How
an Ancient Indian Art Utilizes Mathematics, Mythology, and Rice
BEFORE THE FIRST RAYS OF sunlight stream across the rice fields and mud roads in the
Nilgiri Mountains, before they force their way through the high-rises in the
urban jungle of Chennai and Madurai, the women of Tamil Nadu are up for the
day. In the dark, they clean the threshold to their home, and, following a
centuries-long tradition, painstakingly draw beautiful, ritualistic designs
called kōlam , using rice flour.
Taking a clump of rice flour in a bowl (or a coconut shell), the
kōlam artist steps onto her freshly washed canvas: the ground at the entrance
of her house, or any patch of floor marking an entrypoint. Working swiftly, she
takes pinches of rice flour and draws geometric patterns: curved lines,
labyrinthine loops around red or white dots, hexagonal fractals, or floral
patterns resembling the lotus, a symbol of the goddess of prosperity, Lakshmi,
for whom the kōlam is drawn as a prayer in illustration. The making of the
kōlam itself is a performance of supplication. The artist folds her body in
half, bending at the waist, stooping to the ground as she fills out her
patterns. Many kōlam artists see the kōlam as an offering to the earth goddess,
Bhūdevi, as well.
But the kōlam is not just a prayer; it is also a metaphor for
coexistence with nature. In her 2018 book, Feeding
a Thousand Souls: Women, Ritual and Ecology in India, an Exploration of the
Kōlam, Vijaya Nagarajan, a professor in the Department of
Theology and Religious Studies at the University of San Francisco, refers to
the belief in Hindu mythology that Hindus have a “karmic obligation” to “feed a
thousand souls,” or offer food to those that live among us. By providing a meal
of rice flour to bugs, ants, birds, and insects, she writes, the Hindu
householder begins the day with “a ritual of generosity,” with a dual offering
to divinity and to nature.
Colorful kōlams, such as this one by Godavari
Krishnamurthy, are drawn during festivals. R.
KRISHNAMURTHY/COURTESY OF KAVERI PURANDHAR
The word kōlam means beauty. What
it also embodies is a perfect symmetry of straight or curved lines built around
or through a grid of dots. Nearly always, the grid of dots comes first,
requiring spatial precision to achieve symmetry. The dot in Hindu philosophy
represents the point at which creation begins—it is a symbol of the cosmos. No
tools other than the maker’s deft fingers, and the rice flour, are used.
Sometimes the designs are one continuous line that loops over itself, snaking
to infinity. Intersecting into infinite figure eights, in a style known as pulli kōlam, the kōlam is also
believed to be a representation of infinity, of the infinite cycle of birth and
rebirth that forms a foundational concept in Hindu mythology.
Mathematicians and computer scientists have keenly studied the
kōlam. The kōlam is “an unusual example of the expression of mathematical ideas
in a cultural setting,” writes Marcia Ascher ethnomathematical research
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While the kōlam-makers themselves may not be thinking in terms
of mathematical theorems, many kōlam designs have a recursive nature—they start
out small, but can be built out by continuing to enlarge the same subpattern,
creating a complex overall design. This has fascinated mathematicians, because
the patterns elucidate fundamental mathematical principles. Nagarajan writes
about how the symmetry of kōlam art, such as the recurring fractals in the design,
have been likened to mathematical models such as the Sierpinski triangle
Computer scientists have also
used kōlams to teach computers language fundamentals. Kōlam designs can be
studied as a picture language. Quoting Ascher, Nagarajan notes that “akin to
natural languages and computer languages, picture languages geometry of kōlam
Despite the deep mathematical principles exhibited in kōlam
designs, practitioners describe the process as intuitive and enjoyable. “It’s
easy, especially once you start with a proper grid of dots,” says Godavari
Krishnamurthy, who lives in Chennai and has been making kōlams for more than
half a century. Krishnamurthy speaks to me over the phone as her
daughter-in-law, Kaveri Purandhar, who lives in Ahmedabad, translates.
Today, the tradition of making kōlam is wrestling with time,
short attention spans, and porch-less apartment living. It is grappling with
changing affiliations to divinity, and changing displays of community among
women. Kōlam competitions during festivals are now one of the few opportunities
to showcase this artistic ritual. Although fewer Tamils are making the kōlam
today, the competitions allow for more inclusivity, welcoming all who are
interested to participate in this traditionally Hindu ritual.
The placement of the dots determines the perfect
symmetry of the kōlam. R. KRISHNAMURTHY/COURTESY OF KAVERI PURANDHAR
During the festival month of Margazhi on the Tamil calendar,
which falls between December and January, Krishnamurthy takes to the street in
front of her Chennai home, drawing elaborate kōlams on the main thoroughfare,
defiantly taking up the road and stooping low for hours. There is almost an
urgency to her work, her need to preserve a disappearing tradition, even as
passing cars cover her in the dust of a city pulsating with modernity, with
little space for such painstaking, back-breaking pursuits. “It’s a great
exercise in concentration,” she says, via Purandhar, “and good for health and
for nurturing one’s creativity.”
Krishnamurthy learned from her mother, and mothers have been
teaching daughters for centuries. “The kōlam is a powerful vehicle for Tamil women’s
self-expression, a central metaphor and symbol for creativity,” writes
Nagarajan. “It evokes an entire way of being in the world; it articulates
desires, concerns, sensibilities, and suffering, and ultimately it affirms the
power of women’s blessings to create a desired reality: a healthy, happy
household.” Although some men make kōlams, it is historically the domain of
women.
Krishnamurthy’s immediate family offers wholehearted support,
but little inclination to participate. She gives copies of her designs to
anyone who shows interest. Little design books for kōlam have been around since
at least 1884, writes Nagarajan. Skilled kōlam makers will maintain a ledger of
their own designs that becomes a family heirloom.
Kōlam designs reflect mathematical principles, such
as fractals. R. KRISHNAMURTHY/COURTESY OF KAVERI PURANDHAR
Kōlam is meant to be ephemeral:
the rice flour pattern gradually fades as day turns to dusk, trodden upon by
visitors, family members, the odd bicycle, mailman, or stray animals. Holes
appear in the design from tiny ants or nibbling bugs. But as the ritual of
making kōlam itself is fading away, perhaps as a counter to this loss, more and
more kōlam makers are turning to powders and acrylic paints that will hold the
design for longer. The traditional kōlam continues to be made with rice flour
and kavi , red ochre considered sacred.
This is the kōlam drawn within the temple sanctum
sanctorum , for the eyes of the gods, says Purandhar. But the
elaborate kōlam displays entered in competitions and drawn on the streets of
Tamil Nadu during the Pongal festival use a variety of colored powders, to the
consternation of traditionalists who rue that kōlam is becoming more like the rangoli of North India—similar
floor art made with colored rice flour, stone powders, or flower petals that
follows a different set of design principles.
Tomorrow, while Chennai sleeps the tired slumber of a
fast-paced, tech-driven life, Mrs. Krishnamurthy will rise before dawn, clean a
patch of verandah in her home, and begin illustrating her obeisance to nature,
and to the divine mothers that inspire a lifelong devotion to this ritualistic
art. “It’s easy,” she says, again.
CFTRI mulling over plant to prepare
food for supply during disasters
Tuesday, 07 May, 2019, 13 : 00 PM [IST]
Our Bureau, Bengaluru
The Central Food Technological Research Institute (CFTRI) is
thinking about developing a dedicated plant on its premises here to prepare
foods to be supplied during natural disasters. It has proposed to develop
certain foods with a shelf life of at least six months.
In this regard, the Mysuru-based institute has approached the
National Disaster Management Authority, and communicated its plans to set up a
stand-alone unit provided the required funds are handed over.
The institute is known to chop into the support on a regular basis
to supply relief foods during calamities since 2004.
Even during the floods in Kerala and Kodagu last year, adequate
relief foods were prepared at four of its pilot food plants. Now these existing
plants are facilities for the demonstration of its various food technologies
that are looking to be commercialised by any promising industry.
“We intent to keep particular foods ready for immediate
distribution whenever disasters strike. Ready-to-eat foods with a shelf life of
six months can be prepared in advance and kept ready for distribution. No
matter if they remain unused. Foods can be distributed instantly instead of
waiting until they are prepared. It can be part of disaster management as well,
minimising the response time,” said K S M S Raghavarao, director, CFTRI.
“We are in the process of developing a slew of nutrition-rich foods
to tackle deficiencies among children,
pregnant woman and lactating mothers. This includes a pliable sweet rice,
product, most suitable for infants and children because of its taste, softness
and nutrition value. It can be prepared easily and is seen to be an important
food item that can be supplied to children in affected areas during disasters,”
he added.
“Further, in the rice-consuming states, the institute has
researched on foods appropriate for supply based on regional preferences. For
instance, using rice, the scientists at CFTRI prepared instant poha for the
Fani cyclone victims in Odisha. The product came about after it prepared this
and offered it to victims of Kerala flood,” said Rao.
Representatives from the CFTRI Department of Protein Chemistry and
Grain Science Technology said the packaging was such that the food could be
eaten by adding water into the pouch.
Latest Issue of Whole Grain is News You Can Use
ARLINGTON, VA -- The spring issue of
the Whole Grain, USA Rice's newspaper, is bursting with industry news and now
on its way to readers throughout the six rice producing states and Washington,
DC. The cover story, with a powerful photo by Missouri
rice farmer Zach Worrell, is all about the makings of the newly released U.S.
Rice Sustainability Report. "We have been working hard for years to
tell the complete story of rice sustainability," said Jennifer James, an
Arkansas rice farmer and chair of the USA Rice Sustainability Committee, who is
interviewed for the article. "As an industry, we have plenty to be
proud of but we felt like that story wasn't being told in any one place, until
now." How that report was created is a story unto itself, compiling
data from all six rice states, hundreds of farms and mills, and 36 years of
rice farming history from 1980 to 2015. Another important topic featured in this issue is
mental health, particularly as it pertains to rural communities where
significant efforts are being made by state and local farm agencies to create
more honesty around mental health and provide better access to healthcare at
this crucial time. News about trade, promotion activities, and a rice
pretenders update are highlights, and don't miss the Government Affairs
Conference report with a photo gallery showcasing the annual sojourn to Capitol
Hill to push the rice industry's case to legislators. And, there's more! If you do not receive the Whole Grain in your
mailbox, or you'd like additional copies to distribute to friends, neighbors,
and colleagues, or you would like to advertise in future issues, contact Deborah Willenborg .
High
resolution rice maps for NE may help boost production
Jinwei Dong, Nanshan You, Yingli, Jiadi (Leftt to right) at the
Campus of Chinese Academy of Sciences. Mrinal Singha at Institue of Geographic
Sciences and Natural Resources Reserach (IGSNRR), CAS Laboratory, Haidian,
Beijing.
