Call to fill posts in agriculture dept
LAHORE:Permanent merit-based
appointments should be made in Punjab Agriculture Department to deliver and
enhance productivity of this important sector coupled with achieving the goal
of result-oriented research work, a farmer body demanded here on Tuesday.
Pakistan Kissan Ittehad (PKI)
identified what it called a great anomaly in the agriculture research system of
Punjab where incompetent junior officers are posted at higher position to
please someone or simply due to political pressure, financial gain/corruption
or on favoritism for years, said PKI president Khalid Mahmood Khokhar. Such
arrangement is allowed only for stopgap arrangement for a period of 3 to 6
months, but officers on such postings for longer period aim to praise their
boss or senior officer instead of proving their competence or delivering
tangible results, he said.
As many as 21 posts of directors of
important Research Institutes of Agriculture Department, Punjab are lying
vacant since long and these are occupied by junior scientists on
Additional/Look After/Own pay & scale in addition to their own
responsibilities. These include post of Director Agri (Research), AARI,
Faisalabad which lacks permanent posting since 30.06.2012, Director, Fodder Research
Institute, Sargodha since 31.10.2016, Director, Vegetable Res. Institute,
Faisalabad since 04.08.2015, Director, Maize and Millets Research Institute,
Sahiwal since 04.05.2016, Director, Oilseeds Research Institute, Faisalabad
since 26.01.2017, Director, Wheat Research Institute, Faisalabad since
30.09.2017, Director, Cotton Research Institute, Multan since 29.03.2016,
Director, Potato Research Institute, Sahiwal since 23.12.2014, Director, Arid
Zone Research Institute, Bhakkar since 31.10.2015, Director, Regional Agri.
Research Institute, Bahawalpur since 20.04.2017, Director, Sugarcane Research
Institute, Faisalabad since 13.08.2016, Director, Agronomic Research Institute,
Faisalabad since 14.03.2016, Director, Plant Pathology Research Institute, Faisalabad
since 04.05.2015, Director, Institute of Soil Chemistry & Environment
Sciences, Kala Shah Kaku since 01.11.2015, Director, Soil & Water
Conservation Research Institute, Chakwal since 15.10.2015, Director, Soil
Salinity Research Institute Pindi Bhattian since 24.05.2015, Director,
Horticultural Research Institute, Faisalabad since 31.01.2018, Director, Mango
Research Institute, Multan since 19.07.2016, Director, Post-Harvest Research
Centre, Faisalabad since 26.08.2017, Director, Rice Research Institute, Kala
Shah Kaku since 22.10.2018 and Director, Barani Agricultural Research
Institute, Chakwal since 25.10.2018, he said.
These directors are considered
leaders of professional teams and responsible for planning & execution of
research programme and technology transfer of important research institutes
including wheat, cotton, rice, sugarcane, maize, oilseed, vegetables. Our
economy is agriculture-based and junior offices or irrelevant officers are
appointed as directors of these important crops. This situation badly affecting
R&D activities of these institutes, Khokhar lamented.
Further the post of Chief Executive,
Punjab Agricultural Research Board (PARB), Lahore is vacant since 22.10.2018
and posts of Member of PARB are also vacant.
The PARB has an effective
Competitive Grant System (CGS) for funding output oriented agricultural
research projects. The unavailability of CE & Members is impeding ongoing
activities of PARB funded projects and funding to new research proposals, he
said.
Pakistan Kissan Ittehad demand that
this anomaly be rectified immediately and right man for the right job strategy
be prevailed by appointing the deserving scientists on the posts of directors
in Punjab. Secondly, post of Chief Executive and members of PARB be appointed
on regular basis. So that activities of these important Research Institutes and
PARB may regain their pace, it said.
Scientists
optimise prime editing for rice and wheat
Prime editing is a
‘search-and-replace’ genome editing technology in molecular biology by which
the genome of living organisms may be modified to include desired traits.
Many genetic and breeding studies
have shown that point mutations and indels (insertions and deletions) can alter
elite traits in crop plants. Although nuclease-initiated homology-directed
repair (HDR) can generate such changes, it is said to be limited by its low
efficiency. Base editors are robust tools for creating base transitions, but
not transversions, insertions or deletions. Thus, there is a pressing need for
new genome engineering approaches in plants, according to researchers.
David
R. Liu and his colleagues at Harvard University developed
a new genome editing approach, prime editing, which uses engineered Cas9
nickase (H840A)-reverse transcriptase (RT) fusion proteins paired with a prime
editing guide RNA (pegRNA) that encodes the desired edit in human cells.
Recently,
a research team led by Professor GAO Caixia of the Institute of Genetics and
Developmental Biology of the Chinese Academy of
Sciences reported the optimisation of a prime editing system
(PPE system) for creating desired point mutations, insertions and deletions in
two major cereal crops, namely, rice and wheat. The
main components of a PPE system are a Cas9 nickase-RT fusion protein and a
pegRNA.
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Using the PPE system, these
researchers produced all 12 kinds of single base substitutions, as well as
multiple point mutations and small DNA insertions and deletions at nine rice
and seven wheat sites in protoplasts, with efficiencies up to 19.2 percent. The
efficiency of PPE was said to be strongly affected by the length of the primer
binding site (PBS) and RT template.
Although
byproducts (off-target effects) were generated by the PPE system, they can be
reduced by optimising RT template length. Moreover, using a PPE system
optimised for plants, they found that the original RT could be replaced by
CaMV-RT (from the cauliflower mosaic virus) and retron-derived RT (from E.
coli BL21). Prime editing efficiency was also improved at some targets by
using their PPE-Ribozyme (PPE-R) and by incubating at 37°C.
Furthermore, GAO and her
collaborators were able to create stable mutant rice plants carrying G-to-T
point mutations, multinucleotide substitutions, and a number of desired 6-nt
deletions, with a mutant production efficiency approaching 22 percent. The
researchers stated that it is noteworthy that these three types of mutation are
very difficult to produce with current editing tools.
“Although the efficiency of the
PPE system is lower than that of base editors, it is still an appealing new
tool for creating all 12 types of single-point mutation, mixtures of different
substitutions, and insertions and deletions. The system thus has great
potential for plant breeding and functional genomics research,” said Caixia.
Impact of regional food
systems on Environment
By
-Tuesday, 17 March 2020, 02:57 IST
Researchers of Princeton University have made efforts to find the
relationships between food systems in the cities and climatic changes, water
use, and land use.
They focus on urbanization, considering it a key driver for
environmental changes. Anu Ramaswami, the co-author, and Professor of civil and
environmental engineering says, “Our approach reveals differences between urban
food systems both within and across countries. However, we now have a
common methodology to identify which policies would result in what levels of
environmental mitigation.”
The study was carried out in two major cities in India and the US.
The greenhouse gas emissions, the water and land use for food systems were
analyzed in the cities of Delhi, Pondichery in India and New York and
Minneapolis in the US.
In general, the researchers concluded that only dietary changes
and waste management came out as the most effective ways to reduce the food
leftovers of the city. This will be accompanied by slight differences among
different cities.
The four cities were selected such that they provided contrasting
population size, infrastructure, diet, and other characteristics between them,
so that we could drive to general conclusions.
Besides, dietary changes and waste management, the study also
analyzed the potential footprint reductions of policies to promote urban
agriculture and change food preparation methods. The following three parameters
were analyzed:
Meat consumption
New York and Minneapolis are large consumers of meat. so, when all
their meat consumption was replaced by legumes and lentils the land use slid
down by more than half, the greenhouse emissions went down by 34 percent and
water use by 24 percent. This same reduction can also be brought about by
replacing beef and mutton with poultry and pork, according to the report.
India consumes much lower meat than the US. The meat consumption
of an average person in Delhi is 4 kilograms per year and that of a man in
Pondichery is 11 kilograms whereas it is 59 kilograms per person in the US.
However, rice is a significant contributor to greenhouse emissions. Replacing
rice by wheat can bring down the footprint levels in India.
Food Waste Management
Improved food waste management will certainly lead to benefits in
all four cities, according to the report. The most useful ways to reduce waste
differed based on the nature of waste accumulation in the respective countries.
In the US, eliminating avoidable household food waste reduces both
water use and land use by about 18 percent in Minneapolis and 11 percent in New
York. It also could reduce greenhouse gas emissions by about 10 percent in both
cities. In India, however, food wastes generated prior to consumption is by
itself a larger problem, as techniques for harvesting, transportation, and food
storage are not much efficient.
Food processing
Food processing is an integral part of food systems all over the
world. This accounts for about 20 percent of the food system greenhouse gas
emissions in the US cities. In India, the emissions associated with food
processing are relatively negligible. But now that some policymakers have
proposed increasing food processing as a way to decrease food waste, the
effects will be nullified on the whole.
How to Implement the policies and reduce the environmental impact of
food footprints?
The researchers are analyzing and working on the plans that easier
to implement. For instance, switching diets from rice to wheat in Pondichery
could achieve the same reduction in land use as that by reducing pre-consumer
food waste. However, the latter is much easy to bring into practice.
On the other hand, in the US, lowering meat consumption might be
more realistic than reducing food waste.
“Our research gives us information on the environmental aspects of
urban food system actions, but the food system is very multifaceted”, says one
of the researchers. “There are cultural aspects, there’s health aspects, equity
considerations. So, this is one tool that we can pair with other tools to
inform a holistic food action plan.”
