21st May 2020 Daily Global Regional Local Rice E-Newsletter

Tripura to procure paddy from farmers at Rs 18.15 per kg

Law Minister Ratan Lal Nath Wednesday said the state government would spend Rs 41.63 crore to procure the second crop of the Kharif season.

Written by Debraj Deb | Agartala | Updated: May 20, 2020 7:19:29 pm

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Tripura’s BJP-IPFT government procured paddy from farmers at an MSP of Rs 17.50 for the first time in 2018. (File/Wikimedia Commons)

In an effort to boost the primary sector as part of its lockdown exit strategy, the Tripura government has announced it will procure 20,000 MT paddy from farmers at Minimum Support Price (MSP).

Law Minister Ratan Lal Nath Wednesday said the state government would spend Rs 41.63 crore to procure the second crop of the Kharif season. Farmers would be provided Rs 18.15 per kg paddy under the MSP rates during the procurement drive.

The state food department was asked to open 22 procurement centers across Tripura in phased manner in different parts of the state from May 26 till August 31.

On the issue, Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb tweeted: “The state government will purchase 20,000 MT additional paddy directly from farmers of the state at Rs 18.15 per Kg from May 26. This initiative will reach Rs. 36.30 crore directly to farmers of the state”, Deb wrote.

The government invited e-tenders earlier on May 2 from local rice millers to minimise the expenditure burden.

Tripura’s BJP-IPFT government procured paddy from farmers at an MSP of Rs 17.50 for the first time in 2018. They have procured 10,000 MT and 16,870 MT paddy in two procurement phases since then.

Earlier on April 27, the Chief Minister had appealed to people to increase primary sector activities like agriculture, horticulture, fisheries, dairy etc. as an alternative to tackle the adverse impact of the lockdown on the economy.

The state government has also announced it will recruit 63 agriculture officers on group-B gazetted posts in a recent cabinet meeting.

Along with this, the state cabinet approved the State Fire Service to undergo a change of nomenclature to Tripura Fire and Emergency Service.

https://indianexpress.com/article/north-east-india/tripura/tripura-to-procure-paddy-from-farmers-at-rs-18-15-per-kg-6419603/

Problem of plenty for solvent extractors

Huge inventory of by-product cause for concern

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Posted: May 21, 2020 07:53 AM (IST)

Vijay C Roy

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, May 20

Edible Oil Biz

·    No of units in Punjab & Haryana: 100

Raw material used: Rice bran, mustard

Over 100 edible oil refineries or solvent extractors in Punjab and Haryana are pinning hope on the revival of poultry industry. Sounds confusing? But it’s true. Though the lockdown failed to have any material effect on refineries dominated by the MSMEs (95%), they are sitting on a huge inventory of de-oiled cake (by-product), which is used as a raw material for poultry and cattle feed industry. The demand for cake crashed amid steep fall in demand of poultry products.

“There was hardly any impact on the solvent extractors as they were allowed to operate during the lockdown being in the essential industry category. However, the poultry industry crashed and it led to decline in demand for poultry feed,” said AR Sharma, Chairman, Sangrur District Industrial Chamber. The price of de-oiled cake crashed by almost 30% amid the slump in demand. According to Sharma, because of huge inventory their precious working capital has been blocked. The liquidation of the stock would depend on how fast the poultry industry revives.

The extractors use rice bran and mustard for processing oil. Rice bran oil is produced from rice chaff — an oily layer between the paddy husk and the rice grain. The process involves a long chain where farmers sell paddy to rice millers. Millers sell the chaff to solvent extractors, who further sell it to the refiners. The refiners process it into oil.

As the units were operational during the lockdown, the industry was able to retain the migrant manpower. However, they witnessed shifting of labour from one job to another, leading to some disruption in production.

“Solvent extractors across the two states had to reduce their operating capacity to 30-40% initially due to disruption in raw material supply and labour shortage. The daily-wage workers preferred to work in mandis to earn more during the wheat procurement season,” said another extractor requesting anonymity.

With the procurement season almost over, many labourers have returned to extractors and as a result their capacity utilisation has reached 60%.

The processors are of the view that there is a huge potential for solvent extractors in Punjab and Haryana. If Punjab aims at producing just 10-20% of domestic market potential for vegetable oils, the entire area of Punjab under rice and wheat cultivation will get shifted to oilseeds’ cultivation.

BV Mehta, Executive Director, Solvent Extractors’ Association of India, said India’s total consumption of edible oils is 23 million tonnes, of which domestic production stands at 7.5 million tonnes and the rest is met through import.

The increase in oilseeds’ cultivation will not only save precious foreign exchange worth Rs 73,000 crore annually but also provide the much-needed raw material to the extraction industry, which is currently operating at 35% capacity, said Sharma.

Since oilseeds crushing and extraction industry is a labour-intensive industry, additional capacity utilisation will provide job opportunities to a large number of people.

https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/business/problem-of-plenty-for-solvent-extractors-87852

New rice collaboration inked

Sok Chan / Khmer Times

Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries and International Rice Research Institute yesterday ink the collaborative work plan for 2020-2023. KT/Tep Sony

The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries and the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) inked their collaborative work plan for 2020-2023 yesterday. The agreement aims to further strengthen the cooperation between the two organisations for the crops research and development activities that has been going on for many years.
IRRI’s support for Cambodia’s rice sector began in the 1960s, when it trained Cambodian scientists and collected more than 4,000 local rice varieties for conservation in the International Rice Genebank. Then in the late 70s and early 80s, many traditional rice varieties were lost because of conflict and famine. The IRRI was able to repatriate 766 varieties to replenish the country’s rice diversity.
The partnership was formalised with the first memorandum of understanding in 1986 and, through the IRRI’s continued support, Cambodia was able to significantly increase its rice production from 2.4 million tonnes of in 1993 to 10.8 million tonnes in 2019. Transformation in rice-based farming systems have also played a key role in the country’s recent economic development and growth.
According to the collaborative work plan 2020-2023, the IRRI seeks to boost its collaborations with the ministry along with other national partners to achieve key goals.
These include enhancing the commercialisation of the rice sector through value chain assessment and strengthening, and productivity and resiliency through germplasm conservation and utilisation, crop improvement and seed system development.
Veng Sakhon, Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and fisheries, said that over the next four years, both parties will drive the crops production chain and attempt to boost exports.
Sakhon added that the IRRI would help Cambodia to research new types of rice breeding. He added that Cambodia has to find the new rice seedlings to ensure resilience against both climate change and pests.
“While some seedling is of low quality, we also have to further strengthen, and improve our ability to produce the seedling response to market needs and exports,” he added

https://www.khmertimeskh.com/50725298/new-rice-collaboration-inked/

Multidisciplinary Study Tracks Spread of Rice Farming

Tuesday, May 19, 2020

NEW YORK, NEW YORK—According to a statement released by New York University, researchers Michael D. Purugganan, Rafal M. Gutaker, and their colleagues combined information about the genomes of more than 1,400 varieties of rice with geographical, archaeological, and historical climate data to trace the spread of rice farming across northern and southern Asia.

It had been previously thought that rice diversity was based upon the amount of available water, but the study suggests that temperature may have been the key factor. The researchers determined that the japonica subspecies of Asian rice, which was first cultivated in China some 9,000 years ago, was mainly farmed in China for some 4,000 years, until a global cooling event some 4,200 years ago. At that point, japonica rice split into temperate and tropical varieties. The temperate varieties were grown in northern China, Korea, and Japan, while the tropical varieties spread to Southeast Asia.