Mapping and monitoring of paddy cultivation areas is essential
for making effective targeting strategies for the spread of new technologies,
sustainable crop management and diversification options among rice growing
farmers.
Recently scientists have developed high resolution seasonal maps
for Northeast India and Bangladesh to study cloud-prone rice paddy cultivation
regions in South Asia. Large scale paddy mapping at medium or high spatial
resolution is rare, primarily due to limited availability of cloud-free optical
imagery. The rice paddy maps, which are freely distributed by International
Rice Research Institute, Philippines are of coarse spatial resolution and more
than nearly seven years old.
Scientists from China have now developed high resolution maps
with crucial information, by using cloud-free Synthetic Aperture Radar images
from Sentinel-1 satellite, the Random Forest classifier, and the Google Earth
Engine cloud computing platform. The Sentinel-1 satellite was launched by
European Space Agency and its data is available for free.
“We mapped rice growing areas
accurately in India and Bangladesh using microwave satellite images. The
knowledge of spatial extent and rice cropping intensity is an asset to the
government and other agencies for efficient land and water resources management
along with environment sustainable growth to ensure food security for all the
people in the world,” said Dr Mrinal Singha of Chinese Academy of Sciences,
Beijing.The team studied three distinct rice cultivation seasons - Boro, Aus
and Aman in Northeast India and entire Bangladesh. Boro rice is sown in winter
and harvested in summer, while Aus rice is sown in summer along with pre
monsoonal rains and harvested in autumn. And Aman rice is sown in rainy season
and harvested in winter.
The study area was divided into several levels like paddy rice,
natural vegetation, water, built-up land, and others. Then random points were
generated in each level and further categorised as circle buffers in the maps.
Researchers used backscatter signals from Synthetic Aperture
Radar of Sentinel-1 as an indicator for tracking rice paddy growth. These
backscatter values change with varying conditions of the three paddy rice
stages - transplanting, vegetative and after-harvest. These stages provided
distinct backscatter values that were utilised for remote sensing analysis.
“To meet the growing global as well as local demand for rice,
production needs to be monitored and increased. These high resolution rice maps
would be very useful for assessment of rice paddy cultivation under clouded
environment particularly in Northeast India where paddy cultivation usually
starts in rainy season,” commented Dr Upendra Kumar, Scientist (Microbiology),
National Institute of Rice Research, Cuttack, while speaking to India Science
Wire. He was not associated with the study.
For this study, scientists selected computationally efficient
random forest machine learning algorithm particularly to handle large satellite
data for entire Bangladesh and Northeast India. Rice paddy maps were evaluated
against independent validation samples, and compared with existing products
from the International Rice Research Institute and the analysis of Moderate
Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data. The resultant maps were
validated using ground truth samples from multiple sources including field
survey data and field photographs, visual interpretation with very high
resolution images and of Sentinel-2 visual images.
It was found that the Synthetic Aperture Radar-based mapping had
three benefits - reduction of data acquiring and pre-processing time,
significant decrease in computational time, and the method could be quickly
extended to larger regions.
It is proposed to extend the dataset to cover more countries in
tropical Asia involving more detailed information. New versions would be periodically
updated and uploaded to the repository upon the availability of new datasets.
Threat to paddy rice cultivation is increasing these days. The
reasons are changing patterns of rainfall, global temperature rise along with
rapid urbanization and industrialization. In this context, high resolution rice
paddy maps could be useful to researchers and findings beneficial to rice
farmers. These maps can also be used to study regional food security,
freshwater use, climate change, and transmission of avian influenza virus.
“In future, the maps produced in our study will help to assess
or identify the flood-prone region particularly in the Brahmaputra basin areas
to prevent production loss and minimize damage,” commented Jinwei Dong, another
member of the research team.
The research team included Mrinal Singha and Jinwei Dong
(Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese
Academy of Sciences), Geli Zhang (China Agricultural University), Xiangming
Xiao (Center for Spatial Analysis, University of Oklahoma). The research
finding has been published in the journal Scientific Data.
(India Science Wire)
Rice husks can remove microcystin toxins from
water
Another potential -- and renewable -- tool to
fight harmful algal blooms
Date:
May 6, 2019
Source:
University of Toledo
Summary:
An
abundant and inexpensive agricultural byproduct, rice husks have been
investigated as a water purification solution in the past. This is the first
time they have been shown to remove microcystin, the toxin released by harmful
algal blooms that are increasingly occurring in the Great Lakes and other
freshwater lakes around the world.
Share:
FULL STORY
Scientists at The University of
Toledo have discovered that rice husks can effectively remove microcystin from
water, a finding that could have far-reaching implications for communities
along the Great Lakes and across the developing world.
An abundant and inexpensive agricultural byproduct, rice husks
have been investigated as a water purification solution in the past. However,
this is the first time they have been shown to remove microcystin, the toxin
released by harmful algal blooms.
The results of the study were recently published in the journal Science of the Total Environment .
"Delivering safe water is critical, and finding an
economically viable solution to deliver safe water to people all over the world
is going to be really important. The ability of this simple material to be
powerful enough to address this issue is impressive," said Dr. Jon
Kirchhoff, Distinguished University Professor and chair of the Chemistry and
Biochemistry Department.
The research, led by Kirchhoff and Dr. Dragan Isailovic,
associate professor of chemistry in the College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics,
used organic rice husks that were treated with hydrochloric acid and heated to
250 degrees Celsius.
The rice husks were then dispersed in a series of water samples
collected from Lake Erie during the 2017 harmful algal bloom to measure how
much of the toxin they could absorb.
Researchers found the rice husks removed more than 95 percent of
microcystin MC-LR -- the most common type found in Lake Erie -- in
concentrations of up to 596 parts-per-billion (ppb). Even in concentrations
approaching 3,000 ppb, more than 70 percent of the MC-LR was removed, and other
types of MCs were removed as well.
"We looked at the removal of microcystins from real
environmental samples and the material has performed really well,"
Isailovic said. "We are talking about extremely high concentrations of
microcystins originating from cyanobacterial cells. Normally during summer, we
have much, much lower concentrations in Lake Erie."
The United States Environmental Protection Agency recommends a
10-day drinking water guideline that young children not drink water containing
more than a total of 0.3 ppb of microcystin and school-age children and adults
not drink water containing more than a total of 1.6 ppb of microcystin.
Beyond their effectiveness, rice husks have a number of other
appealing attributes. They're cheap -- researchers paid $14.50 for half a cubic
foot and buying in bulk would bring that price down significantly -- and
they're able to be repurposed.
Heating microcystin-laden rice husks to 560 degrees Celsius
destroys the toxins and produces silica particles, which can be used in other
applications.
The researchers are hopeful their discovery could be scaled up
beyond the lab to develop a more environmentally friendly method for treating
water that has been contaminated by harmful algal blooms or cheap but effective
filtration systems for the developing world.
"We could potentially use this readily available material
to purify water before it even gets into Lake Erie," Isailovic said.
"There are engineering solutions that need to be done, but one of our
dreams is to apply what we develop in our labs to provide safe drinking
water."
Other authors of the study were doctoral students Dr.
Dilrukshika Palagama and Dr. Amila Devasurendra, who first proposed looking at
rice husks as a way to remove microcystin and have since graduated from
UToledo, and current doctoral student David Baliu-Rodriguez.
Story Source:
Journal Reference :
1.
Dilrukshika
S.W. Palagama, Amila M. Devasurendra, David Baliu-Rodriguez, Jon R. Kirchhoff,
Dragan Isailovic. Treated
rice husk as a recyclable sorbent for the removal of microcystins from water . Science
of The Total Environment , 2019; 666: 1292 DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.02.042
Cite This Page :
University of Toledo. "Rice husks can remove microcystin
toxins from water: Another potential -- and renewable -- tool to fight harmful
algal blooms." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 6 May 2019.
<www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/05/190506080838.htm>.
Link between eating rice and low obesity?
MAY 06, 2019 17:26 IST
UPDATED: MAY
06, 2019 17:26 IST
Recent research says rice-eating countries are less prone to
obesity. We asked the professionals to weigh in
The western world, it seems, is slowly moving eastward. After
decades of promoting a Mediterranean diet, this year’s European Congress on
Obesity in the UK had one presentation that established a positive link between
low obesity and rice-eating. “Obesity levels are substantially lower in
countries that consume high amounts of rice (average 150g/day/person), while
counties with lower average rice intake (average 14g/day/person) have higher
obesity levels,” it said, citing an “Asian-food-style diet”.
The researchers said that “even a modest increase in average
rice consumption (of 50g/day/per person — equivalent to quarter of a cup),
could reduce the worldwide prevalence of obesity by 1% (that is, from 650
million adults aged 18 years or older to 643.5 million).”
With the report being widely reported in the media, leaving
people confused about what to eat (yet again), we asked the professionals how
we should approach the study. The general consensus: ignore it. Here’s why.
For starters, the researchers say that more investigation is
needed, “to demonstrate whether increasing individual consumption of rice leads
to improvements in obesity rates in longitudinal studies.” In addition, the
quantity of rice itself is only about three-fourth of a cup, and the average
plate in India at every meal has much more than that.
In fact, a carbohydrate-rich diet, coupled with low levels of
physical activity, has been a major problem for us, often being a risk factor
for diabetes and obesity. And while the study does not bash wheat, Anupama
Menon, a dietician who has been practising for the past 20 years in Bengaluru,
says that it is more likely to find unhealthy forms of wheat than it is to find
say, fat- and sugar-laden rice products.
Having said that, she says we must look at wheat and rice as we
do boys and girls — they’re different, but both are necessary. “There are
people who can metabolise rice better; there are those who can metabolise wheat
better; and those for whom both work,” she says. It is all about enzyme
efficiency, she says, meaning different things may work for different people,
for a variety of reasons.
It’s also about context, says Dr Anoop Misra, Chairman, Fortis
C-DOC Hospital for Diabetes, Delhi. “You have to see this in the context of
dynamically changing weight,” he says. “In the West, the baseline BMI is
already very high, and obesity levels are now growing slowly. Here, 30 years
ago, we had a low-weight population, and even though we are crossing the
threshold now, we are still an underweight country, with a rapidly increasing
BMI.” This is irrespective of what we’re eating.
So what should we eat, in the context of confusing research?
“First, stop believing everything you read or hear. Some of it is being said
for shock value. Take the info, assimilate it, evaluate it, and see if it works
for you,” says Anupama. There are some things that the world has a consensus
on, says Dr Misra. That carbohydrates, salt, saturated fats and sugar must be
had in moderation, that transfats must be avoided, that fibre, green veggies,
and monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats are good.
