounded by a lack of
sound knowledge on the part of many farmers, with potential negative
implications for local ecosystems.
For
exports, productivity further downstream plays an equally important role. For
example, in Myanmar’s case, low productivity at the mill level can be a severe
constraint for firms that may otherwise be in a position to export.
Significant
challenges that affect the productivity of Myanmar rice mills include outdated
equipment and a lack of reliable electricity, with the latter also weakening
the incentive for millers to upgrade their equipment. Generous state subsidies
have contributed to the unreliable supply of electricity, by discouraging the
construction of new power sources and maintenance of existing plants and
transmission lines. The recent hike of electricity tariffs is a welcome
development from this perspective.
The
rice landscape in Myanmar is currently being transformed by mechanisation.
While mechanisation can improve productivity, it can also be counterproductive
without complementary upgrades along the value chain. This is evident, for
example, in the fertiliser shortages that are now resulting from a decreased
use of cattle in the Myanmar agriculture. Similarly, technology that reduces
harvest time can inadvertently reduce the value of a harvest as well, as paddy
that is left in a damp condition for a few days becomes unfit for consumption.
Myanmar’s
rice export industry faces a quality paradox. Even though the country is a
major cultivator of certain premium varieties, rice exports are predominantly
of low-quality. More than 90 percent of rice exported in 2010-12 included at
least 25pc broken rice. Worryingly, the world demand for low-quality rice is
declining rapidly.
Insufficient
income from exports of low-quality rice for farmers and other intermediaries
coupled with falling market demand abroad makes it unsustainable to export
low-quality rice for much longer. Thus, if Myanmar is to remain a viable rice
exporter, the question of quality needs to be urgently addressed.
Looking
ahead
Due
to its power to formulate policies, provide public goods and set the agenda,
the Myanmar government is uniquely positioned to facilitate investments in the
rice sector. Effective implementation of the Ministry of Commerce’s
Rice Sector Strategy 2015-19 is critical if export targets are to be met.
Interventions
would need to target the challenges faced by different actors simultaneously,
with a broad understanding of how different actors and stages of the value
chain interact with each other. In many cases, multiple stages of the value
chain may be subject to common constraints, such as lack of access to credit.
The
private sector can also provide specific and innovative solutions along the
rice value chain, complementing the role of the government. Private investment,
especially from overseas, could provide the domestic rice industry with
much-needed capital, modern equipment, technical know-how and better management
practices, while helping producers achieve economies of scale and link up with
foreign distributors and buyers.
Siddhartha
Basu and Sudhanshu Sharma are Country Economists for IGC Myanmar. The original
edition of this piece was published on the IGC website. The views and opinions
expressed in this article are those of the authors.
A tentative quantum of 41 lakh
metric tonnes of rice (60 lakh MT in terms of paddy) will be procured from
farmers of the State during the Kharif Marketing Season (KMC) 2019-20 as per
the Food and Procurement Policy approved by the State Cabinet met under the
chairmanship of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik at the Lok Seva Bhavan here on Thursday.
While 50 lakh MT of Kharif paddy
would be procured between November 2019 and March 2020 and 10 LMG of Rabi paddy
will be bought from farmers from May to June 2020. for Kharif Marketing Season
(KMS) 2019-2020.
The Government, however, said
that there is no bar for procurement of any higher quantum of paddy if more
crops come to mandis.
Farmers were earlier registered
through the online portal of FS and CW Department. Aadhaar will be the only ID
proof for a farmer to sell paddy crops to the Government. Procuring societies
will endeavor to bring more and more small and marginal farmers into the
procurement fold.
The crops will be procured at the
minimum support price (MSP) declared by the Centre. The MSP for common variety
is set at Rs 1,815 per quintal and for Grade- A variety is Rs 1,835 per
quintal.
The procured paddy must conform
to FAQ specifications. Purchase of paddy below MSP will be a punishable offence
under the Essential Commodities Act, 1955.
The Odisha State Civil Supplies
Corporation will procure paddy through PACS, LAMPCS, WSHGs and Pani Panchayats
in all the districts of the State. More WSHGs will be engaged this year.
Payments to the farmers will be
made between 24 and 48 hours of the sale of crops at the Mandis. The payment
will be made directly to their bank accounts.
As Odisha requires 24 LMT of rice
for its PDS, the surplus amount will be delivered to central pool through the
Food Corporation of India. Hundred per cent delivery of custom milled rice
(CMR) of previous KMS by custom millers is a precondition for participation in
procurement operations in KMC 2019-20.
Rice millers that owe any dues to
State agencies shall not be allowed to participate in the procurement process.
District administrations and State agencies would take necessary stops to
prevent distress sale of paddy.
Scientist
collecting tissue samples from rice roots submerged underwater.
Of the major food crops, only
rice is currently able to survive flooding. Thanks to new NSF-funded research, that could soon change — good
news for a world in which rains are increasing in both frequency and
intensity.The research, published in Science, studied how other crops compare to rice when
submerged in water. The study found that a wild-growing tomato, a tomato used
for farming, and a plant similar to alfalfa all share at least 68 families of
genes that are activated in response to flooding.
Rice
was domesticated from wild species that grew in tropical regions, where it
adapted to endure monsoons and waterlogging. Although some of the genes
involved in that adaptation exist in the other plants, they do not switch on
when the roots are being flooded.
“We
hope to take advantage of what we learned about rice in order to help activate
genes in other plants that could help them survive waterlogging,” said study
lead Julia Bailey-Serres, a University of California, Riverside geneticist.
The
biologists looked at the genes in root tip cells to understand whether and how
the genes were activated when covered with water and deprived of oxygen.
It’s
the first time a flooding response has been studied in a comprehensive way
across different species, the researchers said.
“These
exciting outcomes show that long-term commitment to basic research has incredible
potential for real-world impact,” says Anne Sylvester, a program officer in
NSF’s Division of Integrative Organismal Systems. “To enable the discovery of
how roots respond to flooding, these scientists developed tools and resources
that are now available to all plant researchers and that have the potential to
improve crop resilience.”
Melting of the world's glaciers
and warming of its oceans are fuelling rising seas, fiercer storms, worsening
water shortages and other risks that could force millions from their homes or
leave them hungrier and poorer, scientists warned on Wednesday.
Some of the threat could be
averted both by rapidly slashing climate-heating emissions and speeding up
efforts to adapt to the coming changes, using everything from sea-walls to
early warning systems for extreme weather, they said.
But "we may be losing this
race" to put protective measures in place in time, warned Hoesung Lee, chair
of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a UN-backed panel of climate
scientists.
Coastal communities, particularly
in the tropics and on low-lying islands, as well as people dependent on glacier
melt for their water are most at risk, scientists said in a new report outlining
how climate change could affect oceans and ice.
The report, crafted by more than
100 scientists from 36 countries, said 680 million people live in low-lying coastal
zones worldwide, a figure expected to rise to one billion by 2050.
As sea level rises - driven
increasingly by accelerating melting of the world's ice sheets as well as by
ocean warming - those people will face more frequent flooding and harsher storms
that drive powerful seawater surges inland, the scientists said.
Some areas that once flooded only
every 100 years or so - particularly on low-lying islands that are home to 65
million people - could face annual flooding by 2050, they warned, unless strong
protective measures are put in place.
"This could create very
vexing questions about the habitability of some areas of the world," said
Debra Roberts, a South African scientist and a co-author of the report.
Zita Sebesvari, who studies
environmental vulnerability at the United Nations University, said many
communities in Asia's Mekong and Ganges-Brahmaputra river deltas are already
seeing their land become salt-laden and infertile.
"People try to adapt, to
introduce shrimp farming, but it's a riskier undertaking than rice farming -
and once land is converted to saline water, it's hard to reuse as a rice
field," said Sebesvari, who looked at sea-level rise for the report.
Cities could be protected in part
with sea-walls, she said. But costs and practicality mean more rural areas
would likely have to rely on other solutions, such as restoration of mangrove
forests, which shelter fish and slow storm surges.
However, measures such as
protecting and planting mangroves are only likely to be effective if efforts to
cut emissions are hugely accelerated, said Maarten van Aalst, a climate
scientist and director of the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre.
"At some point there will be
no easy solutions," he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. "There
will be no nice options out there anymore if the climate changes too
much."
Most work to improve safety for
at-risk communities still comes only after a big disaster, he said, while much
construction - including post-crisis rebuilding efforts - does not adequately
take growing climate threats into account.
Investing in cutting those risks
makes economic sense - but elected officials who do not anticipate a disaster
during their term in office often find it more politically expedient to spend
on other things, he said.
New York - which hosted the UN
secretary-general's climate summit on Monday - is one city moving to cut its
risk, in the wake of the destruction caused by Hurricane Sandy in 2012.
It is building a $US10 billion
system of berms, removable barriers and new, higher land at the fringes of
lower Manhattan in an attempt to protect itself from flooding and storms.
Germany, similarly, is
constructing a series of dikes along the North Sea coast, designed in a way
that they can be elevated in the future if sea-level rise exceeds current
expectations, said Sebesvari of the UN University.
But "many other cities in
the world cannot afford that," noted van Aalst.
The cost barrier is even more
serious for island states with relatively small economies and resources but
long coastlines, said Helene Jacot des Combes, an IPCC report author who lives
in the Marshall Islands.
"You can build sea-walls and
dikes, but that means very high levels of investment - we're taking about
millions of dollars," she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
"Managed retreat" -
which means moving people away from risky coastal areas, a response already
happening in some countries - was one option, she said, but only "if you
have safe land to retreat to", a problem for small islands.
Valerie Masson-Delmotte, a French
scientist and IPCC report author, said the number of people who could be forced
from their homes by rising seas and other risks was unclear and depended on
"the adaptation solutions that are available - or not".
Increasingly rapid glacier melt -
particularly of smaller tropical glaciers from Peru to Indonesia - also is
likely to lead to worsening water shortages that will affect farming,
hydropower and even drinking water supplies, scientists said.
"Changes in water
availability will not just affect people in these high mountain regions but
also communities much further downstream," said Panmao Zhai, a Chinese
author of the report.
Stepped-up efforts to share and
manage scarce freshwater, particularly from rivers that flow across borders,
will be key to keeping growing risks in check, he added.
Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran
Khan warned at the UN climate summit this week that his country gets 80 per
cent of the river water it depends on from glacier melt.
"If temperatures keep rising
the way they are, we face catastrophe" as water supplies decline, he said.
CSIR-CCMB had more than 9,000
visitors, mostly school children, on its ‘Open Day’ celebrating the Council of
Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR)’s Foundation Day on Thursday. Every
year, the life sciences research institute opens its gates for everyone to
showcase and discuss its research.
Exhibits explaining the
fundamental science behind processes occurring in different kinds of living
cells – microbial, plants and animals were put up with scientists initiating
discussions on genes in individuals to genomes of populations, and the state of
the art techniques to study these.
They showed how proteins, the
tiny machines inside our cells, can be visualised and studied. Many of the
socially relevant technologies developed by CCMB scientists like DNA
fingerprinting and improved rice varieties, were discussed. There was also a
booth to encourage entrepreneurship in life sciences among young students also
those talking about antibiotic resistance and climate change.
“We celebrate our Foundation Day
as a festival of science where our students and staff interact with visitors to
convey them the message of science and scientific temper”, said Rakesh K.
Mishra, Director, CCMB.
lp from American researchers, they’re growing nutritious crops
that boost their income.
By Brenda Dawson, UC Davis
SEPTEMBER 26, 2019
They say a farmer’s work starts
before dawn, but in Cambodia’s Battambang province farmers work together late
into the night to prepare their vegetable harvest for the overnight bus ride to
the capital city’s markets.
A metal barn that was empty hours
ago is now filled with colorful crates, buckets and bags of fresh produce—leafy
greens, nubby roots and heads of cabbage—and neighbors bustling to fill boxes.
This is a vegetable packinghouse, where members of the Tasey Samaki
Agricultural Cooperative collectively market their horticultural crops to
wholesale distributors and specialty retail stores.
Spotlight on Cambodia
These small-scale farmers have
been working with researchers from the University of California, Davis, and
Cambodia’s Royal University of Agriculture (RUA) to test new methods, like the
packinghouse, for growing and selling produce locally. Their work is part of
the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Horticulture, a global network focused
on fruit and vegetable research that is led by UC Davis and funded by the U.S.
Agency for International Development.
The impact of these innovations in Cambodia has been huge.
Karen LeGrand
“The impact of these innovations
in Cambodia has been huge,” said Karen LeGrand, a UC Davis researcher whose
work focuses on food safety and security. “Since we started working here 10
years ago, we’ve seen such a change in the food system.”
These innovations are helping
farmers benefit from growing and selling horticultural crops, amid rising
recognition that fruits and vegetables are not only critical to meet human
nutrition needs, but can help farmers in developing countries lift themselves
out of poverty.
Many Cambodian farmers have started to grow their vegetables
inside nethouses where the plants can be physically protected from pests and
damaging torrential rain. Horticulture Innovation Lab researchers first
proposed nets for pest management in Cambodia based on experience in Kenya
where the nets were low to the ground, but farmers here wanted to be able to
walk inside. Photo credit: Max Fannin for UC Davis
A creative
solution for growing high-quality vegetables
More than 75% of Cambodians live
in rural areas, and agriculture accounts for about a quarter of gross domestic
product. Even so, the country currently imports more vegetables than it
harvests.
