CSIR-Scientists
introduce three improved rice varieties to farmers
SARI
and CRI introduced to farmers, three improved rice varieties
The Savannah Agricultural
Research Institute (SARI) in collaboration with the Crops Research Institute
(CRI) both of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) on
Thursday introduced to farmers, three improved rice varieties at Botanga in the
Northern Region. The new rice varieties comprising CRI-Mpuntuo, CRI-Dartey and CRI-Kantinka are among six varieties developed by CSIR-Crops Research Institute (CSIR-CRI) and its partners in 2017.
These varieties have qualities such as early maturing, high yielding, good grain quality, aroma and tolerant to diseases and pest encountered by rice farmers in the country.
Dr Maxwell Asante, a rice breeder at CSIR-CRI, who led a team to realise these varieties collaborated with Dr Samuel Oppong Abebrese of the CSIR-SARI to introduce the varieties to farmers and extension officers in the north. The field day was to showcase to the farmers the qualities of the varieties alongside the good agronomic practices to be adopted by farmers such as good leveling, nutrient and water management among others to obtain higher yields.
It was also to enable the farmers observe, share their views and make their preferred choice among the three improved rice varieties. This work is part of a project led by the West Africa Centre for Crop Improvement (WACCI), University of Ghana and Crops Research Institute with funding from African Union and the European Union.
Dr Samuel Oppong Abebrese, a Rice Breeder with the CSIR-SARI addressing farmers on the field, said the field trip was to help farmers compare and make their preferred choice of rice varieties in order to enable the CSIR-SARI make the seeds readily available to the farmers for cultivation.
He elaborated that, the varieties were planted alongside AGRA Rice, a rice variety farmers have been cultivating over the years and said it is used as a bench mark for the farmers to compare with the three new varieties.
Dr Abebrese said CRI-Dartey had a potential yield of about 9.0 tons per hectare, matures within 125-130 days and is tolerant to diseases, whereas CRI-Mpuntuo had a yield potential of about 8.0 tonnes per hectare, aromatic and matures within 120 days.
He added that CRI-Kantinka has a yield potential of about 8.5 tons per hectare, aromatic and matures within 115-120 days.
He advised the farmers that cultivating the varieties goes with adopting good agronomic practices such as leveling of fields before cultivation, nursing and transplanting the single seedling within a spacing of 20 cm by 20 cm instead of broadcasting, as well as ensure proper irrigation and appropriate fertilizer application among others.
He called for conscious efforts between government and other stakeholders as well as the citizenry to help encourage patronage and consumption of locally produced rice through improved marketing and branding.
Majority of the famers, after examining the varieties, showed high interest in the qualities contained in CRI-Dartey compared to the other two varieties introduced.
Mr Mohammed Issahaku Alhassan, a farmer in Botanga, said though the three varieties were doing well in terms of yield, he preferred the CRI-Dartey Rice variety since it had higher yielding potential of about 9 tons per hectare and could compete with the AGRA rice if introduced onto the market. "Some of us are seed growers and we have been using AGRA and Jasmine rice to farm but now with the introduction of the CRI-Dartey and the other two, I have realised that there is a potential of high yield and can compete with AGRA rice especially the CRI-Dartey rice " he said.
Mrs Salima Abdullai, said she started farming for three years now but comparing the AGRA rice and the other three rice varieties, she preferred CRI-Dartey Rice because it had brighter and healthier grains as compared to the other varieties.
She, however, said women farmers in the community were faced with the lack of finance, which affected their engagement in larger rice farm production and appealed for support.
Mr Adam Mahama, also a farmer, however, said he preferred the CRI-Kantinka to the other two varieties considering its aromatic content, high yielding and grain quality.
He said most rice consumers in the country preferred rice varieties containing good aroma and the CRI-Kantinka is likely to compete with AGRA Rice when introduced into the market
‘Adopt new technique to conserve water in
paddy cultivation’
TIRUCHI, DECEMBER
06, 2019 20:02 IST
Farmers being oriented to the ‘Alternate wetting and drying
irrigation’ technique at a field session at Sirugamani in Musiri block in
Tiruchi district recently. | Photo Credit: Handout
By adopting AWDI technique, farmers can save up to 30 % of water
without compromising on rice productivity
A group of farmers of Kallur in
Musiri block in the district were exposed to ‘Alternate wetting and drying
irrigation’ (AWDI) technique in paddy, which could help in substantial water
conservation.
The farmers were oriented to the
technique at a training and demonstration session organised under the Tamil Nadu Irrigated Agriculture Modernisation
Project being jointly implemented by Water Technology Centre (WTC), Tamil Nadu
Agricultural University (TNAU) and Sugarcane Research Station, Sirugamani under
Aiyyar Sub-basin which covers parts of Musiri, Thathaiyengarpet, Uppilliyapuram
and Thuraiyur blocks in Tiruchi district.
Under AWDI technique, a PVC water
tube (of 40 cm in length and 15 cm diameter) with holes drilled on it is sunk
into the rice field. The pipe, referred to as Pani pipe is installed in such a
way that the bottom 20 cm of perforated portion remains below the soil surface
and the non-perforated 10 cm above the surface. The perforations permit the water
to come inside the tube from the soil, where a scale is used to measure water
depth below the soil surface. When the water level drops 15 cm below the soil
surface, the field can be irrigated again.
By adopting AWDI technique,
farmers can save up to 30 % of water without compromising on rice productivity,
a press release from the Sugarcane Research Station. About 20 hectares of area
under Aiyyar Sub-basins are being covered for demonstration of AWDI in
selections villages in Musiri, Thathaiyengarpet, Uppilliyapuram and Thuraiyur
bocks.
The training at Kallur on
Thursday was inaugurated by L.Chithra, Professor and Head, Sugarcane Research
Station, Sirugamani. The scientist in-charge of the scheme R. Nageswari,
Assistant Professor (Agronomy), briefed the farmers on the technique and
conducted a field demonstration.
M. Mathialagan and S. Mohan,
Scientists, Sugarcane Research Station, elaborated on management of common
pests and diseases in paddy. S. Ramesh, Agriculture Officer, Musiri block,
urged the farmers to adopt the new technique to conserve water.
Rise of the black paddy
Nutritious and backed by research and
patronage, black paddy varieties enjoy the pride of place in farmers’ fields
- Dec 07 2019, 01:00am ist
- updated: Dec 07 2019, 01:00am ist
Young scientists Ullas M Y and Keerthan (left)
at Organic Farming Research Centre (OFRC), Shivamogga work on the conservation
and propagation of unique black paddyvarieties. Photos by author
Najarabad variety of black paddy
Raw black rice is used in making payasam
Three decades into the revival of heirloom
seeds, farmers across the state have preserved hundreds
of paddy varieties, not only those indigenous but also those from other parts
of the country and the world. As a result, the paddy fields of these custodians
turn into a mosaic of colours and shapes during the harvest season which falls
in November and December.
Of them, some colours, mainly black, stand out. Consider Shivamogga. Many stretches of paddy fields in the district look black these days, thanks to the renaissance of black rice brought about by the Organic Farming Research Centre (OFRC), Shivamogga.
The centre is popularising heritage varieties among farmers along with research in the field.
Growing black rice, which has its roots in north-east India, is becoming popular in other regions as well, among farmers. It’s extensively grown in Odisha, West Bengal and Jharkhand and commonly consumed in Manipur.
This variety is learnt to have emerged out of imperial China. Popular history says only royal families consumed it.
Standing out
Prominent varieties of black paddy include Kari Munduga,
Karingellu, Kari Jeddu and Navaradanta. Rice of these varieties weighs more.
The husk is black, while the rice is red.The husk of Kari Gajovoli, Kagisale and Kalajeeradanta are dark black, while the rice is white. These are aromatic.
This year, OFRC had prepared 248 plots of native paddy. Out of them, 20 varieties are black rice. The leaves of Dambarasali and Nazarabad are dark brown, like the flame on the rice field. Grain is in golden colour. This colour variation helps the paddy art.
Gandu Bhatta, a crop that resembles paddy, is a weed that grows in paddy fields and affects the crop. It takes farmers for a ride as it’s difficult to notice its existence till the paddy flowers.
Farmers in and around Sorab and Sagar follow a method to address this challenge. They grow Nyaremida, a variety of black rice. Since the colour of Gandu Bhatta is green and that of Nyaremida black, it becomes easy for farmers to identify and clear the Gandu Bhatta. The peculiarity of some varieties of black rice is that its roots, stems, leaves and panicles are all black in colour. Chak-hao in Manipur, Karapu Kavani in Tamil Nadu, Kalabhat in Maharashtra, Kalabhati in Odisha and Burma Black in northeast states are other prominent varieties of black rice.
All these varieties are available at paddy plots of OFRC.
The husk of Kalabati variety is purple, while the rice is black. Leaves and husks of Chak-hao are light black in colour. Rice of this variety is dark black in colour.Plants of Burma Black variety look green, while the rice is black. This variety of rice is sticky and aromatic.
Sweet dishes prepared using these varieties are known for their taste. There is no need to add cardamom to the dishes as most of these varieties are aromatic.
Win-win
According to Somesh, the chief executive officer of Sahaja
Organics, a farmer producer company, there is a demand for black rice. One
kilogram of black rice is sold for Rs 200 in Bengaluru’s organic outlets. In
turn, farmers get a good price.Krishna, an organic farmer in Mandya, has been marketing black rice without any glitch for the past few years. In Belagavi, Shankar Langati has been cultivating black varieties for the past two decades.
He sows seeds in such a manner that the field looks artistic when the crop grows. The black rice has many nutritional, medicinal properties. Researches have found that black rice contains more Vitamin B and E, niacin, iron, calcium, magnesium and zinc. It has a high amount of dietary fibre and the grains have a nutty taste.
It actives detoxifying enzymes. Most of the black varieties are used to make sweet dishes.
It is known to kill cancerous cells (apoptosis), has anti-inflammatory properties and anti-angiogenesis effects. According to Pradeep S, head of the OFRC, this variety gets its dark black or purplish colour because it is rich in anthocyanins, which are powerful antioxidants. “Because of their medicinal properties, there is a good demand for these varieties. Hence, there is a special focus on research on black varieties,” he said.
Kalabati, a variety of black rice, is predominantly grown in Odisha. It grows up to 5 to 6.5 feet in height and changes its colour every week.
Young scientists Ullas M Y and Keerthan, who are working on the conservation and propagation of these unique varieties, stress that the centre encourages farmers to experiment with these varieties by distributing seeds and providing necessary guidance.
M K Naik, vice chancellor, University of Agricultural and Horticultural Sciences, Shivamogga, said, “Black varieties grown in flood-prone and drought-prone regions are special. The university has taken up characterisation and nutritional analysis of these special varieties.”
The centre also houses a paddy museum where heritage paddy varieties are displayed with information about their origin and cultivation.