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DNA reveals long history of
African-Americans found in downtown Charleston
by ERICA LUNSFORD and WILSON
BEESE, WCIV Staff
Monday,
May 6th 2019
AA
CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCIV) - Streets
outside of the Gilliard Center were closed Saturday as Mayor John Tecklenburg,
Representative Wendell Gilliard, Gullah Society representatives, and community
leaders gathered for a Reinterment Ceremony for the remains of 36 African
individuals that were found during construction for the Gilliard Center.
The fragments were placed outside
of the Gilliard center, where they first were found back in 2013.
After the bones were found, they
were removed for DNA testing.
Adeyemi Oduwole, a student at the
College of Charleston had a chance to study the remains.
"It was really amazing actually. Being
in undergrad, not many people have the opportunity to travel to the University
of Pennsylvania, which is an Ivy League in order to analyze DNA."
Oduwole attended the ceremony
Saturday to replace the bones. African derived names were given to the 36
remains. The remains age from more than 200 years ago.
Based on early findings, Dr.
Bernard Powers Jr. says most came from West or Central Africa. But some came
from the Carribean, and even South Carolina, the Director for the Center for
the Study of Slavery in Charleston at the College of Charleston said.
(Provided/Gullah Society)
The burial site was not
identified in any historical documents, making the discovery a surprise, said
Nicholas Butler, Ph.D. Historian with the Charleston County Public Library.
The land was originally owned by
the Mazyck and Gadsden families, Butler says. In 1727, 63.5 acres was sold to
George Anson, who divided the property a "Bowling Green" used for
recreation, and a farm.
He says Anson returned to England
in 1745, and his Charleston attorney sold the properties.
Anson's Farm was conveyed to
Jermyn Wright in 1747, who tried to subdivide the property in 1754, Butler
says.
"Advertisements for this plan
mentioned the availability of lots on either side of a brick wall that stood
east of and parallel to the northern end of Anson Street."
The brick wall's origin is
unknown, but Butler says it may have been built to separate the burial ground
from the rest of Anson's Farm.
Dr. Butler says the property east
of the brick wall, including the burial site, was sold to Christopher Gadsden
in 1758. Gadsden subdivided most of the "farm" in suburbian
residential lots. However, Anson kept 3 acres that included the burial site.
Planter Williams Ellis bought
that property from Anson in 1761 and built a home. Ellis' heirs subdivided it
in 1798, and new homes built in the early 1800s covered the burial ground.
The Charleston City Council
bought and cleared the land in 1965 to construct the Municipal Auditorium,
which was renamed the Gaillard Center in 1975.
The Gailliard Center was expanded
from 2012 to 2015. The remains were discovered during construction.
(Provided/Gullah Society)
Dr. Raquel Fleskes, a Ph.D.
Candidate with the Department of Anthropology at the University of
Pennsylvania, wrote about her ongoing research with Dr. Theodore Schurr
analyzing the DNA of the remains.
They were able to identify some
individuals: Anika, Fumu, Nina, Zimbu, Tima, and Welela.
Their research shows Anika,
"(Vai/Liberia & Sierra Leone: beautiful)," died between the ages
of 20 and 30-year-old. Her maternal DNA shows West African Ancestry, and
analysis of her bones showed she was born in South Carolina.
Based on cavities in her teeth
and plaque, they believe she may have eaten a diet high in sugary starches like
rice.
The researchers also believe her
teeth may have been altered: "Altering the shape of the teeth is a
practice seen in West African communities and is associated with rites of
passage and group identity."
Their research has and continues
to lead to similar discoveries about the 36 individuals.
Their research shows Anika, "(Vai/Liberia & Sierra
Leone: beautiful)," died between the ages of 20 and 30-year-old. Her
maternal DNA shows West African Ancestry, and analysis of her bones showed she
was born in South Carolina.
Dr. Ade Ofunniyin says although
the bones were placed back where he feels they belong, more research is still
being done on them.
"This is the beginning of
research that will continue. We had an interesting thing to happen. Two sets of
the skulls, had enough fragments where we were able to scan those. And there is
a possibility we will be able to recreate the faces of two ancestors."
A historical marker is said to be
placed on the burial site soon.
Dr. Powers says the results,
"illustrate the ethnic complexity of Charleston's black population, and
also the process by which the African American population was born."
"It was this myriad of African groups
forced across the Atlantic and then forged together with New World black people
on the cruel anvil of bondage, that yielded a new people we now know as African
American."
Vietnam looks to export more rice to China | #
AsiaNewsNetwork
Workers stack bags of rice. Việt
Nam was looking for measures to expand rice exports to China amid a fall in
export volume to the market since 2018. — Photo baodauthau.vn
PUBLISHED 7 MAY 2019
Đỗ Hà Nam, deputy chairman of the
Việt Nam Food Association, said at a conference about rice trade between Việt
Nam and China in HCM City on Monday that Vietnamese exporters were struggling
to access the Chinese market despite China's massive demand for rice.
Since 2018, Việt Nam’s rice exports
to China have dropped to 1.3 million tonnes, down from a record high of
three million tonnes.
Nam attributed the decline to
changes in China’s import policies which required firms to be licensed to
export to the market.
“We need to be regularly updated
with market information to have measures to boost rice exports to China,” Nam
said.
He said he hoped that more firms
would be licensed to export rice to China in the near future, adding that many
firms could now meet China’s requirements.
At the moment, only 22 Vietnamese
firms are licensed to sell rice in China.
Phạm Thái Bình, general director of
Trung An Hi-tech Agriculture Joint Stock Company, said Vietnamese export
firms need to be provided with more detailed information about China’s rice
import demand – including consumption volume and rice types – to
craft appropriate production plans.
The conference was held within the
framework of a four-day exchange programme between Việt Nam and China
focusing on rice trade, jointly held by the Ministry of Industry and Trade and
China’s food associations as more than a dozen Chinese rice import
firms visit Việt Nam until today.
Trần Quốc Toản, deputy director of
the Import-Export Department under the Ministry of Industry and Trade, said the
programme was a significant opportunity for Vietnamese firms to learn
about the Chinese market’s demand for rice, network with Chinese importers
and reduce intermediary stages in the export process.
Việt Nam’s rice exports in the
January to April period were estimated at 2.03 million tonnes, worth
US$866 million, down by 7.9 per cent in volume and 21.7 per cent in value over
the same period last year.
The average rice export price
dropped by $72.7 per tonne to $430.1.
Việt Nam’s rice exports to China in
the period reached only 43,300 tonnes, worth $20.8 million, representing drops
of 89.5 per cent in volume and 90.4 per cent in value. — VNS
PM approves
Rs2bn Ramzan relief package
BY APP ,
ISLAMABAD: PM’s Special Assistant on Information Dr Firdous Ashiq
Awan on Monday said that Prime Minister Imran Khan announced a Rs.2 billion
Ramazan package under which essential items would be provided to the people on
cheaper rates at the Utility Stores.
Talking to journalists, Firdous
Ashiq Awan said, “19 essential commodities, including pulses, rice, cooking
oil, and sugar are being provided on subsidized rates at about two thousand
Utility Stores outlets.”
She said that the government
would provide a subsidy of Rs.4 per kg on wheat flour, Rs.5 on sugar, Rs.15 on
ghee, Rs.10 on cooking oil, Rs.20 on gram pulse, Rs.15 on moong, Rs.10 on mash
pulse,Rs.25 on white gram, Rs.20 on gram flour, Rs.30 on dates, Rs.15 on
basmati rice, Rs.15 on sela rice and Rs.15 on broken rice, Rs.15 on squashes
and syrups (1,500 ml), Rs.10 on squashes and syrups (800 ml), Rs.50 on black
tea, and 10 per cent relief on spices.
Awan further said that despite
economic restraints, the government was trying its level best to provide
facilities to the people during the holy month of Ramzan.
She also credited PM Imran and
his wife Bushra Bibi for the idea of setting up Al Qadir University.
Awan said it was the unique idea
of both the prime minister and his wife that the people, especially the youth,
should be imparted knowledge about the life and teachings of the Holy Prophet
Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him).
They took a personal interest in
making the idea of such an educational institute of higher learning a reality,
she added.
The Al-Qadir University, whose
foundation stone was laid under the sagacious and visionary approach of the
prime minister and the first lady would also provide modern scientific
education, besides imparting Islamic teachings to the youth.
CDWP refers
mega projects worth Rs594bn to ECNEC
By
May 6, 2019
🔊
Listen to Article
ISLAMABAD: The Central Development Working Party (CDWP) has accorded
approval to 17 projects worth Rs18.8 billion and recommended nine projects
worth Rs594.5 billion to the Executive Committee of National Economic Council
(ECNEC) for consideration.
The meeting was held on Monday under the chairmanship of
Planning Minister Makhdoom Khusro Bakhtiar. Planning Secretary Zafar Hasan,
along with the senior officials from the federal and provincial governments,
was also present on the occasion.
Projects related to energy, transport & communication,
science & technology, health, population, industries & commerce, food
& agriculture and education were presented before the meeting.
The Ministry of Water Resources presented a position paper of
Dasu Hydel Power Project due to its increased land and compensation cost from
Rs19 billion to Rs36 billion (total worth of Rs510 billion). The project was
approved and referred to ECNEC for consideration.
The Ministry of National Food, Security & Research presented
five projects, namely ‘Productivity Enhancement of Wheat’ worth Rs31.98
billion, ;Productivity Enhancement of Rice’ worth Rs15.80 billion,
‘Productivity Enhancement of Sugarcane’ worth Rs5.01 billion, ‘National
Oilseeds Enhancement Programme’ worth Rs10.16 billion and ‘Cage Culture Cluster
Development Project’ worth Rs6.58 billion. All projects were recommended to
ECNEC for consideration.
Three projects and a position paper related to the energy sector
were also presented in the meeting. The first project titled ‘Up-gradation of
POL Testing Facilities of HDIP at Islamabad, Lahore, Multan, Peshawar, Quetta
and ISO Certification of Petroleum Testing Laboratory at Islamabad’ worth Rs293
million was presented and approved. The second energy project ‘Construction of
132 KV Grid Station at Mashkay & 132 KV STD Nal-Mashkay Transmission Line
(120km)’ worth Rs1.19 billion was also approved. The third project ‘500 KV Moro
Grid Station’ worth Rs5.40 billion was recommended to ECNEC for consideration.
A project related to transport and communication titled
‘Construction of Groyne Wall/Break Water and allied works at East Bay (Demi
Zer) Gwadar’ worth Rs1.01 billion was also approved in the meeting.