“After the Khmer Rouge, the main
farming focused only on rice,” said Borarin Buntong, director of RUA’s Division
of Research and Extension. “But now people are not just thinking about rice
anymore. They’re thinking about vegetables, they’re thinking about fruit. Many
families now can have this kind of produce in their daily life. This is a big
change for Cambodia.”
Converting rice fields into
vegetable fields has allowed farmers to diversify their operations with
high-value crops. Studies have shown that profits from vegetables can be 3-14
times higher per hectare than from growing rice.
UC Davis researcher Karen LeGrand, center, discusses new features
of a nethouse on a farm near Battambang with graduate students from Cambodia's
Royal University of Agriculture. Photo credit: Max Fannin for UC Davis
To strengthen vegetable supply
chains, the international researchers introduced farmers to using nets to
protect their crops from pests. The idea came from Horticulture Innovation Lab
researchers and French CIRAD scientists working in Kenya, where farmers use
mosquito nets to cover vegetable plants. In Cambodia, the concept transformed
into “nethouses” so farmers could walk inside to care for their crops. The
nethouses reduce the need for costly pesticides and protect crops from
torrential rain, allowing farmers to grow vegetables year-round, even in the
rainy season.
One local family who has
benefited from using a nethouse is Cheang Sophat and wife Hem Champa. The added
profits made it possible to send their second child, a daughter, to college,
and they are confident they can provide this opportunity for their 14-year-old
as well.
A worker at Natural Agriculture Village in Phnom Penh brings in
vegetables to begin repackaging for distribution to grocery stores. The
company's 'safe vegetable' displays in stores often include images of nethouses
to explain the growing practices that yields premium, pesticide-free
vegetables. Photo credit: Brenda Dawson/UC Davis
Tapping into a
growing market
The absence of pest bites in the
nethouse means higher-quality vegetables. And produce marketers—whose customers
want “safe vegetables” that aren’t contaminated with harmful chemicals, toxins
or pathogenic microbes—are willing to pay higher prices for premium,
pesticide-free vegetables.
Bun Sieng is one such marketer.
Her company, Natural Agriculture Village, decorates their grocery displays with
photos of nethouses and works closely with farmers to meet demand.
Customers in supermarkets are willing to pay more when they
trust the quality.
Bun Sieng
“Customers in supermarkets are
willing to pay more when they trust the quality,” she said. “I focus on buying
from smallholder farmers.”
It’s these market connections
that have helped make nethouses a popular innovation among Cambodian farmers.
From the first experimental models about six years ago, nethouses have spread
through multiple provinces and even spurred a start-up company to build them
for farmers.
“If you look at the demand [for
safe vegetables] … the supply does not yet meet those demands,” said Lang Seng
Horng, founder of a wholesale company called Remic. “But we see the trend of
safe vegetables, the supply increases from year to year.”
For many Cambodians connected to
this project—whether farmers, scientists, or marketers—the work is personal and
driven by an urge to improve the country’s food system for their compatriots.
A girl rides her bike along a smooth new village road and past a
nethouse under construction, both investments made possible by her family's
profits from vegetables sold through the packinghouse cooperative. Photo
credit: Max Fannin for UC Davis
“I enjoy working with smallholder
farmers because when we see their commitment, when we see they are
hard-working, it impresses me,” Bun Sieng said. “I’m not only the market, but
I’m also the consumer. I also need safe vegetables. We commit to improving the
farmers’ livelihood and to bringing safe vegetables to the market.”
Lach Song, center left, guides a box of freshly packed vegetables
onto a cart to wait for a late-night bus pickup that will deliver the farmers'
vegetables from this packinghouse near Battambang to markets in Phnom Penh.
Photo credit: Max Fannin for UC Davis
Gaining
opportunities after harvest
Increasing fruit and vegetable
availability is not just about growing more, but also how crops are cared for
after harvest—a need the packinghouse concept helps address. At night, the fresh
vegetables are washed, air dried, sorted, trimmed and packaged for their ride
to the city.
“With this project, the
postharvest loss reduction is notable,” said Buntong, whose academic specialty
is postharvest technology, such as packaging and cold storage.
Farmers Nob Non, right, and Cheang Sophat, left, move unsold
bittermelon into the packinghouse cold room to keep the vegetables fresh for
future sale. Non is president of the cooperative that owns the packinghouse and
also the first farmer to be certified for 'good agricultural practices', a
certification used commonly in export products and that is made possible by
improved technologies at the packinghouse. Photo credit: Max Fannin for UC
Davis
The cold storage room—central to
the packinghouse design—is built with a CoolBot, a device that tricks an air
conditioner into achieving colder temperatures and costs less to buy and
maintain than commercial refrigeration. Buntong first heard about the CoolBot
from Horticulture Innovation Lab colleagues, who have used this tool in other
developing countries.
“Cooling is the most important
element of keeping fruits and vegetables fresh, so we must find ways to
establish a cold chain in emerging economies,” said Elizabeth Mitcham, director
of the Horticulture Innovation Lab and postharvest specialist with the UC Davis
Department of Plant Sciences. “I’ve heard too many people write off fruits and
vegetables as just too perishable. But the interest in CoolBots and cold
storage in Cambodia is one example that shows this is solvable.”
I've heard too many people write off fruits and vegetables as
just too perishable.
Elizabeth Mitcham
Improved technologies and
practices at the packinghouse also mean farmers who use the facility can become
certified in “good agricultural practices” or GAP, an international food safety
standard commonly used in export markets. Not coincidentally, the country’s
first GAP-certified farmer is one of the leaders of this packinghouse.
“Now many of the farmers … can
invest in new innovations for their farming,” said Buntong. “Because they have
a nethouse for safe vegetable production, the market trusts in [them].”
Horticultural crops are often a
way for farmers to earn quick money via short crop cycles on small plots of
land, but the strong market connections for Cambodian farmers mean consistent
income too.
Take farmer Chho Bunteoun for
example. He’s earned more income from the packinghouse cooperative and used
initial profits to improve the village road by his house, making it less muddy
and smoother for transporting crops. He’s building a nethouse now and is so
confident in its success that he’s making plans for a second one.
“If there is a chance for you to
come back here again, this road may be even nicer and my house may look nicer,”
he said in Khmer. “I will start growing [more] vegetables and constructing
[another] new nethouse, step by step.”
Cheang Sophat, left, and wife Hem Champa, far right, were able to
send their second child to college after earning more money from vegetables
grown in a nethouse. The couple is confident they will be able to send their
third child, 14-year-old Phat Daroth, second from right, to college as well.
Photo credit: Max Fannin for UC Davis
With local
science to feed the future, innovations spread
The partnership between UC Davis
and RUA has also advanced science at both institutions. More than 300 students
have worked on the project over the years, and the high-profile research has
helped the Cambodian university gain recognition among funding agencies and donors.
The collaborative methods used by
UC Davis researchers have been key to the international research project’s
success.
“They do not give us the solution
directly, but we work to solve the problem together. Like on-the-job training,
it’s a very good approach for me,” Buntong said. “Because of this approach, the
Royal University of Agriculture is prepared to continue supporting the kind of
technical innovation that we have been working toward for the last 10 years.”
Because of this approach, the Royal University of
Agriculture is prepared to continue supporting the kind of technical innovation
that we have been working toward for the last 10 years.
Borarin Buntong, Director of the Division Research
and Extension for RUA
Source: LEI Wageningen University and Research Centre
Story by Brenda Dawson/UC Davis. Video by Max Fannin for UC
Davis. Produced by John Mounier/UC Davis.
This content is paid for by UC
Davis and published by WP BrandStudio. The Washington Post
newsroom was not involved in the creation of this content. Learn more
about WP BrandStudio.
Vishwanath Kulkarni Bengaluru |
Updated on September 26, 2019 Published
on September 26, 2019
Group’s
philanthropic venture to focus on health and agriculture
As uncertainty continues over the
adoption of genetically modified (GM) crops in the country, the Tatas plan to
establish a presence in the area of genetic research with a focus on human
health and agriculture.
The Tata Institute for Genetics
and Society (TIGS), funded by a grant from the Tata Trust, has started
operations in Bengaluru, where it is building research laboratories. Conceived
as a philanthropic project, a chapter of TIGS has been set up at the University
of California San Diego (UCSD).
“We have started building the
laboratory and are in the initial stages. Anything that comes out of this will
be philanthropic in nature. It is for the people of India and, more
importantly, the research will be done by the Indians,” said Shaibal Kumar
Dasgupta, Group Leader, TIGS.
TIGS has already set up a team of
35 scientists and is recruiting more. “We have also started capacity-building
programmes, recruited some 12 scientists and sent them to the University of
California to do post doctoral research and develop their expertise. They will
be trained in the area of human ethics. They will come back to India to develop
new technologies here,” Dasgupta said.
TIGS has identified four areas of
focus (see chart). “The idea is to have an advanced genetic solution for all
these, but not through a transgenic approach,” he said. “We are trying to
understand the vector profile and will be carrying out a lot of studies
including DNA sequencing before we find a true approach. We are collaborating
with the Central University of Tamil Nadu for mosquito vector surveillance.”
In the area of antibiotic
resistance, TIGS is collaborating with Amrita University. In stem cell
research, where TIGS is hoping to come out with genetic interventions for
diseases such as thalassemia and sickle cell anaemia, it is collaborating with
Jawaharalal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research.
In agriculture, rice has been
identified as the main focus area for research at TIGS. “Rice being the
principal food crop of India, needs a lot of intervention to improve its
quality in terms of pest resistance, stress tolerance and all those areas. We
will be using technologies such as gene editing and CRISPR Cas9 to develop
newer traits of rice that will be resistant to drought and rice blast (a fungal
disease),” Dasgupta said, adding that the institute may look at other crops for
research going forward.
The Tatas investment in genetic
research in agriculture assumes significance amid both domestic and
multinationals scaling down investments in recent years due to the stalemate
over the commercialisation of GM crops. “The fact that Tata Trust is supporting
genetic research is good news, especially in agriculture research where the
industry morale is down,” an ag-biotech player said.
ARLINGTON, VA -- More than two centuries ago, an
adventurer named John Chapman began planting apple trees in our young
nation. Legend has it that this pioneer, known as "Johnny
Appleseed," wanted to introduce Americans to the apples he so loved and
the cider you could make from them. In a nod to this legend, USA Rice is using
Johnny Appleseed Day, September 26, to kick off the second Think Rice Road
Trip. Like Johnny before them, the USA Rice team wants
Americans to appreciate a delicious and nutritious U.S.-grown commodity and eat
more U.S.-grown rice. So, they are hitting the road in a 2019 Ford F-150
festooned with rice images and messages, and to make it easier for consumers to
eat more rice, giving away Aroma rice cookers and U.S.-grown rice being
generously donated by members of the USA Rice Millers Association! "Rice is a staple for most of the world's
population and even though it is very popular in the United States, we think
Americans can, and should, eat more U.S.-grown rice," said Cameron Jacobs,
manager of domestic promotion for USA Rice. "This road trip is going
to remind people that rice goes with virtually every type of cuisine and to
kick start their creativity, we're giving away 3,000 Aroma rice cookers and
one- and two-pound bags of U.S.-grown rice! It's not the only way to cook
rice, but it does make it pretty easy!" The first leg of the trip starts in Delaware with
the team setting up at the Westside Farmers Market in Wilmington from
3pm-6pm. On Friday, September 27, the truck will start the day making a
donation at Wilmington's Ministry of Caring food pantry before heading to the
Glasgow Farmers Market in Newark from 4pm-6pm. On Saturday, September 28,
you will find the Think Rice truck at the Milford Farmers Market from 9am-10am,
and then at the Southern Delaware Wine and Music Festival in Millsboro from
noon until 4pm. Everyone who comes in contact with the truck team will
leave with rice facts, cooking tips, recipes, a brand new Aroma rice cooker,
U.S.-grown rice, and more!
Subsequent
legs will take the Think Rice truck through Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia,
West Virginia, and Washington, DC, before ending up back in rice country in
Little Rock, Arkansas, for the 2019 USA Rice Outlook Conference in December.
As was the case last year, the team is also
selling raffle tickets for a chance to win the truck once the tour is
over. Tickets can be purchased here.
Delaware is known for chicken, but there’s a group coming
to the First State this week that wants Delawareans to get more familiar with
rice.
SUBMITTED PHOTO
When you think of rice, Delaware probably isn’t the first
place that comes to mind. But USA Rice, the U.S. rice industry’s national trade
association hopes to change that this week.
Listen
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1:12
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this story
Rice is a staple for most of the world’s population, and
very popular in the U.S.
But USA Rice vice president of domestic promotion Michael
Klein says there’s a big misconception about the rice Americans eat, “A lot of
people don’t realize that rice is grown in the U.S. and it is actually. The
vast majority of the rice that we eat here in the United States is actually
grown here. Most people assume that it’s imported from Asia and it’s not.”