Cooking tips
Black rice is generally sticky in nature and good for making payasam
Black Rice Payasam Recipe
Ingredients
1 cup black rice
1.2 cup jaggery powder/jaggery
2 teaspoons ghee ( optional)
Preparation
Wash the rice and soak it overnight ( 10-12 hours). Cook the rice with water (1:3 ) in a pressure cooker. Take the rice out of the cooker and add the jaggery/jaggery powder and slowly cook in an open vessel, till the jaggery and rice mix well. When it’s sticky in consistency and shiny in appearance, it will retain a chewy texture.
KVK, Sonitpur organized programmes under APART
December
7, 2019 1:09 pm
A Correspondent
Tezpur: KVK, Sonitpur organized two programmes under APART namely
“Training on Post Harvest Machineries” and “Training and demonstration on Rice
Value Chain” in collaboration with International Rice Research Institute (IRRI)
at KVK, Tezpur Napam Campus respectively.
The Head, KVK, Sonitpur Dr.
Pramod Chandra Deka, welcomed the farmers and dignitaries on both the
occasions. He also emphasized the importance of agricultural machineries in the
context of present agriculture. Prakash Chandra Bora, District
Agriculture Officer, Sonitpur elaborated about the different schemes of the
Govt. by which the farmers can avail the subsidies in purchasing those
agricultural machineries and tools.
Sauraj J. Baishya, post harvest
specialist, IRRI, acted as a resource person who presented the technical
knowhow of different agricultural machineries and tools. Baishya also explained
the farmers about the functioning of some of the machineries and tools provided
to the KVK, Sonitpur under the APART project. The farmers showed keen interest
on machineries showcased in the programme. A short interactive session was also
held between the farmers, APART staff and scientists of KVK, Sonitpur regarding
different aspects of agriculture. Around fifty farmers from different parts of
the district and all officials of KVK, Sonitpur attended the programme. The
programme ended with a vote of thanks by Roji Chutia, SMS (Agronomy), KVK,
Sonitpur.
PFAG supports government's decision to
ban rice importation
Friday 6th December, 2019
Accra, Dec. 6
GNA - The Peasant Farmers Association of Ghana (PFAG) has supported
government's decision to ban importation of rice by 2022.The Association in statement signed by Mr.
Abdul- Rahman Mohammed, National President and Board Chairman of PFAG has,
therefore called for show of commitment and steps to be put in place for
immediate ban rather than wait until 2022.
It said adopting Nigeria’s food importation ban concept
would not only help to reduce Ghana’s import bill, but create employment
opportunities in Ghana and stabilise the cedi.
"Concrete measures need therefore, to be put in
place to commence ban on imports such as reduction in 2020 rice imports,"
it added.
The statement commended government for setting aside a
day to appreciate the contribution of farmers to the growth and development of
the country.
The 35th edition of Farmer's Day is on the theme:
“Enhancing Small Scale Agriculture towards Agribusiness Development.”
The Association has therefore congratulated all
smallholder farmers especially those, who would be awarded prices at the local
level.
It said government should direct for institutional
purchase of local rice by as the school feeding programme, free SHS, the
Military and Para institutions.
It said government should mandate all banks to
increase their loan portfolio with low interest rate on agriculture.
The statement said, critical issues on the eve of this
year's celebration have taken the spirit off the theme.
It said smallholder rice farmers, who were keen in
agribusiness were apprehensive and despondent as the rice they produced during
the last crop season lies waste and possibly to the vagaries of harmattan bush
fires.
"Farmers are confronted with lack of access to
combine harvesters, lack of storage and exploitation by traders, who have taken
advantage of the desperate situation," he added.
It said the National Food Buffer Stock had announced
plans to mop up the surplus rice by providing minimum guarantee prices to
farmers, but has not materialised leaving the rice farmers to their fate.
It said Ghanaian farmers have proven their ability to
produce enough rice to meet domestic consumption.
The statement said this was manifested by the drastic
increase in rice production in 2019 of which greater quantities still remain
unharvested due to lack of harvesting equipment and guaranteed market.
Unfortunately, only 34 per cent of Ghanaians consume
Ghana rice, while 680, 000 tonnes of rice costing $500 million is imported
annually.
The Association believes that the high appetite for
imported rice has significantly contributed to rice millers lacking market for
Ghana rice leading to the current rice glut in Northern Ghana.
"This phenomenon if not addressed with the
urgency it deserves, can worsen the poverty situation of smallholder farmers
and majority of rural people, who still rank as the poorest in the country and
thereby negatively impacting on the successes the nation chalked in recent times
on the campaign against poverty and food insecurity," it added.
The statement has therefore recommended to government
to explore new technologies to address aflatoxin and other post-harvest
challenges in rice production.
It said government should bring storage facilities
closer to rice farming areas by first completing the One District, One
Warehouse programme, commission the completed ones and set up temporary cocoons
in the communities.
Warmer Temperatures Will Increase Arsenic Levels in Rice, Study
Shows
Researchers at the University of
Washington have found that warmer temperatures, at levels expected under most
climate change projections, can lead to higher concentrations of arsenic in
rice grains
| December 06, 2019
University of Washington researchers found that warmer
temperatures, at levels expected under most climate change projections, can
lead to higher concentrations of arsenic in rice grains.CREDIT: MARK STONE/UNIVERSITY OF
WASHINGTON
People around the world consume
rice in their daily diets. But in addition to its nutrient and caloric content,
rice can contain small amounts of arsenic, which in large doses is a toxin
linked to multiple health conditions and dietary-related cancers.
Now researchers at the University of Washington have
found that warmer temperatures, at levels expected under most climate change
projections, can lead to higher concentrations of arsenic in rice grains. The
team will present these findings Dec. 10 at the American Geophysical Union's Fall Meeting in
San Francisco.
University of Washington researchers found that warmer
temperatures, at levels expected under most climate change projections, can
lead to higher concentrations of arsenic in rice grains. Shown here are rice
grains in Cambodia.CREDIT:
MARK STONE/UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON"We know that more arsenic
is released from soil at higher temperatures. Here we saw this response to
temperature in the soil impact the arsenic content of rice grain," said
senior author Rebecca Neumann, a UW associate professor of civil and environmental
engineering. "We were working with soil that had relatively low arsenic
levels, but the warmer temperatures still led to increased arsenic
concentrations in the grains at ranges where we begin to have health concerns.
If these results are representative of what we might expect for field-grown
rice, then climate change could exacerbate the problem of arsenic-contaminated
rice."
Arsenic occurs naturally in the
soil, though its concentration is higher in areas that have historically used
arsenic-based herbicides or where irrigation water contains arsenic. When
farmers grow crops like rice under flooded conditions, arsenic is drawn out of
the soil and into the water.
"In general, the plant is
like a big tube or a straw as it draws water up from its roots to its leaves.
And rice naturally takes up arsenic because the arsenic mimics other molecules
that these plants preferentially draw out of the soil," said lead author
Yasmine Farhat, a UW doctoral student in civil and environmental engineering. "It's
a perfect storm for concentrating arsenic."
To determine whether rice would
draw up more arsenic under warmer conditions, the team collected soil from a
paddy field in Davis, California. Back in Seattle, the researchers grew rice in
this soil in temperature-controlled growth chambers.
Related
Article: Rice Yields Plummet and Arsenic Rises in Future Climate-Soil Scenarios
They compared arsenic uptake
under four different temperature conditions. Some plants were grown under
normal conditions for that part of California: 77 degrees Fahrenheit (25 C) on
average during the day. Others were grown at incrementally warmer temperatures
reflecting different potential levels of warming for that region by the end of
this century: 82 F (28 C), 87 F (30.5 C), and 91 F (33 C). Night time
temperatures were 3.6 F (2 C) cooler than daytime for all plants.
As the temperature increased, the
team saw increased uptake of arsenic to every part of the plant the researchers
looked at—including the rice grains.
"For the stem and the
leaves, it's a clear step up in arsenic concentration as we increase the
temperature," Farhat said. "For the grains, the highest temperature
made the plants so stressed out that they didn't produce any grains. But these
other two forecasts of increasing temperature show a similar increase of
arsenic in the rice grains. Arsenic concentrations in the grain more than
tripled between the low- and high-temperature treatments."
University of Washington researchers found that warmer
temperatures, at levels expected under most climate change projections, can
lead to higher concentrations of arsenic in rice grains. Yasmine Farhat, a UW
doctoral student in civil and environmental engineering, also studies rice
quality in Cambodia.CREDIT:
MARK STONE/UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTONArsenic is a toxin for rice
plants too, and they have mechanisms to protect themselves against higher levels
of it. One method includes turning on a protein that sequesters arsenic in
specific cells and tissues of plant. But when the researchers measured
expression levels of this protein in their plants at higher temperatures, they
saw no difference compared to the plants grown at today's relatively low
temperatures.
"Maybe the arsenic
concentration was so low in our soil that the plant wasn't 'aware' it needed to
turn on its defense mechanism," Farhat said. "We haven't been as
concerned about these low-arsenic systems, but our data suggest that as
temperatures start to warm, even rice grown in soil with low arsenic could be
at risk for having higher levels of arsenic in the grains."
Some forms of arsenic are more
toxic than others. The team is now collaborating with researchers at UW Tacoma
to develop a method that would allow them to see what forms of arsenic are in
the different parts of the plant. That way, they can get a better picture of
any potential health risks to people.
"Arsenic in all forms is bad
for us, and it's bad for the plants as well," Farhat said.
"Increasing arsenic can decrease crop yield. That can be economically bad
for rice farmers. I want people to remember even if they are not eating a lot
of rice, a lot of people are heavily relying on this crop. When we're thinking
and planning for the future, we need to remember that rice touches a lot of
people and we should work together on that."
Canaries in the coal mine? North Atlantic right whale
use of key habitat changing rapidly
by Mongabay.com on 6
December 2019
· A team of
researchers with the Center for Conservation Bioacoustics at the Cornell Lab of
Ornithology and Syracuse University recently published the results of a six-year
study that focused on the North Atlantic right whales (Eubalaena glacialis) in
Massachusetts Bay, which, together with Cape Cod Bay, comprises one of seven
areas in the Gulf of Maine that the whales use during seasonal congregations.
· The team used an
automated detection algorithm to determine the presence of right whale “up‐calls” in 47,000 hours of recordings made with 19
bioacoustic recording devices deployed across 4,000 square kilometers (about
1,544 square miles) of Massachusetts Bay.
·
The number of whales present during the peak
season increased every year of the study except for 2009-2010, “when acoustic
presence was unusually low,” according to the study. But the researchers also
detected an increased presence of right whales during parts of what should be
their off‐season, from late summer to early fall. That
could have serious implications for efforts to conserve the species.
Scientists say
that behavioral changes observed in North Atlantic right whales should be
considered a “canary in the coal mine” scenario.
A team of
researchers with the Center for Conservation Bioacoustics at the Cornell Lab of
Ornithology and Syracuse University recently published the
results of a six-year study that focused on the North Atlantic
right whales (Eubalaena glacialis) in Massachusetts Bay, which, together
with Cape Cod Bay, comprises one of seven areas in the Gulf of Maine that the
whales use during seasonal congregations.