Four projects related to science & technology were presented
on the occasion. The Higher Education Department (HEC) presented two projects
‘Strengthening and Development of Physical and Technological Infrastructure at
the University of Haripur’ worth Rs1.54 billion and ‘Livestock Sector
Development through Capacity Building, Applied Research and Technology
Transfer, University of Veterinary & Animal Sciences’ worth Rs1.90 billion.
the projects were approved in the meeting.
The Ministry of Science & Technology presented two projects
titled ‘Establishment of Pak-Korea Testing Laboratory for PV Modules &
Allied Equipment’ worth Rs1.38 billion and ‘Up-gradation of Polymers and
Plastics Laboratory at PCSIR Laboratories Complex, Lahore’ worth Rs140.249
million. The projects were also accorded approval.
Three health-related projects were presented in the meeting. The
Ministry of National Health, Services, Regulation & Coordination presented
‘Treatment of Cancer Patients of ICT, AJK & Gilgit-Baltistan’ worth Rs4.77
billion, which was recommended to ECNEC for consideration.
PAEC presented two projects ‘Up-gradation of Atomic Energy
Cancer Hospital-KIRAN (AECH-KIRAN)’ worth Rs2.34 billion, and ‘Up-gradation of
Diagnostic & Therapeutic Facilities at BINO, Bahawalpur’ worth Rs1.37
billion were also given approval.
Three projects related to population planning were presented by
the Ministry of National Health, Services, Regulation & Coordination.
Projects titled ‘Population Welfare Programme, Gilgit-Baltistan’ worth Rs422
million, ‘Population Welfare Programme, Azad Jammu Kashmir’ worth Rs355 million
and ‘Population Welfare Programme, FATA (erstwhile)’ worth Rs184 million were
accorded approval in the meeting.
Four projects related to Industries & Commerce were
presented. Commerce Division presented ‘Remodelling and Expansion of Karachi
Expo Centre (Component-II)’ worth Rs2.67 billion, which was given approval.
The Ministry of Industries & Production presented three
projects titled ‘Handicraft Export Development Project’ worth Rs385 million,
‘Industrial Designing & Automation Centres (IDAC)’ worth Rs1.47 billion and
‘Footwear Cluster Development through CAD/CAM & CNC Machining’ worth Rs78.7
million. All projects received approval from the meeting.
The Ministry of Education requested an extension till June 2019
in ‘Establishment and Operation of Basic Education Community Schools in
Pakistan’, worth Rs4.62 billion. The project was referred to ECNEC for
consideration.
A boy from
Pakistan became the fattest kid in the world
06.05.2019
In ten years it weighs almost 200 pounds.
Three years ago the world’s press avidly talked about Indian
10-year old boy named Arya Permana whose weight exceeded 200 kg.
The boy could barely walk and easily absorbed portions of food,
which not every adult would be under force.
Since Arie had surgery for the lap-band and a month ago it was
reported that he lost more than half its weight.
But reporters found a new sergelstorg child. The boy is 10 years
old, his name is Mohammed Abrar, he lives in Pakistan and his weight is 197
lbs.
Like Arya, weight gain Mohammed was due to his excessive
gluttony, a boy in a day eating as much as is enough to saturate four adults.
When Mohammed was born, he was normal baby, but at 6 months he
weighed 19 pounds, so the weight of a 6-year-old child.
His parents, who have three more children (normal weight), say
that their son was born with a huge appetite and he is constantly crying from
hunger. And when he gave the milk he was drinking 5 times more than his older
brothers and sister at the same age.
He was so heavy that his mother Zarina could not alone change
his diaper, and when he broke his cot, he had to make a new special order.
When Mohammed was 2 years, he was able to drink 2 litres of milk
and still felt hungry and continued to cry.
For now he is mostly lying down or sitting on the bed just to
stand up for it is already extremely difficult task. In 10 years, Mohammed
never attended school because of mobility issues. Over time, it can make no
more than three steps, and then he needed a break.
“We knew nothing about the problem of childhood obesity, we
thought he was just really chubby kid,” says the boy’s mother, “We are even
proud of our fat. And when he was 6 years old, he already weighed 95 kg and was
eating for four.”
At one time Mohammed can easily swallow 4 plates of rice, 10
tortillas chapatti with chicken curry.
“He could never get enough and swallowed everything I gave him.
He ate half of the family food and the other half ate the five of us”.
Frustrated the boy’s parents began to take him to the doctors,
but they either recommended to take a child on a diet, or even admitted there
is nothing they can do about it.
Two months ago, desperate parents met with surgeon Dr. Muazam
that said, what can Mohammed do surgery on the stomach. The one that helped
Arie Permana.
At the moment, the boy’s parents is in the hospital and he
already needs to operate.
After surgery cuts the stomach, Mohammed will be able some time
to eat only chicken broth and fruit juice and very small portions.
CBN, Unity
Bank Partner To Flag Off Distribution Of Seeds/Inputs To Cotton Farmers
May 8, 2019
Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), in partnership with Unity Bank and the
National Cotton Association of Nigeria (NACOTAN), has flagged off distribution
of Seeds/inputs supplies to Cotton farmers for the 2019 planting season
nationwide in line with the commitment to grow the Nigerian economy through the
revival of Agriculture as the major catalyst.
The distribution of cotton input supplies to farmers is part of
the Anchor Borrowers Programme, an Agricultural Development finance initiative
of the CBN operated as an on-lending scheme with participating financial
institutions packaged to channel financing support to beneficiaries in the
Agric sector.
Unity Bank’s partnership and collaboration with CBN in flagging
off this year’s input supplies distribution to cotton farmers to support wet
season farming is in recognition of the Bank’s established pivotal footprints
in Agriculture which has been well acclaimed in various awards received by the
Bank, such as the Presidential award at the 3rd anniversary of ABP, CBN award
on sustainable transaction in Agriculture.
Commenting on the development, Usman Abdulqadir, the Executive
Director, Corporate Planning & Compliance, Unity Bank Plc, said CBN is
partnering Unity Bank on account of the lender’s strong participation in the
Anchor Borrowers Programme aimed at rebuilding customers confidence,
alleviating poverty through food and cash crops production to make Nigeria
self-sufficient in food and diversifying the economy.
He further stated that Unity Bank’s strategy for Agriculture is
deep rooted: “Unity Bank’s strategy is to bank the agricultural value chain.
Therefore, we finance primary production, agricultural processing as well as
commodity trading. We also support agricultural mechanization, agricultural
services and the procurement of inputs and implements”.
Still speaking, “what is most noteworthy is that while other
banks basically concentrate on lending to big value end of the agriculture
value chain such as the flour and rice millers, Unity Bank does not leave out the
small holders farmers who are in primary production”.
In confirmation to the above, an analyst in his assessment
stated that Unity Bank has brought in critical mass of farmers, hitherto
unbanked, to benefit from various sources of funding, such as credit lines to
input supplies and service providers, areas others may have considered
unattractive.
According to the analyst, “Unity Bank’s involvement in the ABP
has thus created huge social and economic impact on the income of households
involving over 500,000 participating small-holder farmers, thereby boosting not
only the Gross Domestic Product and reducing unemployment but also helping to
end the perennial dissipation of scarce foreign exchange to import food”.
Mr. Anibe Achimugu, the National President of NACOTAN, said the
Unity Bank/CBN programme would assist the association in sourcing the right
seeds to be delivered to cotton farmers at the right time.
He also said that the association produced an estimated seed
cotton of between 60,000 and 80,000 tonnes in 2018, hoping that this figure
will be surpassed in 2019.
Achimugu listed some of the challenges facing the association to
include poor seeds, poor timing or delivery of input, inadequate extension
services, poor training and guidance. All these he believes, would be addressed
through the participation with CBN and Unity Bank.
Unity Bank has successfully mainstreamed over 500,000 small
holder farmers, hitherto financially excluded, thereby supporting CBN’s
financial inclusion initiatives
Take a look
inside Windsor's Dainty Foods — the only rice mill in Canada
Social Sharing
Jonathan
Pinto · CBC News · Posted:
May 07, 2019 6:00 AM ET | Last Updated: May 7
Inside
Canada's only rice mill
"I think people in Windsor
don't realize Dainty is here," said Dainty employee Sue Racine. "I'm
in HR, I'm recruiting, and I'm talking to people and it's like 'oh yeah, I've
driven by the place forever ... what do you do there?'"
Part of that probably has to do
with the fact that this facility is one-of-a-kind — it's the only rice mill in
Canada.
What is now Dainty Foods started
as Mount Royal Rice Mills in 1882, in Montreal. In 1967, the company — which is
still headquartered in Quebec — moved its rice mill to Windsor, a location
closer to the United States, where the company sources the vast majority of its
rice.
Sue
Racine works for Dainty's human resources department. (Jonathan Pinto/CBC)
Today, the company processes more
than a dozen varieties of rice, from standard white rice, to basmati, jasmine
and arborio. While much of it is packaged under the Dainty brand, the company
also produces and packages rice for many of Canada's best known supermarket
brands.
What does a rice mill do, anyway?
"It's cleaning it,
processing it, and getting it ready to be packaged," explained Danielle
Fowkes, one of the company's rice millers — and incidentally, the company's
first woman in the role.
When harvested, rice grains are
enveloped in hard husk, which is generally not eaten. When this husk is
removed, you get brown rice, which is rice with the bran still attached.
For white rice, the grain is
polished further, removing the bran — and notably, some of the minerals and
nutrients.
Danielle
Fowkes is the first woman to be a rice miller at Dainty. (Jonathan
Pinto/CBC)
As a result, Dainty also produces
parboiled rice, a popular way of milling that retains much of the nutritional
value of brown rice, with the taste of white rice. "[You take] raw rice
that still has the husk on it, and it's subjected to pressure and steam,"
explained Paige van Gaalen, a food safety coordinator at Dainty.
Paige
van Gaalen says parboiled rice retains much of the goodness of brown
rice. (Jonathan Pinto/CBC)
"It takes the nutrients that
are in the husk and the bran ... and envelops it into the kernel, so that when
you do mill it from brown to white, you still have that nutrient."
Tap to hear Jonathan talk about
his tour inside Dainty Foods on CBC's Afternoon Drive.
Special Report: How a Chinese venture in Venezuela made millions
while locals grew hungry
MAY 7, 2019 / 5:49 PM
TUCUPITA, Venezuela (Reuters) -
The project was meant to feed millions.
Workers walk in
front of silos in the Hugo Chavez rice plant in Tucupita, Venezuela November
27, 2018. Picture taken November 27, 2018. REUTERS/Manaure Quintero
In Delta Amacuro, a remote Venezuelan state on the
Caribbean Sea, a Chinese construction giant struck a bold agreement with the
late President Hugo Chavez. The state-run firm would build new bridges and
roads, a food laboratory, and the largest rice-processing plant in Latin
America.
