Webinar
by TDAP on issues being faced by rice exporters in Kenya
-PR
KARACHI
-Trade Development Authority of Pakistan in collaboration with High Commission
of Pakistan at Kenya organised a webinar on issues being faced by rice
exporters in Kenya. Leading exporters of rice to Kenya attended the webinar
from all over Pakistan.
Kenya is the third largest export market of
Pakistan after China and UAE however our exports are declining from US$ 229.4
million in 2017 to US$ 188 million in 2019.The objective of the webinar was to
discuss issues exporters are facing in exports of rice to Kenya with our High
Commission at Kenya so that they will take up the same with Kenyan authorities
for its resolution.
During the webinar, Convener of REAP committee
on Rice informed that there is a substantial decrease in exports of rice from
Pakistan to Kenya due to the increase in the imports of rice by Kenya from
Tanzania at zero duty as both the countries are member of East Africa Community
club. Pakistani exporters are facing tough competition as the tariff rate on
Pakistan’s rice is 35% or US$ 200 per metric ton (whichever is higher) due to
which our rice become expensive. He requested our High Commissioner to take up
this matter from Kenyan government.
https://nation.com.pk/15-Oct-2020/webinar-by-tdap-on-issues-being-faced-by-rice-exporters-in-kenya
WTO
Director General Race Narrows to Two
GENEVA,
SWITZERLAND -- Last week the World Trade Organization (WTO) narrowed the
election field for a new director general (DG) down from eight to two
candidates: Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala of Nigeria, and Yoo Myung-hee of Korea.
Despite a lack of final results, history has already been made-for the first
time in the 25-year existence of the WTO, a woman will sit at the helm.
The
two remaining candidates are widely seen as highly qualified with extensive
experience in both the trade and political fields. Yoo Myung-hee is
Korea's current trade minister and has the full support of the Korean
government, including President Moon Jae-in. She has a strong trade
background, having worked on deals with the U.S., China, and the European
Union, and has lived abroad, including in the U.S. She has unique experience
as a longtime trade expert and sharp political acumen gained from serving as
trade minister. If selected, she would be the second Asian DG and the
first from Korea. 
Ngozi
Okonjo-Iweala is the former managing director of operations at the World Bank
and a former Nigerian finance minister. She is well known as an economic
reformer, has impressed WTO members with her political wit, and is well-liked
by officials in many capitals. Her political weight upon entering the
race was perhaps the highest amongst all eight original candidates and she is
likely to secure the support of nearly all African delegations.
Okonjo-Iweala would be the first DG from Africa.
"Leadership
at the WTO is important for U.S. agriculture, and especially rice, as we
continue our efforts to level the playing field globally," said USA Rice
president and CEO Betsy Ward. "We are excited by the history made by
either of these highly-qualified candidates, and hopeful that whomever is
selected will lead the WTO efficiently, effectively, and fairly. It is
also notable that both of these women hail from countries that understand the
complexity and importance of rice trade."
The
WTO's DG selection committee reconvened on October 9 and runs until October 27
to afford members sufficient time to prepare their positions and make their
final selection.
Sentera and Anheuser-Busch Partner to Help Rice Growers Enhance Their
Fertilizer Programs and Sustainability Efforts with Predictive Modeling
NEWS PROVIDED BY
Oct 14, 2020,
10:00 ET
MINNEAPOLIS, Oct.
14, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Sentera has announced a partnership with
Anheuser-Busch under which Sentera will deliver critical grower-level insights
to forecast nitrogen demand in rice production. This technology, delivered
using advanced remote sensing tools, will empower growers to improve
productivity and profitability by optimizing nitrogen usage.
Anheuser-Busch's
agronomy team will deploy this technology to make precise, field-level nutrient
and nitrogen prescriptions that help rice growers reach their highest quality
yields.
"Nitrogen
is one of the biggest input costs rice growers have today, and the correct
application of fertilizer has enormous implications for plant health, yields,
grower profits and the environment," said Zach Marston, principal
scientist at Sentera. "While currently there are ways to systematically
manage nitrogen demand, this solution enables us to get a baseline for the
field, recommend a rate and closely monitor plant health throughout the growing
season to modify additional applications accordingly. Ultimately, this empowers
us to make adaptive decisions regarding nitrogen applications and
management."
Rice is one of
the most important cereal crops in the world and a key ingredient for brewers
such as Anheuser-Busch. While nitrogen application improves grain yields and
quality, excessive application of fertilizer can cause "luxuriant"
growth, leaving the plant more susceptible to disease. Growth that is too rapid
can also reduce stem strength, resulting in plant lodging under moderate wind
conditions. In addition, over-applying nitrogen provides no benefit to the
plant and has negative effects on the environment via leaching and
denitrification, and on a grower's profit margin.
"We are
very excited about the use of remote sensing to determine optimum nitrogen use
rate in rice. I envision a very positive impact for our rice producers and our
rice mill here in Jonesboro, AR," said Bill Jones, rice agronomy
manager at Anheuser-Busch. "We are now able to provide farmers the tools
and data they need to become more sustainable in their nitrogen applications
and growing practices. They'll be able to improve their bottom lines while
continuing to produce a high-quality rice crop."
Since 2017,
Anheuser-Busch and Sentera have worked together to create digital tools that
cultivate a healthier growing environment and deliver critical agronomic
insights throughout the world.
"We are
excited to expand our partnership with Anheuser-Busch to deliver on our shared
goals of advancing sustainable agriculture and grower empowerment,"
said Kris Poulson, director of business development and strategy at
Sentera. "Together, we continue to show that the right technology
contributes to the grower's economic success, improved outcomes for the
environment and better overall land stewardship for future generations. We're
proud to help Anheuser-Busch deliver measurable impact on their 2025
sustainability goals."
In April
2018, Anheuser-Busch launched its U.S. 2025 Sustainability Goals, focused on
four key areas: renewable electricity and carbon reduction, water stewardship,
smart agriculture and circular packaging. Smart agriculture refers to
having 100 percent of Anheuser-Busch's direct farmers highly skilled, connected
and financially empowered to increase crop productivity, protect the
environment and deliver new innovations.
About Sentera
Sentera is the
global technology leader for in-season data, analytics, and insights for
growers, deployed at scale. Sentera's products make it easy for users to
integrate in-field data insights with the digital ag platforms in use by more
than 80 percent of the growers in North America. Sentera's equipment has
flown tens of millions of acres all over the world, and processes hundreds of
terabytes of new data for its customers every year. For more information,
visit sentera.com.
About Anheuser-Busch
For more than
165 years, Anheuser-Busch has carried on a legacy of brewing great-tasting,
high-quality beers that have satisfied beer drinkers for generations. Today, we
own and operate more than 100 facilities, including breweries, wholesaler
distribution centers, agricultural facilities and packaging plants, and have
more than 18,000 colleagues across the United States. We are home to
several of America's most recognizable beer brands, including Budweiser, Bud
Light, Michelob ULTRA and Stella Artois, as well as a number of regional brands
that provide beer drinkers with a choice of the best-tasting craft beers in the
industry. From responsible drinking programs and emergency drinking water
donations to industry-leading sustainability efforts, we are guided by our
unwavering commitment to supporting the communities we call home. For more
information, visit www.anheuser-busch.com or follow Anheuser-Busch on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
SOURCE Sentera
SRI LANKA TO IMPORT 6,000
METRIC TONS OF BASMATI RICE FROM PAKISTAN
POSTED IN LOCAL NEWS
Cabinet this week approved the State Trading Corporation (STC)
and Cooperative Wholesale Establishment (CWE) to import 6,000 metric tons of
Basmati rice annually under the provision of the Pakistan-Sri Lanka Free Trade
Agreement (FTA).
Complaints have been received regarding various irregularities
in the importation of rice, Cabinet Co-Spokesman Dr. Ramesh Pathirana said,
pointing out that the same facility had been available to private sector. The
decision by the Cabinet follows a proposal made by Trade Minister and will see
STC and CWE import Basmati rice of high quality, he added.
“The idea is to import Basmati rice for those who seek it,
thereby reducing the competition for local rice variants,” Cabinet Spokesman
Keheliya Rambukwella said, responding to a question.
Rambukella claimed that paddy farmers were not getting a high
price for their crops.
(Source: Daily FT)
https://www.onlanka.com/news/sri-lanka-to-import-6000-metric-tons-of-basmati-rice-from-pakistan.html
Marcos to DA: More drying machines needed to
prevent rice wastage
By: Katrina Hallare - Reporter / @KHallareINQ
INQUIRER.net / 04:48 PM October 13, 2020
Sen. Imee
Marcos during the online hearing Tuesday, October 13, 2020, of the Senate.
Screen grab/Senate PRIB
MANILA, Philippines — Senator Imee Marcos
has appealed to the Department of Agriculture (DA) to provide more drying
machines, as well as set up storage facilities that will prevent wet-season
harvests from going to waste.
In a statement on Monday, Marcos, who
chairs the Senate committee on economic affairs, said that this will also allow
rice farmers to sell their dry palay for better prices.
According to the senator, the lack of
drying machines and storage facilities are the reasons why rice farmers are
suffering losses amid October’s wet-season harvest.
Marcos added that rice farmers are now
selling their wet palay at P12 per kilo, compared to P15 per kilo weeks
earlier.
“Local rice farmers are no longer thinking
of profit, just cutting their losses and paying back their debts. They’ve been
left high and dry amid the wet-season harvest,” the senator said.
“Production cost also goes up by one to two
pesos per kilo if a farmer avails of a drying machine at the nearest coop,
apart from having to line up with so many others,” she added.
Marcos added that in Nueva Ecija, the cost
of hired labor also increased in the middle of the wet season, from 10
cavans to 15 cavans for every 100 cavans harvested.
Citing complaints of farmers that reached
her office, the senator said: “Some rice farmers are opting to put off
harvesting amid the rains, rather than pay more for labor and sell at a loss to
rice traders.”
“They’re now drying what palay they could fit into their own homes. What
becomes discolored from moisture is later sold cheaply as broken rice or duck
feed,” she added.
Aside from this, Marcos is also pushing to
schedule rice imports outside of the Philippines’ harvest seasons in March to
April and September to October.