The study was
conducted between July 2007 and April 2013, which the researchers characterize
in the study as “a time of both rapid ocean warming throughout the Gulf of
Maine and apparent changes in right whale migratory dynamics.” The team used an
automated detection algorithm to determine the presence of right whale “up‐calls” in 47,000 hours of recordings made with 19
bioacoustic recording devices deployed across 4,000 square kilometers (about
1,544 square miles) of Massachusetts Bay.
In each year of
the study, the researchers found the number of up-calls peaked in late winter
and early spring as expected, since that is when the whales congregate to feed
in Cape Cod Bay, and the whales must pass through Massachusetts Bay to get
there. In fact, the number of whales present during this peak season increased
every year of the study except for 2009-2010, “when acoustic presence was
unusually low,” according to the study. But the researchers also detected an
increased presence of right whales during parts of what should be their off‐season, from late summer to early fall.
“The mean
percent of hours in which up‐calls were
detected increased every year, both during the peak season (from 38% in 2008 to
70% in 2012), and during the summer–fall season (from 2% in 2007 to 13% in 2012),”
the researchers write in the study. The increased use of Massachusetts Bay
likely reflects “broadscale changes in habitat use in other areas within the
species range,” the researchers add, hence the “canary in the coal mine”
comparison.
“The change in
right whale presence in Massachusetts Bay over the six years of the study is
striking,” lead author Russ Charif, senior bioacoustician at the Center for
Conservation Bioacoustics, said in a statement. “It’s likely linked to rapid changes in conditions
along the Atlantic Coast, especially in the Gulf of Maine, which is warming
faster than 99% of the rest of the world’s ocean surface.”
Right whales
were found to be present in Massachusetts Bay year-round, to varying degrees,
which could have serious implications for efforts to conserve the species.
The whales’
presence in Massachusetts Bay increased even as the species’ numbers continue
to decline. Entanglement in fishing gear and being struck by ships are the
biggest threats to the right whales, but the cumulative effects of changing
water temperatures, ocean noise pollution, and other stressors are contributing
to their decline. The North Atlantic right whale is listed as Endangered on
the IUCN Red List. According to the latest estimates, there are only about 400
left.
“There are
seasonal conservation measures that kick in based on our historical
understanding of where and when right whales are most often congregating,
including Massachusetts Bay,” study co-author Aaron Rice, principal ecologist
at the Center for Conservation Bioacoustics, said in a statement. “But the old patterns have changed and whales are
showing up in areas where there are no protections in place to reduce the
likelihood of ship strikes or fishing-gear entanglements.”
Charif noted
that more research is needed to determine how best to protect the endangered
species. “Our study data end in 2013 and conditions may have changed even more
since then,” he said. “We need to do more of these long-term studies if we’re
to have any hope of understanding how right whale habitat is changing because
of human activities and before it’s too late for the species to survive.”
North America right whale breaching. Photo
Credit: Susan Parks, NMFS Permit 775-1875.
CITATIONS
• Cooke, J.G.
2018. Eubalaena glacialis. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2018:
e.T41712A50380891. doi:10.2305/IUCN.UK.2018-1.RLTS.T41712A50380891.en.
Downloaded on 06 December 2019.
• Charif, R.
A., Shiu, Y., Muirhead, C. A., Clark, C. W., Parks, S. E., & Rice, A. N.
(2019). Phenological changes in North Atlantic right whale habitat use in
Massachusetts Bay. Global Change Biology. doi:10.1111/gcb.14867
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Nigeria Will Add Rice to Export
Commodities in 2 Years - Nanono
5 DECEMBER 2019
By Lawal Sherifat
The Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Sabo Nanono,
says with the phenomenal increase in rice production and processing in the
country, Nigeria will be exporting the commodity in the next two years.
The minister stated this on Thursday in Kura, Kano state during
an assessment tour of the impact of the border drill on the entire rice
production value chain.
News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports Nanono, Minister of
Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed led stakeholders and a team of
journalists on inspection of a cluster of cottage rice mills in Kura.
The team also visited four integrated rice mills in the state
which are Al-Hamad Rice, Kura Brothers Rice Mill, Tiamin Rice Ltd, and Umza
International Farms.
"The way and manner we are going in the production of rice,
in the next two years, we will start exporting rice outside the country.
"For those that are worried about the partial close of our
borders, we are not doing this to hurt the people but to protect the future of
the country, provide jobs and food sufficiency.
"Government will continue to give support to rice farmers
to achieve this goal," he said.
The minister said that Kura is an agrarian settlement known for
irrigation farming in rice, tomato, maize, and other items, mostly consumed in
the Southern part of the country.
He said farmers in Kura had, however, concentrated on rice
production following the border drill and the ban in rice importation.
Speaking in the same vein, Mohammed assured that the federal
government would continue to support the stakeholder in the rice production
value chain.
He, however, appealed to rice growers and millers not to see the
loans given to them as their own "share of the national cake".
"They must understand that when loans are not paid back, it
will be difficult for them and others to get more loans," he said.
Alhaji Ali Idris, Chairman Kura Rice Processing and Marketing
Association called on the government to sustain the border closure, stressing
that Nigeria has the capacity to feed itself and the neighbouring countries.
Idris, who spoke in Hausa language, said since the closure of
the borders and the commitment of President Muhammadu Buhari to achieving
self-sufficiency on food production, his people were fully back in business.
He disclosed that over 10,000 youths in Kura Local Government
were gainfully employed in the rice production value chain and they produce
about 5000 tones of rice every day.
He commended the federal government for supporting them with
modern machines and urged the provision of polishers, de-stoners to further
enhance their production.
Another miller, Adamu Habu called on the government to sustain
the border closure because of its impact on the economy.
He said more people were being employed in the rice production
value chain and supporting the economy.
The President of Integrated Rice Millers Association in the
state, Alhaji Mohammed Umza, said the border closure had impacted positively on
the rice industry nationwide and in particular, Kano state.
He said prior to the closure, the industry had been battling
with foreign rice market forces which threatened its coexistence.
Umza said that the border closure had helped to transform the
rice value chain in Kano state and the government should sustain it.
"Kano state, by virtue of its agrarian origin has provided
a conducive atmosphere where rice milling activities thrives.
"The state has the largest concentration of integrated rice
processing mills as well as clusters of cottage rice mills scattered across
nearly all the local government in the state.
"Of the 35 registered integrated rice mills in Nigeria,
about 12 are domiciled in Kano and more are coming up, which makes Kano
undoubtedly the capital of rice processing in Nigeria.
"An estimated 5000 metric tones of finished rice is turned
out daily by the combined integrated mills and cottage mills in Kano.
"This is shared in the ratio of about 60 per cent from the
cottage mills and 40 per cent from the integrated mills.
"Combined, the mills employ about 10,000 people either
directly or indirectly," he said.
Umza urged the federal government to sustain the good work of
securing the borders and hence the economy.
He said, if the policy is sustained, the industry would continue
to grow and provide food and employment to the rapidly growing and urban
population.
vanguard
6
Million Nigerians Join Rice Producers – FG By Economic Confidential
-December 6, 2019 6 Million Nigerians Join
Rice Producers – FG Over three months after the closure 
of the nation’s borders, about six million
Nigerians, including youths, have ventured into rice farming in the country,
the Federal Government has said. The number may have risen to over 18 million
if 12.2 million farmers involved in the venture before the border closure as
provided by the Rice Farmers Association of Nigeria is added. The Minister of
Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, stated these in Kano on Thursday after a
tour of major rice mills to assess the impact of border closure. He visited the
Al-Hamsad Rice Mill, Kura Brothers Rice Mill, Tiamin Rice Ltd and Umza
International Farms, all in Kano, to ascertain how they had been grappling with
the rising demand for rice in the country. He was accompanied by the Minister
of Agriculture and Rural Development, Alhaji Sabo Nanono; rice farmers and millers
as well as officials of the Nigeria Customs Service. According to him, all
existing 34 rice mills in the country were now producing at maximum capacity
following the closure of borders. Mohammed also stated that the impact of the
border closure would hasten the country’s quest to achieve self-sufficiency in
rice production. According to him, while daily production has hit 150,000 bags,
the cycle of rice cultivation has increased from twice a year to three times a
year as a result of increase in the rice production value chain. The minister
expressed optimism that self-sufficiency in rice production would also
translate to more job opportunities for the teeming millions of unemployed
youths. He said, “Let’s start with rice farmers. Before the drill, which some
people have referred to as border closure, there were 12.2 million rice farmers
in Nigeria, according to RIFAN.
of the nation’s borders, about six million
Nigerians, including youths, have ventured into rice farming in the country,
the Federal Government has said. The number may have risen to over 18 million
if 12.2 million farmers involved in the venture before the border closure as
provided by the Rice Farmers Association of Nigeria is added. The Minister of
Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, stated these in Kano on Thursday after a
tour of major rice mills to assess the impact of border closure. He visited the
Al-Hamsad Rice Mill, Kura Brothers Rice Mill, Tiamin Rice Ltd and Umza
International Farms, all in Kano, to ascertain how they had been grappling with
the rising demand for rice in the country. He was accompanied by the Minister
of Agriculture and Rural Development, Alhaji Sabo Nanono; rice farmers and millers
as well as officials of the Nigeria Customs Service. According to him, all
existing 34 rice mills in the country were now producing at maximum capacity
following the closure of borders. Mohammed also stated that the impact of the
border closure would hasten the country’s quest to achieve self-sufficiency in
rice production. According to him, while daily production has hit 150,000 bags,
the cycle of rice cultivation has increased from twice a year to three times a
year as a result of increase in the rice production value chain. The minister
expressed optimism that self-sufficiency in rice production would also
translate to more job opportunities for the teeming millions of unemployed
youths. He said, “Let’s start with rice farmers. Before the drill, which some
people have referred to as border closure, there were 12.2 million rice farmers
in Nigeria, according to RIFAN.
“The
farmers were cultivating rice twice a year. Now, many rice farmers across the
country have started three-times-a-year cultivation in order to meet the
increasing demand. This is phenomenal. “Not only that, at least six million
people, mostly youths, are now venturing into rice production, meaning that we
could hit 18 million rice farmers in no time if the present trend continues.
This is positive fallout of the border drill. Also, some farmers are now going
beyond rice farming and venturing into buying rice paddies and even packaging
and marketing. In fact, young farmers are buying small rice mills and
off-taking rice paddies from rice farms.” Read more at: https://economicconfidential.com/2019/12/6m-nigerian-join-rice-producers/
CSIR-Scientists
introduce three improved rice varieties to farmers
SARI and CRI
introduced to farmers, three improved rice varieties
General News of Friday, 6
December 2019
Source: GNA
The
Savannah Agricultural Research Institute (SARI) in collaboration with the Crops
Research Institute (CRI) both of the Council for Scientific and Industrial
Research (CSIR) on Thursday introduced to farmers, three improved rice
varieties at Botanga in the Northern Region.
The new rice varieties comprising CRI-Mpuntuo, CRI-Dartey and CRI-Kantinka are among six varieties developed by CSIR-Crops Research Institute (CSIR-CRI) and its partners in 2017.
These varieties have qualities such as early maturing, high yielding, good grain quality, aroma and tolerant to diseases and pest encountered by rice farmers in the country.