The 2010 pact,
with China CAMC Engineering Co Ltd , would develop rice paddies twice the size
of Manhattan and create jobs for the area’s 110,000 residents, according to a
copy of the contract seen by Reuters.
The
underdeveloped state was an ideal locale to demonstrate the Socialist
Venezuelan government’s commitment to empower the poor. And the deal would show
how Chavez and his eventual hand-picked successor, President Nicolas Maduro,
could work with China and other allies to develop areas beyond Venezuela’s
bounteous oil beds.
“Rice Power!
Agricultural power!” Chavez tweeted at the time.
Nine years
later, locals are hungry. Few jobs have materialized and the plant is only
half-built, running at less than one percent its projected output. It hasn’t
yielded a single grain of locally grown rice, according to a dozen people
involved in or familiar with the development.
Yet CAMC and a
select few Venezuelan partners prospered.
Venezuela paid
CAMC at least $100 million for the stalled development, according to project
contracts and sealed court documents from an investigation by prosecutors in
Europe.
The thousands
of pages of court papers, reviewed by Reuters, were filed in Andorra, the
European principality where prosecutors allege Venezuelans involved in the
project sought to launder kickbacks paid to them for helping secure the contract.
The material on the China deal, reported here for the first time, includes
confidential testimony, wiretap transcripts, bank records and other documents.
Last September,
an Andorran high court judge alleged in an indictment that CAMC paid over $100
million in bribes to various Venezuelan intermediaries to secure the rice
project and at least four other agricultural contracts.
The indictment
charged 12 Venezuelans with crimes including money laundering and conspiracy to
launder money. Among those indicted was Diego Salazar, a cousin of a former oil
minister who, investigators say, enabled the contracts. Also indicted was the
top representative in China at the time of state-run oil company Petroleos de
Venezuela SA, or PDVSA.
Sixteen people
of other nationalities were also charged and at least four other Venezuelans,
one of whom was formerly ambassador in Beijing and is now the country’s top
diplomat in London, are under investigation, according to the documents.
The indictment,
the names of those charged, and their association with Chinese companies were
reported last year by El Pais, the Spanish newspaper. A Reuters review of the
case files, which are still under seal in Andorra, gleans how CAMC and other
Chinese companies forged ties with many of those charged and paid to win
projects the companies often didn’t complete.
The result,
according to prosecutors, was a far-reaching culture of kickbacks, paid through
offshore accounts, in which well-connected Venezuelan intermediaries milked and
ultimately crippled projects that were meant to develop neglected corners of
the country.
Among other
findings reported here for the first time:
• CAMC agreed
to at least five agricultural projects in Venezuela, valued at about $3
billion, that it never completed.
• The company,
according to contracts and project documents reviewed by Reuters, received at
least half the value of the $200 million contract for the rice project and at
least 40 percent of the contract value for the other four developments – a
combined total of at least $1.4 billion for work it never finished.
• CAMC paid
over $100 million in fees to intermediaries; prosecutors say those payments
were kickbacks that helped the company win contracts in Venezuela.
Neither CAMC
nor any of its executives were charged in the indictment.
In a statement,
the Beijing-based company told Reuters the details and assertions in the case
files include “a large number of inaccuracies,” but didn’t elaborate. The
company didn’t respond to requests to speak with CAMC executives mentioned in
the documents. Reuters couldn’t reach those executives independently.
“Our company
operates in Venezuela in adherence to the idea of integrity and strives to
complete every construction project with the best technology and management,”
the statement said.
China’s Foreign
Ministry, in a statement to Reuters, said “reports” about alleged bribery by
Chinese companies in Venezuela “obviously distorted and exaggerated facts, with
a hidden agenda.” It didn’t specify to what agenda it was referring. Cooperation
between the two countries will continue, the statement read, “based on equal,
mutually beneficial, and commercial principles.”
Venezuela’s
Information Ministry, responsible for government communications, and oil giant
PDVSA, a partner in many of the contracts cited in the court case, didn’t
respond to Reuters inquiries.
It isn’t clear
when any of those charged could face trial. Enric Gimenez, a lawyer in Andorra
for Salazar, the Venezuelan who prosecutors say brokered many of the contracts,
told Reuters his client is innocent of the charges there.
The leftist
regime founded by Chavez and now led by Maduro is facing its most serious
threat yet. Opposition lawmakers, with the support of most Western democracies,
say Maduro’s re-election last year was illegal and that Juan Guaido, head of
the National Assembly, is the country’s rightful leader.
Last week, in a
failed uprising, Guaido unsuccessfully sought to rally Venezuela’s military,
the lynchpin of support for the unpopular government, against Maduro.
The political
crisis was prompted by an economic meltdown of hyperinflation, mass
unemployment and an exodus of desperate citizens. Venezuelans suffer regular
shortages of food, power and water – basics that were meant to improve through
projects like the one in Delta Amacuro.
The dire
scarcities and dysfunctional projects, the opposition alleges, illustrate how
corruption and crony capitalism helped impoverish the once-prosperous country
and many of its 30 million people.
After an
ambitious 2007 agreement between China and Venezuela, Chinese companies were
announced as partners in billions of dollars’ worth of infrastructure and other
projects. Since then, China invested over $50 billion in Venezuela, mostly in
the form of oil-for-loan agreements, government figures show.
In a 2017
speech, Maduro said 790 projects with Chinese companies had been contracted in
sectors ranging from oil to housing to telecommunications. Of those, he said,
495 were complete. Some developments have stalled because of graft, people
familiar with the projects said; others were derailed by incompetence and a
lack of supervision.
In Delta
Amacuro, even government officials say a mixture of both ruined the rice
project. “The government abandoned it,” says Victor Meza, state coordinator for
Venezuela’s rural development agency, which worked with CAMC. “Everything was
lost. Everything was stolen.”
Prosecutors in
Andorra, where secretive banking laws long made it a tax haven, launched their
investigation into Venezuelan laundering amid a broader effort to clean up the
local financial sector.
The indictment
is part of a much larger case in which the prosecutors allege Venezuelan
officials between 2009 and 2014 received more than $2 billion worth of “illegal
commissions” from contractors, state companies, and other sources, often for
enabling transactions with the government.
The payments,
the indictment alleges, passed through accounts held at Banca Privada
D’Andorra, a local bank known as BPA.
Andorra’s
government, after the United States accused BPA of money laundering, took over
the bank in 2015. Courts there since then have charged 25 former BPA employees
with money laundering in a series of cases, including the one probing the
Venezuela contracts. A spokeswoman for Andorra’s government declined to comment
for this article.
In addition to
the agricultural projects by CAMC, the Andorrans examined two power-plant
projects by the company and four other power plants built by Sinohydro Corp,
another state-owned Chinese engineering firm. None of those plants ever became
fully operational, leaving towns near them subject to regular blackouts.
Sinohydro
wasn’t charged in the indictment. The company didn’t respond to calls, emails
and faxes seeking comment.
During a recent
visit by Reuters to Delta Amacuro, the CAMC rice plant remained unfinished.
Only one of its 10 silos, half full, held any grain. Some machinery was
running, but processing rice imported from Brazil. The nearby paddies lay
fallow, the laboratory incomplete, the roads and bridges unbuilt.
“WE DON’T
PRODUCE ANYTHING”
Tucupita, a
town of 86,000 residents, is Delta Amacuro’s capital. It hugs the banks of the
Cano Manamo, an offshoot of the Orinoco, one of South America’s biggest rivers.
Once, Tucupita was a stop for vessels shipping goods from inland factories to
buyers in the Caribbean and beyond.
In 1965, the
government dammed the Cano Manamo. Boat traffic stopped, fresh water receded
and seawater seeped inland, degrading soils. By the time Chavez became
president in 1999, little farming remained.
“When I was a
kid, there was rice everywhere,” recalled Rogelio Rodriguez, a local
agronomist. “Now we don’t produce anything.”
In 2009, Chavez
and Xi Jinping, China’s vice president at the time, expanded a joint fund the
countries had created with the 2007 development agreement. “Aren’t we grateful
to China?” Chavez said at a ceremony with Xi at the presidential palace in
Caracas, Venezuela’s capital.
Promising to
supply Beijing with oil “for the next 500 years,” Chavez pointed toward Delta
Amacuro on a map. “Look, Xi,” he said, announcing an effort to rehabilitate the
region.
In attendance
were CAMC Chairman Luo Yan and Rafael Ramirez, a Chavez confidante who ran
PDVSA and the oil ministry for a decade.
Soon,
businesses jostled to get in on the development.
Diego Salazar,
a cousin of Ramirez, was well-positioned.
Salazar’s
father was a communist guerrilla and author who later became a legislator and
Chavez ally. His family ties and connections to lawmakers gave the younger
Salazar a valuable address book he wielded at a consulting firm he operated in
Caracas.
The firm,
Inverdt, was owned by a Panama-based holding company he had established called
Highland Assets, according to testimony Salazar gave investigators in Andorra
when they first began probing his BPA account. From an office a few blocks from
PDVSA headquarters, he met often with Ramirez and other top officials,
according to people familiar with his activities.
Ramirez left
the ministry in 2014 and was Venezuela’s ambassador to the United Nations until
2017. Since then, Maduro has publicly accused him of unspecified corruption,
but Ramirez wasn’t indicted in Andorra and hasn’t formally been charged with
any crime in Venezuela. He now lives abroad as an opponent of the government.
Ramirez didn’t respond to Reuters emails seeking comment and couldn’t be
reached otherwise.
At the time of
the ceremony with Xi, Chavez was making PDVSA a hub for a growing array of
developments, many of them unrelated to oil. A newly created unit known as
PDVSA Agricola, for instance, was tasked with boosting food supply.
The
diversification made PDVSA the conduit through which contracts, and a growing
sum of money administered by Venezuela’s national development bank, were
awarded. By 2010, the filings say, the bank had received $32 billion from the
China Development Bank and another $6 billion from an infrastructure fund
created by Chavez.
China
Development Bank didn’t respond to Reuters requests for comment.
Salazar began
reaching out to Chinese executives, offering his services, as a well-connected
consultant, to help broker business in Venezuela. He traveled to China monthly
and began paying Venezuelan officials there to forge ties with companies
including CAMC.
“My work was to
convince them, through meetings, trips, and promotion, to sign contracts,”
Salazar told Andorran investigators.
People familiar
with the case said Salazar and his alleged associates, before the indictment,
agreed to testify in Andorra because they hoped to clear their names.
In his
testimony, Salazar told the Andorran investigators he chose BPA as an offshore
bank because he knew other wealthy Venezuelans had done so. Nestled in a quiet
valley of the Pyrenees, BPA had a reputation as a discrete money manager for
clients from high-risk countries.