This way, Marcos added, farmers do not have
to compete with unrestricted importation under the Rice Tariffication Law.
Read more: https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1347235/marcos-to-da-more-drying-machines-needed-to-prevent-rice-wastage#ixzz6avhMKbrP
Follow us: @inquirerdotnet on Twitter | inquirerdotnet on Facebook
Depleting balance in rupee-rial account
chokes export of basmati rice, tea to Iran
Shobha Roy Kolkata | Updated
on October 14, 2020 Published
on October 14, 2020
Payments worth ₹2,000 cr to basmati rice exporters stuck, say
industry insiders
Export of basmati rice and tea is likely to be severely impacted
this year due to issues with Iran which is one of the major importers of the
two commodities. Delayed payments from Iran on the back of the “depleting
balance” in the rupee-rial trade account is the problem.
Egypt
increases imports, encourages domestic production to maintain food security
amid pandemic
Egypt
Independent
October 13, 2020
5:42 pm
Egypt has expanded its import
contracts and successfully met public demand for food by following a government
action plan that came with the coronavirus outbreak in March, according to a
report from Egypt’s al-Borsaa news website.
Nomani Nasr Nomani, Advisor to Egypt’s supply and trade
minister, reported that the country quickly responded to the slowdown of the
global trade market, with president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi ordering an increase
in imports and encouraging more domestic production.
Wheat
Nomani said that Egypt’s General Authority For Supply
Commodities (GASC) has secured enough wheat to fulfill demand until April
2021.
Nomani estimated that the country has imported approximately
3.579 million tons of wheat since the beginning of its fiscal year (July 1), a
64 percent increase as compared to October 2019.
Egypt is the world’s largest
importer of wheat.
The country purchased the most wheat from Russia, buying 2.929
million tons, which accounts for 81.83 percent of the country’s total wheat
imports. Ukraine came in second place, supplying 530,000 tons, or 14.81
percent.
Egypt imported wheat for the first time from Poland at an amount
of 60,000 tons, and imported a similar amount from Romania.
Nomani explained that Russia’s acquisition of the largest
percentage of imports is due to the fact that it is the largest producer and
exporter of wheat in the world, having approximately 37.5 million tons
available to export during the current season.
Domestic production incentives will allow the country to reach
its targeted amount of 6.275 million tons, he added.
Cooking Oil
The GASC has a recorded stock of 268,000 tons of cooking oil,
including imported sunflower oil and domestic soybean oil.
This supply will cover Egypt for six months, which is a very
good rate, according to Nomani, as Egypt depends on importing about 95 percent
of its oils.
He stated that the GASC, in coordination with the Ministry of
Agriculture, is seeking to expand local production of cooking oils, and the
authority has proposed financial incentives for local producers.
Meetings have been held with local manufacturers, particularly
with those in the extraction sector, in which their production capabilities
were discussed, he added.
The GASC has also called upon the ministry to allocate new lands
for the cultivation of oilseeds.
In 2019, the authority opened its doors to allow suppliers to
register with the government and gain incentives. A total of seven local
companies are registered.
Bread Subsidies
Nomani said that the government’s August decision to reduce the
weight of the subsidized bread loaf to 90 grams from its previous 110 grams was
aimed at providing higher-quality bread to the public.
About 800,000 tons of wheat will be saved per month due to the
reduction.
The money saved from the
reduction will be added to the state’s public treasury.
The advisor stressed the importance of public oversight, stating
that that upon close inspection, the Ministry discovered many bakeries further
decreasing the size of the loaves.
He added that the state additionally provides the starchy
component of the public’s dietary needs in other subsidized commodities, such
as rice and pasta.
Other Commodities
The supply and trade ministry has secured a stock of Sudanese
meet that is projected to last for 26 months, while the country’s supply of
frozen Brazilian meat will suffice for a month and a half.
Egypt’s sugar reserves will last until January 2021, which will
be the start of the next local production season.
The current rice balance covers four months, Nomani said, adding
that prices are expected to remain stable ranging between LE6 and LE8.5 per
kilo.
The Egyptian government announced in September the establishment
of its first commodities exchange company, which aims to strengthen internal
trade by connecting small farmers and producers with larger markets.
Nomani said that the stock exchange will both tighten controls
on pricing various commodities and allow for healthier market competition, with
the intention abolishing any existing monopolies.
Pandemic, rice imports, price controls killing farmers in North
Cotabato
Oct.
12, 2020 KATH
M. CORTEZ
DAVAO CITY, Philippines — “The struggle is real, and we are
dying each day, in case they don’t know that.”
Tatay Duroy said over the phone,
his voice barely containing anger and worry over the hardships he and fellow
farmers in Tulunan, North Cotabato had to endure in the past years.
Duroy has been a farmer for forty years. In the past, his rice
product is “somehow enough” to put food on the table for his and spend some for
his children in school.
But now, farming can barely sustain their daily needs with the
drought, pandemic and cheaper imported rice in the market affecting him and other
farmers in the province.
Rice Tariffication
The Rice Tariffication Law (RTL) was signed in 2019 as an
immediate solution of the Duterte government to the shortage of local rice
supply. But that opened the floodgates of cheaper rice imports that hit the selling
price of local rice farmers like Duroy.
“It is not in any way advantageous to struggling local
farmers,” Tatay Duroy said. “Imported
rice will kill us in the near future since it now dominated the local market.”
“Traders will prefer imported rice than local rice because it
will cost them cheaper. Buying local rice will cost them double from drying to
milling compared to importing rice where they can directly distribute it to
their sellers,” Duroy explained.
During the 2016 drought that affected North Cotabato, the buying
price of rice is around P14 per kilo while traders buy both yellow and white
corn for P9 to P 11 for a kilo. The price rose to P18 at the beginning of the
Duterte years.
With RTL, traders are buying local rice as low as nine to 13 pesos.
Rising costs, piling debts
The impact of cheap buying price has forced Tatay Duroy
and farmers in his province of North Cotabato to harvest their products right
away to recoup with capital and to pay debts.
“Our debt and interest are getting bigger because we cannot pay
them. Other farmers are forced to sell their land or allow the landlord to
convert the land into a plantation even if the rent is too small,” he said.
On average, a rice harvest can yield up to 120 sacks in one
hectare, and as low as 50 sacks in a bad season affected by drought, floods or
pests.
A sack of rice grain is equivalent to 50 to 65 kilos and will
cost P864 excluding deductions.
The expenses include P8,000 for the rental of a tractor for
preparing the rice land before planting. A cheaper option is to rent a carabao
for P600 a day but it would take longer days for the preparation.
For rice cropping for one hectare, a farmer fills these with
three sacks of rice seeds that costs a minimum of P7,500, and seven liters of
herbicide or weedicide that costs P1,200 at the minimum.
Farmers need to fertilize the plants through the whole cropping
season, which needs a minimum of nine sacks costing around P1,300 to P1,500.
Farmers also spend labor to speed up the work which costs around
P4,000 to P6,000. They are also obliged to pay farm labor either with two sacks
of the rice grain or P2,000 per cropping for irrigation.
Another expense for harvesting includes paying tractor
harvesters either one sack of rice for every 25 sacks harvested. Harvesters who
do it by hand will receive one sack per 11 sacks of harvested rice grains.
Such costs has forced farmers to do their work by themselves,
such as Tatay Felix from M’lang, a
neighboring town in North Cotabato.
“It is very expensive so we tried to minimize the expenses by
doing double work but most of the time the only option is to borrow money to
sustain the cropping,” said Felix.
Usury has been the practice of rice traders to lend money to
farmers to sustain the farms until harvest with capital including farm inputs
with interest as high up to 10 percent.
For that reason, farmers like Felix are indebted to traders, and
are forced to sell their product at a lower price. Farmers’ harvest are also
deducted one kilo for every sack owed to the trader, and another deduction if
the sacks get muddy.
Traders in the province also designed classifications of rice
grains to their advantage. Classifications such as semi-dry, semi-green, wet
and spotted means a deduction of P10 per sack.
“When we arrive, they will check the grains and put those
classifications. Even if our grain is in good quality, we still expect
deductions, because that is how it works here and cannot argue against
that,” Tatay Felix said.
The National Food Authority (NFA) also buys grains from farmers
at a higher price but its guidelines are strict, such as requiring grains to
meet 14% moisture with 95% dryness and purity.
Pandemic woes
The low buying price brought by rice liberalization has been
killing farmers and the local economy.
M’lang Vice Mayor Lito Piñol said that if RTL favors the
consumers, it does not favor the survival of small food producers.
Piñol said that the rice variety of local farmers cannot compete
with the long grain variety of imported rice which is now leading in the market.
“How can our farmers compete with imported rice when we are
still using a backward way of farming? Where is the rice tariffication
assistance that the government promised to give our farmers? For more than a
year, not even one harvester, one tractor, or one Caltex of fertilizer was
given to our farmers,” Piňol asked.
Piňol said the Covid-19 pandemic contributed to the slowdown of
agriculture activity. Health protocols and border to border restrictions made
the situation more difficult for farmers to continue the production. These
restrictions affect the entry of mechanical tractors and harvesters as well as
manual labor for planting and harvest.
“Our planters and harvesters, even machine operators cannot
enter without following different community protocols. So when harvest season
started we don’t have enough manpower anymore,” he said.
Farmers in North Cotabato have experienced successive setbacks
in the past years.
A drought that began in late 2015 until the first half of 2016
dried up the farms. This forced 5,000 farmers, including Duroy and Felix, to
barricade the highway fronting NFA in the province’s capital city of Kidapawan
demanding food assistance from the local government. They were instead met with
bullets that killed two farmers and wounded 15 others. Scores were arrested but
freed by the courts.
But Tatay Felix said that if this
crisis continues under this pandemic, it will surely result to another huge
protest to urge the government to do appropriate action for the struggling
farmers. (davaotoday.com)
Regulators Classify Gene-Edited Rice
Varieties with Disease Resistance as Equivalent to Conventional Varieties
Crops resist
bacterial leaf blight; ruling clears path to provide smallholder farmers with a
safe, affordable option for preventing destructive disease
14-Oct-2020 10:35 AM EDT, by
Newswise — Columbia and St.