Indo-Pak nuclear war could cause worst food losses in
modern history: Study
17 MARCH 2020 Last Updated at 2:48
PM | SOURCE: PTI
Washington, Mar 17 (PTI) A limited nuclear war between India and
Pakistan may lead to the worst global food losses in modern history, according
to a first-of-its-kind study.
The study, published in the
journal PNAS, found that sudden global cooling from a war using less than 1 per
cent of nuclear weapons worldwide, along with less precipitation and sunlight,
could disrupt food production and trade worldwide for about a decade.
This would be more than the
impact from man-made climate change by late 21st century, according to the
researchers from Rutgers University-New Brunswick in the US.
While the impacts of global
warming on agricultural productivity have been studied extensively, the
implications of sudden cooling for global crop growth are little understood,
they said.
"Our results add to the
reasons that nuclear weapons must be eliminated because if they exist, they can
be used with tragic consequences for the world," said study study
co-author Alan Robock, a professor at Rutgers University.
"As horrible as the direct
effects of nuclear weapons would be, more people could die outside the target
areas due to famine,” he said.
Robock co-authored a recent study
published in the journal Science Advances estimating that over 100 million
people could die immediately if India and Pakistan wage a nuclear war, followed
by global mass starvation.
For the latest study, scientists
used a scenario of 5 million tonnes of black smoke from massive fires injected
into the upper atmosphere that could result from using only 100 nuclear weapons.
That would cool the Earth by 1.8
degrees Celsius, and lead to 8 per cent lower precipitation and less sunlight
for at least five years.
Scientists included those climate
change scenarios in computer simulations for four major crops that account for
90 per cent of global cereal production in terms of calories.
The scientists found that corn
calorie production would fall by 13 per cent, wheat by 11 per cent, rice by 3
per cent and soybeans by 17 per cent over five years.
Total first-year losses of 12 per
cent would be four times larger than any food shortage in history, such as
those caused by historic droughts and volcanic eruptions, the researchers said.
Analyses of food trade networks
show that domestic reserves and global trade can largely buffer the loss of
food production in the first year, they said.
However, the researchers noted
that multi-year losses would reduce domestic food availability, especially in
food-insecure countries.
By year five, corn and wheat
availability would decrease by 13 per cent globally and by more than 20 per
cent in 71 countries with a total of 1.3 billion people, the study found.
Corn production in the US and
Canada -- representing more than 40 per cent of global production -- would drop
by 17.5 per cent. Robock said the scenario with 5 million tonnes of smoke was
developed more than a decade ago.
Scientists now think that 16
million tonness of smoke could arise from a nuclear war between India and
Pakistan since they now have more and bigger weapons and their potential targets
are larger.
This means the impacts could be
three-fold larger, according to the researchers. PTI SAR SAR
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USA
Rice President & CEO Addresses Domestic Rice Supply Amidst COVID-19
WASHINGTON,
DC -- As the effects of COVID-19 are being felt in the U.S. and around the
world, consumers are rushing to stockpile groceries and household supplies in
fear of being quarantined or isolated in their homes for weeks. This has
led to a run on household cleaning products, paper products, and many canned
and dried goods, including rice.
Social
media platforms are full of pictures of empty store shelves, fueling rumors of
shortages, and potentially fueling additional panic and hoarding.
USA
Rice President & CEO Betsy Ward issued the following statement:
"U.S.
consumers need not be concerned about a shortage of U.S.-grown rice.
There is no shortage. Rice is a nutritious and inexpensive staple that
when kept under the right conditions can last almost indefinitely, so it makes
sense consumers would want an ample supply on hand during this crisis.
"If
you see depleted rice shelves in your local grocery store, it is not a supply
problem, it is a signifier of changing logistics in the retail market.
For a few years now, stores that used to keep one month or more of products on
hand have largely shifted to a 'just-in-time' model to improve their
efficiency. When there is a surge in consumer interest for a particular
product, supplies on hand may be depleted, but will be quickly replenished.
This is the case for U.S.-grown rice.
"Not
only are shipments of sustainably-grown U.S. rice on the way to stores now, but
this is also the time of year when our thousands of family farmers are out in
the fields or preparing to be, planting the next crop to ensure our supply of
delicious, safe rice never runs out."
USA Rice Daily
Lahore-based B2B
marketplace gets Y Combinator’s backing
By News Desk
March 16, 2020
96
Tajir, a Lahore-based B2B marketplace for mom and pop stores,
has finally made it to Y Combinator to capture local market.
The new start-up is part of Y Combinator’s ongoing (W20) batch
and will graduate from the accelerator today (Monday) after the demo day. The
Pakistani start-up has received $150,000 investment from Y Combinator as part
of the programme.
Founded in 2018 by a brother duo, Babar Khan and Ismail Khan,
Tajir makes it easy for the mom and pop store owners in the country to
procure inventory for their stores through its marketplace. The startup
currently sells fast moving consumer good (FMCG) products including soft
drinks, biscuits, shampoo, and food staples like rice and wheat.
These stores (locally known as kiryana stores) are generally
run by a single person who normally buys a large part of their inventory from
multiple sources at the wholesale market by spending hours there. It means that
whenever they do this, the store remains closed.
Tajir solves this and a few other very big problems for these stores
by letting them buy through an Urdu-only mobile app that has over 1,000 SKUs
with transparent pricing. The startup offers next-day delivery with its
own fulfillment service Tajir Express.
It also has a third-party marketplace where the sellers handle fulfillment
themselves. It claims to have over 15,000 stores currently using its services
in Central Punjab (mainly Lahore). It is the only region where Tajir is
available right now.
For the sellers (which include large FMCG companies and more),
it makes it easy to sell to a large number of stores and also handle
fulfillment if they choose to use Tajir Express. To put in simple words,
they’re trying to bring order to this sector that is informal and fragmented.
There are hundreds of thousands of these stores in Pakistan but
all of them suffer from similar issues and sellers always find it difficult to
supply to stores.
The Khan brothers, who grew up in Lahore but studied and worked
abroad, have known these issues from their young age as their father
ran an FMCG retail business in Pakistan for 30 years, but decided to take
them on less than two years ago.
Babar Khan, the co-founder of Tajir, speaking to a news
outlet, said, “We’re building the infrastructure for commerce in Pakistan,
which means Tajir should facilitate any store to increase their income. Right
now, that means providing the largest selection, transparent prices, and
next-day delivery. We are expanding our catalog continually with more brands
and product categories.”
Tajir has raised capital from Y Combinator only. They haven’t
confirmed but it is obvious that after their graduation from the programme,
they would be looking to raise more to support their growth and expansion.
The Lahore-based startup makes money by collecting a take rate
on each transaction. The margins in wholesale of groceries are usually very
thin, but the founders, speaking to the media outlet, said that during Y
Combinator, they were able to show that their unit economics work.
Ismail Khan, the co-founder of Tajir, said it has
been phenomenal, “The mentorship and connections from the YC community are
unparalleled.”
There have been two startups from Pakistan- Markhor and Cowlar-
that have participated in Y Combinator’s previous batches, but Tajir is the
first to target the Pakistani market.
Sindh, KP governments to provide ration for
coronavirus patients' families
Geo.tv/Illustration
KARACHI/PESHAWAR: The governments of Sindh
and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on Monday announced rations for families of people who
have tested positive for the novel coronavirus.
Chief Minister Mahmood Khan has directed
for ration packages — including 20 kilogrammes worth of flour, 10 kilos each of
rice and sugar, a carton of one-litre milk, five kilos of pulses, and five
boxes of tea — to be provided to the coronavirus affectees' families, a
notification issued by the KP government's Relief Department read.
The provincial health department would
collect information, including addresses, of the recipients and the relevant
deputy commissioner would distribute the government's package. In this regard,
records would be maintained by the home department as well.
Earlier
today, KP Health Minister Taimur Khan Jhagra had confirmed that the government
"received news that 15 of 19 individuals received in KP from Taftan have
tested positive for Corona Virus" and that they were "the first
positive cases in KP".
On the other hand, Sindh Chief Minister
Murad Ali Shah directed for rations to be provided to the families of people
kept in the isolation centre in Sukkur.
"Your breadwinners are
in isolation, you must be worried about daily income," Shah said.
"Don't worry about those in isolation centre; focus on your health
instead."
The Sindh leadership would not let you go
hungry, he added, stressing to the local government minister that the rations
should be delivered to the pilgrims' residences without any media coverage.
Roads From Pakistan Close, Food
Prices Spike
The price of flour and other
commodities doubled in Kabul over the last 24 hours.
RELATED NEWS
With reports of increasing
cases of COVID-19 in Afghanistan, and Pakistan's closing of roadways from
Afghanistan and Iran, the price of food and other supplies has doubled in Kabul
markets over the past 24 hours, causing hundreds of residents to stockpile
emergency food and supplies.
The Ministry of Interior acted
immediately by sending a statement to businesspeople saying not to hoard goods
(to sell at a higher price later), warning them that it was a crime and that
perpetrators will be punished.
But prices had already
skyrocketed.
In the last 24 hours, a 49kg bag
of flour doubled from Afs900 ($11) to Afs1,800 ($22) on Monday morning,
and was even going for Afs2,500 (32) in some parts of the city.
This created panic among Kabul
residents who in some areas stood in line to buy supplies for at least the next
three months.
“If there is a government there
should be control of the market,” said Zabihullah, a shopkeeper in Kabul. “I
asked the price--it was Afs1,800 for one bag of flour-- and now (in the
afternoon) they say they don’t have it.”