So Klein says his group is dispatching its “Think Rice”
truck to educate people, and it kicks off its Second Ride with Rice Road Trip
Thursday in Delaware, “So in an attempt to kind of make people aware of the
fact that rice is grown here in the U.S. and you can buy local, and most times
you are - actually whether you realize it or not - we got this truck and we
decorated it with some nice food images.”
Klein says the “Think Rice” truck’s trip last year
started in the heart of rice country - Crowley, Louisiana, “And the reality is
- rice is really one of the most popular foods. And it’s really a staple in
almost every culture, whether it’s Asian food, or Afro-Caribbean food, or
African or Latino - ya know - rice is just found in every culture. And so, as a
staple for the world’s population, two-thirds of all the calories eaten in the
world come from rice - why not start in Delaware this time?”
The “Think Rice” truck is at the Wilmington’s Westside
Farmers Market Thursday from 3 to 6 p.m. The first 60 people to visit get a new
rice cooker and rice recipes.
The truck stops at the Glasgow Farmers Market Friday from
4 to 6 p.m. and the Milford Farmers Market Saturday from 9 to 10 a.m. It
visits the Southern Delaware Wine and Music Festival in Millsboro Saturday from
noon to 4.
Rice is a staple food for the
world. Billions of people eat it several times a day. It’s part of the culture
of many countries. However, many people are unaware of the valuable role
California plays in rice production. Join host Jim Morris to learn the
largely-untold stories that make California rice prominent around the world,
from producing virtually all of America’s sushi rice to providing habitat for
millions of birds. Ingrained, the California Rice Podcast, will provide
in-depth coverage of the people and subjects that make this industry so
uniquely valuable.
USA Rice, the national trade
association for the U.S. rice industry, has kicked of its second Ride With Rice road trip.
The USA Rice team wants Americans
to appreciate a delicious and nutritious U.S.-grown commodity and eat more
U.S.-grown rice. So they are hitting the road in a new pickup truck festooned
with rice images and messages, and to make things easier for consumers, giving
away Aroma rice cookers and U.S.-grown rice.
The Think Rice truck will be at the
Milford Farmers Market from 9 to 10 a.m., Saturday, Sept. 28, and then at the
Southern Delaware Wine and Music Festival from noon until 4 p.m.
"Rice is a staple for most of
the world's population, and even though it is very popular in the United
States, we think Americans can and should eat more U.S.-grown rice," said
Michael Klein, vice president of domestic promotion for USA Rice. "This
road trip is going to remind people that rice goes with virtually every type of
cuisine, and to kick-start their creativity, we're giving away 3,000 Aroma rice
cookers, and one- and two-pound bags of U.S.-grown rice! It's not the only way
to cook rice, but it does make it pretty easy.”
The team will be using #ThinkRice
on social media and playing interactive trivia games to give followers a chance
to win an Aroma rice cooker.
Thou Vireak | Publication date 25 September 2019 |
22:18 ICT
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Cambodian rice exports to international markets were worth more
than $265 million in the first eight months of the year, said Cambodia Rice
Federation (CRF) secretary-general Lun Yeng. Hean Rangsey
Cambodian rice exports to
international markets were worth more than $265 million in the first eight
months of the year, said Cambodia Rice Federation (CRF) secretary-general Lun
Yeng.
Yeng told The Post on Wednesday
that the Kingdom exported more than 340,000 tonnes of rice during the period.
Rice exports last year, he said, reached more than 620,000 tonnes or more than
$473 million.
CRF data shows Cambodia exported
342,080 tonnes of rice in the first eight months of this year – up 0.13 per
cent year-on-year. However, exports to European markets were down 32.09 per
cent, or 120,085 tonnes.
Figures show that during the
period, the Kingdom exported 132,947 tonnes of rice to China, up 54.38 per cent
year-on-year; 43,317 tonnes to Asean, up 12.68 per cent year-on-year, and
45,731 tonnes the US, Canada, Australia and African countries, up 13.63 per
cent year-on-year.
Cambodian rice exports to the
European market have continued to decline since the implementation of European
safeguard measures earlier this year, which imposed nearly $187 per tonne in
tariffs on the Kingdom, said Yeng, giving a figure lower than the €175 ($192)
levy set by the EU for this year.
“Although the volume of rice
exported to the EU had declined, revenue increased because our fragrant rice is
more expensive than white rice,” he said.
He said in efforts to boost rice
exports to Europe, the CRF plans to meet directly with European farmers in the
next month to find a solution.
“First, the CRF will try to
coordinate with European farmers. We recognise that our white rice has an
impact on them, but our fragrant rice does not affect them because they do not
produce fragrant rice.
“We will try to persuade Europe
[the EU] not to continue taxing our rice after the end of the [three-year]
term,” he said.
In the first half of this year,
Cambodia exported 247,769 tonnes of rice worth over $188.29 million, up 24.45
per cent year-on-year, a Ministry of Commerce report shows. Destination markets
include the US, Europe, Canada, China and Asean countries.
A 5 year project going by the name RiceTechCambodia was started in Cambodia on Wednesday as to develop the organic rise production in the
country.
Veng Sakhon, agriculture minister in Cambodia, went to the launching ceremony
of the projects that is going to be put into action by Sanorice, Rice, Oxfam,
Development and Partnership in Action, Larive International and the Provincial
Department of Agriculture of Mondulkiri, funded by the Netherlands Enterprise
Agency.
The minister was quoted saying that "The project aims to improve the livelihood
of small-scale farmers by helping them to have organic rice certified, increase
their productivity, enhance their yield and ensure premium price to the market
in Europe".
He also added that the project will be implemented in Mondulkiri province to
reach 2,400 small-scale rice farmers.
Sacks of imported rice are delivered to a rice seller at San
Andres district in Manila in this file photo.
AMID the decline in the average
farm-gate price of unhusked rice, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) reiterated
its support for the rice trade liberalization law, saying it remains “a good
reform.”
In a press briefing on Wednesday,
ADB Country Director for the Philippines Kelly Bird said agricultural reforms,
such as Republic Act 11203 or the rice trace liberalization
law, would “naturally” encounter bumpy roads.
Bird noted that the law is not
only concerned with rice imports, but is also focused on expanding
mechanization, which can lead to higher agricultural productivity.
“These reforms are fairly new.
And when these kinds of agricultural reforms are implemented, there’s going to
be a complex transition stage where it’s going to be a little bumpy in the
first few years,” Bird said.
Bird recalled that when his
native country, New Zealand, decided to implement agricultural reforms in the
1980s, his country went through a complex transition period.
However, once the situation
stabilized, Bird said the reforms led to higher growth and agricultural
productivity. This is an important lesson that the Philippines must keep in
mind, given its low farm productivity.
National Economic and Development
Authority (Neda) Assistant Secretary Mercedita A. Sombilla told the
BusinessMirror that the recent decline in the average farm-gate price of palay
was due to “transitional adjustments” caused by the implementation of RA 11203.
Sombilla also said this may have
also been brought about by the delay in the government’s release of the P10
billion for the Rice CompetitivenessEnhancement Fund (RCEF) fund this year.
The RCEF, derived from tariffs
collected from rice imports, is supposed to bankroll reforms in the rice
sector.
The Philippine Statistics
Authority (PSA) said the average farm-gate price of unhusked rice fell to an
average of P8 per kilogram to P10 per kilogram in August. Palay is usually more
expensive during the lean months of July to September, when harvest declines
significantly.
National Statistician and Civil
Registrar Dennis S. Mapa told reporters in the third and fourth week of August,
the PSA’s price monitoring revealed low prices for wet palay, particularly in
Luzon.
In other provinces, such as those
in Visayas, Mapa said farm-gate prices of wet palay were at P14 to P18 per kg
in August.
The United States and Japan reached a trade
deal Wednesday that could lead to more exports of Sacramento-area crops.President Donald Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abeannounced two
new trade agreements, regarding agricultural commodities and digital trade,
which are designed to lay the groundwork for a more comprehensive trade deal
later on.
The agricultural deal calls for eliminating and
reducing tariffs, and will impact some of the Sacramento area’s largest cash
crops.
“California agriculture is a big winner from
this,” said Daniel A. Sumner, director of the University of
California Davis Agricultural Issues Center.
The agreement announced Wednesday will
immediately eliminate Japanese tariffs on American almonds and walnuts,
according to the U.S. Trade Representative. It will gradually draw down
Japanese tariffs on U.S. wine, tomato paste and beef.
In exchange, the U.S. will eliminate or reduce
tariffs on $40 million worth of Japanese agricultural products, including soy
sauce, some perennial plants and cut flowers.
This agreement could offer some relief to industries like wine and
walnuts, which have been caught in the U.S. trade war with China and are facing
high tariffs and lagging sales there.
Walnuts especially have been hit hard by
recent trade tensions, and face high tariffs in China, India and
Turkey, traditionally some of its largest markets. That contributed to a
precipitous drop in prices last year.
Pamela Graviet, senior marketing director of
the California Walnut Board, said the industry estimates
it has lost $700 million because of trade disputes. Wednesday's news provides a
small ray of hope.
“We are very pleased to see the news,” Graviet
said.
After the agreement is ratified, the 10% tariff
on U.S. walnuts will be removed immediately.
“This trade agreement is one step in the right
direction,” Graviet said. But the Japanese market alone won’t make up for the
industry’s global losses.
“We have a lot of loss to make up and it’s
going to take time,” she said.
Sumner said the agreement will help California
walnuts compete with places like Chile, which doesn’t face any tariff barriers
in Japan.
“We can’t beat Chile in the walnut business
with one hand tied behind our back,” Sumner said.
Japan is the biggest foreign buyer of
California beef and hay, and is in the top five biggest destinations for
California almonds, dairy, wine, walnuts, processed tomatoes, olives and olive
oil, all of which are major crops in the Sacramento area. Japan is the biggest
purchaser of Yolo County agricultural products, according to the county’s 2018
crop and livestock report.
Japan is also the No. 1 importer of California
rice — which was not included in the agreement reached Wednesday.
“Rice is always one of the more difficult
commodities with trade with Japan,” said Tim Johnson, CEO of the California Rice Commission.
Johnson emphasized that more agreements are scheduled to come later on, and the
industry hopes rice will be included in those talks. Currently, California
exports around 350 tons of rice to Japan a year, and anything above that
threshold is hit with a 600% tariff, Johnson said.
Sumner said the deal this week could also be
good for the rice industry, even though it’s not directly named in the deal. The
current rice trade agreement was put in place in the early 1990s, when Japan
was much more protectionist than it is today. Sumner said there could be
headway, as long as discussions about agriculture and trade stay on the agenda.
“Anything that allows us to do what we do best,
rice or almonds or whatever, is just good for the California economy,” Sumner
said.
Indian
rice prices slip on weak African demand; strong baht hurts Thai exports
BENGALURU (Reuters) - Indian rice export prices slipped this week
as demand from Africa remained sluggish, while shipments from Thailand remained
sluggish to a strong baht.
Children play with a ball after rice is spread for drying at a rice
mill on the outskirts of Kolkata, January 31, 2019. Picture taken January 31,
2019. REUTERS/Rupak De Chowdhuri/File Photo
Prices of 5% broken parboiled variety in top exporter India were
quoted at around $371-$375 per tonne this week, down from $373-$379 a week ago.
Demand from African countries has been muted for the last few
weeks, even as export prices have corrected, said an exporter based at Kakinada
in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh.
India’s rice exports plunged 26.5% in April-July from a year ago to
3.14 million tonnes, a government body said earlier this month.
In Thailand, a strong baht, Asia’s best performing currency in
2019, has kept away potential buyers who find cheaper markets elsewhere, such
as in Vietnam. Thai exporters have struggled to sell the staple since the
beginning of the year.
The country’s benchmark 5-percent broken rice prices were quoted at
$400-$420 a tonne on Thursday, compared to $400-$418 last week.
“The price is only fluctuating due to the exchange rate at the
moment as both demand and supply remain unchanged,” a Bangkok-based trader
said.
Concerns over supply also persist due to floods in northeastern
Thailand that have damaged agricultural land, including some rice-growing
areas. This has not had an immediate impact on prices though, traders said.
“Buyers seem to be heading to Vietnam as Thai prices are a lot
higher,” a trader based in Ho Chi Minh City said.
“We think that prices have bottomed and that domestic supplies have
gone low as the summer-autumn harvest has ended.”
In Vietnam, rates for 5% broken rice rose to $335 a tonne on
Thursday from $325 a week earlier, which was its lowest since November 2007.
Preliminary data showed at least 37,100 tonnes of rice is scheduled
to be loaded at Ho Chi Minh City ports during Oct. 1-9, with most of the
shipments bound for West Africa and Malaysia, according to traders.
Meanwhile, Bangladesh is considering providing a subsidy to
farmers, who suffered a double blow of low rice prices and high harvesting
costs, in an effort to reduce production costs and boost domestic output,
Agriculture Minister Abdur Razzaque told Reuters on Thursday.
“To make it profitable, we must use more machinery because the
labour price is very high. We’ll provide (a) subsidy to help farmers buy modern
machinery so that they minimize labour costs for production,” he said.
Dhaka has been unable to clinch overseas deals since a
long-standing export ban was lifted in May as its rice is more expensive than
India’s or Thailand’s, despite a recent fall in local prices.