Louis, MO, October 14, 2020 – The Healthy Crops team,
with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, have used gene
editing tools to develop new varieties of disease-resistant rice that
regulators in the United States and Colombia have determined are equivalent to
what could be accomplished with conventional breeding. Bacterial blight can
reduce rice yields by up to 70 percent, with the heaviest losses typically
experienced by smallholder rice growers in low and middle-income countries.
This has a profound impact on farmer productivity and economic mobility. The Healthy
Crops team turned to gene editing to develop disease-resistant varieties as a
way to provide farmers with a safe, affordable, effective solution.
“We first set about to understand the gene the bacteria use to
make the plant vulnerable to its disease,” said Bing Yang, PhD, a researcher
with the University of Missouri Bond Life Sciences Center professor, Division
of Plant Sciences and member, Donald Danforth Plant Science Center in St.
Louis. “We then used our CRISPR technology precisely to remove the element in
the gene to avoid the pathway the pathogen takes that makes the plants
susceptible to blight.”
The team used gene editing to create rice lines in elite
varieties that are comparable to naturally occurring variants. These lines can
resist infection by bacterial leaf blight, which leads to major losses for one
of the world’s most important food crops. The rulings from the United States
Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the corresponding authority in Colombia,
the Instituto Colombiano Agropecuario (ICA), clear the way for field tests to
select the best material for distribution to breeders in the U.S. and Colombia.
The improvements were accomplished via gene editing, which did
not introduce any DNA into the plants and focused on “promoter regions” in
three genes that are targeted by the causative agent of rice blight, the
bacterium Xanthomonas oryzae pathovar oryzae.
The research was described in an article in Nature
Biotechnology in 2019.
Yang is just one member of the research consortium, headed by
Humboldt Professor Wolf B. Frommer from Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf
(HHU), that has worked more than four years on this research. Six research
institutions on three continents were involved including the University of
Missouri, Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, University of Florida, the
Alliance of Bioversity International and the International Center for Tropical
Agriculture (CIAT) in Colombia, the Institut de Recherche pour le Développement
(IRD) in France and the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI)
in the Philippines.
In the wake of the ruling from U.S. and Colombian officials, the
new blight-resistant varieties can now be used to introduce the resistance
trait into many different types of rice via standard breeding strategies.
Additional testing and breeding work is expected to take place in multiple
locations that are favorable for growing tropical rice varieties.
“It’s exciting to use science and technology to do to help
farmers protect and improve their rice production,” Yang said. “We hope to work
closely with the local institutions in the next phase to introduce these into
the varieties of rice small farmers use.”
The Healthy Crops Team has no commercial interest in its work.
Its goal is to ensure disease- resistant rice varieties are accessible and
affordable, especially for smallholder farmers who depend on rice production to
support their families.
About The Donald Danforth Plant
Science Center
Founded in 1998, the Donald
Danforth Plant Science Center is a not-for-profit research
institute with a mission to improve the human condition through plant science.
Research, education and outreach aim to have impact at the nexus of food
security and the environment, and position the St. Louis region as a world
center for plant science. The Center’s work is funded through competitive
grants from many sources, including the National Institutes of Health, U.S.
Department of Energy, National Science Foundation, and the Bill & Melinda
Gates Foundation. Follow us on Twitter at @DanforthCenter.
About Bond Life Sciences Center
Founded in 2004, the Christopher S. Bond Life Sciences Center
was designed with teamwork in mind, fostering collaborations between scientists
of diverse disciplines and backgrounds. From cancer and HIV to plant science
and informatics, our researchers work together to move basic science forward
and lay the groundwork for a better world. Learn more at bondlsc.missouri.edu.
Basmati rice import taken under
the purview of the State
Tuesday, 13 October
2020 - 14:02
The Cabinet of Ministers has granted approval to
import basmati rice by the State Institutions under the tariff concessions of
the Pakistan-Sri Lanka Free Trade Agreement.
This is in view of the irregularities that have occured in the recent past by
allowing the private sector to import basmati rice under the above concession.
Accordingly, Sathosa and the Sri Lanka State Trading (General) Corporation were
granted approval to the import 6,000 metric tons of basmati rice.
Cabinet Spokesman Minister Keheliya Rambukwella was inquired in this regard as
well as the increase in rice prices at the media briefing held today (13).
Pakistan seeks EU’s technology to develop livestock sector
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Tuesday sought technical and financial
assistance from the European Union (EU) to develop the country’s livestock
sector through technology.
EU can support meat industry by allowing the import of other meat
and chicken products, a statement said after a meeting between the Minister for
Food Security Fakhar Imam and EU Ambassador Androulla Kaminara.
“EU is the main buyer of sheep casing from Pakistan. EU can help
Pakistan to increase agriculture production and increase export of regulated
goods,” said the ministry’s statement.
The meeting was told critical support in farming, technology and
techniques would be imperative for the development of the country’s agriculture
sector.
“Therefore, there is dire need of collaboration between the
agriculture sectors,” said the statement. “The EU may provide technical and
financial assistance in the livestock sector of Pakistan like risk-based foot
and mouth disease control, virtual-based disease information and surveillance
system and establishing foot and mouth disease free zones.”
Pakistan and EU signed strategic engagement plan last year for
transfer of technology. Pakistan exports rice, mango, vegetables, spices and
tobacco to the EU states. However, the current level of bilateral trade between
Pakistan and EU countries does not fully reflect the potential of agro-products,
which may need to be enhanced further.
Pakistan imports chickpeas, instant gum, potato seeds and other
food stuff from the EU.
Imam said the menace of the desert locust has been brought
completely under control in the country.
“The FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
assisted Pakistan a lot in anti-locust operations,” he said.
Imam said the EU agriculture policy benefits the farmers to an
exemplary scale.
The minister said Pakistan is focusing on developing phytosanitary
system. Fruits and vegetables worth $700 million are exported from Pakistan.
The country also has a big livestock sector “but foot and mouth
disease has handicapped us”.
The ambassador was told that a facility is under development in
Bahawalpur for developing vaccine for the foot and mouth disease.
The minister said cotton is one of the major crops of the country
and Pakistan needs a breakthrough in cotton sector. The interest was expressed
in developing a niche market for floriculture in Pakistan much like the
Netherlands.
Kaminara asked the country to develop its fisheries sector as there
is a lot of potential for fish exports. The EU is the financier of FAO. Cotton
is very much linked with generalised system of preferences plus status that
allows tariff incentives to Pakistani exports to the 27-member countries bloc.
The meeting was told that the ministry of food security is
implementing partner of Balochistan rural development and community empowerment
program. It is a five-year plan, which also includes improvement in production
of livestock.
https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/728967-pakistan-seeks-eu-s-technology-to-develop-livestock-sector
Pakistan, Australia discuss COVID-19 strategy, trade
ties in phone call
Imran
Khan, Scott Morrison note there is immense potential in expanding partnership
Published: October
13, 2020 20:14 Sana Jamal, Correspondent
Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan
had a telephonic conversation with Prime Minister of Australia, Scott Morrison
on Tuesday, October 13, 2020. Image Credit: PM Office
Islamabad:
Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan and Prime Minister of Australia, Scott
Morrison, discussed the COVID-19 successful strategy and huge potential to
enhance bilateral ties during a phone call between the two leaders on Monday,
the PM Office said. Bilateral matters and international issues of mutual
interest including the Afghan peace process also came under discussion.
COVID-19
strategy
Prime
Minister Khan appreciated Australia’s “impressive management of COVID-19”
crisis and highlighted the unprecedented global health and economic challenges
posed by the pandemic. Pakistan’s PM shared that his government’s emphasis
during the health emergency had been on “saving lives, securing livelihoods,
and stimulating the economy.” He cited the “smart lockdown” strategy and other
measures that led to significant containment of the pandemic in Pakistan.
Australian PM shared his country’s efforts in managing the coronavirus
pandemic.
Khan
particularly highlighted the pandemic’s detrimental impact on the economy of
the developing countries, for which he had also called for the “Global
Initiative on Debt Relief” supported by Australia.
Expand
bilateral ties
The
two leaders noted that there is immense potential in expanding
Pakistan-Australia partnership to further enhance mutually beneficial
cooperation in diverse fields. Khan highlighted the prospect for enhanced trade
and increased regional connectivity after the commencement of Afghan peace
talks. Morrison also noted Pakistan’s positive role in the Afghan peace
process. Both the leaders invited each other to visit their respective
countries.
Trade,
education and cricket
Commenting
on the development, Australia’s High Commissioner to Pakistan, Dr Geoffrey
Shaw, welcomed the phone call between the two leaders in which they discussed
“bilateral ties” and successful approaches on COVID-19” by both countries.
“We’ll keep building our cooperation on trade, education, security,
development, and cricket” which is a shared Commonwealth heritage, he said in a
tweet. PM Khan also expressed hope for the resumption of Pakistan-Australia
cricket series as the COVID-19 situation improves.
Pakistan-Australia
ties
•
Pakistani population in Australia has increased to 91,000 in 2019, according to
Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). They are mostly skilled migrants,
professionals and students.
• Pakistan-Australia trade and investment relationship has improved steadily
over the past decade. The two-way trade was worth $1.83 billion in 2017.
• Australia’s major goods exports to Pakistan are pulses, oilseed, fertilizer
and scrap metals. Major imports from Pakistan are textiles, rice and petroleum.
• Both countries are exploring ways to expand trade in agribusiness as well as
IT and communications, processed foods, clean energy, medical technologies,
infrastructure investment, and mining equipment, technology and services
(METS).
• Pakistan and Australia regularly hold dialogues between senior leaders from
respective militaries, government agencies and think tanks.
• Australian Federal Police has a 27-year relationship with Pakistan law
enforcement agencies. Military cadets from each country also attend specialized
courses in defence institutes of Pakistan and Australia.
• The two states are also bolstering cooperation to combat transnational crime,
such as terrorism financing and illegal migration.
Sri Lanka state
agencies to import basmati rice from Pakistan
October, 14, 2020
The Cabinet of Ministers has approved the proposal presented by
Minister of Trade to import 6,000 metric tons of Basmati rice annually under
the provision of the Pakistan-Sri Lanka Free Trade Agreement (FTA) and to allow
only the Sri Lanka State Trading Corporation (STC) and Cooperative
Wholesale Establishment (CWE) to import rice under this agreement.