 The researchers explained that this change in varieties of rice some 4,200 years ago is reflected in the archaeological record. The genetic analysis and archaeological record also indicate that tropical japonica rice reached islands in Southeast Asia some 2,500 years ago through trade networks. The indica subspecies of rice, on the other hand, originated in India’s lower Ganges Valley some 4,000 years ago, and was probably first transported to China some 2,000 years ago. To read about how rice terraces might have helped the Ifugao resist Spanish colonization, go to "Letter from the Philippines: One Grain at a Time."

https://www.archaeology.org/news/8703-200519-asia-rice-farming

Divergence in flowering time contributes reproductive isolation between wild rice species

IMAGE: Locations of O. rufipogon (blue) and O. nivara (red) populations used in this study. The green star and cross indicate the locality where the common garden experiment and the artificial crossing were performed, respectively. ...
Speciation is the process by which new species forms and is the driving force of biodiversity. Since Darwin published On the Origin of Species, great efforts have been performed without interruption to explore the pattern and mechanism of speciation. It is well acknowledged that determining the forms of reproductive isolation and their relative importance in species divergence is of critical importance for our understanding of speciation. Although substantial investigations on reproductive isolation have been made on numerous model species, relatively limited work has been focused on natural systems that evolve in the wild. Previous studies have shown that, as the direct ancestors of Asian cultivated rice, Oryza rufipogon and O. nivara are a progenitor-daughter species pair and diverged very recently (roughly 150 thousand years) and provide a feasible model to study reproductive isolation and the underlying mechanism.
Here, researchers chose three pairs of sympatric populations of the two species from Nepal, Cambodia and Laos to have performed 238 combinations of artificial crossing, including the combinations between species, between populations within species, and between individuals within populations. On this basis, they estimated the seed set of crossing pollinations, F1 viability and fertility to evaluate the post-zygotic reproductive isolation. In addition, researchers collected the flowering time data of these populations censused in their previous common experiment to assess the pre-zygotic reproductive isolation. The results showed that O. nivara flowered on average 80 earlier than O. rufipogon with non-overlap in flowering peak between sympatric populations. By contrast, no significant reduction was found in seed set of crossing pollinations, F1 viability and fertility relative to the estimates of the two parents. Researchers also found that interspecies crossing with O. nivara as the mother showed higher seed sets than the combinations with O. rufipogon as the mother and that artificial emasculation during hand pollinations affected the seed set to some extents. Together, this study demonstrated that divergent flowering time caused nearly complete reproductive isolation between two wild rice species and the change of flowering time of the new species O. nivara is an adaption to shifted environments
.

https://www.sciencecodex.com/divergence-flowering-time-contributes-reproductive-isolation-between-wild-rice-species-647565

New pygmy seahorse discovered, first of its kind in Africa

“It’s like finding a kangaroo in Norway,” says a researcher of the new species of lentil-size fish, found 5,000 miles from its nearest cousins.

By Douglas Main

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PUBLISHED May 20, 2020
In rough, boulder-strewn waters off eastern South Africa, researchers have found a new species: a pygmy seahorse about the size of a grain of rice.
The finding shocked them because all seven species of pygmy seahorse, except for one in Japan, inhabit the Coral Triangle, a biodiverse region of more than two million square miles in the southwestern Pacific. This one lives 5,000 miles away, the first pygmy seahorse seen in all of the Indian Ocean and the continent of Africa.
“It's like finding a kangaroo in Norway,” says Richard Smith, a marine biologist based in the United Kingdom and co-author of a new study on the species, known as the African or Sodwana Bay pygmy seahorse. The second name refers to the location where it was found, a popular scuba-diving spot close to the Mozambique border.

© NGP, Content may not reflect National Geographic's current map policy.

The new species looks somewhat similar to other pygmy seahorses, except that it has one set of spines on its back that have sharp, incisor-like points on the tips, says co-author Graham Short, an ichthyologist at the California Academy of Sciences and the Australian Museum in Sydney. In contrast, the other similar pygmy seahorses have flat-tipped spines.
“We really don't know what these spines are used for,” Short says. “Many species of seahorses in general are spiny, so their presence could be possibly due to sexual selection—the females may prefer spinier males.” (Related: Strange mating habits of the seahorse.)
The surprising discovery, described in a study published May 19 in the journal ZooKeys, shows how little we know about the ocean, particularly when it comes to tiny creatures, the authors say—and that there are likely many more pygmy seahorse species to be identified.

Coronavirus in the U.S.: Where cases are growing and declining

“A gift from the sea”

Dive instructor Savannah Nalu Olivier first stumbled upon the creature in Sodwana Bay in 2017, while examining bits of algae on the seafloor. The bay is known for having many species of rare fish, sharks, and sea turtles.
She shared photographs of the fish with her colleagues, and in 2018 they made their way to Smith, who, with colleague Louw Claassens, collected several specimens of the animal at depths of 40 to 55 feet.
The researchers have named the new seahorse Hippocampus nalu, after Olivier, whose nickname is appropriately “Fish.” (She’s also a Pisces.) In the South African languages Xhosa and Zulu, “nalu” roughly translates to “here it is.”
“I told her that this was a gift from the sea,” says Louis Olivier, Savannah’s father, who owns a scuba diving outfit called Pisces Diving Sodwana Bay. He adds he’s “super stoked about her discovery.”

Mysterious anatomy

Smith sent several specimens of the new species to Short, who analyzed their genetics and body structures using a CT scanner.
His research revealed that, like other pygmy seahorses, the newly found animal has two wing-like structures on its back, rather than one, as in larger seahorses. These “wings” in general serve an unknown purpose for seahorses.
Also like other pygmy seahorses, the African species has only one gill slit on its upper back, instead of two below each side of the head, like larger seahorses—another mystery.
That would be “like having a nose on the back of your neck,” Short says.
But the new seahorse is unique from its tiny kin in that it was found living in turf-like algae, amid boulders and sand. Sodwana Bay has large swells, and the little seahorses appear to be comfortable being swept about, says Smith, who observed a pygmy seahorse get covered in sand and then wriggle its way out.
“They regularly get sand-blasted,” Smith says. Other pygmy seahorses, which stick to the calmer waters around coral reefs, “are more dainty. But this [species] is built of sturdier stuff.”
Like other pygmy seahorses, the African version is thought to eat tiny copepods and crustaceans. It also is well camouflaged to match its surroundings.

 

Many more to find

This finding “demonstrates that there are still many discoveries to be made in the oceans, even in shallow waters near the coast,” says Thomas Trnski, head of natural sciences at the Auckland Museum in New Zealand, who wasn’t involved in the study. Almost all pygmy seahorses have been discovered in just the last 20 years, he adds.
The only pygmy seahorse found outside the Coral Triangle is the Japanese pygmy seahorse, also known as the “Japan pig,” first described in August 2018.
Although populations of regular seahorses have fallen in many areas because of harvesting for use in traditional Chinese medicine and the aquarium trade, that’s not an issue for pygmy seahorses because they are difficult to find, Short says. That being said, some of these species have very low population densities, and there’s not enough data to get a good sense of how many there are, Smith adds.
These fish can spread only very short distances via the current. The study suggests that Hippocampus nalu diverged from the ancestors of all known pygmy seahorses species more than 12 million years ago.

“This means that it is extremely likely that there are many more species of pygmy seahorses yet to be discovered in the western Indian Ocean” and beyond, Short says.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2020/05/new-pygmy-seahorse-species-discovered-africa/

Customs arrests 63 smugglers, intercept over 3,000 bags of rice By Jeremiah Oke, Ibadan | May 19, 2020 17:44 PM

T Customs begins recruitment of 3,200 officers, men The Oyo/Osun Command of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) has intercepted over 3,000 bags of rice and other items in the first quarter of the 2020, the Comptroller in charge of the command, Helen Ngozi, has said. She said the command had also arrested 63 persons in connection with smuggling of some prohibited items into the country. The comptroller said the command also generated more than N20 billion between January and April this year. Other goods intercepted by the command are 13 kegs of vegetable oil, 44 gallons of vegetable oil, 20 units of used tyres, 310 drums of 100 litres of petrol, 180 kegs of petrol and 180 bales of second hand clothing materials and other items. ADVERT

https://www.dailytrust.com.ng/customs-arrests-63-smugglers-intercept-over-3000-bags-of-rice.html

Local rice supply fills NFA warehouses in NorMin

News by Philippine New Agency

CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY – The rice currently in stock at the National Food Authority in Region 10 (NFA-10) warehouses all come from grains producers in the region, the agency said Sunday.

On its Facebook page, NFA-10 said “80 percent of the total rice buffer stock of NFA Northern Mindanao is sourced from local farmers in Bukidnon” and the rest from other provinces in the region.

Next to Bukidnon, Lanao del Norte contributes 16 percent to the NFA stock; Misamis Occidental, 3 percent; and Misamis Oriental, 1 percent.

According to the NFA-10, from March 19 to May 14, it has released some 122,417 50-kilo bags of rice to local government, public officials, and government agencies mostly in the region for distribution to families affected by the coronavirus pandemic.