The
government is set to announce next month the basic price of rice in the coming
rainy season and is expected to allow exports of raw rice if the prices in the
local market drop too low in order to stabilise the country’s staple food, a
senior commerce official said.
Deputy
Minister of Commerce U Aung Htoo, said limited exports of the rice will be
allowed if the basic price sinks.
“We
agreed to export a designated quantity (of grains) during the designated
period,” he said on Tuesday.
The
government set K500,000 (US$327) as the base price for every 100 baskets of
rice for 2018. Each basket is roughly equivalent to 20.86 kilogrammes.
There
is now an ongoing discussion among members of the Assembly of the Union, the
Myanmar Rice Federation and farmers’ representatives on the basic price of
rice, U Aung Htoo said.
The
deputy minister said that if the price of rice shoudl drop below the new base
price which is set to be announced on October 15, exports of rice will be
allowed to stabilise the price.
Over
the past few years, Myanmar has not allowed the export of rice to ensure steady
supply in the domestic market but there were occasions when exports to other
countries were permitted as a means to raise the price of the grain to prevent
farmers from suffering losses. – Translated
Blow to struggling Kenya Power as
Keter rules out increase in cost of electricity
THURSDAY,
SEPTEMBER 26, 2019 10:27Energy Secretary Charles Keter has rejected Kenya Power’s bid to
increase electricity tariffs. FILE PHOTO | NMG
Energy Secretary Charles Keter
has rejected Kenya Power’s bid to increase electricity tariffs, a move than now
offers relief to consumers but deals a blow to the utility company that was
betting on new prices to reverse profit drops.
Mr Keter Wednesday said the
injection of cheaper electricity from sources like geothermal and wind will
lower the cost of wholesale power, which is the basis for Kenya Power’s demand
for the tariff increment. Kenya Power has been seeking new tariffs after a
temporary reduction of power charges for 5.7 million consumers expired in July.
The firm has hinged the recovery
of its earnings on the new tariffs after issuing a profit warning for the
second year in a row.
“We will not increase any tariff,
what we are going to do is to work on methods of mitigating that, but as you
are aware we have new, cheaper power plants like Turkana wind,” Mr Keter said.
“A company can issue profit
warning depending on its financial position. As a government we are okay with
it (profit warning),” he said.
The law provides that electricity
tariffs be reviewed every three years but the timetable has been erratic
because the regulator has often delayed or amended the rates, partly due to the
government seeking to ease inflationary pressure on households and industries.
The energy watchdog last year cut
retail electricity prices following an order from President Uhuru Kenyatta
after widespread complaints from some domestic customers and small businesses
about a costly three-year tariff introduced last July.
The tariff almost doubled the
monthly bill for higher-income households, triggering complaints that forced
EPRA to cut the tariff from November 2018 to July 2019 to Sh10 per kilowatt
hour from Sh15.80 for customers who use below 100 kilowatt units per month. The
tariff did not apply last month.
Electricity prices for low-income
earners who consume 50 units increased to Sh1,063 in August last year after the
July 2018 tariff increase from Sh695 a month earlier, but dropped to Sh757
after President Kenyatta ordered for a reversal.
Kenya Power is now seeking for
restoration of the higher tariffs. The firm has consistently sought higher
tariffs, arguing that it needs them to cover the capital-intensive nature of
building and maintaining a nationwide electricity distribution infrastructure
as well as the costs of buying bulk power form firms like KenGen. It blames the
rising costs for the significant drop in profits for the second year running.
The utility last week issued a
profit warning, saying that earnings for the year ending June 2019 will be more
than 25 percent lower than the Sh1.92 billion after-tax profit posted in the
financial year ended June 2018. This means Kenya Power expects to post a net
profit of Sh1.44 billion at most for the full year to June 2019.
Rice bran
supplementation modulates growth, microbiota and metabolome in weaning infants:
a clinical trial in Nicaragua and Mali
Rice bran supplementation
provides nutrients, prebiotics and phytochemicals that enhance gut immunity,
reduce enteric pathogens and diarrhea, and warrants attention for improvement
of environmental enteric dysfunction (EED) in children. EED is a subclinical
condition associated with stunting due to impaired nutrient absorption. This
study investigated the effects of rice bran supplementation on weight for age
and length for age z-scores (WAZ, LAZ), EED stool biomarkers, as well as microbiota
and metabolome signatures in weaning infants from 6 to 12 months old that
reside in Nicaragua and Mali. Healthy infants were randomized to a control (no
intervention) or a rice bran group that received daily supplementation with
increasing doses at each month (1–5 g/day). Stool microbiota were characterized
using 16S rDNA amplicon sequencing. Stool metabolomes were analyzed using
ultra-high-performance liquid-chromatography tandem mass-spectrometry.
Statistical comparisons were completed at 6, 8, and 12 months of age. Daily
consumption of rice bran was safe and feasible to support changes in LAZ from
6–8 and 8–12 months of age in Nicaragua and Mali infants when compared to
control. WAZ was significantly improved only for Mali infants at 8 and 12 months.
Mali and Nicaraguan infants showed major differences in the overall gut
microbiota and metabolome composition and structure at baseline, and thus each
country cohort demonstrated distinct microbial and metabolite profile responses
to rice bran supplementation when compared to control. Rice bran is a practical
dietary intervention strategy that merits development in rice-growing regions
that have a high prevalence of growth stunting due to malnutrition and
diarrheal diseases. Rice is grown as a staple food, and the bran is used as
animal feed or wasted in many low- and middle-income countries where EED and
stunting is prevalent.
Introduction
The prevalence of malnutrition in
low and middle-income countries (LMIC) has negative consequences on growth of children during the first five years
of life and has lifelong health consequences1,2. There is an
increased risk of death among children under 5 years of age due to being
underweight and stunted2,3. Risk factors for
undernutrition may include, but are not limited to: low birth weight,
inadequate breastfeeding, improper complementary feeding, and recurrent
infections3,4. Diarrheal diseases
are some of the primary causes of undernutrition in children under five years
of age1,3,4.
Environmental enteric dysfunction
(EED) is an acquired subclinical condition of the small intestine among LMIC
children5,6,7,8,9,10. Chronic exposure to
enteric pathogens early in life is one likely contributor to EED11. The altered
gastrointestinal functions in EED include intestinal nutrient malabsorption and
increased intestinal permeability that leads to protein loss6,7. Infant weaning has
been identified as a critical window for intervention12. Previous
intervention efforts in young children have targeted micronutrient
deficiencies, such as Vitamin A, Zn and Fe13,14,15,16, oral rehydration
salts for treating diarrhea17, antimicrobial use18,19, and community
hygiene improvements20. Given the worldwide
trends and variable timing of growth faltering that has been reported,
assessing interventions in diverse populations merits further attention21.
Rice bran is a nutrient dense
food with a unique profile and ratio of bioactive phytochemicals such as gamma
oryzanol, tocotrienols, ferulic acid, vitamin B, beta-sitosterol and many
others. The metabolome of rice bran from 17 countries was analyzed and revealed
a varied suite of bioactive molecules that span multiple chemical classes22. Rice bran has shown
chronic disease fighting properties in both animal and human studies, and the
promising results from feeding neonatal pigs provided translational support for
investigation of dietary feasibility in weaning infants. Many rice bran
components, such as phenolics, fatty acids and soluble fibers work together to
prevent enteric pathogens and diarrheal disease in mice and pigs23,24,25,26, and to favorably
promote gut health in adults27,28. The effect of rice
bran supplementation on host resistance to enteric infections and enhanced gut
mucosal immunity was demonstrated for Salmonella enterica Typhimurium25,26, rotavirus29,30,31, and norovirus23. Rice bran merits
attention because it has widespread scalability for consumption globally32, and particularly in
LMIC regions where EED is prevalent33.
Stool EED biomarkers, gut
microbiota34 and metabolite
profiling analysis15,35 are important
surrogate markers for analysis as intestinal tissue from infants is not easily
accessible to evaluate. Stool myeloperoxidase (MPO)36, calprotectin (CAL)37, and neopterin (NEO)38 are indicators
of inflammation; and alpha-1-antitrypsin (AAT)36 is an indicator
of barrier lumen disruption. Chronic, elevated concentrations of all four
biomarkers have been associated with poor linear growth in infants up to 24
months old10,36,37,38, and as the gut
microbiota is maturing over the first 3 years of life21,39. Gut microbiota
composition and metabolism is influenced by delivery mode, environment, and
nutrition40,41. Recent studies have
demonstrated that malnutrition and immature microbiota of infants are only
partially, and temporarily improved by some nutritional interventions15,42. The primary
objective of this study was to investigate safety and tolerability of dietary
rice bran supplementation during infant weaning, including effects on growth,
EED biomarkers, gut microbiota and metabolome from six to twelve months of age
in Nicaragua and Mali. Nicaragua and Mali have agricultural rice production
systems, yet they currently do not use the rice bran for human consumption
after it is polished from the whole grain. Our study hypothesis was that daily
consumption of rice bran for six months is tolerable, safe and feasible for
children during weaning and that daily intake will be associated with improved
growth and decreased gut permeability alongside favorable modulation of the gut
microbiota and metabolome.
Results
Safety and feasibility
Daily rice bran consumption was
completed in a randomized controlled trial with infants from 6 to 12 months of
age. While the types of weaning foods differ between Mali and Nicaragua, there
were no differences detected in the types of weaning foods consumed between
rice bran and control group infants within each country site. Rice bran
supplementation was palatable and safe for weaning infants based on a
high-level of compliance and no adverse events related to rice bran intake at
the increasing doses over time. Dietary compliance to rice bran was averaged
per month during the 6-month intervention and was 90% in Nicaragua and 99% in
Mali. The feasibility and tolerability for infants to consume 1–5 g of rice
bran/day over the six-month study period was determined by how mothers fed the
rice bran powder directly or as reported by consumption with drinking water,
staple grain porridges (i.e. millet, sorghum, and white rice), soups, milk,
fruits, juices, eggs, and fish when available. The nutritional profile of rice
bran provided in this study is shown in Table 1.
Table 1 Nutrient composition of Rice Bran (as provided by USDA
National Nutrient Database).
To study the effect of daily rice
bran supplementation, monthly stool samples from 47 Nicaraguan and 48 Malian
children were collected (average of 7 samples per child, total of 567 samples).
The flow and number of infants from study recruitment to study completion is
shown in Fig. 1. Baseline participant characteristics for Nicaragua
and Mali are shown in Table 2. We collected information on demographic factors
and infants’ household characteristics. In Nicaragua, 54.2% of infants were
born via caesarean section in the control group and 30.4% in the rice bran
group. All participants from Mali were delivered vaginally. For breastfeeding
status, 96% of the control group and 83% in the rice bran group were consuming
breast milk at six months old in Nicaragua and all children in the Mali group
were consuming breast milk at the beginning and throughout the study. Of the 95
infants enrolled, 52 received antibiotics with 87 total antibiotic courses in
the six-month period. Most courses consisted of systemic antibiotics given
orally, with some delivered by injection for respiratory, skin, ear or
diarrheal infections.
Myanmar
exported over 1.16 million tons of rice and over 55,000 tons of broken rice in
August, less than the export volume last month, according to the Ministry of
Commerce.
It
exported US$0.254 million worth of over 890 tons of rice from Muse 105 mile
trade zone, Lweje and Chinshwehaw border trade centers from August 24 to 30.
Myanmar exported over 6,800 tons of rice through border trade centers during
August and it is less than 20,000 tons of rice exported in July.
Myanmar
exported about US$9 million worth of over 26,500 tons of rice through maritime
trade from August 25 to 31 to China, Philippines, Vietnam, Russia, Malaysia,
Madagascar, Cameron, Switzerland, Mozambique and EU countries.
Myanmar
had send 88,500 tons of rice to China at present, in line with MoU and 11,500
tons of rice will be exported by December, according to the Myanmar Rice
Federation (MRF).
Basmati rice industry facing headwinds in the export market; moderation
in exports likely in FY20: ICRA
During the current fiscal, Basmati rice
exports realisations stood at Rs75,589/MT for 4M FY20, only 2% higher than the
previous fiscal.
September 26, 2019 16:02 IST|India Infoline News Service
Indian Basmati exports are
facing headwinds in the current fiscal, after two years of strong growth. As
per ICRA note, with uncertainty over level of exports to Iran as well as likely
moderation in average export realisations, Basmati rice exports are expected to
be muted in FY20. This is after Basmati rice exports in FY19 were at an
all-time high at Rs32,806cr, primarily led by aggressive buying by Iran, that
enabled healthy growth in volumes besides favourable pricing.
Deepak Jotwani, Assistant Vice President, ICRA, says, “There is increased
uncertainty over level of imports by Iran going forward in light of ongoing
trade sanctions; and tighter pesticide residue norms continuing to weigh on
exports to European Union (EU). Also, some changes in import policies proposed
by Saudi Arabia are likely to come into effect by the end of the year. While EU
is a comparatively smaller market, Iran and Saudi Arabia are leading
destinations, accounting for 50-55% of Basmati rice exports from India.”