Earlier, the private sector was also allowed to import
Basmati rice under this agreement. However, the permission given to private
sector has been revoked due to complaints that were received
regarding various irregularities in the importation of rice.
http://bizenglish.adaderana.lk/sri-lanka-state-agencies-to-import-basmati-rice-from-pakistan/
Wednesday
Oct 14, 2020
MENU
SL to import 6,000 MT of Basmati rice from Pakistan
Wednesday,
14 October 2020 01:45 -
- 125
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Cabinet
this week approved the State Trading Corporation (STC) and Cooperative
Wholesale Establishment (CWE) to import 6,000 metric tons of Basmati rice
annually under the provision of the Pakistan-Sri Lanka Free Trade Agreement
(FTA).
Complaints have been received regarding various irregularities in the
importation of rice, Cabinet Co-Spokesman Dr. Ramesh Pathirana said, pointing
out that the same facility had been available to private sector. The
decision by the Cabinet follows a proposal made by Trade Minister and will see
STC and CWE import Basmati rice of high quality, he added.
"The idea is to import Basmati rice for those who seek it, thereby
reducing the competition for local rice variants," Cabinet Spokesman
Keheliya Rambukwella said, responding to a question.
Rambukella claimed that paddy farmers were not getting a high price for their
crops.(AF)
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http://www.ft.lk/news/SL-to-import-6-000-MT-of-Basmati-rice-from-Pakistan/56-707461
Hilde
Lee: Foods of Pakistan and India often use curry powder; here's an easy recipe
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Last
week, in our “wishful thinking trip,” we experience some of the foods of India,
their uniqueness and their religious origins. I want to tell you a little more
about the region, but also focus on its neighbor Pakistan, whose food is
different from India. And, as I promised, I will also give you a recipe for
curry powder.
So,
let’s see what foods are prevalent in Pakistan. We are probably more familiar
with that country since it is close to Afghanistan.
Pakistan
came into being on Aug. 15, 1947. It covers the area of the Indian subcontinent
where the population is predominately Muslim.
Pakistan
is a land of contrasts. In the northern area is the “Roof of the World,” where
large mountains converge (the Kush, Karakoram, the Kunlun and the Himalayas).
Between the mountains and the desert areas are green valleys and fertile plains
that are watered by the Indus River and its four tributaries.
For
more than a thousand years, successive invaders — Aryans, Greeks, Huns,
Mongols, Turks and Afghans — have poured through mountain passes into what is
now Pakistan. They have brought their own cultures and food habits, all to be
melded into what today is Pakistani cuisine.
Even
though Pakistan as a nation is 73 years old, the area has been known for 5,000
years. In recent history Europeans, particularly the British, ruled for almost
two centuries. Thus, Pakistan is a great mixture of races, religions, languages
and cultures. There are a wide variety of culinary and eating habits, which are
typical of Pakistan.
All
of life’s important occasions are excuses for feasts, to which friends and
relatives are invited. In the major cities, there is a strong European
influence in food and manners. However, in a traditional home, food is cooked,
served and eaten in simpler ways. Even though food is served with a spoon, it
is eaten with the fingers of the right hand. Hands are carefully washed before
and after the meal.
A
basic Pakistani meal consists of a meat dish, a vegetable dish, bread, rice,
accompanying pickles, fruit and dessert. Pakistanis eat a great deal of meat,
but, like all Muslims, they are forbidden to eat pork, which is considered
unclean. Alcoholic beverages are also forbidden.
The
northwest frontier, with the mountainous terrain and the Khyber Pass, is famous
for its fertile valleys. Here, orchards of peaches, apricots, almonds and
apples supply fruit for the country. Mushrooms grown in the valley are exported
all over the world.
The
food of Pakistan is primarily based on meat. It lacks the spiciness of much of
the neighboring Indian dishes. Such dishes as shashlik — small pieces of meat
cooked on skewers and basted with sheep fat — and burra, roasted baby lamb
stuffed with rice, nuts and raisins, are favorites. An unusual dish of
Mediterranean-heritage cooking is aash. It includes cottage cheese, meat sauce,
shredded chilies, lemon juice and noodles.
The
bread eaten in both India and Pakistan is naan. It is a flat leavened bread
that is cooked in the earthenware ovens that are in every home. Goats’ milk
cheese is made at home, and yogurt is eaten at almost every meal.
Most
of the ancestors of Pakistan were nomads; thus, cooking over an open fire was
the norm. A favorite dish, bukhara gosht, is meat cooked with plums, almonds,
raisins, onions and green chilies. It is eaten with naan.
Karachi
is Pakistan’s major port and a bastion of the old British culture. There, the
food is both Western and Eastern. Lobster and seafood abound and are served
with a chili sauce that has a touch of Asian flavorings. As Rudyard Kipling
would have said, “There the twain have met.”
Before
I get sidetracked, let me give you my recipe for curry powder. After mixing the
spices, be sure to keep the curry powder in a tight container so that it does
not loose its pungency.
The
ground spices in this curry mixture are 1 tablespoon ground cumin, 2
tablespoons ground coriander, 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves, 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon,
1 teaspoon ground cardamom, 1/4 teaspoon mace, 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg, 1/2
teaspoon ground black pepper and 1 tablespoon ground turmeric.
I
was not very meticulous in measuring and used a little more or a little less of
each. The mixture smelled so good, I knew I had a winner — and even had enough
for another meal or two.
Let’s
go back to some Indian cooking, now that we have the curry powder. The
commonest and simplest way of cooking vegetables in India is to stir-fry them,
known as bhujia in the north and foogath in the south. In both cases, the
vegetables are stir-fried with spices. There is no sauce, but the resulting
dish is surprisingly pungent.
Vegetable
curries are made from one or a number of vegetables. A dish of pureed
vegetables, delicately spiced, is called barta. Mashed vegetables are shaped
into patties or balls, fried and eaten dry or added to a curry sauce.
There
are many different ways of cooking meat in India. Besides curries, there are
kormas — braised meats that are cooked in yogurt or cream and sometimes even in
broth. There are kebabs of various kinds and baked meats.
Indian
chickens, although they are often small and scrawny, are also the basis of
lightly seasoned dishes. Chicken, marinated in spices and yogurt, is either cooked
in a clay oven or on the spit.
With
a coastline of more than 2,000 miles, India has a great variety of fish. Prawns
or shrimp are used in curries, baked with spices or grilled. Along the coast,
shrimp are often cooked with mustard and yogurt or deep-fried in a spicy
batter. Fish is often wrapped in banana leaves and baked. The banana leaf
imparts an unusual flavor that is lost if the fish is just wrapped in foil.
The
fine, firm-fleshed Indian potato is often stuffed with a mixture of onions,
coriander leaves, green chilies, garlic and fresh ginger.
In
many middle-class homes, the main meal of the day consists of two or three
vegetable dishes, one of which is dhal, and a meat or fish dish, if the
household is not vegetarian. Yogurt, pickles and chutneys are side dishes, as
well as rice. A sweet is often included with the other dishes, rather than
afterwards, as is the custom in the West.
All
of the food is put on the table at the same time. Each person eats what he or
she wants, combining dishes to suit their taste. I like that idea; I’d probably
eat the shrimp and then the dessert.
https://dailyprogress.com/lifestyles/food-and-cooking/hilde-lee-foods-of-pakistan-and-india-often-use-curry-powder-heres-an-easy-recipe/article_63a1ab62-084d-11eb-921e-5b7284b3ebb5.html Fish, Rice and a Slice of Pakistani Malayali Life: Video
of Karachi Eatery Serving Kerala Cuisine Goes Viral
Malabar
Cafe in Karachi, Pakistan | Image credit: YouTube/Sameer Key Vlogs
Located in downtown Karachi, the
Malabari eatery is a popular haunt, not just among the immigrant Malayali community
in Pakistan but also for locals.
India and
Pakistan have much in common. Besides the common taste for music and poetry,
Indians and Pakistanis also share a penchant for good food. And while Pakistani
cuisine is quite popular in India, it seems Indian cuisine also finds an
appetite in Pakistan.
In a recent
video that has been going viral on the content-sharing site, Reddit, shows a
Malabari restaurant that serves Kerala cuisine in the heart of Pakistan.
Located in Karachi's Wellington Street, the Malabari (or Malwari/Malbari as it
is locally called) eatery is a popular haunt, not just among the immigrant
Malayali community in Karachi but also for locals.
The shop sells
all kinds of Malabari dishes, both vegetarian and non-vegetarian, many of which
are popular in Kerala including authentic fish and rice.
Teh video was
originally posted on a YouTube channel called 'Sameer Key Vlogs', run by
YouTube content creator Sameer Khokhar. He is also the one who created the
video and can be seen speaking to several persons eating at the restaurant as
well as the cooks.
Malayali
Muslims are a sizeable yet shrinking community in Pakistan, many of whose
members are settled in and around Karachi. The migrated to Pakistan before and
after Partition, though the stories of their exodus have been slightly
different from that of other Muslims who migrated to Pakistan.
Play Video
The first wave
of migration of Malayali Muslims from Kerala occurred during teh 1921 Mappila
Revolt in Malappuram district where Mappila or Malabari Muslims led an armed
revolt against upper caste-Hindus and the British. The second wave
The Malabar
Muslim Jamat runs several schools and Malabari kitchens in the Karachi to
support the Malayali Muslim community. The community's native language and
culture have nevertheless been on the decline in recent years. The death of
prominent Indian-origin Pakistani politician and human rights activist B.M.
Kutty in august, 2019, also caused a blow to the Malayali community, which lost
is sole representation in mainstream Pakistani politics.
Apart from the
Malayali community in Pakistan, the "Sameer Ke Vlogs" YouTube channel
also tries to document other minority communities from India living in Pakistan
to capture the cultural flavour and essence of the life of migrants in
Pakistan.
http://www.colombopage.com/archive_20B/Oct13_1602600602CH.php
DA expects 16% increase in rice
production
During the Senate hearing on the
P284.4-billion proposed budget of the Department of Agriculture (DA) for 2021
that included P24 billion from the Bayanihan 2 funds, Dar told senators
agriculture grew by 1.6 percent during the second quarter of 2021 or during the
lockdown.