“I asked the shopkeeper--he said
they do not have flour--but he did have it in his shop. The price is increasing
rapidly,” said Saif-Ur-Rahman, a Kabul resident.
The prices of other foods,
including rice and ghee, also increased by 50%, according to Kabul residents.
“People should be patient. The
imports are on their way. People should not panic,” said Sayed Kamal Farid
Sapai, the head of the commodities sellers union in Kabul.
Pakistan and some other
countries, including Uzbekistan, cut supply lines with Afghanistan, but
according to the Chamber of Commerce and Investment, the import of
supplies--including flour--has not been affected by this restriction.
Afghanistan imports its flour
mostly from Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Pakistan.
“The Turkmenistan border is open
normally… There is no problem. The trucks are coming and are carrying
commodities. The Uzbekistan border is also open,” said Yunus Mohmand, deputy
head of the chamber.
Panic buying hits select commodities
in Karachi
Aamir Shafaat KhanUpdated March 17, 2020
Consumers are mainly making a beeline at super stores
rather than retail markets. — Dawn/File
KARACHI: Panic
buying in some markets has created shortage of key commodities like branded
flour bags besides pushing up demand for items including pulses, ghee/cooking
oil, sugar and rice by 20-30 per cent.
Ashrafi fine
flour bag have disappeared from the markets while stocks of Bake Parlour flour
left in shops are hardly 20pc. Shopkeepers were seen insisting that buyers pick
loose fine flour or chakki flour for themselves.
Some retailers
who have stocks of Bake Parlour brand made windfall by charging Rs310-350 per
five kg bag as compared to Rs270-280 prior to the coronavirus outbreak in
Pakistan. Similarly, the10kg bag of this brand is being sold for Rs600-620 as
compared to Rs540-550 earlier.
Producer of
Ashrafi brand has not supplied flour bags for the past one week while available
stocks have sold out in view of panic buying by consumers who fear lockdowns
and food shortage in coming days, retailers said. A similar account was given
by retailers of Bake Parlour flour.
Citing a reason
of flour shortage, a miller said factories have not received wheat from the
Sindh government for last eight to 10 days. We have been running our mills on
new wheat crop which is available in open market at Rs3,850 per 100 kg bag, he
added.
Chairman
Pakistan Flour Mills Association (PFMA) Sindh Zone, Khalid Masood said people
had indulged in panic buying mainly at super stores and retail markets,
“thereby exhausting all stocks.”
“We are working
on normal production,” he said while ruling out any shortage of wheat and flour
in the city in coming days.
“New wheat
stock has already hit the markets while the grain from Passco is also arriving
at the mills. Flour is available in abundance,” he further claimed.
General
Secretary Karachi Retail Grocers Group (KRGG) Farid Qureishi said barring
massive sales of flour, other commodities including ghee/cooking oil, pulses,
rice and sugar saw a buying surge of 20pc in the last four to five days.
He said
consumers are mainly making a beeline at super stores rather than retail
markets. “At super stores, they are actually buying goods using credit card
instead of cash,” he claimed.
Patron-in-Chief
Karachi Wholesalers Grocers Association (KWGA) Anis Majeed said wholesale
market have seen revival in sales of essential commodities from retailers in
the last three to four days owing to 25-30pc rise in sale of goods at retail
markets.
Despite soaring
demand, he said, the wholesale market would not witness any food items shortage
owing to ample stocks.
Ghee/Cooking
oil
Stakeholders in
edible oil industry gave different view. President IMGC Group and former
chairman Pakistan Vanaspati Manufacturers Association (PVMA), Sheikh Amjad
Rasheed, said he had to increase production capacity at three of his mills.
“There is an additional demand triggered by panic of coronavirus outbreak as
well as meeting the needs of utility stores and retail markets.
“Our Multan
factory is producing 150 tonnes per day of ghee and cooking oil as compared to
100 tonnes per day two months ago. Similarly, 200 tonnes per day of ghee and
oil is being produced at Karachi and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa factories from 100
tonnes per day earlier on.”
Amjad said in
times of food crisis, ghee and cooking oil comes at last spot after major
demand of flour, pulses, sugar and rice.
Former Chairman
PVMA, Abdul Majeed Haji Mohammad said demand of ghee and cooking oil had
definitely gone up by 20pc in the last few days.
However, he
said, he has not increased production capacity at his factory despite upcoming
demand in Ramazan starting from third week of next month. “I think we have time
to think on demand situation as consumption of oil and ghee also slows down in
summer and people may come in the market for Ramazan buying after April 10.”
He said many
people had lifted ghee and cooking oil earlier this month and then made a
second attempt in the last few days to cover up stocks of current month and
next month in case of serious food crisis. If coronavirus epidemic subsides by
end of March or first week of April, then many people would already have ghee
and cooking oil stocks at home.
Former Vice
Chairman PVMA and President Korangi Association of Trade and Industry (KATI),
Sheikh Umer Rehan said only 1pc of highly panicked elite class thronged super
stores and markets in Karachi to lift bulk quantities of ghee and cooking oil
while cash hit buyers are just watching the situation. He claimed that buyers
in Punjab had still not resorted to panic buying.
“I have not
increased production of ghee and cooking oil on paltry jump in demand,” he
said, stressing the country still has 400,000 tonnes of palm oil stocks which
are enough for two months.
“Wholesalers are not lifting ghee and cooking oil as they anticipate
drop in prices in view of falling palm oil prices in world markets after
coronavirus,” he added.
PML Daily CORONAVIRUS UPDATE: Rwanda fixes food
prices as coronavirus cases rise to seven
Rwanda Trade minister, Ms Soraya Hakuziyaremye
highlighted on country’s food price fixation (PHOTO/File).
KIGALI – Rwanda’s Trade Ministry has fixed food prices in order to
prevent markets from hiking them during the coronavirus outbreak.
Ms Soraya Hakuziyaremye, the Rwanda Trade minister, said there
is no reason why many companies and traders should take advantage of the
emergency situation over coronavirus to increase food prices.
Some of the food prices whose prices have been fixed increase
maize, beans, bananas, sugar, rice, cooking oil. For instance, for a 25kg bag
of rice, the Trade Ministry has fixed at Rw18,000 and a kilogramme at between
Rw750 and 800. For Pakistan rice, a 25kg bag has been fixed at Rw20,500 or 900
a kilo.
A kilo of sugar has been fixed at between Rw850 and Rw1,000.
Cooking oil has been fixed at between Rw1500-2000 per litre.
The measures come after the Rwanda government on Saturday
suspended learning in schools until further notice after reporting a
coronavirus case. Two more people tested positive on Sunday. The number of the
novel coronavirus cases in Rwanda rose to seven on Monday following two more
people who tested positive on Monday.
The recent cases include that of a Rwandan woman whose husband
tested positive for coronavirus on Sunday with recent travel history in Fiji,
United States and Qatar. The other is a 61-year old German native who arrived
in Rwanda on March 13, from Germany via Istanbul.
The government also requires all taxi-moto operators to remove
the helmet screens for passengers to limit the possibility of spreading the
virus.
The East African Community has suspended with immediate effect
all meetings (statutory and otherwise) due to the novel coronavirus #Covid_19
outbreak.
Other African countries with coronavirus cases include Morocco,
Tunisia, Egypt, Algeria, Senegal, Togo, Cameroon, Burkina Faso, Democratic
Republic of Congo, South Africa, Nigeria, https://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2020/03/16/even-limited-india-pakistan-nuclear-war-would-bring-global-famine/
Côte d’Ivoire, Gabon, Ghana, Guinea, Sudan, Kenya, Ethiopia,
Tanzania and Somalia.
Even a Limited
India-Pakistan Nuclear War Would Bring Global Famine, Says Study
Soot From
Firestorms Would Reduce Faraway Crop Production for Years
|MARCH 16, 2020
The concept of nuclear winter—a
years-long planetary freeze brought on by airborne soot generated by nuclear
bombs—has been around for decades. But such
speculations have been based largely on back-of-the-envelope calculations
involving a total war between Russia and the United States. Now, a new
multinational study incorporating the latest models of global climate, crop
production and trade examines the possible effects of a less gargantuan but
perhaps more likely exchange between two longtime nuclear-armed enemies: India
and Pakistan. It suggests that even a limited war between the two would cause
unprecedented planet-wide food shortages and probable starvation lasting more
than a decade. The study appears this week in the journal Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences.
Of an estimated 14,000 nuclear
warheads worldwide, close to 95 percent belong to the United States and Russia.
India and Pakistan are thought to have about 150 each. The study examines the
potential effects if they were to each set off 50 Hiroshima-size bombs—less
than 1 percent of the estimated world arsenal.
Average changes in maize yield in
the five years following a nuclear war between Pakistan and India. (Adapted
from Jägermeyr et al., 2020)
In addition to direct death and
destruction, the authors say that firestorms following the bombings would
launch some 5 million tons of soot toward the stratosphere. There, it would
spread globally and remain, absorbing sunlight and lowering global mean
temperatures by about 1.8 degrees C (3.25 F) for at least five years. The
scientists project that this would in turn cause production of the world’s four
main cereal crops—maize, wheat, soybeans and rice—to plummet an average 11
percent over that period, with tapering effects lasting another five to 10
years.
“Even this regional, limited war
would have devastating indirect implications worldwide,” said Jonas
Jägermeyr, a postdoctoral scientist at the NASA Goddard Institute
for Space Studies who led the study. “It would exceed the largest famine in
documented history.”