After Andorra
submitted information requests for its case to Caracas, a Venezuelan court in
2017 ordered Salazar arrested on suspicion of corruption, money laundering and
conspiracy.
Citing the
Andorran probe, the Venezuelan arrest order said Salazar sought to “give legal
appearance to funds originating from numerous contracts with Venezuelan state
institutions.” A trial date hasn’t been set and Salazar remains jailed in
Caracas. A lawyer for Salazar in Venezuela denied the charges before the court.
Gimenez,
Salazar’s lawyer in Andorra, in an email to Reuters said Chinese authorities
decided which companies would receive funds and that neither Salazar nor his
alleged intermediaries could sway that. Inverdt, Salazar’s consulting firm,
offered “professional” and “technical” services to many Chinese companies,
Gimenez wrote in the email, and that “only a handful of those companies were
chosen to carry out works.”
One of
Salazar’s intermediaries, the indictment alleged, was Francisco Jimenez, a
career engineer who was PDVSA’s envoy in Beijing and who the Andorrans indicted
along with Salazar. Salazar first contacted him during a trip to China in 2010,
according to testimony Jimenez gave in Andorra.
That March,
Jimenez signed a “strategic alliance” with Salazar to promote Inverdt in China.
Under the terms of their contract, reviewed by Reuters, Salazar agreed to pay
Jimenez $7.38 million in a BPA account that Inverdt helped open. Bank records
in the case files show Jimenez later received another $7 million.
Jimenez, who
now lives in Panama, didn’t respond to phone calls or text messages from
Reuters. Salvador Capdevila, his lawyer in Andorra, declined to comment.
Another
official who prosecutors say helped Salazar was Rocio Maneiro, Venezuela’s ambassador
to China and now the country’s ambassador to Britain.
Maneiro wasn’t
charged in the Andorran indictment; numerous court documents, including a
filing by prosecutors in relation to her testimony, refer to her as “under
investigation” for payments they say she received from Salazar and for her
alleged role helping him make contacts with Chinese companies.
In 2010, bank
records contained in the court documents show, Salazar made a transfer of
$30,000 to a Chinese account in her name, citing “services provided by Mrs.
Maneiro.”
Later, Salazar
made deposits totaling $13 million into a BPA account owned by a Panama-based
company that Maneiro, in a disclosure document linked to the account, said
belonged to her. An internal report from BPA’s anti-money laundering committee,
reviewed by Reuters, also listed Maneiro as its owner.
Maneiro,
through a lawyer and in a text message to Reuters, denied helping Salazar and
receiving payments from him. “Those are assertions with no basis,” she wrote in
the message. She told an Andorran judge that the signature on the form about
the Panamanian company is forged.
The court has
ordered an analysis of the signature.
“A BRIEFCASE FULL OF CONTRACTS”
AfDB seeks rice self-sufficiency in rice
production through technologies
AFRICA
MAY
7, 2019 AFRICA
As at 2014, rice consumption in sub-Saharan Africa was estimated
to be approximately 26 million metric tons (MT). Out of this figure, 13 million
MT which represents about one-third of what is traded on the world market, came
into Africa via imports.
Rice consumption in Africa is projected to reach 34.9 million
tons by 2025. Out of this figure, 12.6 million MT will be imported at a cost of
about US$5.5 billion annually.
The demand for rice in Africa is growing as a result of
population growth, increased per capita consumption, and a shifting preference
toward ‘premium’ rice linked to increased urbanization.
The African Development Bank (AfDB) reckons that the rice sector
has the potential to become an engine for economic growth across the continent.
To achieve self-sufficiency in rice by 2025, Africa requires the production of
nearly 13 million additional tons of premium rice per year.
This will then improve the livelihood of at least 3 million
producers and lead to economic gains of about US$5.5 billion per year among
African countries.
However, to attain this feat, Africa requires holistic
mechanisms which include widespread distribution and commercial adoption of
high-yielding, climate-resilient rice varieties, accompanying technologies, and
innovations.
It is in this light that the AfDB is supporting the
Post-harvest, Processing and Value Addition Equipment Fabrication and
Standardization Workshop which began today in Porto Novo, Benin Republic.
The one-week workshop brings together equipment fabricators from
Benin, Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Mali, Nigeria, and Senegal to improve
the quality of locally fabricated rice processing equipment to respond to
consumer preferences.
Organized by the Rice Compact of Technologies for African
Agricultural Transformation (TAAT) in collaboration with AfricaRice and
Technique de Construction Mecano Soudé (TCMS), the workshop is expected to
harmonise the type and specifications of locally fabricated rice processing
equipment earmarked under TAAT.
Funded by the African Development Bank (AfDB), TAAT’s main
objective is to improve the business of agriculture across Africa by raising
agricultural productivity, mitigating risks and promoting diversification and
processing in 18 agricultural value chains within eight Priority Intervention
Areas (PIA).
The programme increases agricultural productivity through the
deployment of proven and high-performance agricultural technologies at scale
along selected value chains which include rice.
Dr. Sidi Sanyang, TAAT Rice Compact Coordinator says the
workshop will, in the course of one week, galvanise small and medium scale
equipment manufacturers to build and install rice husk-fueled GEM systems and
other equipment in TAAT target countries and elsewhere.
“Already, TCMS in Benin has signed a contract of FCFA19.5
million to manufacture and install rice husk-fueled GEM systems in six communities
in the Glazoue rice hub in Benin,” Dr. Sanyang added.
While speaking on behalf of the rice equipment fabricators at
the workshop, Charles Frimpong, Managing Director of Hanigha Ltd says the
increased collaboration between local fabricators in Africa, facilitated by the
workshop, will not only enhance knowledge sharing but lead to uuniformity in
type and quality of equipment out-scaled under TAAT.
“It will also increase the availability of spare parts for
locally fabricated rice processing equipment thereby, improving the quality of
locally produced rice which will ultimately lead to increased consumer
satisfaction.” Frimpong said.
Led by AfricaRice, a member of the Global Rice Science
Partnership that includes experience from Asia and Latin America, the TAAT Rice
Compact is already engaging the private sector with a view to achieving rice
expansion and intensification in Africa through quality rice seed production,
marketing, and mechanization, fortification, packaging and branding.
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LAHORE: The Punjab Food Outlook
report for Kharif season 2019 predicts that area under cotton cultivation will
increase by 3.85 per cent and of maize and rice by 5.85 and 1.06pc,
respectively.
According to the report launched on Monday, within rice category,
the area under Basmati cultivation is expected to increase by 1.3pc while under
Irri variety will decrease marginally by 0.9pc.
The first of its kind report for Kharif has been prepared with the
technical support of Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
(FAO) and International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) on the lines of
FAO’s Global Food Outlook in response to a Punjab government’s request.
The main objective of the report is to provide estimated gaps
between consumption and production and provide information to the government to
take timely steps for addressing the same within the province.
Earlier, a similar report for Rabi 2019-20 season had been
launched in January.
Punjab food outlook for Kharif prepared with support of FAO and
IFPRI
Sharing main features of the report, Stephen Davies, one of the
authors, said that results of the analysis were based purely on historic values
and the estimations do not depict a drastic change from their previous trends.
Over the past few years, some amount of area is shifted between
cotton and maize depending upon the market situation. This can be seen in the
forecast values as well. For rice, expansion in basmati area is predicted to be
driven by a higher export demand.
Suggesting the way forward, Mr Davies called for developing a complete
picture by engaging crop experts, considering world markets and macroeconomic
situation on crop to crop basis. Using high frequency data and examining
trade-offs between crops as well as strengthening institutional structure were
also need of the hour.
FAO Representative in Pakistan MinàDowlatchahi said: “It is
important to review the findings of this report to help reach solutions based
on evidence and better understand crucial factors such as area under
cultivation, costs of production, impact of climate change, availability of
agricultural inputs and other issues that small farmers face and their impact
on the food outlook of Punjab.”
She asserted that the work could become the basis of National Food
Security and Nutrition Information System for providing an outlook and
enhancing forecasting capacities at the national level to support
evidence-based policy making.
Punjab Agriculture Minister Malik Nauman Langrial termed the
report an impetus to agricultural development in the province and appreciated
the efforts of FAO and IFPRI in its preparation to help agriculture enter a new
era of evidence-based decision making.
Special Secretary (Agriculture Marketing) Ehsan Bhutta said the
department would study the report in depth and might form a sub-group for
outlining implementation strategy on the basis of the report.
Published in Dawn, May 7th, 2019
Government plans to export 1m
tonnes of surplus Boro rice
Published: 07 May 2019 03:31 PM BdST Updated: 07
May 2019 03:31 PM BdST
·
The government is planning to
export around 1 million tonnes of surplus Boro rice production after meeting
the domestic demand.
Agriculture Minister Abdur Razzaque disclosed the information at
a media briefing on Tuesday.
The government will hold a discussion with stakeholders in the
next 15 to 20 days after the harvest of the crop to determine whether 5-10
tonnes of Boro rice can be exported this year, he said.
“There won’t be any inconvenience if we export the rice. We’ll
be able to enter the international market which will enhance the country’s
image.”
It is possible to import rice in case of any problem after the
export, said the minister.
There will be an adequate surplus of Boro rice if the yield is
managed properly, added Razzaque.
“We can export the surplus after ensuring food security in the
country.”
But Razzaque could not provide an exact figure of surplus rice
at the briefing.
The government is procuring 1 million tonnes of boiled Boro rice
at Tk 36 per kg this year, which is Tk 2 less than last year.
It will procure 150,000 tonnes Boro rice at Tk 35 per kg,
150,000 tonnes of Boro crop at Tk 26 per kg and 50,000 tonnes of wheat at Tk 28
per kg from Apr 25 to Aug 31, Food Minister Sadhan Chandra Majumder had said
earlier.
Arkansas' slowest planting season
in 25 years causes problems for farmers
Some of Arkansas’s biggest crops are in big trouble.
Author: David Lippman, THV11 Digital
Published: 9:25 PM CDT May 6, 2019
Updated: 9:09 AM CDT May 7, 2019
LONOKE COUNTY, Ark. — Some of Arkansas’s biggest crops are in big
trouble.
Rice and corn farmers around the state are sweating – not just
because of their hard work – but because the weather has made this a
historically bad season.
“Typically,” Collin Torian said, “rice and corn would be done and
we’re shifting gears to start planting soybeans.”
But as Torian walked through his corn field Monday afternoon,
signs of progress were hard to find. “You can see problems in this area, where
your stand is much thinner than the rest of the field,” he said, pointing to a
section of field that was full of mud, rather than corn stalks, “and that’s due
to excess ground moisture, [and] not ideal temperatures.”