Dr Maxwell Asante, a rice breeder at CSIR-CRI, who led a team to realise these varieties collaborated with Dr Samuel Oppong Abebrese of the CSIR-SARI to introduce the varieties to farmers and extension officers in the north. The field day was to showcase to the farmers the qualities of the varieties alongside the good agronomic practices to be adopted by farmers such as good leveling, nutrient and water management among others to obtain higher yields.
It was also to enable the farmers observe, share their views and make their preferred choice among the three improved rice varieties. This work is part of a project led by the West Africa Centre for Crop Improvement (WACCI), University of Ghana and Crops Research Institute with funding from African Union and the European Union.
Dr Samuel Oppong Abebrese, a Rice Breeder with the CSIR-SARI addressing farmers on the field, said the field trip was to help farmers compare and make their preferred choice of rice varieties in order to enable the CSIR-SARI make the seeds readily available to the farmers for cultivation.
He elaborated that, the varieties were planted alongside AGRA Rice, a rice variety farmers have been cultivating over the years and said it is used as a bench mark for the farmers to compare with the three new varieties.
Dr Abebrese said CRI-Dartey had a potential yield of about 9.0 tons per hectare, matures within 125-130 days and is tolerant to diseases, whereas CRI-Mpuntuo had a yield potential of about 8.0 tonnes per hectare, aromatic and matures within 120 days.
He added that CRI-Kantinka has a yield potential of about 8.5 tons per hectare, aromatic and matures within 115-120 days.
He advised the farmers that cultivating the varieties goes with adopting good agronomic practices such as leveling of fields before cultivation, nursing and transplanting the single seedling within a spacing of 20 cm by 20 cm instead of broadcasting, as well as ensure proper irrigation and appropriate fertilizer application among others.
He called for conscious efforts between government and other stakeholders as well as the citizenry to help encourage patronage and consumption of locally produced rice through improved marketing and branding.
Majority of the famers, after examining the varieties, showed high interest in the qualities contained in CRI-Dartey compared to the other two varieties introduced.
Mr Mohammed Issahaku Alhassan, a farmer in Botanga, said though the three varieties were doing well in terms of yield, he preferred the CRI-Dartey Rice variety since it had higher yielding potential of about 9 tons per hectare and could compete with the AGRA rice if introduced onto the market. "Some of us are seed growers and we have been using AGRA and Jasmine rice to farm but now with the introduction of the CRI-Dartey and the other two, I have realised that there is a potential of high yield and can compete with AGRA rice especially the CRI-Dartey rice " he said.
Mrs Salima Abdullai, said she started farming for three years now but comparing the AGRA rice and the other three rice varieties, she preferred CRI-Dartey Rice because it had brighter and healthier grains as compared to the other varieties.
She, however, said women farmers in the community were faced with the lack of finance, which affected their engagement in larger rice farm production and appealed for support.
Mr Adam Mahama, also a farmer, however, said he preferred the CRI-Kantinka to the other two varieties considering its aromatic content, high yielding and grain quality.
He said most rice consumers in the country preferred rice varieties containing good aroma and the CRI-Kantinka is likely to compete with AGRA Rice when introduced into the market
The new rice varieties comprising CRI-Mpuntuo, CRI-Dartey and CRI-Kantinka are among six varieties developed by CSIR-Crops Research Institute (CSIR-CRI) and its partners in 2017.
These varieties have qualities such as early maturing, high yielding, good grain quality, aroma and tolerant to diseases and pest encountered by rice farmers in the country.
Dr Maxwell Asante, a rice breeder at CSIR-CRI, who led a team to realise these varieties collaborated with Dr Samuel Oppong Abebrese of the CSIR-SARI to introduce the varieties to farmers and extension officers in the north. The field day was to showcase to the farmers the qualities of the varieties alongside the good agronomic practices to be adopted by farmers such as good leveling, nutrient and water management among others to obtain higher yields.
It was also to enable the farmers observe, share their views and make their preferred choice among the three improved rice varieties. This work is part of a project led by the West Africa Centre for Crop Improvement (WACCI), University of Ghana and Crops Research Institute with funding from African Union and the European Union.
Dr Samuel Oppong Abebrese, a Rice Breeder with the CSIR-SARI addressing farmers on the field, said the field trip was to help farmers compare and make their preferred choice of rice varieties in order to enable the CSIR-SARI make the seeds readily available to the farmers for cultivation.
He elaborated that, the varieties were planted alongside AGRA Rice, a rice variety farmers have been cultivating over the years and said it is used as a bench mark for the farmers to compare with the three new varieties.
Dr Abebrese said CRI-Dartey had a potential yield of about 9.0 tons per hectare, matures within 125-130 days and is tolerant to diseases, whereas CRI-Mpuntuo had a yield potential of about 8.0 tonnes per hectare, aromatic and matures within 120 days.
He added that CRI-Kantinka has a yield potential of about 8.5 tons per hectare, aromatic and matures within 115-120 days.
He advised the farmers that cultivating the varieties goes with adopting good agronomic practices such as leveling of fields before cultivation, nursing and transplanting the single seedling within a spacing of 20 cm by 20 cm instead of broadcasting, as well as ensure proper irrigation and appropriate fertilizer application among others.
He called for conscious efforts between government and other stakeholders as well as the citizenry to help encourage patronage and consumption of locally produced rice through improved marketing and branding.
Majority of the famers, after examining the varieties, showed high interest in the qualities contained in CRI-Dartey compared to the other two varieties introduced.
Mr Mohammed Issahaku Alhassan, a farmer in Botanga, said though the three varieties were doing well in terms of yield, he preferred the CRI-Dartey Rice variety since it had higher yielding potential of about 9 tons per hectare and could compete with the AGRA rice if introduced onto the market. "Some of us are seed growers and we have been using AGRA and Jasmine rice to farm but now with the introduction of the CRI-Dartey and the other two, I have realised that there is a potential of high yield and can compete with AGRA rice especially the CRI-Dartey rice " he said.
Mrs Salima Abdullai, said she started farming for three years now but comparing the AGRA rice and the other three rice varieties, she preferred CRI-Dartey Rice because it had brighter and healthier grains as compared to the other varieties.
She, however, said women farmers in the community were faced with the lack of finance, which affected their engagement in larger rice farm production and appealed for support.
Mr Adam Mahama, also a farmer, however, said he preferred the CRI-Kantinka to the other two varieties considering its aromatic content, high yielding and grain quality.
He said most rice consumers in the country preferred rice varieties containing good aroma and the CRI-Kantinka is likely to compete with AGRA Rice when introduced into the market
Farmers Flood Fields to Give
Beleaguered Salmon a Boost
Robin Meadows
bioGraphic
bioGraphic
Dec
5
This story originally appeared in bioGraphic, an online magazine about nature
and sustainability powered by the California Academy of Sciences.
Snow geese erupt against a blue sky trimmed
with fresh, white clouds. The air is so clear you can see for miles, east to
the distant peaks of the Sierra Nevada and west to the gentle slopes of the
Coast Ranges. But Carson Jeffres and Jacob Katz are less interested in the view
above them than the one at their feet. Standing knee-deep in a flooded field at
Knaggs Ranch, a rice farm near Sacramento, they peer into a floating cage made
of PVC pipe and mesh and prepare to check on its unusual inhabitants.
Jeffres opens the top of the cage and dips in a
small net. When he pulls it out, a pair of plump fish, each the size of a pinky
finger, wriggle inside. These are young Chinook salmon—a species imperiled in
California. He holds up his catch for Katz to admire.
The two men are fish ecologists—Jeffres at the
University of California, Davis, and Katz at the conservation-based non-profit
California Trout—and they are testing a wild idea. To help save the Chinook,
they are using rice fields as winter nurseries for young salmon migrating from
their natal streams to the ocean.
Over the last century, water agencies have
built levees along most of the state’s rivers to control floods and supply
water to communities and farmers alike. But these levees also bar young Chinook
from the floodplains that historically provided safe, food-rich places to grow
on their journey to the Pacific. Today, more than half a million acres of these
former floodplains in California’s immense interior valley are occupied by rice
farms. Repurposing them as surrogate floodplains during the months they would
otherwise lie fallow could be key to restoring endangered populations of
wild-spawning Chinook.
Sponsored
“We can’t restore those floodplains,” says Rene
Henery, California science director for the conservation non-profit Trout
Unlimited, “but we can recover the functionality that the fish evolved with.”
California’s Central Valley is a flat expanse,
flanked on either side by mountain ranges, that extends 400 miles down the
middle of the state. Salmon once flourished in the streams and rivers that
course through it. “One or two million came back every year,” says Peter Moyle,
a fish ecologist at UC Davis. “They were up to 60 pounds and close to a meter
long.”
For millennia, adult Chinook in California
returned to spawn in the upper reaches of waterways that flow down from
mountains surrounding the valley. Then, when the winter rainy season caused
their natal streams to swell, the next generation of young fish would all swim
downstream toward the sea, taking advantage of the many floodplains along the
way.
The final stretch of their long journey would
begin when the fish hit the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, where the water
slows, twisting and turning around the Delta’s many islands. Migrating young
salmon have to navigate these braided waterways before making their way across
the San Francisco Bay and through the Golden Gate Strait, the iconic narrow
opening spanned by the Golden Gate Bridge that leads to the ocean.
Jacob Katz examining the siphon after
collecting a water sample to measure zooplankton in the floodplain near the
Sacramento River. (Jak Wonderly/bioGraphic)
Habitat Loss
Today, few Central Valley salmon spawn in
the wild. The region’s waterways have been completely remade into a system that
includes 20 major dams and more than 1,600 miles of riverbank levees. While
this engineered set-up tames flooding and supplies drinking and irrigation
water, these benefits to people come at a cost to salmon. Dams block entry to
the mountain streams where the fish once spawned, and levees block access to
the valley-floor floodplains where young salmon once found plentiful food and
shelter.
Across their range, Central Valley Chinook are
all classified as a single species, but for management purposes the fish are
divided into four runs according to the season when adults return from the
Pacific Ocean to spawn. Two of those runs are listed under the federal
Endangered Species Act, while the other two are considered federal populations
of concern.
Engineered rivers are almost completely to
blame. “Just as we’ve lost almost all the floodplain habitat, we’ve also lost
pretty much all of the spawning habitat,” says Brian Ellrott, the Central
Valley salmon recovery coordinator at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA), which leads the efforts to restore populations of these
fish.
“They’re just straggling along right now,”
Jeffres says. “They’re propped up by hatcheries.” State hatcheries release more
than 32 million young salmon annually, and these fish dominate all four runs of
Central Valley Chinook.
The best way to restore Chinook salmon, fish
biologists say, is to give them back some of what they’ve lost. To provide more
spawning grounds, NOAA plans to start transporting migrating adults past
Central Valley dams―from the downstream side to the upstream reaches―as is done
by wildlife agencies in the states of Washington and Oregon.