During the current fiscal, Basmati rice exports realisations stood at
Rs75,589/MT for 4M FY20, only 2% higher than the previous fiscal. This is
considerably lower than the increase in export realisations by around 23% in
FY18 and 12% in FY2019. Also, on a comparative basis, Basmati rice exports in
4M FY20 stood at Rs10,847cr, 6% lower than Rs11,575cr in the corresponding
period in the previous fiscal, largely attributable to lower import volumes by
Iran, the leading importer of Basmati rice from India.
“This can be partly explained by aggressive pre-emptive buying by Iran in the
first half of FY19, due to anticipated impact on its global trade with
re-imposition of US trade sanctions later in that year,” Jotwani added.
According to ICRA, a more
long-term concern is that the reserves (receivables against crude oil exports
to India done earlier) being utilised by Iran for paying for its Basmati rice
imports, are declining with crude oil imports by India from Iran discontinued
since June 2019. This enhances the uncertainty on future trade with Iran,
considering the ongoing trade sanctions. While some comfort can be drawn from
the fact that Basmati rice forms a part of the staple diet of Iran and Saudi
Arabia; however, any considerable decline in level of imports by these
countries can have a depressing impact on Basmati rice prices and exert
pressure on the industry participants.
On the supply side, Basmati paddy prices continued to firm up for three years
in a row. However, given the better earnings garnered by farmers in the last
season, Basmati paddy production is estimated to be higher in the current
fiscal. This coupled with delay in resumption/lower level of imports by Iran,
if any, is likely to keep paddy prices under check in the current year’s
procurement season. This will have a bearing on Basmati rice prices in the next
calendar year as well as overall Basmati rice exports in FY21.
Nagpur Foodgrain Prices
Open- September 26, 2019
SEPTEMBER 26, 2019 / 1:31 PM
* * * * * *
Nagpur Foodgrain Prices – APMC/Open Market-September 26, 2018
Nagpur, Sept 26 (Reuters) – Gram and tuar prices firmed up again in Nagpur
Agriculture Produce and Marketing Committee (APMC) here on increased seasonal
demand from local millers amid weak supply from producing belts because of
rains in parts of regions. Healthy rise on NCDEX in gram, good recovery in
Madhya Pradesh pulses and enquiries from South-based millers also jacked up
prices. About 600 bags of gram and 50 bags of tuar reported for auction,
according to sources.
GRAM
* Gram varieties ruled steady in open market here matching the
demand and supply
position.
TUAR
* Tuar gavarani reported higher in open market on good seasonal
demand from local
traders.
* Major rice varieties recovered in open market here on increased
festival season
demand from local traders amid weak supply from producing regions.
* In Akola, Tuar New – 5,500-5,700, Tuar dal (clean) – 8,100-8,200,
Udid Mogar (clean)
– 7,300-8,100, Moong Mogar (clean) 8,200-8,900, Gram – 4,300-4,400,
Gram Super best
– 5,600-6,000 * Wheat and other foodgrain items moved in a narrow
range in
scattered deals and settled at last levels in weak trading
activity.
Nagpur foodgrains APMC auction/open-market prices in rupees for 100
kg
FOODGRAINS Available prices Previous close
Gram Auction 3,750-4,325 3,650-4,300
Gram Pink Auction n.a. 2,100-2,600
Tuar Auction 5,100-5,450 5,000-5,450
Moong Auction n.a. 3,950-4,200
Udid Auction n.a. 4,300-4,500
Masoor Auction n.a. 2,200-2,500
Wheat Lokwan Auction 2,000-2,015 1,950-2,040
Wheat Sharbati Auction n.a. 2,900-3,000
Gram Super Best Bold 5,800-6,000 5,800-6,000
Gram Super Best n.a. n.a.
Gram Medium Best 5,400-5,600 5,400-5,600
Gram Dal Medium n.a. n.a
Gram Mill Quality 4,350-4,450 4,350-4,450
Desi gram Raw 4,400-4,500 4,400-4,500
Gram Kabuli 8,300-10,000 8,300-10,000
Tuar Fataka Best-New 8,300-8,400 8,300-8,400
Tuar Fataka Medium-New 7,800-8,100 7,800-8,100
Tuar Dal Best Phod-New 7,400-7,600 7,400-7,600
Tuar Dal Medium phod-New 6,800-7,200 6,800-7,200
Tuar Gavarani New 5,850-5,950 5,800-5,900
Tuar Karnataka 6,050-6,150 6,050-6,150
Masoor dal best 5,500-5,700 5,500-5,700
Masoor dal medium 5,200-5,400 5,200-5,400
Masoor n.a. n.a.
Moong Mogar bold (New) 8,500-9,000 8,500-9,000
Moong Mogar Medium 7,000-7,800 7,000-7,800
Moong dal Chilka New 7,200-7,800 7,200-7,800
Moong Mill quality n.a. n.a.
Moong Chamki best 8,400-8,900 8,400-8,900
Udid Mogar best (100 INR/KG) (New) 7,500-8,200 7,500-8,200
Udid Mogar Medium (100 INR/KG) 6,000-7,000 6,000-7,000
Udid Dal Black (100 INR/KG) 4,700-5,300 4,500-5,100
Mot (100 INR/KG) 5,650-6,750 5,600-6,700
Lakhodi dal (100 INR/kg) 4,700-5,000 4,800-5,100
Watana Dal (100 INR/KG) 5,800-6,000 5,800-6,000
Watana Green Best (100 INR/KG) 7,500-8,000 7,500-8,000
Jowar CH-5 (100 INR/KG) 2,050-2,250 2,050-2,250 WEATHER (NAGPUR)
Maximum temp. 28.9 degree Celsius, minimum temp. 23.3 degree Celsius Rainfall :
48.1 mm FORECAST: Generally cloudy sky with one or two spells of rains or
thunder-showers. Maximum and minimum temperature likely to be around 30 degree
Celsius and 24 degree Celsius respectively. Note: n.a.—not available (For oils,
transport costs are excluded from plant delivery prices, but included in market
prices)
Wheat is a staple source of food for people
across the planet, accounting for a fifth of the calories consumed globally.
But, as a result of climate change, scientists believe most parts of the world
where the crop is grown will be simultaneously hit by water shortages by the
end of the century.
And the U.S. could be
among the countries worst affected, the authors of the research published in
the journal published in the journal Science Advances told Newsweek.
If climate change isn't tackled, by the year
2100, 60 percent of areas that grow wheat will be hit by water scarcity—up from
the current level of 15 percent, according to the international team of
scientists.
These Are the U.S.
States That Will Be Most Affected by Climate Change
READ
MORE
They say hitting the goals of the Paris
Agreement on climate change—including keeping average post-industrial global
temperatures from rising above 1.5 degrees Celsius—could "substantially
reduce the negative effects" of problems like droughts.
But even then, instances of growers struggling
to water their crops is predicted to double between 2041 and 2070, compared
with current conditions.
To predict the threat global warming presents
to wheat, the researchers created a model based on drought conditions at the
time of year wheat is grown.
Co-authors Miroslav Trnka, of
the Czech Academy of Sciences, and Song Feng, of the University of
Arkansas, told Newsweek that in their previous research, they had shown climate change
may cause soil to become less moist across most mainland U.S. states, including
those where wheat is grown.
As a result, the U.S. could be "one of
the top most affected wheat producers" in terms of the increase in areas
affected by severe droughts, they said in a joint statement.
That could signal problems for farmers—and, in
turn, the amount of wheat the country can export. But more detailed analysis is
needed to understand the full extent of the potential problems, they stressed.
Partly due to the purchasing power of
Americans, U.S. society likely won't suffer in as much as developing nations,
the pair said.
Severe drought will strike major exporters,
most of whom are in developed countries, "suggesting major challenges on
wheat production and a high risk of food price spikes in the future," they
said. "This scenario will add further hardship to the importers and the
developing countries."
The projections are "unsettling,"
the pair argued as because have died, thousands made homeless, and countries
"ruined" because of price hikes in past decades.
"It is not a future that must happen but
maybe more likely under the future climate," they said.
Wheat is the number one
rain-fed crop grown in terms of harvest area—equaling maize and rice
combined. The Food and Agriculture Organization predicts there will have been a
43 percent increase in demand for cereals—including maize, rice, sorghum,
millet and wheat—between 2006 to 2050.
Worryingly, existing research
cited by the authors has predicted a 4.0 to 6.5 percent drop in global wheat
production per 1 degree Celsius of warming if climate change isn't mitigated.
And it's unlikely wheat can be replaced if water becomes scarce, as it's not as
thirsty as other crops and can do without for a relatively long period of time.
If multiple regions are
affected by drought simultaneously "it might be difficult to meet the
demand even if the trade routes stay open and are not restricted by
governmental measures," warned Feng and Trnka.
However, they said: "Studies show that if
we continuously improve the sustainability and technologies in the coming
decades and allow for international trade, we may overcome the negative impacts
of climate change."
File photo of wheat. Researchers have warned
wheat production may be impacted by climate change, which could impact food
prices.ISTOCK
LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Melting of the world’s glaciers and warming of its oceans are fuelling rising seas, fiercer storms, worsening water shortages and other risks that could force millions from their homes or leave them hungrier and poorer, scientists warned on Wednesday.
Some of the threat could be averted both by rapidly slashing climate-heating emissions and speeding up efforts to adapt to the coming changes, using everything from sea-walls to early warning systems for extreme weather, they said.
But “we may be losing this race” to put protective measures in place in time, warned Hoesung Lee, chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a U.N.-backed panel of climate scientists.
Coastal communities, particularly in the tropics and on low-lying islands, as well as people dependent on glacier melt for their water are most at risk, scientists said in a new report outlining how climate change could affect oceans and ice.
The report, crafted by more than 100 scientists from 36 countries, said 680 million people live in low-lying coastal zones worldwide, a figure expected to rise to 1 billion by 2050.
As sea level rises - driven increasingly by accelerating melting of the world’s ice sheets as well as by ocean warming - those people will face more frequent flooding and harsher storms that drive powerful seawater surges inland, the scientists said.
Some areas that once flooded only every 100 years or so - particularly on low-lying islands that are home to 65 million people - could face annual flooding by 2050, they warned, unless strong protective measures are put in place.
“This could create very vexing questions about the habitability of some areas of the world,” said Debra Roberts, a South African scientist and a co-author of the report.
ADAPTATION LIMITS
Zita Sebesvari, who studies environmental vulnerability at the United Nations University, said many communities in Asia’s Mekong and Ganges-Brahmaputra river deltas are already seeing their land become salt-laden and infertile.
“People try to adapt, to introduce shrimp farming, but it’s a riskier undertaking than rice farming - and once land is converted to saline water, it’s hard to reuse as a rice field,” said Sebesvari, who looked at sea-level rise for the report.
Cities could be protected in part with sea-walls, she said. But costs and practicality mean more rural areas would likely have to rely on other solutions, such as restoration of mangrove forests, which shelter fish and slow storm surges.
However, measures such as protecting and planting mangroves are only likely to be effective if efforts to cut emissions are hugely accelerated, said Maarten van Aalst, a climate scientist and director of the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Center.
“At some point there will be no easy solutions,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “There will be no nice options out there anymore if the climate changes too much.”
Most work to improve safety for at-risk communities still comes only after a big disaster, he said, while much construction - including post-crisis rebuilding efforts - does not adequately take growing climate threats into account.
Investing in cutting those risks makes economic sense - but elected officials who do not anticipate a disaster during their term in office often find it more politically expedient to spend on other things, he said.
COSTS OF PREPARATION
New York - which hosted the U.N. secretary-general’s climate summit on Monday - is one city moving to cut its risk, in the wake of the destruction caused by Hurricane Sandy in 2012.
It is building a $10-billion system of berms, removable barriers and new, higher land at the fringes of lower Manhattan in an attempt to protect itself from flooding and storms.
Germany, similarly, is constructing a series of dikes along the North Sea coast, designed in a way that they can be elevated in the future if sea-level rise exceeds current expectations, said Sebesvari of the U.N. University.
But “many other cities in the world cannot afford that,” noted van Aalst.
The cost barrier is even more serious for island states with relatively small economies and resources but long coastlines, said Helene Jacot des Combes, an IPCC report author who lives in the Marshall Islands.
“You can build sea-walls and dikes, but that means very high levels of investment - we’re taking about millions of dollars,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
“Managed retreat” - which means moving people away from risky coastal areas, a response already happening in some countries - was one option, she said, but only “if you have safe land to retreat to”, a problem for small islands.
Valerie Masson-Delmotte, a French scientist and IPCC report author, said the number of people who could be forced from their homes by rising seas and other risks was unclear and depended on “the adaptation solutions that are available - or not”.
DISAPPEARING WATER
Increasingly rapid glacier melt - particularly of smaller tropical glaciers from Peru to Indonesia - also is likely to lead to worsening water shortages that will affect farming, hydropower and even drinking water supplies, scientists said.
“Changes in water availability will not just affect people in these high mountain regions but also communities much further downstream,” said Panmao Zhai, a Chinese author of the report.
Stepped-up efforts to share and manage scarce freshwater, particularly from rivers that flow across borders, will be key to keeping growing risks in check, he added.
Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan warned at the U.N. climate summit this week that his country gets 80% of the river water it depends on from glacier melt.
“If temperatures keep rising the way they are, we face catastrophe” as water supplies decline, he said.