According to the study, crops
would be hardest hit in the northerly breadbasket regions of the United States,
Canada, Europe, Russia and China. But paradoxically, southerly regions would
suffer much more hunger. That is because many developed nations in the north
produce huge surpluses, which are largely exported to nations in the Global
South that are barely able to feed themselves. If these surpluses were to dry
up, the effects would ripple out through the global trade system. The authors
estimate that some 70 largely poor countries with a cumulative population of 1.3
billion people would then see food supplies drop more than 20 percent.
Some adverse effects on crops
would come from shifts in precipitation and solar radiation, but the great
majority would stem from drops in temperature, according to the study. Crops would
suffer most in countries north of 30 degrees simply because temperatures there
are lower and growing seasons shorter to begin with. Even modest declines in
growing-season warmth could leave crops struggling to mature, and susceptible
to deadly cold snaps. As a result, harvests of maize, the world’s main cereal
crop, could drop by nearly 20 percent in the United States, and an astonishing
50 percent in Russia. Wheat and soybeans, the second and third most important
cereals, would also see steep declines. In southerly latitudes, rice might not
suffer as badly, and cooler temperatures might even increase maize harvests in
parts of South America and Africa. But this would do little to offset the much
larger declines in other regions, according to the study.
Farmers in the Indian state of
Madhya Pradesh separate rice from chaff. (Kevin Krajick/Earth Institute)
Since many developed countries
produce surpluses for export, their excess production and reserves might tide
them over for at least a few years before shortages set in. But this would come
at the expense of countries in the Global South. Developed nations almost
certainly would impose export bans in order to protect their own populations,
and by year four or five, many nations that today already struggle with
malnutrition would see catastrophic drops in food availability. Among those the
authors list as the hardest hit: Somalia, Niger, Rwanda, Honduras, Syria, Yemen
and Bangladesh.
If nuclear weapons continue to
exist, “they can be used with tragic consequences for the world,” said study
coauthor Alan Robock, a climatologist at Rutgers University who has long studied the potential effects of nuclear war.
“As horrible as the direct effects of nuclear weapons would be, more people
could die outside the target areas due to famine.”
Previously, Jägermeyr has studied
the potential effects of global warming on agriculture, which most scientists
agree will suffer badly. But, he said, a sudden
nuclear-caused cooling would hit food systems far worse. And, looking
backward, the the effects on food availability would be four times worse than
any previously recorded global agriculture upsets caused by droughts, floods,
or volcanic eruptions, he said.
The study might be erring on the
conservative side. For one, India and Pakistan may well have bombs far bigger than
the ones the scientists use in their assumptions. For another, the study leaves
India and Pakistan themselves out of the crop analyses, in order to avoid
mixing up the direct effects of a war with the indirect ones. That aside,
Jägermeyr said that one could reasonably assume that food production in the
remnants of the two countries would drop essentially to zero. The scientists
also did not factor in the possible effects of radioactive fallout, nor the
probability that floating soot would cause the stratosphere to heat up at the
same time the surface was cooling. This would in turn cause stratospheric ozone
to dissipate, and similar to the effects of now-banned refrigerants, this would
admit more ultraviolet rays to the earth’s surface, damaging humans and
agriculture even more.
Much attention has been focused
recently on North Korea’s nuclear program, and the potential for Iran or other
countries to start up their own arsenals. But many experts have long regarded
Pakistan and India as the most dangerous players, because of
their history of near-continuous conflict over territory and other issues.
India tested its first nuclear weapon in 1974, and when Pakistan followed in
1998, the stakes grew. The two countries have already had four full-scale
conventional wars, in 1947, 1965, 1971 and 1999, along with many substantial
skirmishes in between. Recently, tensions over the disputed region of Kashmir
have flared again.
“We’re not saying a nuclear
conflict is around the corner. But it is important to understand what could
happen,” said Jägermeyr.
The paper was coauthored by a
total of 19 scientists from five countries, including three others from
Goddard, which is affiliated with Columbia University’s Earth Institute:
Michael Puma, Alison Heslin and Cynthia Rosenzweig. Jägermeyr also has
affiliations with the University of Chicago and Potsdam Institute for Climate
Impact Research.
The official Trader Joe’s frozen food power rankings
Trader Joe’s frozen food, ranked.
(Martina Ibáñez-Baldor and Lucas Kwan Peterson / Los Angeles
Times)
MARCH 17, 2020
5 AM
2020, if you haven’t noticed, isn’t
going particularly well. Social distancing and self-quarantining are two
gerunds we’ve all become very familiar with over the last weeks, and as far as
food goes, it means one thing: You’re eating at home more. Whether you’re getting
takeout from your favorite restaurants or scouring the CVS shelves for
beans and hand sanitizer, we’re all eating more meals on the couch.
Which brings us to Trader Joe’s,
the place for millennials who don’t like to cook but do like to drink. Joe Coulombe, who died last month at 89, ingeniously
created a chain where each branch somehow seems as friendly as a small-town
grocery store. Hand-written signs, the signature Aloha-shirt uniform, the fact
that employees are actually, you know, reasonably helpful and friendly. Their
little Fearless Flyer newsletter, looking cribbed
straight from the Farmers’ Almanac, as old-timey as a shop that spells the word
“shoppe,” might distract you from the fact that the chain was sold in 1979 to the
Albrecht family, founders of the multibillion-dollar German behemoth Aldi.
I have a Martin Luther-esque list
of grievances about the store: Why is it Trader Joe’s-branded everything? Do
you expect me to believe that yogurt and those peanut butter
pretzels and that fried rice all came out of one magical
factory in Monrovia? Why can’t you buy, like, normal grocery store
things like aluminum foil? But those are for another time. People are stressed
out, and people gotta eat.
Here are the scientifically proven
and totally correct Trader Joe’s Frozen Food Power Rankings,
freshly wiped down this morning with the last can of Clorox wipes on earth. I
have tried no fewer than 37 different Trader Joe’s frozen food products (Did I
omit your favorite? I’m sure I did!), which I have ranked based on two metrics:
1) Taste and 2) Laziness Factor — how easy was the prep and cleanup? (Factors
in oven time if that’s recommended. A higher ranking means it’s easier.) As
Trader Ming would say, 慢慢吃!
1) Maître Pierre Tarte d’Alsace
This very good take on an Alsatian
tarte flambée or a flammkuchen will make you feel like you’re a kid in eastern
France, getting annexed all over again. It’s a crispy, buttery dough base layer
smeared with crème fraîche and sprinkled with Gruyere cheese and little batons
of ham.
This has been a staple of the T.J.
frozen food pantheon for as long as I can remember, and for good reason: The
flaky crust combines impeccably with the delicate onions, nutty cheese and
sweet-smoky ham. Also: Maître Pierre? Where’s Trader Jacques?
2) Korma fish curry
Hey. This is a winner. Are those
mustard seeds in that rice? Is the fish — a swai (a freshwater shark catfish)
fillet — flaky and tender? Is that just the right balance of heat in the
creamy, coconut-ty, tamarind-tinged sauce? The answer to all of these is a
resounding “yes,” as is my response to the question, “should I buy this?”
3) Korean-style beef short ribs
These marinated flaps of “L.A.
galbi” (so-named because Koreans who moved to Los Angeles had to adjust to how
meat was butchered in the U.S. and brought that flanken-style across-the-bone
cut back to Korea) compellingly balance sweet and savory. The brown sugar in
the marinade helps with the caramelization to the meat, offsetting the funky
rice wine and garlicky thrust, but without getting into sticky teriyaki
territory. The prep and cleanup is a little tough, but it’s worth it to feel
like you’ve landed a seat at a totally decent Hawaiian lunch counter somewhere.
4) Cauliflower gnocchi
Slow clap. Count me as a member of
the Sarcastic
Clapping Family of Southampton, because I’m duly impressed. I had my
doubts about this product because of its popularity (one of the bestselling
items, according to the Trader Joe’s crew leader I spoke to at my local store),
but I was surprised how good these are.
Unlike the prep of other frozen
T.J. gnocchi, wherein you just toss the little suckers into a hot pan, these
cauliflower gnocchi are steamed back to life first before they get crisped up
in the pan. The extra step results in a mouthfeel that could nearly convince
you that they weren’t from the freezer.
If you’re generally a fan of the
bitter pepperiness of Brassica oleracea, which includes cabbage and
Brussels sprouts, you’re going to like these. Served with cheese sprinkled on
top, they conjure broccoli, but you’ll probably be happier dousing them in
sauce — TJ’s jarred arrabiata or its frozen turkey bolognese aren’t bad
choices.
5) Butter chicken with basmati rice
Butter chicken isn’t as complex or
interesting as some (many?) other Indian dishes, but it, like kung pao chicken,
has broad appeal. And this is an earthy, satisfying, faithful representation of
the dish.
Butter chicken was supposedly
created in the kitchen of Moti Mahal, a Delhi restaurant that
opened in 1947. The sauce in this rendition has a tomato-inflected creaminess
and some slight smokiness to give it depth. Would I like it if the sauce
weren’t quite so thin? I would, but I can’t carp about the flavor. The rice
holds up well, even after half an hour in the oven.
(Martina Ibáñez-Baldor and Lucas Kwan Peterson / Los Angeles
Times)
6) Chicken & mushroom pelmeni
I enjoyed these — but I am a fan of
pelmeni. These cute, aural Russian dumplings — pelmeni comes from a word that
translates to “ear bread” — are stuffed with a bouncy-textured filling that
almost crosses the line into rubbery but manages not to go too far. There’s a
nice dill flavor to the dish, which cuts the salt and umami of the chicken and
mushroom filling. на здоровье!