Cecille Suerte Felipe (The Philippine Star
This content was originally
published by The Philippine Star following its editorial
guidelines. Philstar.com hosts its content but has no editorial control
over it.
) - October 13, 2020 - 12:00am
MANILA, Philippines — A 16 percent increase in rice production
is anticipated in the third quarter of the year, a good indication of
employment attraction in agriculture despite the coronavirus pandemic,
Agriculture Secretary William Dar said yesterday.
During the Senate hearing on the P284.4-billion
proposed budget of the Department of Agriculture (DA) for 2021 that
included P24 billion from the Bayanihan 2 funds, Dar told senators agriculture
grew by 1.6 percent during the second quarter of 2021 or during the lockdown.
“Here in the third quarter, initial indicators indicate an
increase in rice production by 16 percent, meaning the employment attraction
was really there for agriculture, IATF (Inter-Agency Task Force for the
Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases) is supportive of farming and
fishing,” he added.
Sen. Cynthia Villar, however, rebuked some DA officials for the
apparent duplication of rice subsidy programs for farmers and failure to
provide the Senate with the list of recipients of the rice subsidy programs.
For almost an hour, Villar slammed DA officials for apparent
duplication of two rice subsidy programs – the national rice program, which
includes the distribution of rice hybrid seeds to farmers, and the use of the
Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund under the rice tariffication law.
“I want to see where the budget was brought. I gave a list of
questions with regard to the Bayanihan 2, you have two and a half months to do
it and yet you have not answered. I sent you 16 questions. I did not understand
your reports,” said Villar, who chaired the budget hearing as head of the
Senate committee on agriculture.
Agriculture Undersecretary Ariel Cayanan, who could barely
answer, said they have sent a list of subsidy recepients to the Senate but he
could not discuss the content of the list.
Villar demanded to see the list to double-check whether the
grant was actually given to the grantee and also to see if the seed supply and
the projects are doubled.
Dar promised to submit a more detailed list and reports to
Villar.
Villar’s demand was echoed by Sen. Francis Pangilinan, who asked
for a list of people who were given cash assistance by the DA.
For their failure to mute the microphone and interrupting the
hearing of the Senate on the proposed DA budget, Villar also threatened to
remove the budget of a DA program.
Villar several times asked those present at the DA hybrid
hearing to mute their microphones to avoid interrupting the senators who were
asking questions.
“Will you please mute (your mic). Who is that ADING? Is ADING a
program of DA?” said Villar.
Dar said ADING stands for Agriculture Dialogue and Information
Network Group, designed to promote integrity and good government.
Villar said officials of ADING kept on talking loudly while
their microphones were on, thus interrupting the Senate proceedings.
Sen. Joel Villanueva, who was interrupted by ADING officials,
said while ADING was supposed to promote integrity, it seemed people there do
not have such traits.
“ADING is always talking and it has a P100-million budget. They
are always talking. Maybe we should remove their P100-million budget in the
Bayanihan 2. My God, they are always talking and it’s loud, we cannot
understand each other. They are always talking, it’s always ADING who is
talking,” said Villar.
Meanwhile, Sen. Imee Marcos pointed to the lack of drying
machines and storage facilities for the losses that rice farmers are suffering
amid October’s wet season harvest.
Marcos, who chairs the Senate committee on economic affairs,
said rice farmers who were selling their wet palay at P15 per kilo weeks
earlier where now selling below their average production cost of P12 per kilo.
The lowest farm gate price of P10 per kilo was reported in Bicol
and Capiz, and was ranging from P11 to P13 in other rice-producing provinces.
Sen. Risa Hontiveros is pushing for a P48.7-billion increase in
the budget of the Department of Health for 2021 as the country continues to
bear the brunt of the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“This is a health emergency. If we want to win against COVID-19
and finally recover as a country, our national budget next year must be a
pandemic budget, no ifs and buts,” said Hontiveros.
Hontiveros’ proposed the P48.7-billion hike to provide the necessary
funding to upgrade various aspects of the county’s healthcare system. based on
the projected amounts initially proposed by the health department to the
Department of Budget and Management.
She said with the huge proposed P4.5-trillion national budget
next year, the DOH is not even in the top three agencies with the largest
funding.
“We do not seem to be in the top 20 countries with the highest
number of COVID-19 cases in the world. What is this, we will just ignore the
sick and dying Filipinos?” Hontiveros said.
She said P22 billion of her proposal puts a spotlight on
programs critical to the country’s health response against the COVID-19
pandemic. She questioned the “shocking” budget cuts, such as the slashed
operations budget for national and subnational laboratories that only received
P289 million, despite the DOH’s request of P1.3 billion.
Local Health Systems Development and Assistance, which promotes
health at the community level, she said, only received P353 million of its
requested P1.7 billion.
Meanwhile, the programs for prevention and control of
communicable diseases were only awarded P5.98 billion from the requested P15
billion, which Hontiveros says is crucial to “prevent further uncontrollable
outbreaks from worsening the country’s health situation.”
Apart from health programs to beat the COVID-19 pandemic,
Hontiveros added that funding for the prevention and control of other “killer”
non-communicable diseases was also deprioritized, having been awarded a
“measly” P373 million from the requested P1.33 billion.
Hontiveros said P26 billion of her proposal is meant to increase
the funding of the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. to cover the health costs
of the 7.6 million unemployed workers.
Cataloguing rice collection for
crop improvement
OCTOBER 14, 2020 4:54 PM AEDT
Genetic
tests help search and manage USDA’s rice genetic repository
Rice is
one of the most important global cereal crops. More than half of the world’s
population depend on rice as their primary source of energy from food.
Rice is
cultivated around the world. But rice farmers face many challenges. These range
from adapting to the effects of climate change to dealing with pressure to
increase crop productivity.
That’s
where gene banks come in. They serve as repositories for crop genetic
materials.
“Gene
banks preserve and characterize crop diversity for use in crop improvement,
both now and for generations to come,” says Georgia Eizenga, a member of the
American Society of Agronomy and Crop Science Society of America.
Eizenga
is the lead author of a new study that aims to enhance the management and
utility of the USDA’s repository of rice genetic resources. The research was
published in Crop Science, a
publication of the Crop Science Society of America.
The
United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) National Small Grains Collection
contains material from close to 20,000 varieties of rice. This diverse
collection is especially important to the U.S. rice industry.
“Rice
was introduced into the United States from Asia and Africa,” says Eizenga.
“Having a diverse global collection of rice cultivars provides a source of new
traits which can be used for crop improvement.”
But
cataloging this collection of genetic material is no easy feat. Challenges
include developing detailed descriptions, finding and correcting labelling
errors, and removing redundant varieties.
Using
physical characteristics to catalog close to 20,000 varieties is very
difficult. Some characteristics, such as cooking quality and disease
resistance, can be especially challenging to determine. That’s where genetic
techniques can be useful.
“The
USDA rice gene bank is a resource that has been developed over decades,” says
Eizenga. “Molecular techniques will allow us to use this resource even more
effectively.”
Eizenga
and colleagues developed a small panel of genetic markers. Genetic markers are
short, identifiable DNA sequences found in specific places of a genome.
These
genetic markers serve as a guide to help researchers determine quickly whether
a particular variety of rice has a specific trait This made it easier to search
the USDA rice collection and manage it more efficiently.
Take for
example, resistance to fungal diseases. Without genetic markers, breeders would
start by growing several different rice varieties. Then they would have to
expose the rice plants to the fungus. Finally, they would observe which varieties
contracted the disease and which were resistant.
This
process could take months. A set of genetic markers works much faster.
Researchers
know which genes play a role in fungal disease resistance in rice. They can
extract genetic material from different rice varieties. Then they use molecular
biology techniques to test which varieties have the disease resistance genes.
Instead
of months, this process can be completed in days. That can save valuable time
and expense.
“Having
molecular markers for traits that are difficult to phenotype can reduce the
cost of characterizing rice varieties,” says Eizenga. “Molecular markers can
also make the process more reliable.”
Genetic
markers also help researchers identify different rice varieties more
accurately.
“Knowing
the correct species, subspecies and subpopulation is vital for breeders and
geneticists,” says Eizenga. That’s especially the case when making crosses to
incorporate desirable traits into new rice varieties.
Crosses
made between two closely related varieties of rice are likely to produce more
viable seeds than crosses between two diverse varieties. So, the markers for
species, subspecies and subpopulation help breeders choose which rice varieties
will work well together to develop improved hybrids.
Without
establishing these successful hybrid varieties, breeders cannot incorporate
desired traits into new rice varieties.
Eizenga
and colleagues are now testing a newer molecular marker technology.
This
technology involves looking for tiny differences in the genetic material of
different rice varieties. It uses what are called single nucleotide
polymorphisms – or SNPs.
“Using
this technique will allow rice varieties to be cataloged even more quickly and
inexpensively,” says Eizenga.
This
research was funded by the United States Department of Agriculture’s
Agricultural Research Service. Georgia Eizenga is
a researcher at USDA’s National Rice Research Center in
Stuttgart, Arkansas.
Crop Science is
the flagship journal of the Crop Science Society of America. It is a top
international journal in the fields of crop breeding and genetics, crop
physiology, and crop production. The journal is a critical outlet for articles
describing plant germplasm collections and their use.
The American Society of Agronomy is
an international scientific and professional society with its headquarters in
Madison, WI. Our members are researchers and trained, certified professionals
in the areas of growing our world’s food supply, while protecting our
environment. We work at universities, government research facilities and
private businesses across the United States and the world.
/Public
Release. The material in this public release comes from the originating
organization and may be of a point-in-time nature, edited for clarity, style
and length. View in full here.
Tags:Africa, Agriculture, america, American Society of Agronomy, Arkansas, Asia, climate
change, DNA, environment, Georgia, Government, molecular biology, production, technique, technology, U.S., United
States
https://www.miragenews.com/cataloguing-rice-collection-for-crop-improvement/
Farmers are facing a phosphorus crisis. The
solution starts with soil
Overuse of fertilizer has led to phosphorus
shortages and water pollution. But farms might not need so much to grow healthy
crops.
farmer spreads organic fertilizers of bone meal pellets and rock
phosphate before planting spinach in the Harmony garden in Golden, Colorado.