Restoration of degraded spawning grounds below
dams will also be critical to their recovery. While most salmon return to their
natal waters to spawn, a few stray in search of new homes. This penchant for
exploration allows them to revisit waterways where they had previously been
extinct for decades. Recent restoration efforts are starting to pay off: After
an absence of 70 years, Chinook now return by the hundreds to spawn in Putah
Creek, a tributary of the Sacramento River. Likewise, for the first time in
more than half a century, a couple dozen Chinook have found their way back to
historical spawning grounds in the San Joaquin River, which flows from the
Sierra Nevada to the Delta.
'Fish abundance
equals water security. It doesn’t have to be fish versus farms―it can be fish
and farms.'Jacob Katz, fish ecologist
Restoring floodplain nurseries is a harder
problem to solve, since this habitat has been more dramatically altered and
requires changes on a much larger scale. Repurposing rice fields in the
off-season may be a big part of the answer, and NOAA is supportive of the
effort. “We’re pushing to make that happen,” Ellrott says. “Salmon are really
resilient―I’m optimistic that if we give them the right nudge, we can restore
them in the valley.”
Restorationists have good reason to think that
prime nursery grounds are vital to the long-term survival of the region’s
salmon. The most robust population of spring-run Chinook originates in Butte
Creek, which runs along a wildlife refuge that contains some of the valley’s
few remaining floodplains. The Butte Creek salmon population is wild-spawning
and self-sustaining. “It’s the one successful population of spring-run salmon,”
Jeffres says. Young salmon here are more likely to make it out to sea, and the
adults more likely to return and spawn.
A probable reason for Butte Creek’s success is
that it gives Chinook a place to grow and thrive. The creek’s young fish are
larger than those elsewhere in the valley, and being bigger presumably boosts
survival. “It makes the salmon more resilient,” Katz says, just like packing
lunch before a long trip.
Restored wetlands from the air. This area is
adjacent to the sample area. (Jak Wonderly/bioGraphic)
SPONSORED
Understanding Floodplain Value
Before researchers understood the value of
floodplains, they considered them risky for fish. “Wildlife biologists thought
floodplains were bad for salmon because they stranded them, and that levees
were good for salmon because they kept them in the river,” Moyle says. “It was
pretty much unquestioned.”
It’s only in the last two decades that this
conventional wisdom has been overturned. The first evidence came from
scientists looking at the fate of young salmon in the Yolo Bypass. Built to
contain a floodplain of the Sacramento River, the Bypass is an enormous flood
control structure—about 40 miles long and two miles wide—that shunts water from
the Sacramento River around the City of Sacramento. It’s bounded on either side
by colossal, earthen levees that are more than 20 feet high and wide enough to
drive on. When the river runs high, it overtops a weir at the north end of the
levees. Water spills down inside the bypass, flooding it, then rejoins the
river at the south end of the levees.
The Yolo Bypass only fills during the winter,
and, when it does, some of the young salmon migrating downstream come along for
the ride. During particularly wet winters, the bypass is so full it looks like
an inland sea. “The floodplains are still there,” Katz says. “They’re just used
differently, as bypasses.” A 1998 study concluded that salmon swept into the
bypass grew faster than those that remained in the river.
Jeffres got similar results when he looked at
fish in the Cosumnes, one of the state’s rare, free-flowing rivers that still
has remnants of natural floodplains. In 2004, he found that young salmon in a
floodplain grew faster than those in the Cosumnes River itself.
In 2009, the California Department of Water
Resources decided to give salmon about 20,000 acres of floodplain
habitat―one-third of the total acreage―in the Yolo Bypass. Most of the land
there is privately owned and farmed for rice during the summer growing season.
That decision caught the attention of rice farmer John Brennan, who wanted to
keep fields in production in the Yolo Bypass.
Water is in short supply during the hot, dry
Central Valley summers, especially during the state’s periodic severe droughts.
Historically, the fight over this constrained resource has pitted growers
against environmental laws that require allocating water for endangered fish
like Chinook. Rather than playing this zero-sum game, Brennan has been looking
for ways to integrate conservation with agriculture. “If you’re in the rice
business, you’re in the water business―and if you’re in the water business,
you’re in the fish business,” he says.
Katz puts it this way: “Fish abundance equals
water security. It doesn’t have to be fish versus farms―it can be fish and farms.”
In 2010, Brennan joined forces with two
environmentalists to see if rice fields in the bypass could be used as salmon
nurseries during the winter, when the fields are dormant and fish are migrating
downstream. After scouting the Yolo Bypass for available properties, Brennan
and his partners settled on the rice fields of Knaggs Ranch as a chance to put
their plan into practice. They bought the ranch and assembled a research team,
starting with Jacob Katz since his father is one of Brennan’s partners. Katz
invited Jeffres to join him, and the pair has collaborated ever since.
In the winter of 2012, the researchers flooded
a five-acre corner of the ranch and released 10,000 young hatchery salmon in
the fallow field. “When we first started, lots of farmers laughed and said it
was the stupidest thing they’d ever heard,'” Jeffres says. He and Katz had
their doubts, too. “It didn’t look like fish habitat,” Jeffres says, pointing
across the ranch to their original test site. Flat brown fields stretch in all
directions, and tidy mud berms divide the land into a patchwork of close-packed
rice paddies. “We thought it might be the dumbest thing we’d ever done.”
They worried they’d end up with a field full of
dead fish. They weren’t concerned about residual pesticides, which are applied
months earlier and break down relatively quickly in the environment, but they
fretted about a host of other potential pitfalls. They thought the stagnant,
shallow water in the field might get too warm for fish or make them easy prey
for hungry birds. And they didn’t know whether the decomposition of rice
stubble, which is left on the fields after the fall harvest, would deplete
oxygen levels in the water.
At first the researchers couldn’t tell whether
anything was happening. “Out in the fields in mid-winter it looks like a mud
puddle. We couldn’t see the fish,” Katz says. “Then we ran a net through the
water and caught fish with little potbellies. It was amazing.”
Their rice-field test subjects did far more
than survive. They thrived, growing five-fold―from 1 gram to more than 5―in
just six weeks. “They grew at the highest rates recorded in the Central
Valley,” Jeffres says.
Ultimately, the scientists envision that the
young salmon, instead of being introduced into rice fields by humans, will
leave their natal waters and migrate downstream and into the bypass on their
own. To make that journey possible even if the weir hasn’t overflowed, the
California Department of Water Resources wants to add gates that can be opened
to let salmon swim in and out of the rice fields on their way to the ocean.
While there are still some barriers left to
remove, the possibility of wild-spawning, self-sustaining Chinook runs raised
on rice farms is no longer just a pipe dream. In the years since they launched
their pilot project, Jeffres and Katz have expanded their effort to encompass
20 acres and 50,000 fish, proving that it can work on a real-world scale. They
have also found that, on average, salmon reared in these rice-field nurseries
weigh 12 times more than those that grow up in the Sacramento River. The reason
for this, Jeffres says, is that there’s so much more for them to eat.
Hundreds of chinook salmon fry in a tank at the
UC Davis Marine Laboratory. (Jak Wonderly/bioGraphic)
Back at Knaggs Ranch
Jeffres wants to know just how much more food
the rice fields contain. He casts a long, white net across the shallow water of
a rice field then draws it back carefully, keeping clear of the mud. Katz tips
the contents into a plastic bag and lifts it high so they can both see.
“Holy shit! Holy shit! Holy moly!” Katz
exclaims. “I am totally astonished.”
Jeffres is equally jazzed. “That’s insane!”
Inside the plastic bag, tiny freshwater crustaceans―or
“bugs,” as the researchers call them―dart back and forth in constant motion.
The water is so thick with them that it looks like a whirling cloud of pink.
These small crustaceans are the perfect food
for young fish, and this haul is the best Katz and Jeffres have ever seen. Most
of the bugs they netted belong to the genus Daphnia, often dubbed
water fleas for the way they swim in short hops. They’re here in such abundance
because they thrive in shallow, algae-rich waters, from puddles to flooded
fields to floodplains. “It’s magic when water slows down and spreads across a
floodplain,” Katz says. “It’s liquid protein.”
Pickings are far slimmer in rivers. Katz holds
up another bag, this one netted about an hour earlier from the Sacramento
River. Just a few crustaceans scoot around inside it. “There’s basically
nothing here,” he says. “By building levees, we’ve created rivers that are
essentially food deserts.”
The Sacramento River has several flood control
bypasses, and Katz estimates that, altogether, they contain up to 150,000 acres
of rice fields that could be used as bug-rich salmon nurseries. Another 500,000
acres of rice farms lie along the Sacramento River but outside bypasses―and he
thinks they may be able to help salmon, too.
One of these is River Garden Farms, which lies
a short stretch upriver from Knaggs Ranch and is managed by Roger Cornwell.
Like Brennan, Cornwell wondered if his fields could benefit salmon, despite the
fact that the land is not in a bypass. “I met Jacob Katz and started talking to
him about what we could do,” he says. Katz proposed another wild idea, one that
could solve the food-desert problem: bug farming.
They wanted to know, Jeffres says, “If we can’t
bring the fish to the floodplain, can we bring the floodplain to the fish?”
River Garden Farms is separated from the
Sacramento River by a levee, atop which sits the Rough and Ready Pumping Plant,
which was installed in 1915 to irrigate fields. The plant houses five glossy,
black, massive pumps—each about six feet tall—which fill the pump house with a
low roar. This past winter, the team took advantage of the setup and flooded a
fallow rice field to raise bugs, then pumped the food-rich water into the
Sacramento River to feed young fish as they swam through.
To test whether the bugs would reach their
intended recipients, the researchers placed cages of young salmon at intervals
along a mile or so of the river. The Rough and Ready pumps delivered bugs
starting in late February, and Jacob Montgomery and Jennifer Kronk of
California Trout took weekly measurements of the caged fish. By late March,
when we visit, all the bugs have been pumped off the field. The field crew
pulls on their waders and heads out to the river to see if the experiment
worked.
They start at a site upstream of the pumping
plant, where the caged fish didn’t get any field-raised bugs. Montgomery and
Kronk wrestle a cage to the river’s muddy bank. Montgomery hefts the cage above
the water, revealing young salmon that flash silver as they flip back and forth
in distress. The team works fast so as to get the fish back to the river as
soon as possible. Montgomery places each fish in a tray with a ruler, splashing
it with water to keep it calm and still, and calls out the length for Kronk to
record. Then he passes it to her for weighing. When the measuring is done, he
estimates that the upstream fish averaged about 55 millimeters long and weighed
around 2 grams.
Moving downstream to the next site, Kronk
scoops up a fish collected right by the pump outfall. This site got the most
bugs delivered from the rice field―if the experiment works, they’ll see it
here.
“Oh, he’s fat,” Kronk says.
She lays it in the measuring tray. It’s 65
millimeters and 2.5 grams, considerably bigger than the upstream average. The
next fish is even fatter, at 66 mm and just over 3 g, and the one after that is
fatter still, at 71 mm and 4 g.
“Wow, look at these guys. They’re doing great,”
Montgomery says.
Although supplying bugs to fish in a
free-flowing river doesn’t guarantee delivery, a system that monitors migrating
salmon is already in place―so the researchers will know when to expect the fish
and can serve them food from the fields at just the right time. “We can pump
bugs into the river when fish are passing by,” Katz says. By spring, the salmon
will have completed their journey, and the rice fields will be drained and
ready for planting.