7) Fiery chicken curry
Described as a “Goan-inspired recipe with turmeric rice” the fiery chicken
mostly delivers. The sweet and sour tomato-based sauce, flavored with tamarind,
lulls you into satiation before a sneaky heat comes over and backhands you.
It’s slightly more herbal and bitter than some of the other T.J. curries and
good if you want a little extra kick.
8) Chicken cilantro mini wontons
Cute is an operable descriptor for
these tiny, adorable little meat pockets. They’re not that different than most
of the other T.J. dumpling offerings, but there’s an added herbal tanginess to
the filling imparted by the cilantro. You do, of course, have to not be one of
those people who thinks cilantro tastes like soap.
9) Palak paneer
What’s with the Indian food at
Trader Joe’s? It’s better than any other category of frozen food in the store
by, like, a metric ton. This palak paneer, spiced with fenugreek and turmeric,
has the right amount of heat in the creamy, slightly grassy spinach. Cheese
cubes, swimming in the sea of green, add a pleasing squeak.
10) Burrata, prosciutto &
arugula flatbread
In an interesting prep experience,
you completely remove the prosciutto package before backing the flatbread, then
add the somewhat skimpy meat portion to the completed product. The cheese
mixture is sharp and tangy, but the arugula, after sitting in a hot oven,
essentially has all the oomph of spinach, totally lacking any peppery
sharpness. The ham imparts needed salt and the overall flavor is good, with an
above-average crust, but Tombstone isn’t quaking in their boots over it.
11) Spanikopita
In the “hard to mess up” category,
it’s still important to acknowledge when something is done right. Frozen phyllo
dough crisps up awesomely in the oven, and the slick, cheesy spinach filling is
no better or worse than we need it to be. Serve these up at a little dinner
party for your friends and make them think you’re fancier and more skilled in
the kitchen than you are. (Actually, they won’t be fooled and will 100% know
you got these from Trader Joe’s but hey, it’s not like they invited you over!)
12) Joe’s Diner Mac ’N Cheese
This doesn’t look like much going
into the oven, and it doesn’t look like much coming out, either: a tray of
lumpy, alabaster slop. But it has the pleasing graininess that only thiamine
mononitrate has, as well as satisfying gooey stretchiness. It’s souped-up
cafeteria fare, better than Kraft or Velveeta, but not quite “Diner” in its
quality or evocation of warmth and comfort.
13) Trader Giotto’s gnocchi al
gorgonzola
To Trader Giotto I ask this:
Perché? Perché non dai più sapore? This gnocchi gets a passing grade, barely,
because the combination of cheesy-creamy-salty is rarely a bad one. But it
lacks teeth — and the punch and funk — that the word “gorgonzola” promises.
Speaking of teeth, the bite on
these frozen gnocchi is off. They are bouncy and squeaky, like a dog chew toy
or a racquetball. Thankfully the prep on these, like a lot of the pastas, is
easy: Dump the contents of the bag in a pan and stir.
(Martina Ibáñez-Baldor and Lucas Kwan Peterson / Los Angeles
Times)
14) Channa masala
This version of the Indian chickpea
dish is heavy-handed with the cumin and a little too sweet, but it’s filling
and robustly spiced. It’s one of the weaker entries in the (extremely strong)
Indian food lineup at T.J., though the chickpeas don’t reconstitute as nicely
as they should. Instead of tender, the texture is mealy and grainy, like an old
French fry. Opt instead for one of the comparably excellent fish or chicken
curries.
15) Trader Giotto’s authentic
Italian penne arrabiata
“If your foodie fantasies tend to
be spicy,” reads the packaging, “Trader Giotto’s Italian penne arrabiata may
just be the pasta of your dreams!” “May” is the operative word here, and it’s
doing an awful lot of lifting in this sentence. Are we so lazy as a society
that we can’t boil pasta, open a jar of marinara and throw some chile flakes in
it? Apparently so. The sauce is bright and a little spicy but I’m slightly
afraid of the greater societal implications of this frozen dinner.
16) Chicken gyoza potstickers
“The La Brea Tar Pits” literally
translates to “The The Tar Tar Pits.” I mention this because gyoza are
dumplings and potstickers are dumplings and so the name of this product is,
effectively, chicken dumplings dumplings. Why the redundancy? Are they trying
to cover their SEO bases by name-checking both Japanese and Chinese foodstuffs?
Like the Beatles album “Yellow
Submarine” these are not going to be anyone’s favorite, but they’ll do in a
pinch when nothing else is around. And they stay together in the pan, which is
a win for any bag of frozen dumplings. Fry for best results.
17) Yellow jackfruit curry with
jasmine rice
A reasonable vegan option —
coconut-ty, creamy and somewhat spicy — but the eggplant in the mix dominates
and it could use a little more of the meaty jackfruit.
18) Trader Giotto’s linguine with
pesto & tomatoes
I’m slightly shocked by the look of
most of T.J.’s pasta dishes while they’re still in frozen form: The sauce is
frozen separately into about a dozen silver-dollar-sized discs and scattered
throughout the icy pasta. The effect is that it looks like play food, something
that would be scattered around the floor of a child’s toy kitchen.
The pesto has an aggressive basil
flavor and a slight grassiness. It needs more of another ingredient to balance
that out — more cheese? Butter? Pine nuts? Giotto could have done better with
this one, but it’ll do in a pinch.
19) Tempura shrimp with soy dipping
sauce
Ten little shrimp soldiers come
lined up side-by-side in plastic foam packs. Heated, they lack the delicate,
intricate structure and lightness of better-battered tempura. The sauce is
overly gloppy and sweet.
Is it unrealistic to expect more
from Trader Joe’s freezer case? Probably, but if we can’t put high standards on
our multibillion-dollar conglomerates, where can we?
20) Trader Giotto’s linguine with
clam sauce
While not sharp or garlicky enough,
it doesn’t overtly offend. Like many of the T.J. pastas, they come in frozen
pasta “nests” that are cooked and slowly unravel in the pan. There are a few
springy clams in there, but this pasta alle vongole misses any of the rich
brininess you want from the dish. When the linguini hits your plate and it
don’t taste too great, that’s a-disappointment!
(Martina Ibáñez-Baldor and Lucas Kwan Peterson / Los Angeles
Times)
21) Scallion pancakes (pa jeon)
There’s a lot that’s wrong here,
the main thing being that these conflate the Chinese cong
you bing, scallion pancake, with the Korean pajeon. Pajeon are made with a
batter, not dough, so they’re a lot different than most Westerners’ ideas of
what scallion pancakes are and will probably lead to a lot of confused
shoppers.
This doesn’t taste terrible, but it
suffers the problem most undistinguished pajeons suffer: too bready and not
enough green onion. The batter should serve the veggies and not the other way
around; give me a pancake that’s completely green and lousy with scallions, and
I’ll show you a happy man.
22) Peruvian style chimichurri rice
I’m not sure why chimichurri, a
condiment most typically seen alongside Argentine food, is attributed to Peru
in this frozen offering. Then again, I’m not sure why they use the wrong
accents on “crème fraîche” on the packaging either. (“Créme fraiche,” or CRAY-m
fresh, is how Trader Joe’s spells it).
Is that overly pedantic? Sure, but
I am a man who just ate 37 frozen dinners. The chimichurri in question isn’t
particularly chimichurri-like, totally lacking in any allium wallop. Instead,
it leans mild, peppery and cilantro-y — more of a mild, creamy aji sauce. The
prep is easy and the overall tomato flavor doesn’t offend, but it tastes like
someone dumped too much citric acid into this, giving the dish a punchy but
unconvincing feel.
23) Cuisine Adventures French onion
soup
I was psyched to see that this was
even an option — frozen French onion soup? The greatest of all soups with none
of the work? My next reaction was to wonder exactly how this was going to work.
It turns out you get a frozen cylinder of soup, vacuum-packed in plastic. You
unwrap the soup lump and place it directly into a cup or bowl, and then bake.
In theory, this is ingenious. In
practice, it falls short. The cheese is rubbery, the broth is so-so, and the
croutons are practically nonexistent, having almost completely disintegrated in
the soup after 40 minutes in the oven. Is disappointing French onion soup
better than none at all?
24) Trader Joe’s potato pancakes
I love a good latke, but I want to
actively feel the shreds of potato breaking between my teeth — not the
mushiness of bready batter. They crisp up promisingly in the pan, but the
mealiness inside is real.
25) Trader Ming’s Mandarin Orange
Chicken
One of the crew members at my local
store asserted that this is the most popular item it sells. But why? It’s not
awful, but it lacks the appeal and craveability of its cooler cousin at Panda
Express, to which comparisons will inevitably be drawn. The sauce on this dark
meat chicken is a little too tangy, a little too sharp — It almost crosses the
line into stomach acid territory. The breading on the meat is, thankfully, not
overly thick, but that’s not enough to get this into my reusable bag.
Oh, and one more thing: The name of
this product can go straight to hell. Trader Ming’s? The
racism is less offensive than the inaccuracy. Anyone with a modicum of
knowledge of Chinese knows that the name clearly should be, if anything, Trader
Zhou’s.
26) Chicken chilaquiles rojo
The sauce is average, the chicken
in these has a forcemeat quality, but the real issue is with the chips that are
crumbled to bits right out of the package and dissolve to practically nothing
in the cooking process. I also enjoy how the cooking instructions tell you to
cook this “until an internal temperature of 165 F has been reached,” which is a
sneaky bit of legalese. If you’re eating frozen chilaquiles, what are the
chances you’re using a reliable instant-read thermometer?