Among the provinces in Northern Mindanao, Misamis Oriental obtained 42,934 bags of 50-kilo rice from the NFA; Bukidnon, 38,759 bags; Lanao del Norte, 20,899 bags; Misamis Occidental, 15,024; and Camiguin, 4,801 bags.

Those who availed of the NFA rice in Misamis Oriental are the Department of Social Welfare and Development-10, the city social welfare and development office, the provincial, municipal, and barangay governments.

The NFA-10 also listed the offices of Sen. Mary Grace Poe-Llamanzares and Sen. Cynthia Villar as among those who purchased rice from them.

According to Poe’s office, the senator bought 10 sacks of NFA rice intended for the residents of Barangay Mandangoa, Misamis Oriental upon the request of a certain Anabelle Pamisa.

“Sen. Poe has purchased NFA rice from Iloilo, General Santos, Laguna, and Metro Manila, but so far there have been no complaints,” her office said, referring to allegations made by some lawmakers that the NFA rice has a foul odor.

The rice is being sold to government entities at PHP1,250 per 50-kilo bag, and are all freshly milled, it said.

Under the Rice Trade Liberalization Law or RA 11203, NFA is mandated to maintain sufficient rice buffer stock to be sourced solely from local farmers and maintain its optimal level at all times strategically located across the country.

Meanwhile, in a recent statement, NFA said it is open to any investigation into reports that its rice stocks issued to some lawmakers for relief distribution allegedly have foul odor.

Judy Carol Dansal, the NFA administrator, has assured that the rice stocks they distribute are “fresh from the rice mills which we contracted to mill our palay stocks.”

Dansal said local governments and DSWD prefer the NFA rice because of its good quality, which she added is comparable to the commercial stocks being sold in the market and is cheaper.

“Since the start of rice distribution for relief, we have not received a single report or complaints on the NFA rice quality,” she said. (PNA)

https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1103145

Fragrant rice performances in response to continuous zero-tillage in machine-transplanted double-cropped rice system

Scientific Reports volume 10, Article number: 8326 (2020) Cite this article

Metricsdetails

Abstract

Zero-tillage is one of conservation tillage techniques. In order to investigate the effects of continuous zero-tillage on yield formation and grain 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (2-AP, key component of fragrant rice aroma) content of fragrant rice, present study was conducted with a six-season field experiment from 2017 to 2019. The conventional tillage (twice puddling with rotary cultivator before transplanting) was set as control (CK) and zero-tillage was set as treatment (ZT). At the first year after applying zero-tillage, yield loss was observed in the ZT treatment which was attributed to the lower effective panicle number per area and grain number per panicle. However, from late season in 2018 to late season in 2019, significant higher grain yield was recorded in ZT than CK. ZT increased the net photosynthetic rate and chlorophyll content (SPAD value) by 6.81–20.77% and 7.23–23.80% in the last three cropping seasons compared with CK. Higher nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus accumulations in plant tissues were also recorded in ZT than CK from late season in 2018 to late season in 2019. Other hand, higher grain 2-AP content was recorded in ZT than CT in the whole six cropping seasons which might be related to the grain proline content. Furthermore, compared with CK, ZT significantly increased the soil organic matter content and the number of bacteria, fungi and actinomycetes in the last three cropping seasons. In conclusion, continuous zero-tillage could improve soil and increase the photosynthesis and nutrient accumulation and finally achieve the improvement of fragrant rice yield.

Introduction

Fragrant rice is well known worldwide because of its unique ‘popcorn-like’ flavor and good grain quality. Among more than 200 volatile compounds in fragrant rice varieties, 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (2-AP) was identified as the key component and it is now clearly established that the content of 2-AP represents the intensity of fragrant rice aroma^1,2. In recent years, the demand and price of fragrant rice in the international market increased and thus, more farmers and scientists began to pay attention on how to improve the grain yield or the grain 2-AP content of fragrant rice in the field production².

Land preparation is an important part during the field production of rice because tillage is required to reduce the losses of water and nutrients which caused by excessive percolation. Tillage also can reduce weeds and enhance nutrient availability³. However, previous study revealed that continual tillage will lead to the reductions of soil surface organic matter and soil poor structure and compaction⁴. Given the increasing rates of soil deterioration and soil erosion, more and more farmers and researchers have recently begun to pay attention to conservation tillage techniques⁵. Conservation tillage techniques are a series of sustainable agricultural measures which can reduce soil erosion, protect farmland ecological environments, and lead to coordinated development of ecological, benefits and social benefits via comprehensive supportive measures such as reduced tillage, no tillage, surface micro-topography transformation technology, surface cover and rational planting⁵. Normally, conservation tillage techniques include reduced tillage, no tillage, gentle slope contour tillage, furrow and ridge tillage, stubble mulching tillage, straw mulching and other farmland surface tillage technologies with their unique supporting machinery, respectively^6,7,8. However, despite a lot of benefits of conservation tillage on the soil, some problems still exit in field production under conservation tillage conditions especially zero tillage. For example, Huang et al.⁹ revealed that nitrogen uptake of rice under zero-tillage condition was delayed during the early growth stages because of the inhibition of root growth which caused by the rhizospheric accumulation of inhibitory pseudomonads. Until now, the effect of zero-tillage on fragrant rice performance was rarely reported and explored.

Therefore, present study was conducted with a three-year field experiment in South China in order to investigate the influences of continuous zero-tillage on fragrant rice performance.

Result

Grain yield and yield related trails

There were some differences in grain yield and yield related attributes for both Meixiangzhan-2 and Xiangyaxiangzhan between continuous zero-tillage and conventional tillage (Tables 1 and 2). In both early season and late season in 2017, lower grain yield, effective panicle number per area and grain number per panicle were recorded in ZT treatment than CK whilst in the last three cropping seasons in present study, compared with CK, ZT treatment significantly increased grain yield, effective panicle number per area and grain number per panicle. On the other hand, there was no remarkable difference between CK and ZT in seed-setting rate and 1000-grain weight in 2017, 2018 and 2019.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-65388-0

GIEWS Country Brief: Uruguay 19-May-2020

Source

• FAO

Posted

19 May 2020

Originally published

19 May 2020

Origin

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FOOD SECURITY SNAPSHOT

·         While 2020 rice production followed declining trends, maize output estimated at above-average level

·         Cereal exports in 2020/21 marketing year forecast at average levels

·         Cereal prices in April 2020 higher year on year

While 2020 rice production followed declining trends, maize output estimated at above-average level

Harvesting of the 2020 summer crops, such as rice, maize and sorghum, finalized in mid-May. Following the trends in the decline in plantings, the 2020 paddy output is estimated at 1.2 million tonnes, about 10 percent below the previous five-year average level. Due to low financial returns to farmers, planted area has been gradually declining during the past ten years. Production of maize is estimated at an above-average level of 805 000 tonnes, as the near-record sowings more than offset the negative impact on yields by limited rainfall amounts in the first quarter of 2020.
The high plantings mainly reflect the shift from soybean to maize production, particularly during the first season when soybean crop area shrunk for the fourth consecutive year. Plantings were also supported by the sustained increases in domestic prices of maize since April 2019.

Planting of the 2020 wheat crop started in mid-May and the area sown is officially forecast to be slightly below average. Weather forecasts for the June-August period point to a high likelihood of average rainfall across the main producing regions, raising yield prospects.

Cereal exports in 2020/21 marketing year forecast at average levels

Total cereal exports in the 2020/21 marketing year (April/March) are anticipated at an average level of 1.26 million tonnes. Exports of rice, the country’s major exportable crop, are expected at 820 000 tonnes, slightly lower than the previous five-year average, reflecting the below-average output in 2020.

Cereal prices in April 2020 higher year on year

Prices of cereals in April 2020 were higher than their year‑earlier levels due to increased costs of mostly imported agricultural inputs, following the weakening of the local currency. As of April 2020, the local currency has lost one‑fourth of its value over the past year. The sudden increase in domestic demand amid the COVID‑19 breakout also put upward pressure on prices in March. However, prices of rice and maize stabilized in April due to improved market availabilities from the new harvests and the stable local currency that did not depreciate in April.