Torian said he plans to burn the entire field on Tuesday and plant
again, because that would give him a better chance at a successful crop.
“We’ve got a lot of work to do in a very little time,” he stated.
“You know, very (short) window to do it.”
His rice fields will also require a lot of work to be completed in
a short amount of time. He said May 15 is a typical date for farmers to be
concerned if their seeds are not in the ground, because yields tend to fall
substantially every day after that. He said he had never witnessed a season as
challenging as this one.
“You hear horror stories of the drought of 1980,” he said. “That’s shifted, and
now we’re dealing with excess rain. And each day is a new day. No two farm
years are the same, and that’s never been more evident.”
Only a third of Torian’s crop is in the ground, whereas most
years, it would be done by this point. Cold weather prevented most rice farmers
from working with their land at the start of the planting season, and
above-average rainfall has prevented them from planting much during the latter
parts of the spring. With more rain in the forecast, many farmers are debating
alternate ways to use their land.
“Eventually, it gets to a point where you just have to switch
gears, and you make a decision to go a different way,” Torian explained. “And
it if the weather pattern continues like it has, eventually it will come to
that and we will have a lot of soybeans to plant.”
“Just about every bit of that is out of the US farmer’s hands,”
Torian said, “so we have to see that, and we have to work to do what we can to
protect ourselves on our end. The rest is out of our control.”
Arkansas grows more rice than any other state in the country, but
experts with the University of Arkansas Department of Agriculture
say 2019 is the slowest planting season in the last 25 years and that
farmers have planted only half of their expected acreage. Projections for
statewide yields fall with nearly every passing day.
“The weather pattern and everything that we’re facing is, is not
ideal,” Torian said. “But the resiliency of the Arkansas farmer has been tested
before, and we will push through.”
Torian said he has some insurance on his farm, but he expects
farmers to look to Washington for help after what promises to be a difficult
year. “If things continue, there are going to have to be some talks to help us
with more of a safety net than what we already have right now,” he stated.
Arkansas has unsuspected might in
edamame market
Many know that Arkansas produced a lot of soybeans. But did you
know that one of the U.S.’s largest edamame processing plants is in the town of
Mulberry, Arkansas?
Author: Amanda Jaeger
Published: 7:36 AM CST February 26, 2019
Updated: 8:33 AM CST February 26, 2019
For all of us that live in Arkansas, we know this state is hands
down awesome. It's beautiful, full of things to do, and don't get us started on
the great food. Unfortunately, it seems like Arkansas has been making headlines
as one of the “worst states” for this or that. But, hey, we’re not focusing on
that. Instead, let’s get Arkansas in the headlines for all those things we’re
the best at. In our Best of Arkansas series, we’re highlighting just a few of
the things that are putting Arkansas in the spotlight for the right reasons.
Today, we’re talking about Arkansas’ edamame.
Edamame. Ever heard of it? It’s not pronounced ed-a-mah-me or
“ed's mommy”. It’s ed-uh-ma-may. It's a premature soybean that’s bigger,
greener, sweeter and nuttier in flavor than a conventional soybean. It's a
specialty crop that's putting Arkansas on the map as the “edamame capital of
the U.S.”
Arkansas is the 10th largest soybean producer in the US, which
makes it a perfect place to harvest edamame. In fact, one of the U.S.’s largest
edamame processing plants is in the town of Mulberry, Arkansas (American
Vegetable Soybean and Edamame Inc.). The plant hires local farmers to grow the
unique product. One of those farmers is Joe Thrash in Perry County.
Thrash has been on his farm since he was seven years old. Now,
he’s in his 32nd crop. His farm produces everything from rice to soybeans,
wheat, corn, livestock and of course, edamame.
He said the Arkansas River valley is mainly where the edamame is
focused.
“Out here, were isolated from the delta and we haven't had any
problems with chemical drift,” he said. “I think they [the Mulberry plant]
picked this area of the state for those reasons.”
Thrash is one of an estimated 20 farmers growing edamame for the
Mulberry plant.
“The edamame is adding quite a bit of economic value for us here
on the farm because it's a commodity that we don't have to harvest and we don’t
have to buy the seed,” he said. “The plant supplies that for us.”
When edamame first came to Arkansas nearly ten years ago, Thrash
didn’t see it as much of a goldmine. Conventional soybean prices were higher
and the edamame yielded about the same profits but required more work. They
have a short growing season that encompasses a 60- to 70-day period and they
have to be harvested about two months ahead of Thrash’s conventional soybeans.
Plus, the aesthetics are a big factor in their money making capability
“They want those beans in a pod and they want that pod to look
nice and green and not have any blemishes,” said Thrash.
Eventually, edamame started growing more popular and conventional
soybeans became less profitable. So, Thrash wanted back in. Now, nearly seven
years later, he is still in the game and growing more involved. Now, he
has about 100 acres of edamame growing each year. He said he never
imagined he’d have that much edamame growing on his farm.
“I didn’t really even know what edamame was ten years ago; I just
thought it was the green thing by the salad bar,” he said. “But now, we really
enjoy growing them.”
Thrash said the processing plant in Mulberry is asking him to grow
more as the demand grows.
“It’s this health food craze now where everyone wants to eat more
healthy,” he said. “You can find edamame on salad bars and people are making
dips out of them and humus out of them, so it’s more popular to the public with
a little more demand.”
As the demand grows, Thrash says he’ll continue to grow with it.
He sees the potential for Arkansas' edamame empire.
“It could grow to a tremendous size as long as the demand stays
there for the product,” he said.
Thrash said that right now only 10 percent of edamame is exported
by the U.S. so there is a lot of opportunities for production to increase on
U.S. soil.
Vietnam looks to export more rice to China
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Cambodian rice exports to China surge following EU tariffs
Prak Chan Thul
PHNOM PENH (Reuters) - Cambodian rice exports to China have
surged after the European Union imposed duties on imports of the grain from the
Southeast Asian nation, the World Bank said on Monday.
FILE PHOTO: A man works in a rice field just outside Phnom Penh
August 6, 2014. REUTERS/Damir Sagolj
The EU in January imposed tariffs for three years on rice from
Cambodia and Myanmar to curb an increase in imports from those two countries
and to protect EU producers such as Italy.
Cambodia has filed a challenge with the European Court of
Justice against the duties, saying the so-called “safeguard” measure did not
relate to any unfair behavior and was based on broad generalizations and a
flawed use of data.
After the tariffs were imposed, Cambodia’s milled rice exports
to the EU in February reached only 10,080 tons, a 57.8 percent decline from the
previous month, the bank said in its country economic update.
Cambodia exported 270,000 tones or 43 percent of its total
milled rice exports to the EU in 2018, the World Bank said.
“Overall, the decline of Cambodia’s rice exports to the EU was
more than offset by the increase in the country’s rice exports to the Chinese
market,” the bank said in its report.
Cambodia’s rice exports to China grew by 45.6 percent, the bank
said, and it managed to increase its overall exports of rice by 2 percent
during the first two months of the year.
Cambodia at present gets a trade preference from the EU known as
Everything But Arms (EBA), making all Cambodian exports duty free except arms.
The EU accounts for more than one-third of Cambodia’s exports,
including garments, footwear and bicycles.
In February, the EU started an 18-month process that could lead
to a suspension of Cambodia’s EBA status over its record on human rights and
democracy.
The World Bank said if the EBA is
suspended, Cambodia would see a maximum decline in exports to the EU of $654
million.
Reporting by Prak Chan Thul;
Editing by Tom Hoguer
Dangerous pest detected in Northeast India: ICAR scientists
raise alarm
·
MPHAL | May 8, 2019:
For the first time in Northeast Indian state including Manipur,
a devastating pest native to tropical and subtropical North America has been
detected by the scientist from Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR)
Manipur Centre.
The insect is called Fall Armyworm (Spodoptera frugiperda) which lays
to waste crops like maize was detected in the maize research farm of ICAR,
Manipur Centre in the outskirt of Imphal city and also at Chandonpokpi village
farm in Chandel district.
“We have detected and started monitoring the new insect since
last month and can now officially confirm its presence,” said scientist
(Entomology) Dr Arati Ningombam of ICAR Manipur centre.
It was also reported from Nagaland, Mizoram and Tripura this month.
In India, it was detected for the first time in Karnataka in May
2018 and rapidly spread to other parts of India including Chhattisgarh in
January this year.
This pest was earlier confined to America until 2015 and by 2017
spread to some African countries, wreaking havoc in the continent.
Kolkata groom cheated while on his way to Shillong for
his marriage
On the rapid spread, Arati said, “These insects can fly more than 100
km a night. Besides being an exotic species, they have no natural enemies in
the new environment which is similar to their native tropical and sub-tropical
America.”
It is a pest that can feed on many host plants, she added. It
can cause complete devastation of a field within short time if appropriate
control measures are not taken. It has been reported to feed on rice, sorghum,
sugarcane and many economically important vegetables.
Any invasion by a new, exotic insect is always a threat to the
farmers and biodiversity of a place, another ICAR scientist (Agronomy) Dr MA
Ansari said.
“This new invasion should be considered seriously and knowledge about
this new insect is the only way to manage the insect pest rather that blindly
using insecticides recommended by pesticide dealers to control it,” he said.
The scientists have advised removal of weeds around the crop
field, manual destruction of egg masses and caterpillars, setting up pheromone
traps at the rate of 4/ha for monitoring and 10/ha for mass trapping of adult
insects etc.
The detection of the new insect is likely to pose a major threat
to the ongoing collaborative project of ICAR, Manipur Centre and ICAR-Indian
Institute of Maize Research, Punjab to promote improved technology for maize
production in the northeast.
Meghalaya: Now, two wheeler public transport offers
solution to unemployment and traffic congestion in Shillong!
Maize which is the third important cereal crop in the world after
wheat and rice plays a significant role in the Northeastern states in ensuring
food security for direct consumption and for livestock farming.
https://thenortheasttoday.com/dangerous-pest-detected-in-northeast-india-icar-scientists-raise-alarm/
NFA-7 procures 729 bags of palay from local farmers
By Futch Anthony Inso | May 08,2019 - 04:02 PM
NFA Olna Bayno, National Food Authority in Central Visayas
(NFA-7) information officer, announces that the agency has still around 430,000
bags of imported rice in their warehouses.
CEBU CITY, Philippines — The Rice Tariffication Law prohibiting
the National Food Authority (NFA) from importing rice has prompted the agency
to focus on procuring palay from local farmers.
With this, the National Food Authority in Central Visayas
(NFA-7) has procured 729 bags of play from local farmers in the region.