27) Stacked eggplant Parmesan
The box on this “stacked” eggplant
parm makes a lot of promises and doesn’t deliver on any of them. The eggplant
is cut far too thick — I don’t need to feel like I’m eating a steak. The
eggplant should be thin enough to nicely caramelize and almost (but not quite)
fall apart. Instead, this eggplant is stacked like a Big Mac in a soup of
tomato-bread mush. There’s not nearly enough cheese and a sharp, reedy basil
flavor overpowers everything.
28) Chicken Chile Verde Burritos
I usually use the oven over a
microwave but I went the radioactive route on this dish because, 30 minutes to
heat up a burrito? Do I look like Methuselah?
But I fear no appliance would have
helped these burritos, which are filled with a slurry that has the taste and
consistency of turkey jook. That’s not a problem per se, but it isn’t what I
signed up for. I don’t get much chili flavor, and the gummy tortilla is far too
thick and dominates the proceedings.
(Martina Ibáñez-Baldor and Lucas Kwan Peterson / Los Angeles Times)
29) Mini vegetable samosas
“Cumin mush” are the two operative
words in this, the sole disappointing T.J. Indian food I tried during this
tasting. They crisp up somewhat decently in the oven, but are filled with an
over-cuminated pulp that’s hard to get excited about.
30) Beef shepherd’s pie
The shepherd has sheep, which is
why their pies are usually filled with lamb. I imagine the people from TJ’s
corporate probably felt a gamier meat like lamb would be a hard sell, so they
went with beef instead. Does it help? Not really. There’s an Armed Forces-like
chipped beef quality to meat, the veggies aren’t substantial enough to get
anyone’s attention and the mashed potato covering the top has a funny, grainy
texture. You hate to see it.
31) Chipotle vegetable quesadillas
While not overtly offensive, the
casing of these quesadillas is about five times thicker than it needs to be,
more pita than tortilla. The insides are an uninspiring glop of queso mixed
with vegetables, and the chipotle is AWOL.
32) Mushroom & black truffle
flatbread
Truffles AND mushrooms? Why? The
truffle taste is ... so powerful. I was curious as to how anything containing
more than a modicum of truffle could cost just $4.49, so I checked the
ingredient list. They sneakily list Latin fungus names on the back without
explaining what all of them are — Tuber aestivum (summer truffle), but also
Agaricus bisporus (portobellos) and Pleurotus ostreatus (oyster mushrooms).
There’s none of the sweet nutty
aroma you want from a truffle, and the overall flavor is one of old porcinis.
Get a rich aunt to take you out to a fancy restaurant where they have the real
deal.
33) Trader Giotto’s pizza
margherita
This screams “bad buffet” or
“subpar 7-Eleven.” While there’s only a seven-minute bake time, you end up with
a stiff crust covered in a pasty sauce and plasticky discs of cheese that don’t
melt properly. Pass.
34) Creamy spinach & artichoke
dip
The dip comes in a cylinder, much
like the French onion soup, and, much like the French onion soup, it misses the
mark. It’s far too thin and runny, and tastes like a weak cream of spinach soup
from Corner Bakery. Where’s the cheese? Where’s the heft? This subpar offering
limps along and coasts on name alone, a little like the Biden campaign thus
far.
35) BBQ chicken pizza
An institutional foam cracker
covered in sad ketchup and some stray chicken. There’s absolutely none of the
zing or brightness you need in a good BBQ chicken pizza. Next!
36) Honey walnut shrimp
Oh, these are bad. These are real
bad. Think pineapple, sour milk and shellfish. Imagine a big bowl of
church-basement ambrosia. Now imagine someone spiked that with a bunch of warm
shrimp. HARD PASS.
37) Philly cheesesteak bao buns
“Marry an ancient bao bun recipe
with one of America’s favorite foods,” it says on the package. “The fluffy bao
bun is the perfect vehicle for every beefy, cheesy bite,” it says on the
package. ALL LIES. The bao is as stiff and humorless as Mitch McConnell, and
the insides filled with a slick, vile concoction that looks like the inside of
a newborn’s diaper and only passingly resembles food.
Any resemblance to a cheesesteak is
purely coincidental. Let this be a lesson to those who like to throw darts at a
board, pick two random names, and combine them into some sort of “fusion”-esque
food — sometimes two rights make a wrong!
Relief as trade
and irrigation plans back on track in Nyanza
· Harold
Odhiambo 17th Mar 2020 09:15:00 GMT +0300
Mamboleo
Junction-Guba road in Kisumu county being constructed by Kajulu Residents Association
on November 10, 2019. [Denish
Ochieng/ Standard]
Residents of Nyanza are set to benefit as
multi-billion-shilling projects earmarked by the national government and
private firms to transform the region’s economy begin to take shape.
As money is invested in trade, infrastructure and
agricultural projects, it is hoped that the region’s economy, which has
stagnated in the past few years, will witness a much-needed upswing.
The opening of a Sh3 billion port would be the icing on the
cake should the national government resolve the controversies that have dogged
its operationalisation.
Some of the projects that have started to take shape are
establishment of a Special Economic Zone (SEZ), construction of the Koru-Soin
Dam and expansion of the West Kano Irrigation Scheme.
Last week, government officials tasked with delivering the
SEZ held a public participation forum in Kisumu as they began fast-tracking
implementation of the initiative.
Special Economic Zone Authority acting CEO Meshack Kimeu said
a feasibility study for the project is underway and is expected to be completed
in the next three months.
The SEZ, which will be established in the Nyando sugar belt
in Miwani, is tipped to provide employment for thousands of residents and turn
the local economy around.
The National Irrigation Board also has a presence in the
region where it has intensified efforts to boost food production by increasing
the acreage under rice from 11,000 to 16,000 hectares.
The NIB hopes that by adopting improved mechanisation, it
will ensure long-term food security.
The board is also buying rice from farmers in line with a
directive from President Uhuru Kenyatta aimed at cushioning farmers from
exploitation.
Nyanza NIB Regional Manager Joel Tanui said the government is
purchasing Basmati rice at Sh85 per kilogramme while the Sindano variety is
retailing at Sh40 per kilogramme.
Rice harvest
“We have asked farmers to bring their rice harvest to us so
that we can purchase it at good prices,” said Mr Tanui.
Another ongoing project by the National Water Harvesting and
Storage Authority is aimed at improving food production through irrigation as
well as controlling perennial flooding in the region.
The authority’s CEO Geoffrey Sang told The Standard that they
would fast-track construction of the Sh40 billion Koru-Soin Dam.
Mr Sang said they had started engaging various stakeholders
on delivery of the project. “We are on track and are planning the process of
public participation because the exercise will also involve the displacement of
people to pave way for construction of the multi-purpose dam.”
Sang described the project as “a game-changer in the quest to
boost food production in the region” and urged locals to throw their weight
behind it.
Another project that has already taken shape is the
Sh15 billion Kenya Breweries Limited plant in Kisumu, which has seen the brewer
contract farmers to grow sorghum.
The company constructed a brewery where farmers from western
Kenya supply specific white sorghum grain varieties to be used as the main raw
materials in brewing keg beer.
Early this year, the brewer announced that nearly 50,000
women had directly benefited from the initiative.
There is hope that a road project, which had slowed business
for almost three years, will be completed after the contractor moved back to
the stretch between Kondele and Mamboleo in Kisumu.
Stakeholders in the sugar industry are also optimistic after
the struggling State-owned Chemelil sugar factory resumed operations following
a government bail-out.
Kenya National Chamber of Commerce and Industry
Kisumu branch chairman Israel Agina expressed optimism that the economy would
pick up in the coming months. https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/article/2001364504/relief-as-trade-and-irrigation-plans-back-on-track-in-nyanza
Call to fill posts in agriculture dept
18 march,2020
LAHORE:Permanent merit-based
appointments should be made in Punjab Agriculture Department to deliver and
enhance productivity of this important sector coupled with achieving the goal
of result-oriented research work, a farmer body demanded here on Tuesday.
Pakistan Kissan Ittehad (PKI)
identified what it called a great anomaly in the agriculture research system of
Punjab where incompetent junior officers are posted at higher position to
please someone or simply due to political pressure, financial gain/corruption
or on favoritism for years, said PKI president Khalid Mahmood Khokhar. Such
arrangement is allowed only for stopgap arrangement for a period of 3 to 6 months,
but officers on such postings for longer period aim to praise their boss or
senior officer instead of proving their competence or delivering tangible
results, he said.
As many as 21 posts of directors of
important Research Institutes of Agriculture Department, Punjab are lying
vacant since long and these are occupied by junior scientists on
Additional/Look After/Own pay & scale in addition to their own
responsibilities. These include post of Director Agri (Research), AARI,
Faisalabad which lacks permanent posting since 30.06.2012, Director, Fodder
Research Institute, Sargodha since 31.10.2016, Director, Vegetable Res.
Institute, Faisalabad since 04.08.2015, Director, Maize and Millets Research
Institute, Sahiwal since 04.05.2016, Director, Oilseeds Research Institute,
Faisalabad since 26.01.2017, Director, Wheat Research Institute, Faisalabad
since 30.09.2017, Director, Cotton Research Institute, Multan since 29.03.2016,
Director, Potato Research Institute, Sahiwal since 23.12.2014, Director, Arid
Zone Research Institute, Bhakkar since 31.10.2015, Director, Regional Agri.