Rachelle Tallman, UC Davis Graduate student,
creating an incision in a salmon fry after inserting a tracking tag. (Jak
Wonderly/bioGraphic)
Fish biologists have long assumed that the
larger young salmon are when they navigate the Delta, the faster they can swim
and the better their chances of survival. “It’s a really dangerous place,”
Trout Unlimited’s Rene Henery says. “There are lots of introduced predatory
fish.” To date, however, there is no direct evidence that size is important to
survival.
“In the fish world, we say bigger fish are more
likely to make it to the ocean. But no one has actually looked at survival,”
says Rachelle Tallman, a graduate student in fish ecology at UC Davis. Tallman
is now heading up a project to do just that.
The project is part of an effort by the
California Rice Commission to incentivize farmers to manage their rice fields
in a way that benefits local wildlife. Paul Buttner, who manages environmental
affairs for the commission, currently pays farmers to flood their fields for
water birds migrating along the Pacific Flyway. He hopes to launch a similar
program for salmon that would compensate farmers for creating floodplain
nurseries for young, migrating fish. But first he needs solid proof that it
works.
“How many salmon from fields survive and go out
the Golden Gate?” Buttner asks. “More than those that grow up in the river?”
While the Rough and Ready plant was pumping
bugs into the Sacramento River, Tallman was setting up a different experiment
to assess how size affects a salmon’s success. She reared two sets of young
salmon: some in a laboratory tank and others in rice fields in the Yolo Bypass.
Now, on a warm April day near the edge of the bypass, she’s pulling fish from
the rice fields and equipping them with acoustic tags so she can compare
survival rates as they swim out to, and beyond, the Golden Gate.
Tallman stands at a fish-surgery station
sheltered by a white tent. As she slips a young salmon into a bucket of
anesthetic, she alerts her team that a surgery is in progress. “Dope!” she
calls out. A minute later the fish has stopped wriggling and Tallman springs
into action. In rapid succession, she weighs it, measures it, and places it on
a foam block. Cool water streams across the fish, which lies motionless apart
from flapping gills.
Surgical scissors in hand, Tallman cuts a small
opening in its belly and pushes a centimeter-long tag inside. She closes the
wound with a single stitch and knots both ends. “Fish out of surgery,” she
calls. A crew member collects the salmon and puts it in a recovery bucket. The
whole operation, including anesthesia, takes just two minutes. Then Tallman
picks up another fish and starts the process anew. “Dope!” she says.
Back at the lab, another crew tags tank-reared
fish. Collectively, the team tags more than 750 salmon.
A day after the surgeries, Tallman releases her
tagged salmon into the wild, sending some into the Sacramento River and some
into the Yolo Bypass, which drains into the Sacramento. About 200 underwater
acoustic receivers will track their progress.
By early May, the first tagged fish have
navigated the perils of the Delta. Now, they must traverse the San Francisco
Bay—a huge body of water that covers more than 500 square miles. But this part
of their journey is less risky. Once they’ve gotten this far, most young salmon
readily find their way across the Bay and swim through its narrow opening
beneath the Golden Gate Bridge, out into the Pacific Ocean. It will likely be
December before Tallman can crunch all the data and tell Buttner whether—and
how much—the rice field nurseries boost survival rates for the salmon. While
the final verdict is still out, Buttner says they’re all hoping for a nice
Christmas present.
The fish in Tallman’s study that do make it to
the Pacific and survive in the open ocean will eventually attempt to return as
adults to spawn in the Central Valley’s extensive but highly altered river
system. It’s a journey the scientists hope will become at least slightly less
challenging in the years to come. “We’re not going to get back what we once
had,” Jeffres says. “But we can mimic it.” He and Katz envision waterways that
are managed for flood control and farming but also for Chinook survival, ones
with rice-field nurseries and bug farms to help restore self-sustaining salmon
populations.
“It’s about welcoming the wild back into human
landscapes in a way that makes sense,” Katz says. “We’re reimagining the system
to work with nature.”
Adopt new technique to
conserve water in paddy cultivation’
TIRUCHI, DECEMBER
06, 2019 20:02 IST
·
Farmers being oriented to the ‘Alternate wetting and drying
irrigation’ technique at a field session at Sirugamani in Musiri block in Tiruchi
district recently. | Photo Credit: Handout
By adopting AWDI technique, farmers can save up to 30 % of water
without compromising on rice productivity
A group of farmers of Kallur in
Musiri block in the district were exposed to ‘Alternate wetting and drying
irrigation’ (AWDI) technique in paddy, which could help in substantial water
conservation.
The farmers were oriented to the
technique at a training and demonstration session organised under the Tamil Nadu Irrigated Agriculture Modernisation
Project being jointly implemented by Water Technology Centre (WTC), Tamil Nadu
Agricultural University (TNAU) and Sugarcane Research Station, Sirugamani under
Aiyyar Sub-basin which covers parts of Musiri, Thathaiyengarpet, Uppilliyapuram
and Thuraiyur blocks in Tiruchi district.
Under AWDI technique, a PVC water
tube (of 40 cm in length and 15 cm diameter) with holes drilled on it is sunk
into the rice field. The pipe, referred to as Pani pipe is installed in such a
way that the bottom 20 cm of perforated portion remains below the soil surface
and the non-perforated 10 cm above the surface. The perforations permit the
water to come inside the tube from the soil, where a scale is used to measure
water depth below the soil surface. When the water level drops 15 cm below the
soil surface, the field can be irrigated again.
By adopting AWDI technique,
farmers can save up to 30 % of water without compromising on rice productivity,
a press release from the Sugarcane Research Station. About 20 hectares of area
under Aiyyar Sub-basins are being covered for demonstration of AWDI in
selections villages in Musiri, Thathaiyengarpet, Uppilliyapuram and Thuraiyur
bocks.
The training at Kallur on
Thursday was inaugurated by L.Chithra, Professor and Head, Sugarcane Research
Station, Sirugamani. The scientist in-charge of the scheme R. Nageswari,
Assistant Professor (Agronomy), briefed the farmers on the technique and
conducted a field demonstration.
M. Mathialagan and S. Mohan,
Scientists, Sugarcane Research Station, elaborated on management of common
pests and diseases in paddy. S. Ramesh, Agriculture Officer, Musiri block, urged
the farmers to adopt the new technique to conserve water.
Wild seed collectors
scour the globe 'Indiana Jones'-style to boost crop resilience
An intrepid six-year search
yielded 370 species whose genes will widen the palette available to crop
breeders looking to shore up food security in the climate change era.
By Alex Fox
Crop Wild Relatives Project
Story
at a glance
·
Food security in the time of
climate change will require crops that can withstand harsh, unpredictable
conditions.
·
But our most productive crops may
lack the diverse genetic toolkit needed to adapt to these new challenges.
·
To find the genes necessary to
ensure future food security, a team of scientists spent years in dangerous,
remote locations around the world collecting seeds from the wild relatives of
important crops.
A
squad of 100 travelling seed collectors have spent the last six years hunting
for the wild relatives of important global crops in some of the most remote and
difficult to access corners of the world. Their labor has brought back the
seeds of more than 370 wild cousins of agricultural species, which can bolster
food security with their genetic diversity as the planet’s climate becomes ever
more unpredictable.
The
scientists, hailing from 25 countries, had to venture far off the grid, at
times making their way on horseback, canoe and even atop elephants to bring
back wild versions of crops such as rice, barley, beans and potatoes,
all of which feed millions, the Guardian reports.
The
importance of these wild relatives is their wildness itself. Domesticated crops
have been selected across countless generations for high yields, nutrition and
other qualities, and this endless fine-tuning has lowered their genetic
diversity. That lack of genetic diversity can make them more vulnerable to
disease, climate change and pests. But in the wild, plants must fend for
themselves and so collecting their seeds gives scientists and plant breeders
access to the genes underlying the diverse adaptations that allow them to
survive.
The
ability to endow our inbred, workhorse crops with fresh genetic adaptations may
prove essential to continuing to feed the world’s nearly 8 billion people as
climate change alters global rainfall patterns, increases drought and jacks up
extreme temperatures. Without dramatic climate action, agricultural production
could fall by up to 30 percent
by 2050.
The
collectors working on the Crop Wild Relatives (CWR) project spent 2,973 days in the field and gathered 4,644 seeds from 371 species. The haul included 28 globally
significant crops, among them were nine species of banana, 12 bean species, 21
wild types of barley, two wild potatoes and four species of eggplant.
The
mission to find these wild species was made all the more urgent by the risk of
extinction due to deforestation, expanding human settlements, conflict and
climate change.
To
prioritize the efforts, researchers identified the crops that had the most
dangerously low levels of genetic diversity. The only plants that can easily
donate novel genes to these crops via crossbreeding are their own relatives,
which is what makes finding them in the wild so important. The trips into
the field to find these wild relatives took the collectors deep into Asia,
Africa, Europe and South America.
“The
expeditions were not a walk in the park. They were perilous at times and
physically demanding, with heat, dust, sweat and danger from wild animals —
from blood-sucking leeches to tigers. The stories these seed collectors brought
back from the field often resemble scenes from an Indiana Jones movie,” said
Hannes Dempewolf, a senior scientist on the project, in a statement.
In
Nepal, seed collectors travelled by elephant to prevent attacks from tigers and
rhinos. The expedition yielded a species of wild rice (Oryza meyeriana)
that is resistant to bacterial disease and a type of sweet potato (Ipomoea
cairica) that resists pests and can survive in salty soil.
Now,
the bank of seeds has sparked the development of 19 new crops and a new type of
hybrid rice that farmers are testing in the Mekong delta of Vietnam.
These
wild varieties of vital crops may have once seemed useless, but by harnessing
their store of genetic information scientists may have helped safeguard the
world’s food security into an uncertain future.
Published on Dec 05, 2019
In
Memory: Jan Pohlner
USA Rice extends condolences to the family and friends of Jan Pohlner, of Fisher, Arkansas, who passed away December 3, at the age of 65.
Jan is survived by her husband, Roger, their two daughters, Cari and Tori, their husbands, and two grandsons.
Jan was born on December 7, 1953, in Jonesboro. She was a homemaker, member of the Hickory Ridge Church of Christ, and a dedicated "Rice Lady" for the Arkansas Rice Festival. She also was active with the Extension Homemakers Club, a Girl Scout troop leader, and a collegiate member of the Arkansas State University Choir.
Visitation is tomorrow from 12:30 - 2:00 p.m, at the Hickory Ridge Church of Christ, 402 S. 4th Street, in Hickory Ridge. Saturday would have been Jan's birthday, and the church service that begins at 2:00 p.m. will be a celebration of her life on this special day. Burial will follow at the Fisher Cemetery.
In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to the University of Arkansas Medical Services (UAMS) Auxiliary Wigs Boutique at UAMS Medical Center Auxiliary Services, 4301 W. Markham #527, Little Rock, Arkansas, 72205. If you should choose flowers, please consider poinsettias.