PHOTOGRAPH
BY JOE AMON, THE DENVER POST/GETTY
BY JULIA ROSEN
PUBLISHED OCTOBER
14, 2020
ON AN OVERCAST day,
Roger Sylvester-Bradley walks along a hawthorn hedge, collecting a thick rind
of mud on his leather boots, before stepping into a gently sloping field of
barley.
He stoops to pluck an ankle-high seedling
from the ground and examines its healthy mop of fine white roots. Turning them
in his hands, he says, “when you see a plant that’s deficient in phosphorus, it
doesn’t look like this.”
That’s something of a surprise to
Sylvester-Bradley, a crop scientist at ADAS,
an agricultural consulting company in Cambridge, England. Phosphorus occurs
naturally in soil and is a critical nutrient for plant growth. For centuries,
farmers have added extra to their fields to boost harvests, but
Sylvester-Bradley and his colleagues are studying ways to produce food using
less of it.
The reasons are twofold: First, phosphorus
runoff from farms contributes to widespread water pollution. Second, we don’t
have phosphorus to waste.
Nearly all of the phosphorus that farmers
use today—and that we consume in the food we eat—is mined from a few sources of
phosphate rock, mainly in the United States, China, and Morocco. By some
estimates, those could run out in as little as 50
to 100 years. Geologists know of other deposits, but they are harder to
access and contain less phosphorus. Thus, the price will likely rise, making it
harder for growers to afford fertilizer and for people to afford food.
Here and at other experimental sites in
England, Sylvester-Bradley and his colleagues have taken a first commonsense
step toward addressing the problem: They stopped adding phosphorus fertilizer
to half the barley field to see how the plants would fare. Eight years later,
they have only just started to observe the first effects on crop size and
yield. The plants have survived on the excess nutrients in the
soil—so-called legacy
phosphorus—which some say represents a key piece of the phosphorus puzzle.
Researchers have calculated that, in
countries like the United Kingdom and the United States, there is already
billions of dollars’ worth of fertilizer in the ground that could help offset
demand for mined phosphorus. Using it up would also curb phosphorus runoff.
Roger Sylvester-Bradley inspects the roots of a healthy barley
plant for signs of phosphorus deficiency. The field has had no added fertilizer
for almost a decade, and the plants are only now starting to show a slight
lack.
PHOTOGRAPH
BY JULIA ROSEN
To Paul Withers, a soil scientist at
Lancaster University and one of Sylvester-Bradley’s collaborators, tapping into
legacy phosphorus is a no-brainer and continuing with the status quo is a
recipe for both ecological and humanitarian disaster. “We can’t have
agriculture polluting the environment and using resources the way we are,”
Withers says. “It’s just going to cause a meltdown in the end.”
A devious nutrient
Phosphorus is a non-negotiable requirement
for life. It’s the backbone of DNA and the P in ATP—the molecule that carries
energy around cells. Plants need phosphorus to grow, which is why farmers have
been feeding it to their crops for millennia.
At first, and without understanding the
chemistry, people used manure and human waste as fertilizer. Then in the 1800s
farmers recognized that phosphorus-rich bones and rocks worked too.
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In 1842 an Oxford University dropout named
John Bennet Lawes patented a process for treating these new mineral forms of
phosphorus with acid, making the nutrient more accessible to plants, and soon
began selling the world’s first human-made fertilizer.
Lawes plowed his considerable profits back
into research at his family’s country estate, which later became the Rothamsted
Research center. And there, scientists discovered that phosphorus was a
somewhat devious nutrient.
The fertilizer Lawes manufactured contained a soluble,
inorganic form of phosphorus that plants can readily use. But as soon as the
phosphorus hit the soil, a large fraction of it reacted with soil minerals,
forming compounds that crops can’t access. Some also got locked away in equally
unavailable organic forms.
From those observations, scientists
concluded that farmers shouldn’t scrimp on phosphorus. They should heap it on,
especially as they raced to feed the world’s growing populations during the 20th century.
In fact, it was once Withers’ job to spread
the word. As a government farm advisor in the 1980s, he drove a red Volvo
station wagon around the winding roads of rural England telling farmers to make
sure their crops got plenty of key nutrients.
This method, which Withers calls
“insurance-based farming,” still prevails in many parts of the world. In
Europe, farmers apply roughly 4
kilograms of phosphorus for each kilogram that we consume in food. For
U.S. diets, that ratio is about 9
to 1, and in China, it may be as high as 13
to 1. (There are crucial exceptions in places where farmers have never had
adequate access to phosphorus fertilizer, like many parts of Africa and South
America.)
Phosphorus is lost at many stages of food
production and processing. But these inefficiencies pose a problem as looming
changes in phosphorus availability and price threaten to destabilize the
world’s food system, Withers says. “We’ve sort of gone over the top and we’ve
come back to vulnerability.”
To make matters worse, some unused
fertilizer builds up in the soil, which causes environmental problems long
after it’s applied, says Helen Jarvie, a hydrochemist at the Centre for Ecology
and Hydrology in Wallingford, U.K. Her research shows that it slowly leaks into
the environment for decades, confounding well-intentioned efforts by landowners
to reduce
nutrient pollution.
Even small amounts of phosphorus runoff from
farms and sewage are enough to fuel algal blooms that fill waterways with
festering green scum. Sometimes, like in Lake Erie, they produce toxins that can
foul drinking water and use up dissolved oxygen, killing fish and other aquatic
life.
According to one
study, phosphorus pollution affects nearly 40 percent of Earth’s land
areas. And the damage adds up. By one estimate, the
impacts of excess phosphorus and nitrogen—another key nutrient—on water quality
and ecosystems cost $2.2 billion per year in the U.S. alone.
A slam dunk for plants?
If legacy phosphorus is an environmental
liability, it is also a tremendous opportunity, according to Withers and other
scientists. He and his colleagues calculated in a 2015 study that
fields in the United Kingdom contain more than $10 billion worth of
phosphorus, enough to meet the country’s fertilizer demand for up to 54 years.
A front end loader moves granules of monoammonium phosphate into a
storage warehouse at the PhosAgro-Cherepovets fertilizer plant in Cherepovets,
Russia, on Aug. 9, 2017.
Many other nations possess similar reserves.
A 2012 analysis found
that global soils contain enough legacy phosphorus to cut the projected demand
for new fertilizer in half by 2050.
“The plants can use our mistakes from the
past,” says Sheida Sattari, lead author of the study.
By the numbers, legacy phosphorus looks like
a slam dunk. But can plants actually live on it? Studies suggest that, in
places with long histories of phosphorus overuse, like the U.K., crops can
thrive for 10 years or more on the stores built up in the ground. The most
extreme example comes from Saskatchewan, where researchers haven’t added
phosphorus to plots of wheat since 1995. Twenty-five years later they still
haven’t seen problems.
Conventional measures of soil chemistry
suggest they should apply more fertilizer, says Barbara Cade-Menun, who
oversees the experiments at the Swift
Current Research and Development Center in Canada. “But our yields
aren’t changing.”
Scientists think that as plants use up the
readily available phosphorus in the fields, soil minerals and organic matter
release more of the nutrient. Cade-Menun doesn’t yet know whether changes in
soil chemistry, soil microbes, or plants themselves can explain what’s
happening in her plots. Regardless, the results suggest that those inaccessible
forms of phosphorus that the Rothamsted researchers fretted about aren’t quite
as off-limits as scientists once thought.
And that means just cutting back on
fertilizer could go a long way to meeting phosphorus demand and reducing runoff
without jeopardizing harvests.
Smarter crops
At some point, however, soil phosphorus
drops low enough that crops become stressed. That’s partly because some of it
really is out of reach for plants, but also because many modern crops cannot
get ahold of what is there.
The scarcity of phosphorus in nature forced
wild plants to develop strategies for securing an adequate supply. Many evolved
extensive root systems that search out phosphorus. Some can also excrete
chemicals to liberate the nutrient from the soil.
But most commercial crops don’t have those
abilities. Scientists cultivated them in well-fertilized soils that didn’t
require plants to spend energy deploying such tools. And, in a world of
plentiful resources, breeders didn’t select for varieties with strong
phosphorus-harvesting traits. The result, says Phil Haygarth, a soil scientist
at Lancaster University, is “a load of fast-growing, dumb plants” that struggle
to extract phosphorus from the soil.
Researchers now want to create smarter
crops. In 2012, scientists identified a gene in an
ancient variety of Japanese rice that enhanced the plant’s ability to find
phosphorus by growing fine roots. Researchers then bred the trait into modern
rice plants, and in 2019 farmers in Madagascar—which has naturally
nutrient-poor soils—started testing some of the most promising varieties.
Sigrid Heuer, a researcher at Rothamsted who
helped with the rice study, is searching for a similar gene in wheat as part of
the International Wheat Yield Partnership.
Other scientists are developing crop varieties that don’t need as much
phosphorus in the first place.
Besides breeding, no-till farming could help
by preventing soil compaction and encouraging good root development to help
plants access more legacy phosphorus. Adding symbiotic fungi that spread
through the soil may extend a plant’s underground reach, and growing crops
alongside legumes and other plants that secrete phosphorus-releasing compounds
can free up more of the nutrient.
Withers and Sylvester-Bradley have been
running down the phosphorus levels in their test fields for the exact purpose
of exploring these kinds of approaches.
The researchers had to abandon the barley
field in Cambridge because of changes in farm ownership. But at the remaining
sites, phosporus levels have finally dipped low enough for them to start
conducting experiments on how to help plants access as much legacy phosphorus
as possible. The first will compare the performance of existing commercial
wheat varieties.
The researchers had to wait longer than
expected—nearly a decade—for phosphorus levels to drop back to natural levels.
But that fact alone should reassure growers that they can safely cut back on
the nutrient, Sylvester-Bradley says.
“The take-home for farmers, as far as I’m
concerned, is they can relax.”
This story
was supported by a science journalism fellowship from the European Geosciences
Union.