Research Institute, Bahawalpur since 20.04.2017, Director, Sugarcane Research
Institute, Faisalabad since 13.08.2016, Director, Agronomic Research Institute,
Faisalabad since 14.03.2016, Director, Plant Pathology Research Institute,
Faisalabad since 04.05.2015, Director, Institute of Soil Chemistry &
Environment Sciences, Kala Shah Kaku since 01.11.2015, Director, Soil &
Water Conservation Research Institute, Chakwal since 15.10.2015, Director, Soil
Salinity Research Institute Pindi Bhattian since 24.05.2015, Director,
Horticultural Research Institute, Faisalabad since 31.01.2018, Director, Mango
Research Institute, Multan since 19.07.2016, Director, Post-Harvest Research
Centre, Faisalabad since 26.08.2017, Director, Rice Research Institute, Kala
Shah Kaku since 22.10.2018 and Director, Barani Agricultural Research
Institute, Chakwal since 25.10.2018, he said.
These directors are considered
leaders of professional teams and responsible for planning & execution of
research programme and technology transfer of important research institutes
including wheat, cotton, rice, sugarcane, maize, oilseed, vegetables. Our
economy is agriculture-based and junior offices or irrelevant officers are appointed
as directors of these important crops. This situation badly affecting R&D
activities of these institutes, Khokhar lamented.
Further the post of Chief
Executive, Punjab Agricultural Research Board (PARB), Lahore is vacant since
22.10.2018 and posts of Member of PARB are also vacant.
The PARB has an effective
Competitive Grant System (CGS) for funding output oriented agricultural
research projects. The unavailability of CE & Members is impeding ongoing
activities of PARB funded projects and funding to new research proposals, he
said.
Pakistan Kissan Ittehad demand that
this anomaly be rectified immediately and right man for the right job strategy
be prevailed by appointing the deserving scientists on the posts of directors
in Punjab. Secondly, post of Chief Executive and members of PARB be appointed
on regular basis. So that activities of these important Research Institutes and
PARB may regain their pace, it said.
Mujib Borsho Event: 3 schools defy
govt directive, call in all students
12:00 AM, March 18, 2020 / LAST
MODIFIED: 10:21 AM, March 18, 2020
Star Report
Defying government instructions, at
least three schools in Gazipur and Narayanganj yesterday held programmes
marking Bangabandhu's birth centenary with the participation of almost all
their students and also guardians amid coronavirus scare.
The education ministry on Monday asked
all secondary schools to celebrate the day by planting 100 trees on and around
school campuses with maximum 25 people taking part in each programme.
Earlier on that day, the government
had announced that all educational institutions would remain closed till March
31 as part of measures to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus.
Yesterday morning, the authorities
of Bangladesh Rice Research Institute High School and Bangladesh Rice Research
Institute Pragati Primary School cut a 100-pound cake in the presence of
several hundred students and their guardians, marking Bangabandhu's birth
centenary.
"All students and many of
their guardians were asked to join the cake-cutting ceremony though the
government instructed them to keep the schools closed," one of the
guardians told our Gazipur correspondent.
"There were no hand washing
arrangements and many of the students were without masks," added the
guardian.
Asked, Belayat Hossain, head
teacher of Pragati Primary School, said the programme was chalked out much
before the government announcement.
"We concluded the programme
within a short time." he added.
Gazipur District Education Officer
Rebeka Sultana said the school authorities held the programme as they received
the instructions on school closure late.
"But they didn't do the right
thing. We will take action after investigating the matter," she added.
Meanwhile, the authorities of
Narayanganj High School and College held programmes, cut a cake and planted
trees with the participation of several hundred students, reports our
Narayanganj correspondent.
The guardian of a student alleged
that teachers at the school had asked all the students to join the programme,
and warned that 10 marks would be deducted in their next exams if they didn't
do so.
Kamal Kanti Sarkar, head teacher of
the school, however, refuted the allegation.
"The programme had been
scheduled much earlier. We did not have time to cancel it," he claimed.
Narayanganj Deputy Commissioner
Jashim Uddin, who attended the programme, said he had asked the school
authorities why students were there.
"The school authorities told
me that some over-enthusiastic people went there to join the programme,"
he said.
Challenges compels restructuring in
agriculture
Update: March,
17/2020 - 09:05
Farmers in An Giang
Province harvest rice. Current challenges provide an opportunity for the
agricultural sector to speed up the value chain restructuring and innovating
the growth model. — VNA/VNS Photo
HÀ NỘI — Trade conflicts, climate change and epidemics
may at first glance appear to be a hindrance to Việt Nam’s agricultural sector.But some see it as an opportunity to speed up the value chain restructuring and innovating the growth model.
In the early months of this year, Việt Nam’s agriculture faced many challenges, not only from the spread of COVID-19 pandemic but also trade tensions and worsening climate change.
These alone put the production and export of key agricultural products at high risk, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Nguyễn Xuân Cường said.
According to the initial assessment of the Ministry of Agricultural and Rural Development (MAR), fisheries along with fruit and vegetable products will be directly affected by the fast and prolonged pandemic.
This is forcing companies to change production and business methods and seek more exporting markets.
“Order delays for seafood products will lead to the development of processed products such as canned and frozen foods,” Cường said.
A lesson was learned from fruit and vegetable export market because when the outbreak of COVID-19 occurred, the Chinese market stalled, causing a consumption disruption of high-yielding agricultural products which were rarely put into processing such as watermelon and dragon fruit.
The head of the agricultural sector said localities must proactively adjust their production and harvest seasons to suit the market need and be prepared to move quickly when the pandemic is over, while at the same time promoting domestic consumption and export to key markets such as the United States, EU and ASEAN.
The ministry is also negotiating to expand markets to minimise dependence on certain markets by planning fact-finding missions to the Middle East, Japan, South Korea, Russia, Brazil, Australia and New Zealand.
It is quickly completing the technical documents for export permits of durians, passion fruit, avocados, grapefruits and custard apples to China; grapefruits to the US; and longans, grapefruits and passion fruit to Japan.
Better preparation, lower risks
Meanwhile in the Mekong Delta region, salinity intrusion came earlier this year with higher severity. Saltwater has covered nearly 100km from the estuary, threatening the agricultural production and livelihoods in the region.
In a recent field trip to this area, Prime Minister Nguyễn Xuân Phúc highlighted the success of the region in changing crop structure in drought and salinity areas, so the damaged rice area was just 39,000ha, equalling just 9.6 per cent of the damage in the worst-hit year 2016.
According to MARD, this achievement was attributable to early planning and preparation. Since September last year, the ministry requested localities and its departments accelerate construction and repair irrigation works to cope with saltwater and diversity crops.
To avoid salinity in rice production, the ministry has instructed localities to sow the 2019-20 winter-spring crop 10 to 20 days earlier compared to the previous crops. The localities also changed the plantation areas with drought risk and proactively cut and extend crops.
The ministry forecasts the weather will be more predictable and natural disasters such as drought and salinity may not follow the repeat rule of five years. Therefore, people need to adapt, mitigate losses and even exploit changing ecological conditions to regulate the plantation.
Deputy Minister of Agricultural and Rural Development Nguyễn Hoàng Hiệp said the ministry was coordinating with the Ministry of Planning and Investment and other relevant ministries and agencies to build a master plan for the Mekong Delta region.
After 2020, it will rotate the agricultural production model from rice-fruit-fishery to fishery-fruit-rice, aiming towards reducing rice plantations and increasing areas for fruit and seafood products.
“To rotate this axis, we must identify fresh water, brackish water and salt water are all resources. At the same time, agricultural infrastructure must be built to serve this task,” Hiệp said.
Regarding animal husbandry, although epidemics have caused great economic losses, it also provides an opportunity to promote the restructuring of production, focusing on the application of advanced technology and building closed chain, from inputs to production, processing and consumption.
According to Trần Công Thắng, director of the Institute of Policy and Strategy for Agriculture and Rural Development, the restructuring process has decreased the number of small farms, but to avoid the "left behind" situation, the Government should have policies to train and support safe livestock households.
“There are still many niche markets for small- and medium-sized animal husbandry households to develop such as organic farming, high-quality specialty products thanks to great domestic demand,” he said.
Large enterprises are encouraged to continue working together with localities to develop disease-free poultry production chains and areas in compliance with the Vietnamese regulations and recommendations of the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) for domestic consumption and export, Thắng said.
According to Minister Cường, business plays a very important role in establishing the value chain of production-processing-consumption.
“At present, we have about 12,000 enterprises directly producing in the agricultural sector, only about 1 per cent of the total businesses in the country, in which, small and micro enterprises account for 95 per cent,” Cường said, noting enterprises are mainly processing, preserving and trading agricultural products while the number of enterprises investing in mechanisation and research of seed is small.
Attributing the "absence" of enterprises in stages requiring large financial investment, technology and human resources to high risk in the sector, the minister urged localities to effectively implement the issued policies on enterprise development, supporting industries, credit for high-tech agriculture, along with creating favourable investment and business environment for businesses. — VNS
Rosy signs show
bright prospect for rice export
16/03/2020 13:07
GMT+7
Vietnam is enjoying strong growth
in both rice export volume and value, and more export chances are still ahead
as some FTAs have come into force and consumers around the globe are boosting
purchase to ensure food security.
 |
|
Winter-spring rice is harvested in Tan An commune of Tan Hiep district,
the Mekong Delta province of Kien Giang
|
In the first two months of 2020,
about 900,000 tonnes of rice worth 410 million USD were shipped abroad, up 27
percent in volume and 32 percent in value year on year, according to the
Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD).