COVID-19 and measures adopted by the Government

The Government, retailers and producers agreed on a proposal to not increase prices of basic food items and hygiene products for a three‑month period, starting from 11 May 2020. The Government allocated an additional USD 22 million to boost social services, including an increase in amounts of food vouchers. Basic food baskets were distributed in April and May to 118 000 vulnerable households.

https://reliefweb.int/report/uruguay/giews-country-brief-uruguay-19-may-2020

JAKF, GRIB And Alluvial Sign MOU To Support 50,000 Rice Farmers

By Reuben Quainoo

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The John A. Kufuor Foundation has signed a memorandum of understanding with Alluvial Agricultural Limited and the Ghana Rice Interprofessional Body (GRIB) to provide support to about 50,000 rice farmers in the country.

As part of the agreement, Alluvial Ghana will provide mechanization, as well as credit and input services to members of GRIB to help them expand on production. Planting and harvesting services, as well as seed and agro-input supply, will also be provided.

Chief Executive Officer of the John A. Kufuor Foundation Prof. Baffour Agyeman-Duah signed the agreement on behalf of the foundation. Von Kemedi who is Chief Executive Officer of Alluvial Agricultural Limited signed on behalf of the company and Nana Adjei Ayeh who is president of the Ghana Rice Inter-Professional Body signed on behalf of GRIB.

The objective of the agreement is to provide easy and affordable access to the above-listed services which are currently scarce and too costly for smallholder rice farmers to afford. Talks with financial institutions to provide concessionary financing so farmers can procure agro-inputs and mechanization services are also ongoing.

The John A. Kufuor Foundation is expected to play a facilitating and coordinating role in ensuring that the parties to the agreement work towards the stated goals.

The initiative falls within the foundation’s socio-economic development goal which focuses on agriculture-led growth and job creation. In view of this, the foundation consistently seeks to build broad-based partnerships with public and private institutions both locally and internationally to deliver needed socio-economic reforms.

This support for rice farmers is coming at a time when the industry is struggling with various challenges along the value chain, including low mechanization. According to the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, Ghana has a deficit of 27, 133 tractors.

The agreement will go a long way to alleviate the burden of rice farmers who are in dire need of these services to boost Ghana's rice production, supply, and consumption. In keeping with modern agricultural trends, the introduction of state-of-the-art mechanization equipment will aid proper land preparation and planting protocols which will drastically improve yields. Additionally, the mechanization services will reduce pre-harvest and post-harvest losses.

The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) is a major partner in this project.

https://www.modernghana.com/news/1003454/jakf-grib-and-alluvial-sign-mou-to-support-50000.html

Pakistan Weekly Market Monitor Report - 19 May 2020

Source

• WFP

Posted

20 May 2020

Originally published

19 May 2020

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HIGHLIGHTS

• Weekly average retail prices update as of 14th May 2020 indicates overall the prices of staple cereals and non-cereals foods experienced negligible to slight fluctuations when compared to the previous week’s prices;

• Cereals: the retail prices of essential staple cereals (wheat, wheat flour, rice Irri-6 and rice Basmati) remained stable. Overall, the average retail price of wheat decreased negligibly while the price of wheat flour increased negligibly.
Whereas, the average retail prices of rice Irri-6 and rice Basmati both increased slightly across several cities, except Sukkur where rice Basmati experienced a significant price hike, from the previous week;

• Non-cereals: overall, the average retail prices of essential non-cereals registered a negligible increase in the price of live chicken, slight decreases for pulses (Masoor, Gram, Mash) and negligible decreases in the prices of Pulse Moong, sugar, and eggs when compared to their prices from the previous week;

• The average ToT negligibly increased by 0.8% compared to the previous week.

https://reliefweb.int/report/pakistan/pakistan-weekly-market-monitor-report-19-may-2020

Rice Prices

as on : 20-05-2020 11:56:26 AM

Arrivals in tonnes;prices in Rs/quintal in domestic market.

	Arrivals			Price
	Current	% change	Season cumulative	Modal	Prev. Modal	Prev.Yr %change
Rice
Shahjahanpur(UP)	610.00	1.67	5030.00	2605	2600	5.89
Barhaj(UP)	90.00	50	7946.00	2500	2500	7.30
Fatehpur(UP)	43.20	28.19	1968.30	2425	2425	5.43
Lakhimpur(UP)	35.00	-12.5	1817.00	2450	2440	5.60
Kalipur(WB)	28.00	-33.33	2019.00	2400	2400	NC
Muzzafarnagar(UP)	22.00	100	3895.00	2670	2675	-7.13
Puranpur(UP)	20.00	-35.48	1965.00	2580	2600	4.45
Sirsaganj(UP)	14.00	-3.45	685.00	2660	2650	4.31
Sheoraphuly(WB)	10.70	-4.46	127.90	3100	3100	3.33
Hanagal(Kar)	10.00	-86.49	536.00	2000	1900	5.26
Champadanga(WB)	8.00	-42.86	483.00	3450	3450	15.00
Milak(UP)	5.00	-23.08	100.80	2560	2560	-
Jahangirabad(UP)	3.50	-12.5	169.50	2660	2650	1.33
Haridwar Union(Utr)	2.00	-60	137.00	4625	4625	-
Islampur(WB)	1.90	11.76	614.20	3500	3350	-
Raiganj(WB)	1.90	18.75	519.90	3400	3300	-
Anandnagar(UP)	1.50	25	184.20	2520	2510	7.23
Alibagh(Mah)	1.00	NC	65.00	4200	4200	NC
Murud(Mah)	1.00	NC	64.00	4200	4200	NC

Published on May 20, 2020

https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/economy/agri-business/rice-prices/article31629716.ece

Cyclone Amphan tears into India, Bangladesh, destroys homes, whips up storm surge

PUBLISHED WED, MAY 20 202010:36 AM EDT

KEY POINTS

·         A powerful cyclone tore into eastern India and Bangladesh on Wednesday, destroying mud houses and embankments and whipping up a storm surge along the coast, officials said, after millions of people were moved out of its path.

·         At least one 70-year-old man was killed by a falling tree in Bangladesh’s coastal Bhola district, a police official said. The low-lying country has evacuated 2.4 million people to shelters.

·         Another 650,000 people have been moved to safety in the eastern Indian states of Odisha and West Bengal, authorities said, an operation carried out amid surging coronavirus infections.

Residents walk along a street to a shelter ahead of the expected landfall of cyclone Amphan in Digha, West Bengal, on May 20, 2020.

Dibyangshu Sarkar | AFP via Getty Images

A powerful cyclone tore into eastern India and Bangladesh on Wednesday, destroying mud houses and embankments and whipping up a storm surge along the coast, officials said, after millions of people were moved out of its path.

At least one 70-year-old man was killed by a falling tree in Bangladesh’s coastal Bhola district, a police official said. The low-lying country has evacuated 2.4 million people to shelters.

Another 650,000 people have been moved to safety in the eastern Indian states of Odisha and West Bengal, authorities said, an operation carried out amid surging coronavirus infections.

It was too early to estimate a toll on life or damage to property.

Cyclone Amphan began moving inland with winds gusting up to 185 kph, Mrutyunjay Mohapatra, director general of the India Meteorological Department, told reporters.

Mohapatra said that the storm surge could rise to around five metres in the Sundarbans delta, home to around four million people and thick mangrove forests that are a critical tiger habitat.

“Our estimate is that some areas 10-15 kilometres from the coast could be inundated,” Mohapatra said.

On the Sundarbans’ Ghoramara island, resident Sanjib Sagar said several embankments surrounding settlements had been damaged, and some flooding had started.

“A lot of houses have been damaged,” he told Reuters by phone.

The storm will also sweep past Kolkata, a sprawling city of 4.5 million people, where strong winds uprooted trees and electricity poles, littering several streets, television showed.

A home ministry official said authorities in West Bengal and neighbouring Odisha had struggled to house thousands of evacuees as shelters were being used as coronavirus quarantine centres.

Extra shelters were being prepared in markets and government buildings with allowances made for social distancing, while masks were being distributed to villagers.

Police in West Bengal said some people were unwilling to go to the shelters because they were afraid of being infected by the coronavirus and many were refusing to leave their livestock.

“We have literally had to force people out of their homes, make them wear masks and put them in government buildings,” said a senior police official in Kolkata.

In Bangladesh, standing crops could be damaged and large tracts of fertile land washed away, officials said. Farmers were being helped to move produce and hundreds of thousands of animals to higher ground.