Korgutt
is a local variety known for its tolerance to salinity
PANAJI:
In a season marked by extremely heavy rainfall, the resilience of the Korgutt rice crop in unprecedented
flood conditions in Chorao,
has surprised agriculture scientists, as it survived a prolonged inundation of
paddy fields.
Farmers who had grown Jyoti, Jaya and Karjat 3 rice varieties lamented the loss
of their crop during the ten-odd day submergence period. But farmers in Chorao
had something to cheer, as the crop suffered only about 20% to 30% damage under
water.
This resilience to submergence has made agricultural scientists take notice of Korgutt
variety as a candidate for climate-resilient crops. “After about 15 days, the
70% to 80% of Korgutt crop in a sizeable khazan land area survived better than
improved varieties,” Manohara K K, senior scientist in genetics and plant
breeding, Indian council of agricultural research (ICAR),Old Goa said.
In the state’s low-lying khazan fields, Goan farmers have preferred the hardy
Korgutt, a local variety since decades past for its tolerance to salinity.
“This was one of the worst floods as far as we can remember,” a farmer said.
Manohara’s systematic evaluation of korgutt in Chorao for four years had helped
ICAR register it as a unique germplasm for “tolerance to salinity stress at
seedling stage” with the national bureau of plant genetic resources (NBPGR),
New Delhi.
But scientists had little knowledge about its survival traits in flood
conditions. “We now have to confirm through research its tolerance to
submergence,” Manohara said. ‘Need crops that can adapt to climate change’
With food security under threat due to climate change, scientists are looking
for crops that can withstand multiple stresses. “At the seedling stage, any
abiotic stress caused by either temperature, drought or flood, we should have
plants and livestock which can acclimatise with the slight deviation in
climate,” Eknath Chakurkar, director, ICAR, Old Goa said.
Frequency of extreme weather events is increasing, raising concern over huge
crop losses to farmers.
“If we are to bring salinity and submergence tolerance genes together in a
popular cultivated variety, the crop will be able to cope with the problems of
dual stress in coastal low-lying areas,” Manohara said.
Basmati exports growth to slow down in FY20: ICRA
On the supply side,
basmati paddy prices continued to firm up for three years in a row.
During the current fiscal,
Basmati rice exports realisations stood at Rs. 75,589/MT for 4M FY2020, only 2
per cent higher than the previous fiscal.
Indian basmati exports are
facing headwinds in the current fiscal, after two years of strong growth, said
an ICRA note released on Thursday. The ICRA note says that
with uncertainty over level of exports to Iran as well as likely moderation in average export
realisations, basmati rice
exports are expected to be muted in FY2020. This is after basmati
rice exports in FY2019 were at an all-time high at Rs. 32,806 crore, primarily
led by aggressive buying by Iran, that enabled healthy growth in volumes
besides favourable pricing.
Elaborating further, Mr. Deepak Jotwani, Assistant Vice President, ICRA, says,
“There is increased uncertainty over level of imports by Iran going forward in
light of ongoing trade sanctions; and tighter pesticide residue norms
continuing to weigh on exports to European Union (EU). Also, some changes in
import policies proposed by Saudi Arabia are likely to come into effect by the
end of the year. While EU is a comparatively smaller market, Iran and Saudi
Arabia are leading destinations, accounting for 50-55 per cent of Basmati rice
exports from India.”
During the current fiscal, Basmati rice exports realisations stood at Rs.
75,589/MT for 4M FY2020, only 2 per cent higher than the previous fiscal. This
is considerably lower than the increase in export realisations by around 23 per
cent in FY2018 and 12 per cent in FY2019. Also, on a comparative basis, Basmati
rice exports in 4M FY2020 stood at Rs. 10,847 crore, 6 per cent lower than Rs.
11,575 crore in the corresponding period in the previous fiscal, largely
attributable to lower import volumes by Iran, the leading importer of Basmati
rice from India. Adds Mr. Jotwani, “This can be partly explained by aggressive pre-emptive
buying by Iran in the first half of FY2019, due to anticipated
impact on its global trade with re-imposition of US
trade sanctions later in that year.”
According to ICRA, a more long-term concern is that the reserves (receivables
against crude oil exports to India done earlier) being utilised by Iran for paying
for its Basmati rice imports, are declining with crude oil imports by India
from Iran discontinued since June 2019. This enhances the uncertainty on future
trade with Iran, considering the ongoing trade sanctions. While some comfort
can be drawn from the fact that basmati rice forms a part of the staple diet of
Iran and Saudi Arabia; however, any considerable decline in level of imports by
these countries can have a depressing impact on basmati rice prices and exert
pressure on the industry participants.
On the supply side, basmati paddy prices continued to firm up for three years
in a row. However, given the better earnings garnered by farmers in the last
season, Basmati paddy production is estimated to be higher in the current
fiscal. This coupled with delay in resumption/lower level of imports by Iran,
if any, is likely to keep paddy prices under check in the current year’s
procurement season. This will have a bearing on Basmati rice prices in the next
calendar year as well as overall Basmati rice exports in FY2021.
Korgutt is a local variety known for its tolerance to salinity
PANAJI: In a season marked by extremely
heavy rainfall, the resilience of the Korgutt rice crop in unprecedented
flood conditions in Chorao,
has surprised agriculture scientists, as it survived a prolonged inundation of
paddy fields.
Farmers who had grown Jyoti, Jaya and Karjat 3 rice varieties lamented the loss
of their crop during the ten-odd day submergence period. But farmers in Chorao
had something to cheer, as the crop suffered only about 20% to 30% damage under
water.
This resilience to submergence has made agricultural scientists take notice of Korgutt
variety as a candidate for climate-resilient crops. “After about 15 days, the
70% to 80% of Korgutt crop in a sizeable khazan land area survived better than
improved varieties,” Manohara K K, senior scientist in genetics and plant
breeding, Indian council of agricultural research (ICAR),Old Goa said.
In the state’s low-lying khazan fields, Goan farmers have preferred the hardy
Korgutt, a local variety since decades past for its tolerance to salinity.
“This was one of the worst floods as far as we can remember,” a farmer said.
Manohara’s systematic evaluation of korgutt in Chorao for four years had helped
ICAR register it as a unique germplasm for “tolerance to salinity stress at
seedling stage” with the national bureau of plant genetic resources (NBPGR),
New Delhi.
But scientists had little knowledge about its survival traits in flood
conditions. “We now have to confirm through research its tolerance to
submergence,” Manohara said. ‘Need crops that can adapt to climate change’
With food security under threat due to climate change, scientists are looking
for crops that can withstand multiple stresses. “At the seedling stage, any
abiotic stress caused by either temperature, drought or flood, we should have
plants and livestock which can acclimatise with the slight deviation in
climate,” Eknath Chakurkar, director, ICAR, Old Goa said.
Frequency of extreme weather events is increasing, raising concern over huge
crop losses to farmers.
“If we are to bring salinity and submergence tolerance genes together in a
popular cultivated variety, the crop will be able to cope with the problems of
dual stress in coastal low-lying areas,” Manohara said.
Korgutt variety rice crop survives in
flood-like conditions at Chorao
Korgutt is a local variety known for its tolerance to salinity
PANAJI: In a season marked by extremely
heavy rainfall, the resilience of the Korgutt rice crop in unprecedented
flood conditions in Chorao,
has surprised agriculture scientists, as it survived a prolonged inundation of
paddy fields.
Farmers who had grown Jyoti, Jaya and Karjat 3 rice varieties lamented the loss
of their crop during the ten-odd day submergence period. But farmers in Chorao
had something to cheer, as the crop suffered only about 20% to 30% damage under
water.
This resilience to submergence has made agricultural scientists take notice of Korgutt
variety as a candidate for climate-resilient crops. “After about 15 days, the
70% to 80% of Korgutt crop in a sizeable khazan land area survived better than
improved varieties,” Manohara K K, senior scientist in genetics and plant
breeding, Indian council of agricultural research (ICAR),Old Goa said.
In the state’s low-lying khazan fields, Goan farmers have preferred the hardy
Korgutt, a local variety since decades past for its tolerance to salinity.
“This was one of the worst floods as far as we can remember,” a farmer said.
Manohara’s systematic evaluation of korgutt in Chorao for four years had helped
ICAR register it as a unique germplasm for “tolerance to salinity stress at
seedling stage” with the national bureau of plant genetic resources (NBPGR),
New Delhi.
But scientists had little knowledge about its survival traits in flood
conditions. “We now have to confirm through research its tolerance to
submergence,” Manohara said. ‘Need crops that can adapt to climate change’
With food security under threat due to climate change, scientists are looking
for crops that can withstand multiple stresses. “At the seedling stage, any
abiotic stress caused by either temperature, drought or flood, we should have
plants and livestock which can acclimatise with the slight deviation in
climate,” Eknath Chakurkar, director, ICAR, Old Goa said.
Frequency of extreme weather events is increasing, raising concern over huge
crop losses to farmers.
“If we are to bring salinity and submergence tolerance genes together in a
popular cultivated variety, the crop will be able to cope with the problems of
dual stress in coastal low-lying areas,” Manohara said.
Bhutan’s
food import increased by Nu 144 million (M) between January and June this year
compared with the same period last year. The country imported food items worth
Nu 2.99 billion (B) in the first six months last year, which increased to Nu
3.14B for the same period this year.
This is
according to Renewable Natural Resources (RNR) statistics on import of major
commodities from India.
Among
the food commodities imported, rice constitutes the major proportion with an
increasing trend from 68,235 metric tonne (MT) in 2012 to 87,671 MT in 2016,
indicating that domestic supply has not been able to keep pace with the
increasing demand for rice over time.
Bhutan
imported 42,554 MT of rice in the first half of 2019, an increase of 12 percent
compared with the same period last year. The import of rice amounted to Nu
1,063M, showing an increase of Nu 97M in the first half of the year.
Similarly,
import of meat and edible oil increased by 14 percent and 4 percent
respectively. In total, import amounts to an increase of Nu 130M.
Meanwhile,
the performance audit report on food self-sufficiency and security 2019
highlighted notable initiatives and positive developments in achieving self-sufficiency
in fruits and eggs. The import of fresh fruits, however, saw 13 percent rise by
June last year.
The
import of fresh vegetables, dairy products, and dried vegetables decreased by
about 41 percent, 78 percent, and 14 percent respectively, saving Nu 32M.
Similarly,
the import of dried fruit, salt, spices and sugar volume decreased.
Bhutan
is especially vulnerable in terms of food self-sufficiency due to high
dependency on cheap imports from neighbouring countries.
Exports
amount to only about half of imports and are largely concentrated on a few
commodities. India received about 78 percent of Bhutan’s total exports, while
about 84 percent of Bhutan’s imports originate from India.
Experts
are of the view that while the government needs to control public spending, it
has an obligation to provide free access to basic public health services and
education for its citizens. This means the government will have to accelerate
revenue mobilisation efforts over the next plan period.
The key
exports to India are hydropower, base metals, and agricultural products, while
imports are relatively high-valued machines and mechanical appliances,
consumption goods, and fossil fuels.
However,
it was observed that Bhutan’s GDP has grown faster than the rise in electricity
exports. Consequently, hydropower’s share to GDP fell from about 9 percent in
2015 to 6.2 percent in 2018. The declining share of electricity exports in both
total exports and GDP signals trade diversification, which is also evidenced by
rising exports of minerals and base metals to Bangladesh and Nepal.
The
inclusive and sustainable growth assessment by Asian Development Bank states
that Bhutan will remain economically vulnerable for sometime given the
country’s narrow economic base, volatility in exports, and weak agricultural
production.
“While
existing hydropower projects have generated about 25 percent of the
government’s total domestic revenues, tax collection is low by international
standards and has been on a declining trend relative to GDP,” the report said.
The Philippine
business community supported the efforts of Agriculture Secretary William
Dar to effectively implement the Rice Tariffication Law to protect palay
farmers and preserve the gains of the legislation.
The law created the
Rice Competitive Enhancement Fund to assist rice farmers and enhance their
productivity and competitiveness through seed, mechanization, credit, and
extension services.
“We urge the proper
implementation of the RTL to ensure that the temporary adjustment problems
experienced by our rice sector will be mitigated. And we are sure that out from
the birth pains, a new, vibrant and modern Philippine agriculture sector will
emerge,” the groups said.
The Philippines
business community is comprised of the American Chamber of Commerce of the
Philippines, Bankers Association of the Philippines, Financial Executives
Institute of the Philippines, Foundation for Economic Freedom, Makati Business Club
and the Management Association of the Philippines.
The groups said the
law was starting to achieve most of the original objectives of the law.
“Nothing has changed
our mind regarding the desirability of pursuing the RTL to the fullest to
assist in modernizing the Philippine agricultural sector. To reverse it now
will be tantamount to consigning our agriculture to under-development and our
farm families to continuing child malnutrition,” the groups said in a
statement.
The rice tariffication
law has initially resulted in the falling price of palay that increased
pressure to reverse or repeal it.
“This trend was not
surprising and was in fact anticipated by our economic managers. As such, they
recommended a number of measures that will mitigate the temporary adverse
effects of the RTL,” said the business community.
Interventions should
be complementary and supplementary to the “National Rice Industry Roadmap”
being formulated to guide RCEF assistance and ensure that investment would
yield maximum returns, the groups noted.