Export prices averaged 478 USD
per tonne in January, rising 7 percent from the same period last year. The
Philippines was the biggest importer, accounting for 31 percent of total rice
shipments. Meanwhile, Mozambique and Angola were among the markets with biggest
growth rates.
Phan Xuan Que, General Director
of the Vietnam Northern Food Corporation (VINAFOOD 1), said after the Lunar New
Year holiday in late January, the rice market has been very vibrant. Prices set
for both export and domestic sale surged by 30 – 50 USD per tonne, depending on
varieties and quality.
He noted rice prices are usually
adjusted on the quarterly or yearly basis, but they have been changed week by
week in the first months of this year, which is a very rare situation,
especially when the Mekong Delta – the country’s largest agricultural
production hub – is currently in the harvest period of the winter-spring crop.
These positive signs show Vietnam
is likely to achieve the rice export target of 6.7 million tonnes worth over 3
billion USD this year, according to him.
Explaining the reason for good
prices in all segments, Que said as countries opened their markets for rice
imports early, businesses have inked big contracts and stepped up purchase of
inputs. Besides, China, which previously dominated the African market with
about 3 million tonnes of rice annually, has been affected by the COVID-19
outbreak, creating a chance for Vietnamese rice in this market.
Strong demand from the
Philippines and Malaysia has also helped raise prices of Vietnamese rice, thus
helping the grain to narrow the price gap with the Thai counterpart and surpass
the Myanmar and Indian rivals.
The MARD’s Agro Processing and
Market Development Authority said demand for Thai rice stays flat as drought in
this country has driven concerns about supply sources.
Export prices of Vietnamese rice
are likely to rise further since they are still much lower than those of other
producers’ rice, the authority noted, adding that global consumers are boosting
purchase while China doesn’t increase its shipments in order to ensure food
security to cope with the COVID-19 epidemic.
Que attributed the rosy export
signs partly to the agricultural restructuring, which in turn has helped
restructure export markets to reduce dependence on certain markets. Moreover,
the competitiveness of Vietnamese rice, including that of components in the
rice value chain from production, supply, processing and transportation, has
been improved.
However, he said the agricultural
sectors as well as businesses should continue to keep a close watch on changes
in the market to concurrently attain food security and export targets.
According to the MARD, the
COVID-19 outbreak has little impact on Vietnam’s rice sector, and there are
likely more opportunities for export to East Africa. Besides, companies should
also gear up to capitalise on advantages generated the FTA between the EU and
Vietnam when this deal takes effect./. VNA
Thai rice exports
get boost from global COVID-19 fear
10:49 17/03/2020
Exports of Thai
rice have been on the rise as many countries are stocking up on food supplies
due to the rampant COVID-19 outbreak, said President of the Thai Rice Exporters
Association (TREA) Chookiat Ophaswongse.
Sacks of rice at a mall in Bangkok, Thailand (Photo: VNA)
The spurt in demand has been a
boon for rice producing countries, and also increased the rice price in the
global market. The price of Thai rice rose to between 450 USD and 460 USD per
tonne from 410 USD per tonne.
In 2019, Thailand shipped 7.58
million tonnes of rice abroad, raking in 131 billion THB (over 4 billion USD),
down 32 percent in volume and 25 percent in value compared to the previous
year.
This year, the TREA has set a
target to export 7.5 million tonnes of rice for 4.2 billion USD, similar to
that of the country’s Ministry of Commerce. It is the lowest target in the last
seven year after 2013, in which Thailand exported only 6.6 million tonnes of
rice./.
Rice farmers
caution FG against lifting ban on foreign rice
Yesterday at 12:56 PM
Rice
farmers in Bauchi State have urged the Federal Government to sustain current
ban on importation of foreign rice into the country.
![Description: Rice farmers caution FG against lifting ban on foreign rice/Illustration. [abcnewsgh]](file:///C:/Users/Mujahid/AppData/Local/Temp/msohtmlclip1/01/clip_image039.jpg)
Rice farmers caution FG against lifting ban on foreign
rice/Illustration. [abcnewsgh]
Rice farmers caution FG against lifting ban on foreign
rice/Illustration. [abcnewsgh]
A cross section of farmers in the state interview by News Agency
of Nigeria (NAN) in Bauchi on Tuesday said that the ban had helped in boosting
local production of the commodity.
Malam Suleiman Dauda, a member of Rice Farmers
Association of Nigeria (RIFAN), said that lifting the ban on foreign rice would
spell doom for local farmers.
Dauda urged government no ignore calls for the lifting of the
ban as it was not in the best interest of the country.
He said that such action would negate current efforts by local
rice farmers to go into full scale production of rice across the country.
Malam Ibrahim Sule, another farmer supported the
claim and noted that government at both federal and state levels had supported
local farmers along rice value chain through various interventions.
He observed that the interventions had revived moribund rice
mills which had correspondingly bridged the insufficient gap earlier
experienced in the production of the commodity in the country.
He said that the total ban on importation of foodstuffs had also
jerked up government Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) and wondered why the
clamour for the lifting of the ban by some Nigerians.
Mrs Dorothy Samuel another rice farmer urged
government to impose high import duty on imported rice should the ban be
lifted.
Samuel lauded government for spurning import duties on
agricultural implements but implored it to scale up its intervention programmes
for local farmers.
She particularly urged government to enhance its assistance to
farmers on inputs and loans to further boost agricultural production in the
country.
Samuel called on agricultural and commercial banks to grant
sufficient services to local farmers to enable them further boost production.
She, however, cautioned against granting such loans and
assistance to white collar farmers who were not real farmers.
The rice and
fall: Vietnam eyes more global opportunities as Thai supply totters
17-Mar-2020 - Last
updated on 17-Mar-2020 at 02:27 GMT
Thailand’s
position as the largest exporter of rice from the South East Asian region is at
risk as the country struggles to handle weather, economical and quality
changes. ©iStock
Thailand’s
position as the largest exporter of rice from the South East Asian region is at
risk as the country struggles to handle weather, economical and quality
changes, whereas Vietnam looks to be going from strength to strength.
In 2019,
Thailand was the world’s second-largest exporter of rice and the top in South
East Asia. Previously it was beaten globally only by India but this year the
country is expected to fall behind Vietnam within the region as well.According to data from the Thai Foreign Trade Department, rice production in 2020 is expected to fall a whopping 9% to 18.5 million tonnes from around 20.34 million tonnes in 2019, whereas Vietnam is predicted to grow by almost 2% to produce 28.3 million tonnes, from 27.77 million tonnes last year.
In terms of exports, the Thai Rice Exporters Association has set a target of 7.5 million tonnes for 2020, its lowest since 2013.
“Thailand has shipped the same rice varieties for 30 years and lacks rice variety development to deal with changing market demand and consumer behaviour,” the association’s President Charoen Laothamatas told Bangkok Post.
“Because of the labour shortage, farmers opt to use machinery and chemicals that affect Thai rice's aromatic quality and good taste, while other exporters such as Vietnam have developed their own varieties every year to serve consumer demand.
“Vietnam now has seven or eight rice types for export to serve global demand.”
Apart from innovation, a severe drought in the country has also led to serious supply shortages. USDA Global Agricultural Information Network analysis described the drought as the ‘second most severe in a decade’ and estimated total agricultural at approximately THB26bn (US$840mn) with rice taking the bulk of the damage at THB25.2bn (US$801mn).
“Vietnamese and Indian rice prices were also [found to be] US$70 to US$80 cheaper per MT, making Thai rice less competitive in the international market. [This] will likely cause a further reduction in Thai rice exports to 7.5 million metric tons in 2020, down 1% from 2019,” said the USDA report.
The rice
of Vietnam
Meanwhile, Vietnam rice prices (for its
benchmark 5% broken rice variety) rose to a record high since December 2018
benchmark at US$380 per tonne, and the local industry expects both demand and
prices to continue to grow.“Demand is seen rising this year as Vietnamese rice is more competitive in terms of prices,” Vietnam Food Association Vice Chairman Do Ha Nam told Reuters.
"Vietnam is [also] producing more fragrant rice to tap new markets, such as South Korea and Africa."
Vietnamese rice is priced at roughly THB5,600 per tonne (US$178), as opposed to Thailand’s THB7,500 (US$238.44) to THB7,800 (US$247.98). The association expects that Vietnam will export 6.75 million tonnes of rice in 2020, a 6% rise from 2019.
That said, virus-stricken China is one of the country’s largest importers, and so Vietnam is also looking to widen its scope to other countries worldwide, such as in South America.
Fragrance
failure
Thai fragrant rice is renowned worldwide
for its aroma, but failure to secure the top spot as the World’s Best Fragrant
Rice both in 2018 and 2019 has also placed a damper on its reputation.The Rice Trader World Conference crowned Vietnam’s ST25 rice variant as champion last year, and Cambodia’s Jasmine in 2018. Thailand’s Hom Mali variant had won the award for two years in a row before that, in 2016 and 2017.
Laothamatas attributed the loss to too little innovation and too much politics.
“[Policies set by politicians competing to win farmer support only through price incentives] have failed to give any incentive for research and development into new varieties,” he told New Straits Times.
“As farmers are satisfied with these price intervention policies, they are no longer interested in improving the quality or yield.
"If nothing is done to improve this problem, Thai Hom Mali rice will soon become a thing of the past.”
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