“Fortunately, the harvesting of the rice crop has almost been completed. Still it could leave a trail of destruction,” Mizanur Rahman Khan, a senior official in the Bangladesh agriculture ministry, said.

Bangladeshi officials also said they had moved hundreds of Rohingya refugees from Myanmar, living on a flood-prone island in the Bay of Bengal, to shelter.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/20/cyclone-amphan-tears-into-india-bangladesh-destroys-homes-whips-up-storm-surge.html

Release dues, demand Rice millers

Posted: May 20, 2020 07:09 AM (IST)

Chandigarh: The Punjab Rice Millers Association has asked the government to clear their dues to bail the economically battered industry. Tarsem Saini, president of the association, said while they had worked overtime to ensure that rice was delivered on time when foodgrain was needed to feed the poor, the government was not releasing their dues. "We had to pay extra to the labour and our byproducts have no takers. The government must release our dues for gunny bags, pending from 2006-07 to 2013-14. We have demanded that the recovery rate of rice from paddy be lowered this year," he said. TNS

Guest faculty to get maternity leave

Chandigarh: The state government has decided to grant maternity leave to guest faculty working in government colleges, fulfilling their long-pending demand. Higher Education Minister Tript Rajinder Singh Bajwa announced this here on Tuesday. The decision would benefit more than 1,000 lecturers working in government colleges of the state. "Now, the guest faculty lecturers will be entitled to maximum of 180 days of maternity leave as per the Maternity Benefit Act, 1961," he said. TNS

Sweets shop owner turns veggie trader

Bathinda: After the sale of sweets went down amid the outbreak of Covid, a local sweet shop owner has now resorted to selling vegetables and fruit to cover his losses. Bobby, owner of Amantran Sweets, said: “I have been running my sweets shop for the past 10-12 years, it is only now due to the Covid-19 crisis that my business has taken a hit. Since the demand for sweets has gone down drastically, I decided to sell vegetables and fruit, as I have to sustain my family, pay salaries of my employees, and take care of rent also.” TNS

https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/punjab/release-dues-demand-rice-millers-87091

Malaysia agrees to import 100,000 tonnes of rice from India

·          20 May 2020

Malaysia has agreed to import a record 100,000 tonnes of rice from India, which will be completed this month and in the next one month.

Industry officials said the shipment would be completed this month and next, and that the agreement was a sign of further improvement following diplomatic tensions between the two countries. Malaysia has nearly doubled its rice purchases from India this year compared to the previous five years, while other exporters Myanmar, Vietnam and Cambodia have temporarily banned exports to store rice for themselves during the Corona virus crisis. 

http://www.paktribune.com/news-details/malaysia-agrees-to-import-100-000-tonnes-of-rice-from-india

China stocks up food and oil supplies as coronavirus spurs fears about shortages

PUBLISHED TUE, MAY 19 20209:39 PM EDT

Huileng Tan@HUILENG_TAN

KEY POINTS

·         Consumers in China are worried about further repercussions from the pandemic as it continues to spread globally. “We expect food stockpiling to continue especially in cities exposed to logistic disruption,” said Kaho Yu, senior Asia risk analyst at Verisk Maplecroft, a consultancy.

·         Likewise, China has been building up its crude oil stockpile, and went on a buying spree in the first quarter of this year, data show.

·         The pandemic has underscored concerns about food and energy security in China.

A customer wearing face mask buys flour at a supermarket on May 12, 2020 in Taiyuan, Shanxi Province of China.

Zhang Yun | China News Service | Getty Images

China has been building up its food and energy stockpile this year, taking advantage of slumping crude oil prices even before the coronavirus pandemic disrupted supplies.

The world’s second largest economy, which has limited arable land, is facing pressure to shore up its food supplies as prices for food started ticking higher last year, prior to the virus outbreak.

Lockdowns and movement restrictions aimed at containing the coronavirus have triggered transportation and logistics bottlenecks.

Those blockages have highlighted the vulnerability of global supply chains, and fears of food shortages have come to the forefront of countries, both in developed and emerging economies.

Fear is a powerful motivator. It’s driving policy in China currently. Fits well with those hardliners that want to rebuild food reserves.

Arlan Suderman

CHIEF COMMODITIES ECONOMIST AT INTL FCSTONE

Consumers in China are worried about further repercussions from the pandemic as it continues to spread globally.

“People there (in China) are panicked that coronavirus will eventually shut down the world’s ports, making it impossible for them to import,” said Arlan Suderman, chief commodities economist for INTL FCStone in a tweet on Monday. “As such, they are hoarding supplies now while they are cheap and available.”

 

“Fear is a powerful motivator. It’s driving policy in China currently. Fits well with those hardliners that want to rebuild food reserves,” he added.

Food prices surge

China is the world’s largest consumer of pork, a staple protein for the country.

In the first four months of the year, meat imports in China rose 82% compared to a year ago. These include pork, beef and poultry.

“We expect food stockpiling to continue especially in cities exposed to logistic disruption. The confluence of expected food price increases alongside an economic contraction and rising unemployment will push up the risk of civil unrest,” said Kaho Yu, senior Asia risk analyst at Verisk Maplecroft, a consultancy.

Already, food inflation in the country has been ticking higher.

Last Tuesday, China announced that food prices rose 14.8% in April from a year ago. Even though it was lower than the 18% increase in March, it was still at a high level.

Pork prices rose almost 97% in April in what has been a persistent trend since early 2019 due to the African swine fever epidemic in pigs that decimated China’s hog herds.

In comparison, non-food prices rose just 0.4% in April, official government data showed.

Soybean supplies are particularly vulnerable to supply shocks as China, the top importer of the commodity, needs the oilseed to make animal feed and cooking oil.

In April, China’s soybean imports fell 12% from a year earlier, customs data showed, due to bad weather causing the delay of cargoes from top supplier Brazil.

As for rice, China is the world’s largest producer of the staple grain with most of its supplies being consumed domestically.

Even so, concerns about food security of the staple grain have led to panic buying and spurred the state to acquire more stocks from the market for its national reserve.

In April, Chinese authorities assured the population that it was stepping up state buying of rice and that there were enough stocks, state news agency Xinhua reported.

“We expect China to continue stockpiling crops to ensure sufficient supply over the next six months by scouring the globe for available supplies,” said Yu in a recent report.

The consultancy puts China in its “high risk” category in terms of food import security, which means that its food imports risk being subjected to disruption.

Crude oil reserve building

Likewise, China has been building up its crude oil stockpile, and went on a buying spree in the first quarter of this year, data show.

Although crude oil imports fell in April compared to a year ago, they still rose from March. But analysts say limited storage facilities could put a cap on imports.

China is expected to continue importing crude to fill its reserves taking advantage of lower oil prices.

Lei Sun

SENIOR CONSULTANT AT WOOD MACKENZIE

“Major crude oil importers such as China have been known to build their strategic reserves when prices are low, as seen in previous oil price routs,” Lei Sun, senior consultant at Wood Mackenzie, said in a March report. “China is expected to continue importing crude to fill its reserves taking advantage of lower oil prices.” 

However, the country has less room to import than it did in the last two years, due to limitations in storage capacity, he said.

As supply lines continue to be disrupted due to the coronavirus outbreak, Yu at Verisk Maplecroft said he expects Beijing to double down on building more storage capacity, on top of energy development at home.

“Energy is also core to the country’s economic engine. Throughout the pandemic, Beijing has been prioritising maintaining a stable coal supply with an eye on power generation for industrial activities,” said Yu. “We also expect Beijing to speed up the resumption of large scale energy infrastructure projects.”

Putting food and energy first

Food and energy security have always been important for China, but the pandemic has underscored these concerns.

In April, President Xi Jinping spoke about food and energy supply security several times, noted Yu.

In the same month, state agencies — such as China’s National Development and Reform Commission, the National Food and Strategic Reserves Administration and other ministries — issued a policy notice aimed at ensuring adequate food production, storage capacity and logistics, Yu noted. 

Also in April, China’s National Energy Agency issued a list of policy areas to focus on this year. They included power supply, grid networks, oil and gas infrastructure, and coal projects.

The developments underscored the government’s concerns, he said.

“Both Xi’s rhetoric and associated policy announcements from various ministries show how food and energy security are high on the government’s agenda,” said Yu.

“All of them are aiming to avoid potential pandemic-linked supply shortages and to increase self-sufficiency of critical resources over the long term. The COVID-19′s disruption on trade and industrial activities has reignited Chinese leadership’s long-running concerns over resource security.”