Olma Bayno, information officer
of NFA-7, told CDN Digital that 589 bags of which were procured from local rice
farmers in the province of Bohol while 203 bags had been procured from Negros
Oriental.
Bayno said that with the new law, which had been signed into law
by President Rodrigo Duterte on February 14, 2019, prohibiting them from
importing rice, the NFA-7 then held dialogues starting last April with local
farmers to encourage them to sell their produce to them.
“During the “Ugnayan,” we also discussed to farmers the buying
price of NFA to locally produced rice,” she added.
NFA is buying locally produced
rice at P20.70 per kilo.
With the implementation of the Rice Tariffication Law or
Republic Act 11203, increase on rice imports are expected since the new policy
liberalizes the importation, exportation, and trading of rice, lifting for the
purpose of quantitative import restriction on rice.
The government is also expecting that the prices of rice will go
down, as rice imports will no longer be limited, and importers will just have
to pay 35 percent tariff or import duty.
Since they are no longer allowed to import rice, Bayno said that
they had reduced their rice allocations to NFA accredited retailers.
“In February to March, we are allocating 60 bags of NFA-rice to
accredited rice retailers. In April, we’ve reduced it to 50 bags. But this
month, we even reduced the allocation to 10 bags,” she said.
However, as of the moment, Bayno said that the NFA-7 had around
430,000 bags of NFA rice that are stocked at their warehouses.
The supplies are part of the NFA’s last importation which
arrived in February this year and would be expected to last until the month of
August.
PH trade deficit widens to $9.8B in Q1 as
Chinese imports surged
Photo by ERIKA KINETZ / AP
MANILA, Philippines – Merchandise exports
dropped for the fourth straight month in March while imports sustained growth
for three consecutive months partly due to a surge in products from China, such
that the trade-in-goods deficit widened by over a fifth to $9.8 billion at the
end of the first quarter.
For the country’s chief economist, one way
to arrest weak exports was to pursue more free trade agreements (FTAs) with the
Philippines’ trading partners, even as protectionism was rearing its ugly head
amid the trade tensions between giant economies China and the US.
The latest preliminary Philippine
Statistics Authority (PSA) data released Wednesday showed that shipments of
Philippine-made goods overseas declined 2.5 percent year-on-year to $5.88
billion last March, while the value of imported goods that entered the country
that month climbed 7.8 percent—a faster pace than a year ago—to $9.01 billion.
As such, the balance of trade in goods
remained at a deficit—a wider $3.14 billion compared to $2.34 billion in March
last year.
Electronic products, which accounted for 55
percent of the country’s exports last March, posted a 3.7-percent decline in
sales to $3.23 billion.
On the other hand, the Philippines’ exports
of fresh bananas jumped 81.5 percent that month, according to the PSA.
Meanwhile, imports of cereals and cereal
preparations—which included rice—climbed 97.9 percent in March, the first month
that the rice import quota was removed as the Filipino staple food was instead
slapped tariff to boost domestic supply and slash prices.
From January to March, Philippine exports
slid 3.1 percent year-on-year to $16.38 billion, while imports grew 4.7 percent
to $26.18 billion.
Surging imports widened the trade deficit
by 21 percent from $8.1 billion during the same three-month period last year.
The yawning trade deficit had resulted in a
ballooning current account deficit, as more dollars were being spent for
importation.
The current account deficit hit a record
$7.9 billion last year.
The wider current account deficit, in turn,
had been putting pressure on the peso.
But economic managers had said that with
the Duterte administration’s ambitious “Build, Build, Build” infrastructure
program in full swing, demand for imports of mostly capital goods would remain
strong in the near term.
PSA data showed that the US was the No. 1
destination of exports in the first quarter, which at $2.64 billion accounted
for 16.1 percent of the total and rose 4.7 percent year-on-year.
The Philippines’ other top export
destinations as of March were Japan ($2.61 billion), Hong Kong ($2.13 billion),
China ($2.05 billion), and Singapore ($887.47 million), although only exports
to the US and mainland China recorded growth compared to last year.
During the first three months, imports from
China jumped by nearly a fourth or 24.9 percent to $5.58 billion, cornering
over a fifth or 21.3 percent of the total.
In the month of March alone, Chinese
imports surged 50.2 percent to $1.92 billion.
End-March imported goods from Japan were
less than half that of China’s, at $2.54 billion, followed by South Korea’s
$2.17 billion, the US’s $1.91 billion, and Thailand’s $1.71 billion.
Among the country’s five top sources of
imported products, it was only China that registered year-on-year growth during
the first quarter.
In a statement, Socioeconomic Planning
Secretary Ernesto M. Pernia said that “to drive up exports, we are encouraging
exporters to continue to diversify products to expand their markets.”
For its part, the government “continues to
explore non-traditional markets such as Eastern European countries and is
seeking to strengthen ties with traditional trading partners,” said Pernia, who
heads the state planning agency National Economic and Development Authority
(Neda).
For instance, “the Export Marketing Bureau
of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) is looking at non-electronic
products such as cars, desiccated coconut, coconut oil, and footwear and
wearables, among others, as new export growth drivers,” the Neda chief said.
For Pernia, free trade will also help
bolster the country’s exports.
“Recently, the Philippines secured a
commitment from the United Kingdom on continuing the same level of market
access to UK post-Brexit, similar to the European Union’s (EU) Generalized
Scheme of Preferences,” he said.
Also, “the Philippines and South Korea
arrived at a common understanding to pursue a bilateral free trade agreement
and could possibly conclude the negotiations in time for the 2019 Republic of
Korea-Asean Commemorative Summit in November,” he added.
https://business.inquirer.net/270090/ph-trade-deficit-widens-to-9-8b-in-q1-as-chinese-imports-surged#ixzz5nK6YsSOM
Cambodia’s
rice exports to China rise 45.6 pct in two months
VNA TUESDAY,
MAY 7, 2019 - 16:13:00
Cambodia’s
rice exports to China have surged strongly after the European Union (EU)
imposed duties on rice imports from the Southeast Asian nation, the World Bank
(WB) said on May 6 (Photo: VNA)
Hanoi (VNA) – Cambodia’s rice exports to China have surged
strongly after the European Union (EU) imposed duties on rice imports from the
Southeast Asian nation, the World Bank (WB) said on May 6.
Does Eating Rice Make You Fat? Shocking Link
Between Rice And Obesity Found
Rice could be the key to end the ongoing battle against obesity
around the world. A new research that analyzed data from more than 130
countries shows that adding more rice to your daily diet could help reduce the
risk of being overweight.
Healthy experts previously raised a question on why people in
the U.S. have higher rates of obesity, while some countries appear to have
significantly low number of cases.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimated
that 39.8 percent of people in the U.S. are currently obese. However, in Japan,
only 4.3 percent of the population are obese, according to the World Health
Organization (WHO).
This then led researchers from
Doshisha Women's College of Liberal Arts in Kyoto, Japan, to study the factors
that put many people in their country at a healthy or average weight. They
initially recognized that Japan along with other countries with low obesity
cases consider rice as a staple food, Medical News Today reported
"The observed associations suggest that the obesity rate is
low in countries that eat rice as a staple food,” Tomoko Imai, lead researcher
and a professor at Doshisha Women's College of Liberal Arts, said. “Therefore,
a Japanese food or an Asian-food-style diet based on rice may help prevent
obesity."
The team gathered data from 136 countries and found that in
nations where people consume an average of at least 150 grams of rice per day
had significantly lower rates of obesity. The researchers also took into
account other factors that contribute to the obesity epidemic, such as smoking
rates, calorie consumption and money spent on healthcare.
The Doshisha researchers suggested that if each person increases
their daily rice consumption by just one-quarter of a cup or 50 grams the
global obesity risk may dramatically decrease by 1 percent, or from 650 million
people down to 643.5 million adults.
Imai said that rice potentially promotes slow weight gain due to
fiber, nutrients and plant compounds found in whole grains that increase the
feeling of fullness. Rice also has low postprandial blood glucose level, which
blocks insulin secretion.
The researchers presented their findings at the recent European
Congress on Obesity in Glasgow, United Kingdom.
Ban Imposed On Rice Cultivation
The Board of Revenue Sindh has imposed complete ban on rice
cultivation for the year 2019 on perennial Canals that is Ghotki Feeder, Rohri
Canal and Nara Canal
KARACHI, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - APP - 7th May, 2019 )
:The board Sindh 2019 Ghotki Rohri Nara
The Commissioner, Deputy Commissioner and Assistant Commissioner
having jurisdiction over the command area of above Canals have been directed to
take stringent necessary measures to restrict rice cultivation, said a
statement on Tuesday.
Black
rice and bok choy: Here’s a one-bowl meal that’s as nutritious as it is
delicious
May
6, 2019 at 6:00 am Updated
May 6, 2019 at 3:28 pm
1 of 3 | Preparing a black rice
bowl with bok choy and mushrooms in New York, April 2019. This vegetarian bowl,
packed with glutinous... (Andrew Scrivani/The New York Times) More
By
The New York Times
People
have been eating from bowls since the dawn of civilization, long before “bowl
food,” and there is no denying the age-old pleasure of it. It is a comforting
way to dine.
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Though some say a cup of raw rice feeds four people, I never think so. I always
cook two cups to be sure, and hope to have leftovers for fried rice the next
day. (I recently discovered that day-old sticky black rice, pan-fried in a
little oil until crispy, is unbelievably good.)Black
Rice Bowl With Bok Choy and Mushroom Total
time: 45 minutesMakes: 4 to 6
servings1. Cook
the rice: Rinse rice well and drain. Put rice in a 2-quart saucepan and cover
with 3 1/2 cups water. Bring to a boil over high heat, then turn heat to low.
Cover and cook for 30 minutes. Turn off heat and let the rice sit, covered, for
15 minutes, to continue steaming off heat.
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2. As rice rests, cook the mushrooms: Put 1
tablespoon oil in a wide wok or heavy, deep-sided skillet, and place over
medium-high heat. When oil shimmers, add mushrooms, sprinkle with a little salt
and stir-fry for about 1 minute, letting mushrooms brown a bit. Remove
mushrooms from pan and set aside.3. Add
remaining 1 tablespoon oil to the pan. When oil is hot, add peppers, ginger and
garlic, and let them sizzle for 30 seconds or so, without browning. Add soy
sauce, sugar (if using) and 1/2 cup water and turn heat to high.4. Add
greens and stir-fry, mixing well and allowing greens to wilt. The greens should
be done in about 2 minutes, but still firm and bright. Add reserved mushrooms
and toss to incorporate. Drizzle with sesame oil and turn off heat.5. Mound a
cup of rice in each serving bowl. Surround rice with the greens mixture and
sprinkle with scallions.
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