Environment advocates slam DENR
undersecretary for demeaning UP scientists
Published October 14, 2020, 9:53 PM
The
Kalikasan People’s Network for Environment (Kalikasan PNE) described Wednesday
as “uncalled for’’ the comments of Department of Environment and Natural
Resources (DENR) Undersecretary Benny Antiporda against the scientists of the
University of the Philippines (UP) Institute of Biology and Marine Sciences
during the inspection at the rehabilitation of Manila Bay.
“As a
government environmental official, he should always be open to the sound and
scientific suggestions of our scientists and marine experts,” said Gia Glarino,
research coordinator of Kalikasan PNE.
The group
noted that Antiporda “lashed out with a demeaning comment that scientists from
UP Institute of Biology have no right to criticize the dolomite project and
called them “bayaran (paid)”.’’
Antiporda’s
tirade came after the UP Institute of Biology and Marine Science Institute,
both highly respected in their own areas of discipline, offered science-based
services and advice to the DENR in rehabilitating Manila Bay.
“We back the
suggestion of the UP scientists to the government. They must instead restore
mangrove forests and prioritize the improvement of Manila Bay’s water quality.
It is sound and appropriate for DENR to center its rehabilitation efforts
towards reviving the ecological health of Manila Bay instead of mere
beautification,” Glarino noted.
Since
September, Kalikasan PNE has asserted that the DENR’s dolomite beautification
project poses negative impacts on the bay’s still thriving fisheries and to
ecological and public health.
“The
onion-skinned and blubbering DENR Undersecretary could serve the nation better
if he will resign from his post and spare us from his cheap shots,” Glarino
said.
During the
inspection, Antiporda noted that the mangrove have their own places located in
“Cavite, Bataan and Baseco area’’ and cannot be put in the middle of the
baywalk since ‘it will destroy the landscape’’ and they will not thrive in the
area.
He claimed
that UP objected to the overlaying of dolomite and instead wanted mangroves to
be planted in the baywalk area of Manila Bay.
With the
offer of the UP Institute of Biology and Marine Sciences of help, Antiporda
said the DENR will gladly accept this “if it is for free.’’
Antiporda
claimed to have done his own research showing the DENR paid half a billion
pesos from 2016 to 2020 purely for consultation purposes only with no single
infrastructure built.
He asserted
that the institute should refrain from making criticism since they are paid by
the government.
A peeved
Antiporda declared this after the UP institute had asked for an audit on the
Manila Bay White Sand Project which is a pet project of the DENR.
Turning the
tables around, Antiporda asked the Commission on Audit (COA) to investigate
where the half a million pesos consultation fee paid by the agency from 2016 to
2020 went.
With the
“election fever’’ nearing, Antiporda noted that critics are merely out to
discredit the government for the Manila Bay White Beach Project.
Group teaches investing in capital
market
Published October 15, 2020, 7:00 AM
The Global
Filipino Investors Inc. (TGFI), a group led by entrepreneur and housing tycoon
Januario Jesus Atencio, is helping Filipinos take advantage of the capital
market rut due to the pandemic in anticipation of an economic recovery.
Januario Jesus
Atencio
TGFI is
bringing together powerhouse economists and stock market gurus in a free
virtual conference to teach Filipinos how to invest as the country charts its
path to be one of the leading emerging markets in the post COVID era.
Atencio,
TGFI Chairman and CEO of Januarius Holdings Inc., said that the two-day
conference scheduled next month will tackle the relevance of investing in bonds
and stocks to the Philippine economy recovering from the impact of the COVID-19
pandemic.
He also said
that Filipinos should look beyond the challenges of the present situation and
let the national leaders and health authorities worry about the global crisis.
“We
cannot be fixated with the here and now of the current crisis,” Atencio
stressed.
For his
part, TGFI President, Floi Wycoco said that the free TGFI Bonds and Stocks
Online Conference 2020 will serve as a reminder that there are still people out
there who are generous enough to help others.
The
Philippine Stock Exchange index (PSEi) has partially recovered after crashing
of the economy. It stalled as the entire Luzon was placed under Enhanced
Community Quarantine (ECQ) during March 2020.
“It
also makes sense to conduct this event now while the PSEi is still in its
correction phase, bonds can work as a way to protect the unrealized loss
encountered during this phase so our goal is to let our attendees understand
the purpose of being diversified especially in times such as the world is in
today,” Wycoco said.
He added
Filipinos need to rise stronger and smarter as a nation when it comes to
finance.
“Months
have passed since the lockdown, live events have left the stage, and businesses
had to pivot.
This is
where the TGFI Bonds and Stocks Online Conference (BSOC) comes in. We believe
that Filipinos from different classes can learn more about these two investment
vehicles and more so, give our audience the confidence to invest both in bonds
and the stock market,” Wycoco said.
In promotion
of financial literacy in support of the efforts of Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas
(BSP) and to improve the well-being of every Filipino, the Group organized TGFI
Bonds and Stocks Online Conference 2020 happening on November 21 & 22, 2020
to bring light to the opportunities in-store for every Filipino.
“This
is the new normal. And we’re ready to get geared up for a more financially
literate Philippines. And many Filipinos have gotten into their own businesses
recently. It’s so exciting where we’re all heading.
This leap
done by most of our countrymen is very special to me, as a former OFW,
Filipinos are truly resilient,” Wycoco said.
https://mb.com.ph/2020/10/15/group-teaches-investing-in-capital-market/
Assessment of flood damage on rice awaited
Sok Chan / Khmer Times
Collecting rice
from a flooded paddy in Banteay Meanchey province. Supplied
The Cambodia Rice Federation (CRF) has called on rice miller
members to collect and purchase wet paddy from farmers at an affordable price
after recent deluges.
CRF’s President Song Saran said some members have already
purchased the paddy from farmers, especially from the most affected areas.
“We called on our members to purchase the paddy in the rice
fields. Our members number nearly 100 in Banteay Meanchey, Battambang and
Pursat,” Saran added. “Some areas, farmers have had to harvest the crop in the
water, so we have to help purchase the wet paddy from them,” he added.
Chray Son, Chairman of Capital Food Investment Import Export Co
in Battambang province, said his company has purchased around 3,000 tonnes of
paddy so far from farmers as of Oct 12. “Now, there is no paddy to buy because
it was flooded and farmers cannot harvest it,” Son said.
“If there is paddy available, we will continue purchasing it
from farmers,” he said. He added that the price of paddy is around 1,060 riel
to 1,080 riel per kilogramme while last year it was only 1,020 riel per
kilogramme. However, he added that the price varies according to the quality.
Flash floods have been hitting Battambang, Pursat, Banteay
Meanchey, Oddar Meanchey, Preah Vihear, Kampong Speu, Stung Treng and Siem Reap
provinces, inundating houses, schools, administrative offices and other
infrastructure, as well as rice fields.
Pursat Agricultural Department Director Lay Piseth said as of
Oct 12, more than 18,570 hectares of paddy fields in Pursat were affected by
flooding and 4,600 hectares were damaged.
He said that if there is no more rain and flooding in Veal Veng
district, in at least one week, levels will be low because the water will
flow to Tonle Sap Lake. Mostly, the paddy cultivated here is a three-month
variety (three harvests a year). The most affected areas are around Pursat city
and Kandieng district.
“We see the rice millers come and buy the paddy from farmers and
price is good at around 1,150 riels to 1,200 riels per kilogramme,” he added.
Chhim Vichara, director of the Battambang provincial
Agricultural Department, said there were more than 62,000 hectares of 350,000
hectares affected in his province while more than 46,000 hectares of other
crops were also affected. He said the province has yet to evaluate the damage.
The flood hit the medium and premium fragrant rice – such as Phka Romdoul.
“We cannot make any assessment on when the water will be low
because now rain is still coming. Later the province will conduct an assessment
on the impact,” he added. “We
are working with relevant authorities to help and evacuate people and animals
to safe places,” he added.
A report from National Committee for Disaster Management of
Cambodia stated that more than 120,000 hectares of farmland were affected by
floods and damaged. Among the affected farmland, 80,000 hectares are paddy
fields.
Related Posts
https://www.khmertimeskh.com/50772988/assessment-of-flood-damage-on-rice-awaited/
Poor quality pulls down palay prices – traders
Published October 14, 2020, 12:16 PM
Millers and
traders are blaming the poor quality of unhusked rice being produced by farmers
to the current low prices of the staple food.
(MANILA BULLETIN FILE PHOTO)
This was
validated by Agriculture Secretary William Dar, who said consumers now prefer
quality rice.
In a
statement, the Department of Agriculture (DA) said rice millers and traders are
having difficulty buying palay because of low quality, composed mostly of
assorted or ‘rumble’ varieties that when milled produce chalky and broken
grains.
“If farmers
want to command good prices, they should plant better quality rice seeds and
what the consumers want,” a miller from Nueva Ecija told DA.
A Bulacan
rice miller, on the other hand, also told the DA that the COVID-19 pandemic has
made it hard for them to sell their rice stocks because of lack of demand,
which “was made even harder by the low quality of palay harvest this season”.
DA likewise
cited a trader from Isabela, who said that consumers now prefer rice varieties
that are long-grain and taste and smell better when cooked.
“Millers and
traders are thus one in saying that farmers should now plant varieties that
have good milling and eating qualities, and preferred by consumers,” DA said.
Data from
the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) showed that palay prices fell to as
low as P12 per kilogram (/kg) in some areas in the country during the third
week of September, which means some farmers barely made money during this
harvest season.
This, since
in order to produce a kilo of rice in the Philippines, Filipino rice farmers
have to spend P12.72, which is higher compared to the production cost of
farmers in Vietnam and Thailand at P6.22/kg and P8.86/kg, respectively.
With such
production cost, the breakeven farmgate price of fresh harvest should be around
P14.50/kg.
In Davao
City, palay’s price went down to as low as P12.74/kg during the third quarter
of September, while Caraga, North Cotabato, and Surigao del Sur saw palay
prices plunging to around P12/kg to P12.80/kg.
To address
the problem about the poor quality rice being produced by farmers, Dar said
that for the succeeding cropping seasons, the country will not just be after
attaining production targets, but also producing quality rice for Filipino
consumers that will provide higher income for farmers.