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/20/china-stocks-up-food-oil-as-coronavirus-spurs-fears-about-shortages.html

Rice, palay prices continue to rise

By: Karl R. Ocampo - Reporter / @kocampoINQ

Philippine Daily Inquirer / 04:11 AM May 20, 2020

Prices of both rice and palay continued to rise as the persistence of the new coronavirus pandemic triggered local government units and households to stock up on their rice reserves.

Palay prices at the farm-gate increased to P18.81 a kilo during the first week of May, data from the Philippine Statistics Authority showed, up from P15.79 a kilo at the start of the year.

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Similarly, a kilo of regular milled rice and well-milled rice rose by 3.75 percent and 2.15 percent, respectively, to P37.90 and P42.34 a kilo during the same period.

The pandemic, while an unlikely source of reprieve, ended the slump in prices that started in January last year following the implementation of the rice tariffication law.

Farmers are expected to enjoy this favorable outlook for the rest of the year, unless the arrival of contracted imports by the private sector and the government would coincide with the country’s harvest season.

The extension of the lockdown in Metro Manila and other parts of the country has led prices to consistently go up as demand for the staple soared after LGUs, national agencies and numerous nonprofit organizations intensified relief efforts.

A lot of families—whose incomes are tied to nonessential industries that were ordered to close or operate on a skeleton staff—still rely on aid, which always include rice.

The highest quotations for a kilo palay were recorded in the provinces of Negros Occidental (P25.70), Bohol (P24), Zamboanga del Sur (P24.09), Bukidnon (P23.55), Davao del Sur (P23.50) and North Cotabato (P23.80).

Other provinces whose palay rates were still below the NFA support price of P20 a kilo included Kalinga (P16), Ilocos Sur (P15), and Bukidnon, Bulacan, Davao City and Iloilo (P13).

Globally, rice prices have surged to their highest in seven years as governments beef up their respective stocks.

Countries in Asia, including the Philippines, have pushed for programs that would aggressively bring up rice production to ease dependence on what has become a volatile global rice market. INQ

https://business.inquirer.net/297717/rice-palay-prices-continue-to-rise#ixzz6N3oRvJIP |

Đồng Tháp improves irrigation works to water summer – autumn rice

Update: May, 20/2020 - 11:04

Sowing the summer – autumn rice in Đồng Tháp Province’s Thanh Bình District. — VNA/VNS Photo Nguyễn Văn Trí

ĐỒNG THÁP — The Cửu Long (Mekong) Delta province of Đồng Tháp has built new pumping stations for irrigation and upgraded existing ones to ensure there is sufficient water for the summer-autumn rice crop.

The province plans to grow the grain on more than 180,000ha. It has a dense river and canal network and an open irrigation system with more than 4,000km of irrigation canals, 2,200 sluices and more than 1,200 electric pumping stations, according to its Department of Agriculture and Rural Development.

The pumping stations can, in the normal course, supply water to irrigate nearly 100 per cent of the summer-autumn rice, whose planting is underway.
But this year there could be a water shortage, and 6,700ha of lands under various crops this summer-autumn could lack irrigation because the rainy season has been delayed and is forecast to be deficient, according to the province’s Centre for Hydro-Meteorology Forecasting.
To mitigate this, the province People’s Committee has ordered localities to focus on checking and repairing pumping stations and building more of them.
Farmers are encouraged to adopt efficient irrigation methods to save water.
Tháp Mười District, a locality with an efficient pumping system, has 129 stations to irrigate 37,500ha.
Nguyễn Minh Tâm, deputy chairman of its People’s Committee, said the district’s communes and towns have been instructed to inspect and dredge irrigation canals and draw up appropriate pumping schedules.     
The Mỹ Đông 2 Agricultural Service Co-operative in Mỹ Đông Commune has, for instance, spent more than VNĐ30 billion (US$1.3 million) on building a pumping station, irrigation ditches, roads, and smart irrigation systems for its members’ 170ha of rice paddies.
This has helped them conserve water, reduce costs and improve yields.
Under a 2014-20 plan to develop pumping stations the province has invested VNĐ367 billion ($15.7 million) to provide irrigation for 203,500ha of land.
The 2019-20 winter-spring crop saw farmers in the province grow rice on 200,000ha and harvest 1.4 million tonnes of paddy to earned incomes of VNĐ18 - 20 million ($770 - 860) per hectare, VNĐ5 million higher than a year earlier. The province plans to grow a total of 490,000ha of rice this year.
Last year it had planted 521,000ha for an output of 3.34 million tonnes.  VNS

https://vietnamnews.vn/society/716936/dong-thap-improves-irrigation-works-to-water-summer-%E2%80%93-autumn-rice.html

Organic rice gets trade boost

PUBLISHED : 20 MAY 2020 AT 08:05

NEWSPAPER SECTION: BUSINESS

WRITER: PHUSADEE ARUNMAS

The Commerce Ministry has registered a domain for Thai farm and food products, TraceThai.com, with local organic rice chosen as the pilot product given its high value, strong market demand and export potential.

Pimchanok Vonkorpon, director-general of the Trade Policy and Strategy Office under the Commerce Ministry, said the registration is part of an ongoing project of the office in supporting Thai farmers and Thai organic rice exporters.

A blockchain system will shorten the processing time for obtaining licences, facilitate trade and promote trust among foreign partners, she said.

According to Ms Pimchanok, the office picked organic rice as the pilot product because of its high value and export potential, as well as its well-established verification and standardisation processes.

The goal of the project is to provide systematic verification for buyers and importers in Thailand and abroad using the blockchain system because of its transparent, secure and trustworthy character, which will generate stronger trust and better responses to the demands of consumers.

·         Risks outlined by WEF are 'controllable', Commerce Ministry says

·         Commerce Ministry sees -1% inflation

·         Commerce studies blockchain benefits

The project will support trade facilitation in the digital era, increase efficiency of cross-border trade, reduce costs and elevate the whole value chain of Thai agriculture, Ms Pimchanok said.

"The office is confident that having a pilot blockchain traceability system for Thai food and farming will allow partner countries to keep track of Thai food and farming products with full trust," she said. "Blockchain technology is especially apt as the baseline of this traceability system, since it provides the highest degree of transparency while protecting trade secrets and information of farmers and stakeholders through its data-editing protection. Thus it creates stronger assurance in Thai food and agricultural goods, and the system can be further applied to other products in the future."

Participants in TraceThai.com's blockchain are required to provide certificates issued by organic standards certified bodies. The system does not issue certificates for farmers' land; it just distributes and shares certified information to other stakeholders in the system, including importers, who can all review the information at the same time.

This process should tremendously reduce processing time for all parties.

"The system is considered the government's first Thai traceability system for agricultural and food products," Ms Pimchanok said. "We have chosen highly valued organic rice as the pilot product, and we will be monitoring and evaluating the process to observe any difficulties or challenges regarding data input in the blockchain system."

In 2019, Thailand's global agricultural exports were worth 675.136 billion baht.

https://www.bangkokpost.com/business/1921020/organic-rice-gets-trade-boost

Arkansas Game and Fish touts Waterfowl Rice Incentive Conservation Enhancement program

AGRICULTURENEWS BRIEFSTALK POLITICSTOURISM / HERITAGE

by Talk Business & Politics staff (staff2@talkbusiness.net)  May 19, 2020 12:02 pm 269 views 

The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission is accepting applications from rice field owners to enroll in its expanded Waterfowl Rice Incentive Conservation Enhancement program.

Landowners may receive as much as $150 per acre annually while still maintaining the current production of rice fields by following post-harvest guidelines and allowing permit-based hunts during waterfowl season on their properties. The program is aimed at enrolling rice fields within 10 miles of many AGFC wildlife management areas popular with duck hunters.

Now in its third year, the AGFC’s WRICE program has been awarded a grant from the National Resources Conservation Service’s Voluntary Public Access and Habitat Incentive Program. The grant will boost the program to the tune of $2.1 million, distributed during the next three years to participating landowners.

“The first year, we focused on paying landowners to leave the waste rice in the fields instead of tilling before spring and flooding the land to make that food more available to waterfowl,” said Luke Naylor, waterfowl program coordinator for the AGFC. “Last year, we added the public access requirement to the program and still saw great interest from landowners. This grant will let us expand that opportunity for landowners and hunters even more.”