The groups said RCEF
would also encourage marginal rice farmers to diversify to add value to their
produce and obtain higher income.
The law signed on
February 14, 2019 ended the more than 30-year policy of quantitative restrictions
on rice import in favor of the shift to tariff as the main instrument in
protecting palay farmers.
The measure favors
tariff as a trade instrument because it is more transparent compared with
government-to-government transactions, allowing anybody to import rice at 35
percent tariff.
Children
play with a ball after rice is spread for drying at a rice mill on the
outskirts of Kolkata
By
Karthika Suresh Namboothiri
BENGALURU (Reuters) - Indian rice
export prices slipped this week as demand from Africa remained sluggish, while
shipments from Thailand remained sluggish to a strong baht.
Prices of 5% broken parboiled
variety in top exporter India were quoted at around $371-$375 per tonne this
week, down from $373-$379 a week ago.
Demand from African countries has
been muted for the last few weeks, even as export prices have corrected, said
an exporter based at Kakinada in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh.
India's rice exports plunged
26.5% in April-July from a year ago to 3.14 million tonnes, a government body
said earlier this month.
In Thailand, a strong baht,
Asia's best performing currency in 2019, has kept away potential buyers who
find cheaper markets elsewhere, such as in Vietnam. Thai exporters have
struggled to sell the staple since the beginning of the year.
The country's benchmark 5-percent
broken rice prices were quoted at $400-$420 a tonne on Thursday, compared
to $400-$418 last week.
"The price is only
fluctuating due to the exchange rate at the moment as both demand and supply
remain unchanged," a Bangkok-based trader said.
Concerns over supply also persist
due to floods in northeastern Thailand that have damaged agricultural land,
including some rice-growing areas. This has not had an immediate impact on
prices though, traders said.
"Buyers seem to be heading
to Vietnam as Thai prices are a lot higher," a trader based in Ho Chi Minh
City said.
"We think that prices have
bottomed and that domestic supplies have gone low as the summer-autumn harvest
has ended."
In Vietnam, rates for 5% broken
rice rose to $335 a tonne on Thursday from $325 a week earlier, which was its
lowest since November 2007.
Preliminary data showed at
least 37,100 tonnes of rice is scheduled to be loaded at Ho Chi Minh City ports
during Oct. 1-9, with most of the shipments bound for West Africa and Malaysia,
according to traders.
Meanwhile, Bangladesh is
considering providing a subsidy to farmers, who suffered a double blow of low
rice prices and high harvesting costs, in an effort to reduce production costs
and boost domestic output, Agriculture Minister Abdur Razzaque told Reuters on
Thursday.
"To make it profitable, we
must use more machinery because the labour price is very high. We'll provide
(a) subsidy to help farmers buy modern machinery so that they minimize labour
costs for production," he said.
Dhaka has been unable to clinch
overseas deals since a long-standing export ban was lifted in May as its rice
is more expensive than India's or Thailand's, despite a recent fall in local
prices.
(Reporting by Khanh Vu in Hanoi,
Panu Wongcha-um in Bangkok, Ruma Paul in Dhaka and Rajendra Jadhav in Mumbai;
Editing by Susan Fenton)
ASIA RICE-INDIAN PRICES SLIP ON WEAK AFRICAN DEMAND;
STRONG BAHT HURTS THAI EXPORTS
9/26/2019
* Muted
demand for Indian rice despite price correction
*
Vietnamese rice rates edge up from 12-year low
*
Exporters in Vietnam benefit from higher Thai rates
* Dhaka
considering providing subsidy to farmers
By
Karthika Suresh Namboothiri
BENGALURU,
Sept 26 (Reuters) - Indian rice export prices slipped this week as demand from
Africa remained sluggish, while shipments from Thailand remained sluggish to a
strong baht.
Prices of
5% broken parboiled variety <RI-INBKN5-P1> in top exporter India were
quoted at around $371-$375 per tonne this week, down from $373-$379 a week ago.
Demand
from African countries has been muted for the last few weeks, even as export
prices have corrected, said an exporter based at Kakinada in the southern
Indian state of Andhra Pradesh.
India's
rice exports plunged 26.5% in April-July from a year ago to 3.14 million
tonnes, a government body said earlier this month.
In
Thailand, a strong baht, Asia's best performing currency in 2019, has kept away
potential buyers who find cheaper markets elsewhere, such as in Vietnam. Thai
exporters have struggled to sell the staple since the beginning of the year.
The
country's benchmark 5-percent broken rice <RI-THBKN5-P1> prices were
quoted at $400-$420 a tonne on Thursday, compared to $400-$418 last week.
"The
price is only fluctuating due to the exchange rate at the moment as both demand
and supply remain unchanged," a Bangkok-based trader said.
Concerns
over supply also persist due to floods in northeastern Thailand that have
damaged agricultural land, including some rice-growing areas. This has not had
an immediate impact on prices though, traders said.
"Buyers
seem to be heading to Vietnam as Thai prices are a lot higher," a trader
based in Ho Chi Minh City said.
"We
think that prices have bottomed and that domestic supplies have gone low as the
summer-autumn harvest has ended."
In
Vietnam, rates for 5% broken rice <RI-VNBKN5-P1> rose to $335 a tonne on
Thursday from $325 a week earlier, which was its lowest since November 2007.
Preliminary
data showed at least 37,100 tonnes of rice is scheduled to be loaded at Ho Chi
Minh City ports during Oct. 1-9, with most of the shipments bound for West
Africa and Malaysia, according to traders.
Meanwhile,
Bangladesh is considering providing a subsidy to farmers, who suffered a double
blow of low rice prices and high harvesting costs, in an effort to reduce
production costs and boost domestic output, Agriculture Minister Abdur Razzaque
told Reuters on Thursday.
"To
make it profitable, we must use more machinery because the labour price is very
high. We'll provide (a) subsidy to help farmers buy modern machinery so that
they minimize labour costs for production," he said.
Dhaka has
been unable to clinch overseas deals since a long-standing export ban was
lifted in May as its rice is more expensive than India's or Thailand's, despite
a recent fall in local prices.
(Reporting
by Khanh Vu in Hanoi, Panu Wongcha-um in Bangkok, Ruma Paul in Dhaka and
Rajendra Jadhav in Mumbai; Editing by Susan Fenton)
* Muted demand for Indian rice despite price correction
* Vietnamese rice rates edge up from 12-year low
* Exporters in Vietnam benefit from higher Thai rates
* Dhaka considering providing subsidy to farmers
By Karthika Suresh Namboothiri
BENGALURU, Sept 26 (Reuters) - Indian rice export prices slipped
this week as demand from Africa was subdued, while shipments from Thailand
remained sluggish due to a strong baht.
Prices of 5% broken parboiled variety <RI-INBKN5-P1> in top
exporter India were quoted at around $371-$375 per tonne this week, down from
$373-$379 a week ago.
Demand from African countries has been muted for the last few
weeks, even as export prices have corrected, said an exporter based at Kakinada
in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh.
India's rice exports plunged 26.5% in April-July from a year ago
to 3.14 million tonnes, a government body said earlier this month.
In Thailand, a strong baht, Asia's best performing currency in
2019, has kept away potential buyers who find cheaper markets elsewhere, such
as in Vietnam. Thai exporters have struggled to sell the staple since the
beginning of the year.
The country's benchmark 5-percent broken rice <RI-THBKN5-P1>
prices were quoted at $400-$420 a tonne on Thursday, compared to $400-$418 last
week.
"The price is only fluctuating due to the exchange rate at
the moment as both demand and supply remain unchanged," a Bangkok-based
trader said.
Concerns over supply also persist due to floods in northeastern
Thailand that have damaged agricultural land, including some rice-growing
areas. This has not had an immediate impact on prices though, traders said.
"Buyers seem to be heading to Vietnam as Thai prices are a
lot higher," a trader based in Ho Chi Minh City said.
"We think that prices have bottomed and that domestic
supplies have gone low as the summer-autumn harvest has ended."
In Vietnam, rates for 5% broken rice <RI-VNBKN5-P1> rose to
$335 a tonne on Thursday from $325 a week earlier, which was its lowest since
November 2007.
Preliminary data showed at least 37,100 tonnes of rice is
scheduled to be loaded at Ho Chi Minh City ports during Oct. 1-9, with most of
the shipments bound for West Africa and Malaysia, according to traders.
Meanwhile, Bangladesh is considering providing a subsidy to
farmers, who suffered a double blow of low rice prices and high harvesting
costs, in an effort to reduce production costs and boost domestic output,
Agriculture Minister Abdur Razzaque told Reuters on Thursday.
"To make it profitable, we must use more machinery because
the labour price is very high. We'll provide (a) subsidy to help farmers buy
modern machinery so that they minimize labour costs for production," he
said.
Dhaka has been unable to clinch overseas deals since a
long-standing export ban was lifted in May as its rice is more expensive than
India's or Thailand's, despite a recent fall in local prices.
(Reporting by Khanh Vu in Hanoi, Panu Wongcha-um in Bangkok, Ruma
Paul in Dhaka and Rajendra Jadhav in Mumbai; Editing by Susan Fenton)
The
Philippine Center for Postharvest and Mechanization (PhilMech) said the farm
machinery that they would distribute to rice farmers under the rice
competitiveness enhancment program (RCEP) may also help them cultivate other
crops such as corn and cassava.
Citing a
study it conducted, PhilMech said a number of the farm equipment to be
distributed under RCEP are “crop neutral” or could be used in cultivating other
crops, like corn, cassava, and even vegetables.
“Other
impacts of the program may include cost reduction in using several
mechanization technologies for other crops such as corn, cassava, and others.
It should be noted that some facilities included in the program are crop
neutral,” PhilMech said in a statement on Thursday.
PhilMech,
an attached agency of the Department of Agriculture, said it would distribute
four-wheel farm tractors, hand tractors, tillers, rice seeders, transplanters,
irrigation pumps, small solar irrigation systems, threshers, combine
harvesters, mechanical dryers, rice mills, among others, to rice
farmer-beneficaries under the RCEP.
“The
four-wheel farm tractor could be attached with implements specifically designed
for crops like corn and cassava, and PHilMech has already designed a Cassava
Digger that can be towed by a farm tractor to facilitate the harvesting of
cassava roots,” it said.
“PHilMech
has also developed the Corn Picker that is attached to a four-wheel farm
tractor and mechanically harvests matured corn cobs. The Corn Picker can
harvest corn cobs at a rate of 1 hectare per day. Using manual labor, it would
take more than one day to harvest corn from 1 hectare of land,” it added.
PhilMech
said it also developed a corn planter that could be attached to a farm
tractor and could sow seeds and apply fertilizer simultaneously at a rate of
2.5 hectares in 8 hours. Using manual labor, it would take one whole day to the
same task in just one hectare of land, it added.
PhilMech
said the farm machinery and equipment would help rice farmers not only to
improve their planting efficiency but also cope with the ill effects of climate
change.
“Other
potential quantifiable benefits are the prevented rice crop damages/losses due
to weather risks such as tropical cyclones and prolonged rainy days,” it said.
“Machines
such as combine harvester and mechanical dryer are found to be effective
instruments in reducing the exposure of rice farmers to adverse weather,” it
added.
Under the
rice trade liberalization law, the government would spend at least P10 billion
annually until 2024 to fund programs under the Rice Competitiveness Enhancement
Fund (RCEF) that seeks to help Filipino rice farmers adjust with the influx of
cheaper rice imports.
Under the
RCEF, P5 billion would be allocated for the provision of farm machinery to
improve the rice sector’s mechanization level while P3 billion would be spent
for inbred rice seeds distribution and related trainings.
The RCEF
also has a easy financing credit component with an annual funding of P1 billion
and another P1 billion allocation for improvement of farmers’ technical
know-how.
*
Muted demand for Indian rice despite price correction
*
Vietnamese rice rates edge up from 12-year low
*
Exporters in Vietnam benefit from higher Thai rates
*
Dhaka considering providing subsidy to farmers
By
Karthika Suresh Namboothiri
BENGALURU,
Sept 26 (Reuters) - Indian rice export prices slipped this week as demand from
Africa was subdued, while shipments from Thailand remained sluggish due to a
strong baht.
Prices
of 5% broken parboiled variety RI-INBKN5-P1 in top exporter India were quoted
at around $371-$375 per tonne this week, down from $373-$379 a week ago.
Demand
from African countries has been muted for the last few weeks, even as export
prices have corrected, said an exporter based at Kakinada in the southern
Indian state of Andhra Pradesh.
India’s
rice exports plunged 26.5% in April-July from a year ago to 3.14 million
tonnes, a government body said earlier this month.
In
Thailand, a strong baht, Asia’s best performing currency in 2019, has kept away
potential buyers who find cheaper markets elsewhere, such as in Vietnam. Thai
exporters have struggled to sell the staple since the beginning of the year.
The
country’s benchmark 5-percent broken rice RI-THBKN5-P1 prices were quoted at
$400-$420 a tonne on Thursday, compared to $400-$418 last week.
“The
price is only fluctuating due to the exchange rate at the moment as both demand
and supply remain unchanged,” a Bangkok-based trader said.