New
Issue of Whole Grain is Hand-Delivered
LITTLE ROCK, AR -- That is, if you happen to be
attending the USA Rice Outlook Conference here starting Sunday evening!
"The new issue will be included in each Outlook registration packet and, and along with rice industry news is a tribute to the many sponsors who generously support the conference," said Whole Grain Editor Michael Klein. "You'll see ads for each one, a gentle reminder for you to stop by their booths in the Exhibit Hall at the Statehouse Convention Center starting Sunday to check out all they have to offer."
Alongside the ads you'll find stories covering the USA Rice/Ducks Unlimited Rice Stewardship Partnership and the power of collaboration when it comes to sustainability results, the new Congressional Rice Caucus, and the rice-centric cooking contest that was the finale to the recent Foodservice Farm & Mill tour in Mississippi.
You'll also read about this year's International Rice Festival in Crowley, Louisiana, and get an insider's look at the creation by local first-graders of a parade float covered from top to bottom with rice. And finally, a travelogue on the 2019 Think Rice Road Trip tells all about the truck crew's trek around the mid-Atlantic giving out Aroma rice cookers and U.S.-grown rice at farmers markets, restaurants, and college campuses, plus two unique stops at a food and music festival in Delaware and a one-day only, pop-up shop in West Virginia.
The Rice Truck is making its final official appearance at Outlook where it will be raffled off on December 10. There's still time to purchase tickets so click on the ad below for a chance to win the truck plus a suite of Aroma Housewares products.
"If you did not pick up a copy of the Whole Grain at Outlook or didn't receive it in your mailbox, contact Deborah Willenborg," said Klein. "She can also help if you'd like additional copies to distribute to friends, neighbors, and colleagues, or you would like to advertise in future issues."
"The new issue will be included in each Outlook registration packet and, and along with rice industry news is a tribute to the many sponsors who generously support the conference," said Whole Grain Editor Michael Klein. "You'll see ads for each one, a gentle reminder for you to stop by their booths in the Exhibit Hall at the Statehouse Convention Center starting Sunday to check out all they have to offer."
Alongside the ads you'll find stories covering the USA Rice/Ducks Unlimited Rice Stewardship Partnership and the power of collaboration when it comes to sustainability results, the new Congressional Rice Caucus, and the rice-centric cooking contest that was the finale to the recent Foodservice Farm & Mill tour in Mississippi.
You'll also read about this year's International Rice Festival in Crowley, Louisiana, and get an insider's look at the creation by local first-graders of a parade float covered from top to bottom with rice. And finally, a travelogue on the 2019 Think Rice Road Trip tells all about the truck crew's trek around the mid-Atlantic giving out Aroma rice cookers and U.S.-grown rice at farmers markets, restaurants, and college campuses, plus two unique stops at a food and music festival in Delaware and a one-day only, pop-up shop in West Virginia.
The Rice Truck is making its final official appearance at Outlook where it will be raffled off on December 10. There's still time to purchase tickets so click on the ad below for a chance to win the truck plus a suite of Aroma Housewares products.
"If you did not pick up a copy of the Whole Grain at Outlook or didn't receive it in your mailbox, contact Deborah Willenborg," said Klein. "She can also help if you'd like additional copies to distribute to friends, neighbors, and colleagues, or you would like to advertise in future issues."
USA Rice Daily
India’s October rice exports fall
India's
rice exports in October fell 42% year-on-year to 485,898 tonnes, government
data showed on Thursday, due to weak demand from African countries for
non-basmati rice. Smaller shipments from India could help rivals such as
Thailand, Vietnam and Myanmar to increase their exports, according to Indian exporters.
“Export demand is very subdued," said Nitin Gupta, vice president of Olam
India's rice business. New Delhi mainly exports non-basmati rice to Bangladesh,
Nepal, Benin and Senegal, and premier basmati rice to Iran, Saudi Arabia and
Iraq. India is the world's biggest rice exporter but its shipments have plunged
28% in the first seven months of the 2019/20 financial year, which started
April 1, to 4.85 million tonnes, the data showed. Indian rice has been losing
competitiveness in the world market due to higher local prices, said B V
Krishna Rao, president of the Rice Exporters Association (REA). The government
needs to provide subsidies for the overseas sales or exports would remain weak,
he said.
We can grow more climate-friendly
rice
Rice contributes as much carbon as
aviation. But rather than stop growing it, we can make it less damaging
(Photo: David Lahuerta from
Pixabay)
Rice feeds half of the world’s
population on a daily basis, but it is also an important driver of global
warming.
That’s why 48% of the countries
negotiating at the UNFCCC meeting in Madrid have included rice in their
agricultural nationally determined contributions (NDCs), which could make for a
“great opportunity for business and finance”, according to Donika Dimovska,
director of impact and innovation at the Earth Security Group
(ESG).
At an event held on Friday at the
GCF+GEF pavilion at COP25, Dimovska emphasised that “this is an important
momentum”, since 2020 “is going to be a key year for the agricultural sector,
especially for green bonds”, she said.
Dimovska argued that the rising
awareness of the urgency to mitigate rice farming greenhouse gas emissions
(GHG), along with the need to adapt to changing climate conditions – that are
also harming rice production – could unlock finance to finally scale
sustainable rice farming.
Accounting for around 2.5% of all
global human-induced GHG emissions, rice’s climate footprint is comparable to
that of international aviation. Rice production is estimated to be responsible
for 12% of total methane global emissions, mainly due to its anaerobic
decomposition during its production processes.
“Rice grows mostly in flooded
fields called rice paddies. The water blocks oxygen from penetrating the soil,
creating ideal conditions for bacteria that emit methane. The longer the
flooding lasts, the more those bacteria build
up”, explains the World Resources Institute on
its website.
But entire regions depend highly on
this staple food. So the solution, rather than quitting farming rice, could be
to produce it in a more climate-friendly way. And, while there are some
initiatives pointing in that direction, there’s still space for many
more.
Dimovska referred to three major
barriers that are blocking progress: absence of financial infrastructure to
billions; upfront investment that sustainable companies need to make in their
value chains; and the lack of public financing.
The session presented a newly released report from
the ESG, which included three innovative finance blueprints in line with
countries’ NDCs. These include issuing “rice bonds” and “leveraging global
climate finance as pathways for private sector investment in climate-smart rice
production”.
One of the ideas she mentioned is the creation of a
digital platform “not for the entire global value chain but at
a regional or country level”, she specified. “Platforms that provide finance to smallholders”.
Another panelist, Zitouni
Ould-Dada, deputy director of the climate and environment division at the UN
Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), said that “it’s 50 million smallholder
farmers that are feeding half of the world’s population” and thus the focus
should be on these communities for which “the investment doesn’t have to be
huge”.
Ould-Dada also mentioned the
opportunity of combining fish and rice farming practices. According to a FAO
report, “over 90% of the world’s rice, equivalent to approximately 134 million
hectares, is grown under these flooded conditions providing not only home to a
wide range of aquatic organisms, but also offering opportunities for their
enhancement and culture”.
From the International Emissions
Trading Association (IETA), Simon Henry, director of carbon market development,
said that “in Arkansas there has been a group of rice farmers working with an
environmental NGO to stand for carbon credits from rice farming in the US”,
which, to him, proves the “massive potential in agriculture, including rice
farming, for emissions reductions”.
“This is a growing area of interest
to IETA”, he stated, and reminded that the association has just launched an
initiative called “Market Financial Climate Solutions”, that aims to
create large scale markets on nature-based credits. “One topic that would
make this a lot easier is Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, the missing piece
that sets the framework for countries to cooperate internationally in
delivering NDCs”.
This
post was sponsored by the Global
Environment Facility See our editorial guidelines for
what this means.
Sierra Leone potential new market for export of
Cambodian milled rice
May Kunmakara |
Publication date 05 December 2019 | 21:53 ICT
Sierra Leone plans to import milled rice from Cambodia for
domestic consumption. Post Pix
Sierra Leone plans to import
milled rice from Cambodia for domestic consumption. The request was made when
the visiting Sierra Leone Ambassador to China Ernest Ndomahina met Cambodian
Minister of Commerce Pan Sorasak on Wednesday at the ministry.
Ndomahina said his country’s
agricultural sector is still facing challenges especially in terms of poor
infrastructure. Hence, there is a need for the country to import more milled
rice from Cambodia to meet annual demand.
“Cambodia has been developing
remarkably. We want to source milled rice from here, but we are still studying
the possibility in terms of food safety because rice is the staple in our
country,” he said.
Sorasak welcomed the ambassador’s
request but he encouraged traders or companies from Sierra Leone to study the
feasibility on importing rice before signing a Memorandum of Understanding
(MoU). The minister also encouraged direct talks with local businessmen.
Meanwhile, industry players see
potential in new markets for the country’s rice exports.
Cambodia Rice Federation (CRF)
secretary-general Lun Yeng said so far, Cambodia had exported milled rice to
some African countries in smaller volumes but there had never been any rice
exports to Sierra Leone.
“I think that it is good news for
our rice sector if we can penetrate more new markets such as Sierra Leone,” he
said.
Yeng said in the first 11 months
this year, Cambodia had exported some 30,000 tonnes to some other African
countries, such as Ghana, Gabon, Togo, and Kenya.
“Our milled rice exports in the
region has been on the uptrend over the last few years. However, it is still
considered a small amount, so we hope to see further increases in the coming
years,” he said.
According to an official report,
in the first 11 months of this year, rice exports to the international market
totalled 514,149 tonnes. This was a 3.4 per cent increase compared to the same
period last year, which stood at 497,240 tonnes.
China was the Kingdom’s leading
export market in the first 11 months of this year, with 195,242 tonnes. The EU
imported 174,397 tonnes and the Asean region 69,239 tonnes. The balance was
exported to Africa and other destinations
Rice yield dip fuels scare of agri slump
Updated: December 6, 2019
4:59:22 AM
Likely
lowest production in nine years to push prices, reduce FCI burden
The Centre is also considering
reducing the reserve price of rice by almost Rs 500/quintal under open market
sale scheme (OMSS) of the FCI for bulk buyers due to poor offtake.
Production
of rice, a key summer crop, could be around 90 million tonne, 10% lower than
the government’s estimate for the kharif 2019 season and down 12% from the
previous kharif crop, private weather forecaster Skymet has said. If Skymet’s
prediction holds good, it will be for the first time in five years this key
cereal’s output may see a decline (about 90% of rice is produced in the summer
season) and could be the lowest in nine years. Though this is the first time
the firm has given a crop forecast, its estimate has added to the worry that
the agriculture sector’s performance could be worse than expected during the
second half of the current fiscal year and a drag on the gross domestic product
(GDP) growth.
As
reported by FE earlier, kharif 2019 pulses output could be at least some 6 lakh
tonne lower than the 82.3 lakh tonne estimated by the government, due to
large-scale crop damage in key producing states such as Rajasthan, Maharashtra,
Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka.