Arkansas Rice Federation member Sam Whitaker of Monticello participated in the program’s public access component last year.

“The WRICE program gives more people the opportunity to experience the outdoors and enables the public to be more involved in conservation efforts as a result of their participation,” said Whitaker. “Many farmers are already engaged in the cultivation of waterfowl habitat through the post-harvest flooding of rice fields, which can provide a completely different hunting environment than flooded timber.”

Naylor says landowners with land already enrolled in Wetland Reserve Program easements also can apply for some of these funds if they are willing to allow public access for hunting and wildlife-viewing on their property.

The program’s main goal is focused on increasing waterfowl resources on rice fields, a critical component of Arkansas’s rich duck-hunting history.  According to recent research, only about 20% of the 2 million acres of harvested rice fields in the Mississippi Alluvial Valley are flooded each year, and fall tillage appears to be on the increase in many parts of Arkansas. “Getting farmers to suspend fall tillage and flood more of those fields could have a major impact on realized waterfowl food values,” Naylor said.

“Interested landowners will work with us to provide improved waterfowl habitat and public hunting opportunities on their fields through a managed draw system,” Naylor said. “The hunts are highly controlled, and hunters have shown incredible respect for this great new opportunity. We hope to expand from last year’s 941 acres of huntable WRICE fields to 3,750 acres this year.”

Landowners interested in becoming part of this innovative conservation and hunter access program can visit www.agfc.com/wrice or contact their local private lands biologist through the website www.agfc.com/habitat to learn more.

https://talkbusiness.net/2020/05/arkansas-game-and-fish-touts-waterfowl-rice-incentive-conservation-enhancement-program/

Arkansas Incentivizes Rice Farmers for Waterfowl Habitat and Hunting Access 

By Lauren Waldrip

LITTLE ROCK, AR -- The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission (AGFC) is accepting applications from rice field owners to enroll in its expanded Waterfowl Rice Incentive Conservation Enhancement (WRICE) program.  Landowners may receive as much as $150 per acre annually while still maintaining the current production of rice fields by following post-harvest guidelines and allowing permit-based hunts during waterfowl season on their properties.  The program is aimed at enrolling rice fields within 10 miles of many AGFC wildlife management areas popular with duck hunters.

Now in its third year, the AGFC's WRICE program has been awarded a grant from the National Resources Conservation Service's Voluntary Public Access and Habitat Incentive Program.  The grant will boost the program to $2.1 million, distributed during the next three years to participating landowners.

"The first year, we focused on paying landowners to leave the waste rice in the fields instead of tilling before spring and flooding the land to make that food more available to waterfowl," said Luke Naylor, waterfowl program coordinator for the AGFC.  "Last year, we added the public access requirement to the program and still saw great interest from landowners.  This grant will let us expand that opportunity for landowners and hunters even more."

Arkansas rice farmer Sam Whitaker, of Monticello, participated in the program's public access component last year.

"The WRICE program gives more people the opportunity to experience the outdoors and enables the public to be more involved in conservation efforts as a result of their participation," said Whitaker.  "Many farmers are already engaged in the cultivation of waterfowl habitat through the post-harvest flooding of rice fields, which can provide a completely different hunting environment than flooded timber."

Naylor says landowners with land already enrolled in Wetland Reserve Program easements also can apply for some of these funds if they are willing to allow public access for hunting and wildlife-viewing on their property.

The program's main goal is focused on increasing waterfowl resources on rice fields, a critical component of Arkansas's rich duck-hunting history.   According to recent research, only about 20 percent of the 2 million acres of harvested rice fields in the Mississippi Alluvial Valley are flooded each year, and fall tillage appears to be on the increase in many parts of Arkansas.

"Getting farmers to suspend fall tillage and flood more of those fields could have a major impact on realized waterfowl food values," Naylor said.

"Interested landowners will work with us to provide improved waterfowl habitat and public hunting opportunities on their fields through a managed draw system," Naylor added.  "The hunts are highly controlled, and hunters have shown incredible respect for this great new opportunity.  We hope to expand from last year's 941 acres of huntable WRICE fields to 3,750 acres this year."

Landowners interested in becoming part of this innovative conservation and hunter access program can visit www.agfc.com/wrice or contact their local private lands biologist at www.agfc.com/habitat to learn more.

The world’s largest basmati rice producer is now one of India’s top loan defaulters

Member exclusive by Prathamesh Mulye

A lesser-known brother duo has beaten some of India’s most infamous loan defaulters.

On April 24, the Reserve Bank of India released a list of the top 50 wilful defaulters in the country. While most names on the list were the usual suspects such as Vijay Mallya’s Kingfisher Airlines and T Venkattram Reddy’s Deccan Chronicle Holding, an unlikely contender, REI Agro, beat them with a Rs4,314 crore ($575 million) default.

Established in 1994 by Kolkata-based brothers Sanjay and Sandip Jhunjhunwala, REI Agro was once the world’s largest basmati rice processing and marketing firm accounting for 22% of the market during its prime in 2013.

Pakistan is getting ready for second battle against locusts

Tomany farmers in the south-east of Pakistan, an impending locust attack is a much bigger problem than the current pandemic. Their summer crops of cotton, sugarcane and rice are being sown, and fruit and vegetables are ready to be picked, but this now means they are in jeopardy.
"If the crops are eaten up by the locusts, we will have a dire food security issue on our hands," said Zahid Bhurgri, a farmer from Mirpur Khas district in Sindh province. "The price of flour and vegetables will sky-rocket," making staple foods hard for some to afford, added Bhurgri, who is also general secretary of the Sindh Chamber of Agriculture.
The United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization estimates losses to agriculture from locusts this year could be as high as PKR 353 billion ($US2.2 billion) for winter crops like wheat and potatoes and about PKR 464 billion for summer crops.
A May update from the FAO warned it would be "imperative" to contain and control the desert locust infestation in the midst of the additional impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on health, livelihoods, food security and nutrition for Pakistan's most poor and vulnerable communities.
Last year, Pakistan suffered its worst attack of locusts since 1993, for which the country was largely unprepared. Farmers now have little confidence the government will help them fight a new wave of voracious insects threatening their harvests – though officials said extensive measures were being taken.
"Neither the central, nor the provincial government is doing anything about it," said Bhurgri, who grows vegetables, red chillies, cotton and sugarcane on about 600 acres of land.
The locust invasion was initially expected to subside by mid-November. But it has persisted due to favourable weather conditions for continued locust breeding, linked to global warming, according to FAO's Pakistan office.

Publication date: Tue 19 May 2020

https://www.freshplaza.com/article/9218126/pakistan-is-getting-ready-for-second-battle-against-locusts/

Now the time to think about genebanks

• Luigi Guarino and Charlotte Lusty Crop Trust
• May 19, 2020 Updated May 19, 2020

Top of Form

Bottom of Form

You might think the middle of a global pandemic isn’t an appropriate time to be discussing seed banks.

Think again.

While coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 is primarily a health crisis, it’s affecting all parts of society and the economy. People are especially worried about where their next meal will come from. With agricultural and food systems reeling globally the focus of decision-makers is mainly on the business end of the food chain. It’s not the virus causing large numbers of people to flee Delhi and other large cities in the developing world; it's the fear of hunger.

But farmers need to keep producing and selling. Middlemen need to keep buying and processors need to keep processing. It’s too early to say how the food system will be impacted in the long term. But one thing is certain – to mitigate the effects and rebound from shocks of the kind we’re currently experiencing – there must be diversity in all parts of the food chain.

We’re now learning the hard way the benefits of having ready access to more than just one supermarket. Food companies minimize risks by using multiple suppliers for their raw materials. Farmers are more resilient if they grow more than one crop; even more so if they can choose different varieties of each crop provided by seed companies and other sources.

We often place the beginning of the food chain at the farm. But it extends further back to seed banks, also called genebanks. These treasure troves safeguard the diversity of our crops and make seed available to researchers and plant breeders. They use the seeds to develop the new varieties that farmers and consumers need.

Properly dried and stored at low temperatures seeds of most crops can be kept for decades. If their condition is properly monitored they can be thawed and multiplied before they lose viability. If data on their characteristics are easily available researchers can request samples they need for their work at the click of a mouse button.