Concerns
over supply also persist due to floods in northeastern Thailand that have
damaged agricultural land, including some rice-growing areas. This has not had
an immediate impact on prices though, traders said.
“Buyers
seem to be heading to Vietnam as Thai prices are a lot higher,” a trader based
in Ho Chi Minh City said.
“We
think that prices have bottomed and that domestic supplies have gone low as the
summer-autumn harvest has ended.”
In
Vietnam, rates for 5% broken rice RI-VNBKN5-P1 rose to $335 a tonne on Thursday
from $325 a week earlier, which was its lowest since November 2007.
Preliminary
data showed at least 37,100 tonnes of rice is scheduled to be loaded at Ho Chi
Minh City ports during Oct. 1-9, with most of the shipments bound for West
Africa and Malaysia, according to traders.
Meanwhile,
Bangladesh is considering providing a subsidy to farmers, who suffered a double
blow of low rice prices and high harvesting costs, in an effort to reduce
production costs and boost domestic output, Agriculture Minister Abdur Razzaque
told Reuters on Thursday.
“To
make it profitable, we must use more machinery because the labour price is very
high. We’ll provide (a) subsidy to help farmers buy modern machinery so that they
minimize labour costs for production,” he said.
Dhaka
has been unable to clinch overseas deals since a long-standing export ban was
lifted in May as its rice is more expensive than India’s or Thailand’s, despite
a recent fall in local prices.
Reporting
by Khanh Vu in Hanoi, Panu Wongcha-um in Bangkok, Ruma Paul in Dhaka and
Rajendra Jadhav in Mumbai; Editing by Susan Fenton
(Repeats
story that ran on Thursday, with no changes)
* Muted demand for Indian rice despite price correction
* Vietnamese rice rates edge up from 12-year low
* Exporters in Vietnam benefit from higher Thai rates
* Dhaka considering providing subsidy to farmers
By Karthika Suresh Namboothiri
BENGALURU, Sept 26 (Reuters) - Indian rice export prices slipped
this week as demand from Africa was subdued, while shipments from Thailand
remained sluggish due to a strong baht.
Prices of 5% broken parboiled variety <RI-INBKN5-P1> in top
exporter India were quoted at around $371-$375 per tonne this week, down from
$373-$379 a week ago.
Demand from African countries has been muted for the last few
weeks, even as export prices have corrected, said an exporter based at Kakinada
in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh.
India's rice exports plunged 26.5% in April-July from a year ago
to 3.14 million tonnes, a government body said earlier this month.
In Thailand, a strong baht, Asia's best performing currency in
2019, has kept away potential buyers who find cheaper markets elsewhere, such
as in Vietnam. Thai exporters have struggled to sell the staple since the
beginning of the year.
The country's benchmark 5-percent broken rice <RI-THBKN5-P1>
prices were quoted at $400-$420 a tonne on Thursday, compared to $400-$418 last
week.
"The price is only fluctuating due to the exchange rate at
the moment as both demand and supply remain unchanged," a Bangkok-based
trader said.
Concerns over supply also persist due to floods in northeastern
Thailand that have damaged agricultural land, including some rice-growing
areas. This has not had an immediate impact on prices though, traders said.
"Buyers seem to be heading to Vietnam as Thai prices are a
lot higher," a trader based in Ho Chi Minh City said.
"We think that prices have bottomed and that domestic
supplies have gone low as the summer-autumn harvest has ended."
In Vietnam, rates for 5% broken rice <RI-VNBKN5-P1> rose to
$335 a tonne on Thursday from $325 a week earlier, which was its lowest since
November 2007.
Preliminary data showed at least 37,100 tonnes of rice is
scheduled to be loaded at Ho Chi Minh City ports during Oct. 1-9, with most of
the shipments bound for West Africa and Malaysia, according to traders.
Meanwhile, Bangladesh is considering providing a subsidy to
farmers, who suffered a double blow of low rice prices and high harvesting
costs, in an effort to reduce production costs and boost domestic output,
Agriculture Minister Abdur Razzaque told Reuters on Thursday.
"To make it profitable, we must use more machinery because
the labour price is very high. We'll provide (a) subsidy to help farmers buy
modern machinery so that they minimize labour costs for production," he
said.
Dhaka has been unable to clinch overseas deals since a
long-standing export ban was lifted in May as its rice is more expensive than
India's or Thailand's, despite a recent fall in local prices.
(Reporting by Khanh Vu in Hanoi, Panu Wongcha-um in Bangkok, Ruma
Paul in Dhaka and Rajendra Jadhav in Mumbai; Editing by Susan Fenton)
THE
Agriculture department has given away P135.4 million worth of farming equipment
to rice and corn farmers in Iloilo, it said in a statement yesterday.
Farmers
received 27 hand tractors, 20 rice threshers, 20 pump engines, a corn sheller,
two walk-behind transplanters and a ride-on transplanter. Agriculture Secretary
William D. Dar led the distribution on Sept. 24, which also included four
floating tillers, four mini four-wheel tractors and two mobile dryers.
The
National Food Authority of Western Visayas also gave away farming machinery to
cooperatives that help procure palay or unmilled rice to ensure the country has
enough rice buffer stock.
The
equipment included 15 mobile dryers, 11 mini four-wheel tractors, 11 combine
harvesters, 11 transplanters and 250 granule applicators.
Mr. Dar
encouraged farmers to form cooperatives so they will have “leveraging powers”
and help develop the agriculture sector.
The
Agriculture department has distributed P675,000 financial assistance to
farmers, while the Philippine Crop Insurance Corp. has awarded P147 million in
insurance coverage, the agency said. — Vincent Mariel P. Galang
Producing sustainable food is every company’s
business
Brought to you by
·
Collaborative effort: business leaders
must work together to re-think global food systemsCREDIT: GETTY
·
Businesses
of all kinds must be prepared to help re-imagine the world’s food system, which
is not fit for purpose
Are you reading this with a cup of coffee, a piece of chocolate
or maybe even a protein bar with nuts and puffed rice? There is a good
chance that the coffee beans, cocoa, nuts or rice were bought or grown, and
then processed, by my company, Olam.
We may not be a household
name, but we supply manufacturers with the ingredients to make the brands you
know.
Before reaching your cup or
plate, every coffee or cocoa bean, nut and grain of rice, carries a whole
backstory – which, in many cases, needs to change. The Earth’s resource
boundaries are already being breached, exacerbated by poor farming practices,
and we are due to add another two billion people by 2050. The world’s global
commons that sustain us all are in peril.
Bright outlook: Sunny Verghese, co-founder and group chief executive of
Olam International
Meanwhile, many farmers on
low incomes are at the mercy of supply-and-demand economics. Although two
billion cups of coffee are consumed worldwide every day, and
the price of a cappuccino can now approach £3, millions of small-scale coffee
farmers are not making a living.
Of course, a huge
proportion of the responsibility lies with companies such as Olam, and our
peers and manufacturing and retail customers, to drive better environmental
practices and improve livelihoods across our supply chains. But business
leaders beyond our sector must realise that they too can help reimagine global
food systems.
Much of the food and
ingredients that Olam supplies to multinational brands are grown by an
estimated 4.8 million smallholder farmers from whom we buy either directly or
via intermediaries.
Many live in tiny rural
villages in countries such as Ivory Coast and Uganda, often with no electricity
or running water – and are sometimes even unable to count properly because of
lack of schooling.
Low knowledge of good
agricultural practices impacts yields and the environment. Despite Olam being
based in these regions, we simply do not have the resources to reach every
single farmer with sustainability practices and income support
programmes.
Please do think about how your
activities may directly or indirectly affect the farmers growing the food we eat
However, we have made
headway over the years. Along with partners and certifiers, we now directly
support about 446,000 smallholders with economic and environmental training,
better seedlings and social infrastructure such as schools and clinics.
We have invested heavily in
putting structures in place under our innovative initiative AtSource, which provides our customers with the social
and environmental footprints of the products that they source from us.
All of us in the chain thus
have the information we need to make more informed decisions about the social
and environmental changes required. But we, and the rest of the sector, need to
go much further and more quickly. To do so, we also need the help of others.
Even chief executives are
consumers first. More people need to start asking questions about the food they
eat. The more they ask for sustainably produced food, the more companies across
the world will be galvanised to deliver it.
It is also important to
remember to savour food – not just for its taste but for the memory of the
farmers who have worked so hard to produce it. It is a travesty that a third of
the food we produce is lost or wasted when 821
million people go hungry every day.
Picturing farmers may make
it harder to throw their hard work in the bin, along with the invisible balloon
of greenhouse gases that is emitted as it rots.
Second, all businesses need
to see their role in food security and climate change.
Despite the emergence of
underground farms and giant hi-tech, temperature-controlled greenhouses, the
vast bulk of the world’s food is grown under the sun and is thus exposed to not
just warming temperatures but also the disease, pests, floods and drought that
the extra heat can bring.
Travesty: a third of food produced is lost or wasted while 821 million
people go hungryCREDIT: GETTY
This is compounded by the
fact that keeping global temperatures to a 2C (3.6F) increase above
pre-industrial levels is no longer enough: it needs to be 1.5C. Agriculture
must get its own house in order – it accounts for 11pc of all man-made
emissions – and other sectors must also reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.
Third, business must do
what it does well: see opportunities and identify solutions and innovations.
Tech companies, for example, are producing remarkable software to ensure that
agriculture uses the precise amount of water, fertiliser and pesticide
required.
Meanwhile, Accenture found last year that 53pc of UK
consumers “prefer to buy goods and services from companies that stand for a
shared purpose that reflects their personal values and beliefs, and are
ditching those that don’t”. Sustainable business is profitable.
Fourth, businesses can
accelerate their progress through guidance and support.
I chair the World Business
Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), a CEO-led organisation of more
than 200 leading businesses such as Nestlé, Unilever, Santander, Toyota and
Microsoft that are working together on the transition to a more sustainable
world and helping sustainable companies become more successful. Much of their
combined experience is available as free guides on the WBCSD website.
Finally, companies do not
have to do everything alone. Olam has benefited from many collaborations, and
these can open up opportunities for public sector funding.
The Global Environment Facility is providing $50m in
funding to support programmes that help rice farmers reduce emissions of
methane, a gas far more potent than carbon dioxide in climate change.
There has been much debate
about whether business should only focus on creating value for shareholders or
whether it also has a responsibility to preserve our planet and ensure progress
for the wider society to which it belongs.
Please do think about how
your activities may directly or indirectly affect the farmers growing the food
we eat – and help us reimagine our shared future.
Reading Time: 3 minutes 
Of the major food crops, only
rice is currently able to survive flooding. Thanks to new NSF-funded research, that could soon change — good
news for a world in which rains are increasing in both frequency and
intensity.The research, published in Science, studied how other crops compare to rice when
submerged in water. The study found that a wild-growing tomato, a tomato used
for farming, and a plant similar to alfalfa all share at least 68 families of
genes that are activated in response to flooding.
Many Cambodian farmers have started to grow their vegetables
inside nethouses where the plants can be physically protected from pests and
damaging torrential rain. Horticulture Innovation Lab researchers first
proposed nets for pest management in Cambodia based on experience in Kenya
where the nets were low to the ground, but farmers here wanted to be able to
walk inside. Photo credit: Max Fannin for UC Davis
UC Davis researcher Karen LeGrand, center, discusses new features
of a nethouse on a farm near Battambang with graduate students from Cambodia's
Royal University of Agriculture. Photo credit: Max Fannin for UC Davis
A worker at Natural Agriculture Village in Phnom Penh brings in
vegetables to begin repackaging for distribution to grocery stores. The
company's 'safe vegetable' displays in stores often include images of nethouses
to explain the growing practices that yields premium, pesticide-free
vegetables. Photo credit: Brenda Dawson/UC Davis
A girl rides her bike along a smooth new village road and past a
nethouse under construction, both investments made possible by her family's
profits from vegetables sold through the packinghouse cooperative. Photo
credit: Max Fannin for UC Davis
Lach Song, center left, guides a box of freshly packed vegetables
onto a cart to wait for a late-night bus pickup that will deliver the farmers'
vegetables from this packinghouse near Battambang to markets in Phnom Penh.
Photo credit: Max Fannin for UC Davis
Farmers Nob Non, right, and Cheang Sophat, left, move unsold
bittermelon into the packinghouse cold room to keep the vegetables fresh for
future sale. Non is president of the cooperative that owns the packinghouse and
also the first farmer to be certified for 'good agricultural practices', a
certification used commonly in export products and that is made possible by
improved technologies at the packinghouse. Photo credit: Max Fannin for UC
Davis
Cheang Sophat, left, and wife Hem Champa, far right, were able to
send their second child to college after earning more money from vegetables
grown in a nethouse. The couple is confident they will be able to send their
third child, 14-year-old Phat Daroth, second from right, to college as well.
Photo credit: Max Fannin for UC Davis
Sacks of imported rice are delivered to a rice seller at San
Andres district in Manila in this file photo.
Sep 25, 2019, 9:57pm PDT Updated Sep 26, 2019,
10:29am EDT
Energy Secretary Charles Keter has rejected Kenya Power’s bid to
increase electricity tariffs. FILE PHOTO | NMG 
File photo of wheat. Researchers have warned
wheat production may be impacted by climate change, which could impact food
prices.ISTOCK
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