Also,
the forthcoming rabi pulses crop may fall, given that prolonged monsoon and
resultant floods have delayed sowing activity — on a year-on-year basis. The
winter-sowing of pulses is now down by a fifth. Of course, the next rabi crop
will reflect mostly in the GDP for FY21
Citing
its review of the monsoon spread, the initial dry spell and the prolonged rains
that caused floods in many areas, Skymet said 2019 soyabean production would
also be 12% lower than last year at 12.15 million tonne. Gross value added
(GVA) in ‘farm and allied sectors’, grew 2.1% in Q2FY20 as against 4.9% in
Q2FY19.
If
the kharif 2019 rice crop turns out to be lower, it could push up prices —
market prices are currently lower than minimum support prices in eastern India
— but may also reduce the burden of rice procurement on the Food Corporation of
India for the current crop year (July-June). Also, the government is likely to
offload part of its excess stocks in the open market.
The
government has been trying to shift paddy farmers to other crops, particularly
in water scarce states like Punjab and Haryana, due to depletion of ground
water table. It is estimated that nearly 5,000 litres of water goes into
production of just 1 kg of rice As on November 1, the FCI had stocks of 73.65
million tonne of wheat and rice (including 19.65 million tonne in the form of
paddy), much above the buffer norm of 30.7 million tonne on October 1. In
2018-19 marketing season (October-September), FCI had procured 44 million tonne
of rice and this was a record The current foodgrain storage capacity in the
country is around 88 million tonne, with over 75 million tonne covered and 13
million tonne covered area plinth (CAP).
“If
there is a fall in output, the pressure on FCI will be less to buy the rice.
The open market price may also be at a level near MSP,” a government official
said. Though the arrivals of kharif-grown paddy has started, mostly in Punjab
and Haryana, it would pick up from mid-December in other states like West
Bengal and Chhattisgarh, he said.
The
Centre is also considering reducing the reserve price of rice by almost Rs
500/quintal under open market sale scheme (OMSS) of the FCI for bulk buyers due
to poor offtake. Current reserve price is Rs 2,785/quintal. The plan was to
sell around 2 million tonne rice from official reserves in 2019-20 Meanwhile,
Skymet also said the cotton crop this year may surge to the highest level since
2013-14 thanks to a good weather in producing states of Gujarat and Maharashtra
and also improved yields and overall increase in acreage. The cotton area rose
4% to 12.76 million hectare in 2019. The soybean and pulses output is expected
to decline 12% and 4.5%, respectively year-on-year, the agency said. (see
chart)
“Several
kharif crops such as soybean, groundnut, cotton, urad and tur were adversely
impacted and damaged due to excess rains in the last two months of monsoon
season. In many districts, high soil moisture during the entire month of
September caused heavy losses to crops as persistently above 50% moisture is
bad for crops,” said Jatin Singh, CEO of Skymet.
A
total of 137 districts in 12 states were affected by excess rains and resultant
floods which inundated 32.09 lakh hectare of agricultural land, Skymet said.
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CSIR-Scientists
introduce three improved rice varieties to farmers
General News of Friday, 6
December 2019
Source:
The Savannah Agricultural
Research Institute (SARI) in collaboration with the Crops Research Institute
(CRI) both of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) on
Thursday introduced to farmers, three improved rice varieties at Botanga in the
Northern Region.The new rice varieties comprising CRI-Mpuntuo, CRI-Dartey and CRI-Kantinka are among six varieties developed by CSIR-Crops Research Institute (CSIR-CRI) and its partners in 2017.
These varieties have qualities such as early maturing, high yielding, good grain quality, aroma and tolerant to diseases and pest encountered by rice farmers in the country.
Dr Maxwell Asante, a rice breeder at CSIR-CRI, who led a team to realise these varieties collaborated with Dr Samuel Oppong Abebrese of the CSIR-SARI to introduce the varieties to farmers and extension officers in the north. The field day was to showcase to the farmers the qualities of the varieties alongside the good agronomic practices to be adopted by farmers such as good leveling, nutrient and water management among others to obtain higher yields.
It was also to enable the farmers observe, share their views and make their preferred choice among the three improved rice varieties. This work is part of a project led by the West Africa Centre for Crop Improvement (WACCI), University of Ghana and Crops Research Institute with funding from African Union and the European Union.
Dr Samuel Oppong Abebrese, a Rice Breeder with the CSIR-SARI addressing farmers on the field, said the field trip was to help farmers compare and make their preferred choice of rice varieties in order to enable the CSIR-SARI make the seeds readily available to the farmers for cultivation.
He elaborated that, the varieties were planted alongside AGRA Rice, a rice variety farmers have been cultivating over the years and said it is used as a bench mark for the farmers to compare with the three new varieties.
Dr Abebrese said CRI-Dartey had a potential yield of about 9.0 tons per hectare, matures within 125-130 days and is tolerant to diseases, whereas CRI-Mpuntuo had a yield potential of about 8.0 tonnes per hectare, aromatic and matures within 120 days.
He added that CRI-Kantinka has a yield potential of about 8.5 tons per hectare, aromatic and matures within 115-120 days.
He advised the farmers that cultivating the varieties goes with adopting good agronomic practices such as leveling of fields before cultivation, nursing and transplanting the single seedling within a spacing of 20 cm by 20 cm instead of broadcasting, as well as ensure proper irrigation and appropriate fertilizer application among others.
He called for conscious efforts between government and other stakeholders as well as the citizenry to help encourage patronage and consumption of locally produced rice through improved marketing and branding.
Majority of the famers, after examining the varieties, showed high interest in the qualities contained in CRI-Dartey compared to the other two varieties introduced.
Mr Mohammed Issahaku Alhassan, a farmer in Botanga, said though the three varieties were doing well in terms of yield, he preferred the CRI-Dartey Rice variety since it had higher yielding potential of about 9 tons per hectare and could compete with the AGRA rice if introduced onto the market. "Some of us are seed growers and we have been using AGRA and Jasmine rice to farm but now with the introduction of the CRI-Dartey and the other two, I have realised that there is a potential of high yield and can compete with AGRA rice especially the CRI-Dartey rice " he said.
Mrs Salima Abdullai, said she started farming for three years now but comparing the AGRA rice and the other three rice varieties, she preferred CRI-Dartey Rice because it had brighter and healthier grains as compared to the other varieties.
She, however, said women farmers in the community were faced with the lack of finance, which affected their engagement in larger rice farm production and appealed for support.
Mr Adam Mahama, also a farmer, however, said he preferred the CRI-Kantinka to the other two varieties considering its aromatic content, high yielding and grain quality.
He said most rice consumers in the country preferred rice varieties containing good aroma and the CRI-Kantinka is likely to compete with AGRA Rice when introduced into the market
SARI
and CRI introduced to farmers, three improved rice varieties
Japan grants Nasarawa, Kwara $298,000 to boost rice production
ON DECEMBER 6, 20193:23 PM
Rice farm By Dirisu Yakubu The Japanese government has signed a
$298,095 partnership contract with the Nasarawa and Kwara state governments to
boost rice production. The project, an initiative of the Nasarawa Agricultural
Development Program, NADP and the Tabitha Cumi Foundation will be implemented
in collaboration with Toyota Tsusho Corporation and Olam Nigeria Limited, under
the Japanese Grant Assistance for Grassroots Human Security Projects, GGP. At
the contract signing ceremony in Abuja on Friday, Japanese Ambassador to
Nigeria, Gana Yisa pledged the commitment of Japan to the growth and development
of agriculture in Nigeria. Yisa added that the project would see the Asian
giant assist the beneficiaries with power tillers and combined harvesters in
Doma and Edu local government areas in Nasarawa and Kwara states respectively.
According to the ambassador, “Japan and Nigeria
are two rice consuming nations and so we believe this partnership will
go a long way in strengthening our bilateral cooperation particularly in the
area of agriculture.” He commended the two states for their robust agricultural
policies, stressing that when properly harnessed, agriculture can replace oil
as the nation’s major revenue earner. Speaking on behalf of the Nasarawa state
government, Professor Otaki Alanana, 
Commissioner of Agriculture and
Water Resources described the initiative as laudable, urging the Japanese
government to take advantage of the agricultural potentials in the country for
investment purposes. Nigeria will add rice to export commodities in 2 years —
Nanono Executive Director of the Tabitha Cumi Foundation, Tayo Erinle said with
the grant, a good number of women and rural dwellers would be assisted to
tackle the challenges of unemployment and poverty. She said: “Our foundation is
working directly with about 2,000 farmers, especially women. We have been
partnering with Japanese government for long and they have assisted us in
taking many women back to the classrooms. Now, with this grant, we are shifting
to agriculture. “There is no telling how far this will go in assisting rural
dwellers to make their dreams come true. On our part, we shall continue to do
everything possible, as a faith-based organization, to assist the less
privileged members of the society.” So far, over 170 projects worth about $12
million have been implemented under the GGP scheme.
Read more at: https://www.vanguardngr.com/2019/12/japan-grants-nasarawa-kwara-298000-to-boost-rice-production/
Riviana Foods donates
150,000 servings of rice to Houston Food Bank
Photo:
Photo By Paul Ladd With Riviana Foods
On Tuesday, Dec. 3, Riviana Foods
trucks in 150,000 servings of rice from distribution centers from as far away
as Chicago to help replenish the Houston Food Bank, which had to throw away
roughly 2 million pounds of food in November due to an ammonia leak.
Since the Houston Food Bank had to
trash nearly 2 million pounds of food in late November due to an ammonia leak,
community members and businesses have been working to replenish the stock.
Riviana Foods donated more than
55,000 pounds of its Minute Rice and Mahatma Rice on Tuesday, Dec. 3, by trucks
arriving from distribution centers from as far as Chicago. That makes up more
than 150,000 servings and 15,000 cases of rice. Headquartered in Houston,
Riviana has been helping the food bank for years. The food bank is facing
around $3 million in losses of product, repairs and rebuilding its supply,
according to a press release.
“As a longtime partner of the
Houston Food Bank, we were devastated to learn about their tragic losses,
especially during this time of year,” said Sandra Kim, senior vice president of
marketing at Riviana. “We are committed to serving the communities in which we
live and work, and we’re fortunate enough to be in a position to help replenish
some of what was lost.”
Riviana headquarters also sent volunteers
earlier during the week who sorted donations, unpacked boxes and helped to
organize the food pantry for families that depend on it for their meals.
“Feeding others is one of the most
universal expressions of human care,” said Brian Greene, president and CEO of
the Houston Food Bank. “And we are fortunate to have corporate donors whose
support allows us to provide food for better lives to our neighbors in 18
southeast Texas counties. We appreciate Riviana’s donation of 15,000 packages
of Minute Rice and Mahatma Rice, which is especially helpful during the holiday
season, a time of increased need.”
According to the release, the
Houston Food Bank purpose is to give people food to improve their lives, with
104 million meals provided last year in 18 counties across southeast Texas.
This came with the help of 1,500 community partners like food pantries, soup
kitchens, social service providers and schools. The food bank focuses on
healthy food and fresh produce and also provides solutions for food waste, working
with grocery stores and growers to save food before it hits landfills.
To learn more about the Houston
Food Bank and how to donate or get involved, visit www.houstonfoodbank.org.
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