Our crops are just as vulnerable to a multitude of pathogens as we are to the coronavirus. Researchers use diversity in genebanks to breed varieties that can withstand pathogen attacks, better cope with a changing climate, are more nutritious, keep longer and taste better. Genebanks underpin the resilience of farmers and our food system.

We don’t think much about the raw materials behind food as we live our daily lives. But we should. There are hundreds of genebanks around the world. But among the largest, most widely used and most globally important are the 11 genebanks managed by a global agricultural research consortium called CGIAR, formerly the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research. They conserve and make available to users, free of charge, more than 700,000 different types of seeds and other materials.

The group’s genebanks are undergoing a difficult time at the moment. With social distancing and other restrictions on movement, genebank staff members are scrambling to collect harvests before they’re lost. They’re tending to vulnerable plants in laboratories, greenhouses and fields. And they’re working to maintain other critical conservation measures that are keeping diversity alive. It’s an all-hands-on-deck crisis, but maintaining safety paradoxically means human help also must be limited.

Should a genebank lose samples there are back-ups of many of them in the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. That’s thanks to the planning done by many people over many years for such eventualities. Genebanks can rebuild their collections from duplicated seeds. The International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas was able to do so when it lost access to its facilities during the civil war in Syria.

But the case is different when it comes to conserving roots, tubers and some other vegetative crops. They can’t be saved in the same manner as seeds are in a cold room. For potato, sweet potato, cassava, banana and yam the hope is to build collections that can be duplicated and moved around using cryopreservation. It’s a method of cooling tissues, involving deep-freezing with liquid nitrogen.

CGIAR genebanks will survive the crisis and revamp activities once it’s over. A significant proportion of their funding is guaranteed, thanks to the endowment of the Crop Trust. The International Rice Research Institute, for example, is home to more than 100,000 different rice varieties. Its operations are funded by the endowment for the long term. It’s immune to the vagaries of donor priorities and financial shocks. Another $200 million in the endowment would secure the other 10 CGIAR genebanks in the same way.

It’s less easy to be so sanguine about the genebanks of many developing countries. At times of crisis cash-strapped governments are likely to give genebanks even less of their attention. They need to resist that temptation. Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 is making clear just how much we need genebanks. We’ll need them even more in the continuing face of climate change and outbreaks of new crop pests and diseases.

So yes it's the right time to think about genebanks. It’s always the right time.

Visit croptrust.org and @CropTrust for more information. 

The authors both are employed by Crop Trust. Luigi Guarino is the director of science and Charlotte Lusty is the head of programs and genebank-platform coordinator. 

https://www.kpvi.com/interests/now-the-time-to-think-about-genebanks/article_7da38830-0570-5d94-9063-61423ca653e

Everything in a Morrisons Food Box and how far it goes

Typically the Meat Eaters box should feed two adults for one week

Sophie Kitching

• 10:00, 19 MAY 2020

What's Onopinion

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The Morrisons Meat Eaters Food Box

The thought of physically going to the supermarket right now fills me with fear.
At the time of writing this, I've managed to get away with doing just one "big shop" since the lockdown began (there's only two of us) and I filled my shopping trolley as much as possible, purely so I could avoid going back into the supermarket for as long as possible.
Don't get me wrong, I wasn't "panic buying" lots of the same items, but if I knew if I was able to buy enough to last us slightly longer than my usual shop, it would mean less trips out.
I understand those classed as high risk should be getting delivery slots over those of us more able to go to the supermarket right now. And, up until this point, I haven't even attempted to order food shopping online.
But when I discovered Morrisons were doing food box deliveries and that, at the time of looking, they seemed readily available to book and order online, I thought I would give it a go and share my experience with you all in the hope it might help some people in need and may be struggling to get food deliveries arranged.

Morrisons are offering a number of different food boxes packed with different items. At the time of ordering on the Morrisons website, it said: "Can't get out for essentials? We'll bring them to you.
"Our new Food Boxes are designed to provide you with everyday essentials, without needing to leave your home. With a choice of groceries or prepared meals, we offer convenient delivery directly to your door.
"Choose from a range of boxes including meat or vegetarian groceries together with household essentials, or opt for a Market Kitchen box – a collection of hand-finished prepared meals. Simply choose a box that best suits you."
Some of the boxes available right now are: the Vegetarian Food Box for £35; the Meat Eaters Food Box for £35; the Family Meat Box for £45; and the Ramadan Food Box for £35. Others are available too but have changed since this article was originally written.
We opted for the Meat Eaters Food Box, which is still available, because it seemed to have a range of the type of items we would use in an average week.
With some of the other boxes, I felt, unless I already had plenty of other bits in, I would still need to go shopping.
It was a Thursday when I looked online and was surprised to see there was a delivery slot available the very next day, but I knew we had enough food in for a good few days so decided to book the delivery for the coming Tuesday.

It was super easy to order once we'd created an account on the Morrisons website and there wasn't a queue to place the order.
The Meat Eaters Food Box contains "a selection of food including fresh meat, plus essential household items", although you do not know exactly what you are going to get until it arrives.
The website says: "Our boxes contain a selection of items based on our current availability of products, therefore we are unable to specify exact contents of each box.
"You will however receive a variety of different foods in each box. Typically this box should feed two adults for one week."

I was pleased with everything in it. There was a good variety and amount. It appeared to have all been perfectly boxed up, with the meat and dairy products packed separately from the rest of the food with an ice bag in a soft, wool package that had been wrapped in plastic to help separate the chilled and non-chilled food.
Some of the items seemed to have been a bit bashed about though - the tins were a bit dented, the jaffa cakes box a bit tired looking and the pack of chicken was partially open. We immediately wrapped the pack of chicken in foil and popped it in the fridge.
The bag of carrots also seemed to split when I picked them up to take them out the box, as you'll see in the video above.

We set about making a rough meal plan so we could make best use of the items using some of the things we already had in the cupboards too. Five days in after receiving the food box, here's what we've eaten from the box so far, what is left and how long we expect it to last us. Tuesday: Ham and cheese sandwiches for lunch. We had leftover stew from the day before for dinner but used the crust from the loaf of bread to go with it.
Wednesday: Cheese and bean toasties for lunch. For dinner, we had marinated chicken (we already had the marinade) with pittas, potatoes and carrots.
Thursday: Cheese and bean toasties for lunch (used the remainder of beans up from the day before). For dinner, we had marinated beef koftas using the beef mince (already had the marinade in) with couscous (already had the couscous but could have used the rice from the box).

Friday: Tuna and cucumber sandwiches for lunch (already had the tuna and another loaf of bread as we didn't have enough bread left from the loaf provided in the box). For dinner, we had sausage, mash potato (using the remaining baby potatoes) and mushy peas (already had the peas in).
Saturday: Bacon sandwiches for breakfast/lunch (we used bread we already had in), we used the rice from the box and made a chicken korma (everything apart from the rice we already had in). We snacked on the jaffa cakes throughout the past few days, so they were gone by this point.
What we have left for the coming days: majority of the onions, tomato soup, vegetable soup, tomato and basil pasta sauce, full pack of pasta, Cravendale semi skimmed milk (just under half left but have only been using it for tea and coffee), about half of the salted butter, about half of the cheese, cucumber (majority left but will use it for tuna and cucumber sandwiches), carrots (only a few left), Andrex Toilet Tissue (already had some in), Mega jumbo kitchen towel (already had some in).
We've used the box the way that works best for us, so it may last us slightly longer than a week, but we have used some items we already had in and that needed using up to go with it.
We have enough left for a couple of days for lunch (we are going to have the soups), and the pasta will do us for dinner at least two nights (we have the pasta sauce from the box for one of those nights too).
I would recommend the Meat Eaters Food Box for those unable to go out and get hold of essentials.
I am not sure what the items would amount to if they were bought individually on a normal shop (I can't actually get on the website to see how much the products received cost as there is currently a queue and I don't want to take someone else's slot) but we were pretty happy with what we got for the price considering we had it delivered too and it was hassle-free (well apart from the delivery mix up).
Morrisons has also provided some recipe ideas for those purchasing the Meat Eaters Food Box here. To view and order the Morrisons food boxes, click here - it's important to note however, that if you order a box it may come with some slight different products to mine as they aren't all the same.

https://www.lancs.live/whats-on/food-drink-news/morrisons-meat-eaters-food-box-18215289