“We need to
adapt to the changes brought about by the Rice Tariffication Law [RTL], one of
which is consumers’ preference for quality rice. This is now an integral part
of the overall transformation of the country’s rice industry,” Dar said.
Dar said he
will meet with seed producers to discuss the preferred rice varieties of
consumers, and the desired levels of productivity that will provide farmers
more income.
“We have to
make seed producers, farmers and other stakeholders understand that our overall
strategy now is inclusive market-oriented development,” Dar said.
“Kung ano
demand ng market, kung ano ang pangangailangan ng consuming public iyon ang
dapat i-produce ng ating mga magsasaka [What the market demands, what the
consuming public needs, farmers should be able to produce that,” he added.
Under the
RTL, which allowed the unlimited entry of cheaper imported rice, the government
is compelled to provide free seeds and mechanization to rice farmers through
the Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund (RCEF), the collection of rice import
tariff.
This means
that after RTL was passed in March last year, it was actually the DA who
provided some farmers the seeds that they used for the current harvest, which
according to traders yielded poor quality rice.
So far, the DA already distributed 1.38 million bags of certified inbred seeds
to 554,512 farmers during the dry season 2019 to 2020, and 2.27 million bags of
inbred seeds to 862,854 farmers during the current wet season.
Moving
forward, Dar said the DA will hold consultations with farmers, seed producers,
traders, millers, and other stakeholders to determine current industry trends,
demand of the domestic retail market and institutional buyers, customers’ needs
and wants, and needed policy shifts or reforms and government interventions.
The other
day, agriculture lobby group Samahang Industriya ng Agrikultura (SINAG) asked
President Rodrigo Duterte to order DA to allot P36 billion to help subsidize
palay procurement.
This,
according to SINAG Chair Rosendo So will be used to help private millers and
traders to buy palay at P19/kg, supposed that it’s being bought at P15/kg.
He said this
would be enough to buy 9 million metric tons (MT) of palay from farmers without
shortchanging both farmers and millers.
Right now,
the National Food Authority (NFA), whose sole mandate is to secure the
government’s buffer stock for calamities and national emergencies, procures
palay at P19/kg.
However, NFA
Administrator Judy Dansal said before that while the state-run grains agency
can intensify its palay procurement, it couldn’t buy the entire produce due to
its limited budget and post-harvest facilities.
Palay
harvest during the first semester of 2020 totaled 8.387 million metric tons
(MT), 1.4 percent more than the 8.269 million MT produced during the same
period last year.
Second
semester palay output this year is expected to be at 11.954 million MT, 13.4
percent more than last year’s 10.545 million MT.
https://mb.com.ph/2020/10/14/poor-quality-pulls-down-palay-prices-traders/
DA sees record-high 8% hike in
palay harvest in 2020 to 20.341 MMT
A
farmer in Pangasinan displays threshed rice in this photo. The average
farm-gate price of dry palay reached P17.12 per kilogram in the second week of
September, according to government data.
Top NewsOctober 14, 2020
The Department of Agriculture (DA) on Wednesday said the
country’s total palay harvest this year could increase by 8 percent to a
record-high of 20.341 million metric tons (MMT) on the back of better yield and
favorable planting conditions.
In a news statement, the DA said second semester palay output is
projected to reach 11.954 MMT, which is 13.4 percent more than the 10.545 MMT
output in the July-to-December period of last year.
The country’s palay output in the first half grew by 1.4 percent
to 8.387 MMT from last year’s 8.269 MMT, the DA added.
In a recent virtual Senate hearing, Agriculture Undersecretary
Ariel T. Cayanan said the projected full-year output would be met, barring
weather disturbances such as typhoons and possible impact of La Niña.
If the full-year palay output is met, this would bring the
country’s rice self-sufficiency level from 87 percent to about 93 percent to 94
percent, Cayanan said.
Following higher local production, the DA said it will now
encourage Filipino rice farmers to shift from planting low-quality rice
varieties to high-quality ones that are preferred by consumers to be able to
earn more.
“We need to adapt to the changes brought about by the rice
tariffication law, one of which is consumers’ preference for quality rice. This
is now an integral part of the overall transformation of the country’s rice
industry,” said Agriculture Secretary William D. Dar.
“That is why for the succeeding cropping seasons, we are not
just after attaining production targets but also producing quality rice for
Filipino consumers that will provide higher income for farmers,” he added.
Dar made the pronouncement during a recent virtual meeting with
leaders of farmers’ groups, rice millers and traders, from major rice-producing
provinces, the DA said.
Citing a Bulacan-based miller, the DA said the low quality of
palay harvest worsened the current anemic market demand since consumers prefer
high-quality rice.
The DA quoted a Nueva Ecija-based miller that “if farmers want
to command good prices, they should plant better quality rice seeds and what
the consumers want.”
Citing a trader from Isabela, the DA said consumers now prefer
rice varieties that are “long-grain, and taste and smell better when cooked.”
The DA added that the rice should possess the “4M” characteristics: maganda,
mura, mabango at malambot.
“An informal survey done by the rice industry groups showed that
40 percent of consumers prefer rice with said attributes,” it said.
“Millers and traders are thus one in saying that farmers should
now plant varieties that have good milling and eating qualities, and preferred
by consumers,” it added.
The DA said the rice traders and millers volunteered to help the
DA in promoting recommended rice varieties that farmers should plant in the
succeeding seasons.
Dar committed that he would meet with seed producers “to discuss
the preferred rice varieties of consumers, and the desired levels of
productivity that will provide farmers more income.”
“We have to make seed producers, farmers and other stakeholders
understand that our overall strategy now is inclusive market-oriented
development,” he said.
“Kung ano demand ng market, kung ano
ang pangangailangan ng consuming public iyon ang
dapat i-produce ng ating mga magsasaka. We need to
adapt to changes brought about by the new regime,” he added.
Furthermore, Dar said the DA will hold dialogue with farmers,
seed producers, traders, millers, and other stakeholders “to determine current
industry trends, demand of the domestic retail market and institutional buyers,
customers’ needs and wants, and needed policy shifts or reforms and government
interventions.”
Image
credits: Laila Austria
DA to promote rice varieties preferred by
consumers
The Department of Agriculture (DA) is aiming to promote
varieties of rice favored by consumers and desired levels of productivity that
would give farmers more income, its chief said on Wednesday.
“We need to adapt to the changes brought about by the Rice
Tariffication Law, one of which is consumers’ preference for quality rice. This
is now an integral part of the overall transformation of the country’s rice
industry,” Agriculture Secretary William Dar said during a virtual meeting with
leaders of farmers’ groups, millers and traders from major rice-producing
provinces.
“That is why for the succeeding cropping seasons, we are not
[only] after attaining production targets, but also producing quality rice for
Filipino consumers that will provide higher income for farmers,” he added.
Rice millers and traders said they were having difficulty buying
palay (unmilled rice) because of their low quality and because they are
composed mostly of assorted or “rumble” varieties that, when milled, produced
chalky and broken grains.
“The Covid-19 (coronavirus disease 2019) pandemic has made it
hard for us to sell our rice stocks because of lack in demand, which was made
even harder by the low quality of [the] palay harvest this season,” a rice
miller from Bulacan province said.
“If farmers want to command good prices, they should plant
better-quality rice seeds and what the consumers want,” an unidentified miller
from Nueva Ecija province said.
A trader from Isabela said consumers preferred long-grain rice
varieties and those that taste and smell better when cooked. He added that
these should be “maganda, mura, mabango at malambot (good, cheap, fragrant and
soft).”
An informal survey by rice industry groups showed that 40
percent of consumers prefer rice with these attributes.
Millers and traders said farmers should plant rice varieties
that consumers seek, and offered to help the DA promote recommended which
varieties that farmers should plant in future seasons.
In response, Dar said the DA would meet with seed producers to
discuss the preferred rice varieties and the desired levels of productivity
that will boost farmers’ income.
“We have to make seed producers, farmers and other stakeholders
understand that our overall strategy now is inclusive market-oriented
development,” he said.
He also said the DA would consult with farmers, seed producers,
traders, millers and other stakeholders to determine current industry trends,
demand of the domestic retail market and institutional buyers, customers’ needs
and wants, and needed policy shifts or reforms and government interventions.
CRF calls on members to buy paddy after
floods
Thou Vireak | Publication date 14 October 2020 |
22:09 ICT
Share
A farmer harvests paddy rice in Kampot’s Kampong Trach
district in 2019. The Cambodia Rice Federation (CRF) has called on its member
rice millers to buy paddy from farmers in flood-affected areas at sensible
prices following the recent deluges. Hong Menea
The Cambodia Rice Federation (CRF) has called on its member rice
millers to buy paddy from farmers in flood-affected areas at sensible prices
following the recent deluges.
The plea comes after a series of flash floods inundated several
hectares of paddy fields across the Kingdom over the past week, with
Battambang, Pursat and Banteay Meanchey provinces being particularly badly hit.
The CRF noted in a press release that the dramatic increase in
floods in the Kingdom’s central lowlands region has led to significant damages
to paddy fields and disruptions of logistics and transportation chains.
It said: “The CRF would like to ask member rice millers based
near [affected] fields to help buy as much flooded paddy from farmers as
possible at reasonable prices.”
Eang Heang, the owner of Eang Heang Rice Mill in Battambang
province’s eastern Sangke district, told The Post that he has purchased more
than 10,000 tonnes of paddy from farmers at an average price of between 950 and
1,000 riel ($0.23 and $0.24) per kg and will continue to do so for the
foreseeable future.
He said: “I’ve been buying their paddy every day from even
before the floods hit. I constantly recommended them to harvest their crop and
sell it immediately, and not store it for a couple of days as that could quite
well harm its quality.”
The Thorn Chea Rice Mill in Tbong Khmum province’s southwestern
O’Reang-ou district also vowed to buy the affected paddy for the time being, in
a move that its owner claimed would help stabilise the crop’s price.
Pann Chantrea said she has bought 200 tonnes of the flooded
paddy daily for more than a week, noting that most of it was shipped by
Pursat-based farmers.
She said: “I’m buying up all of the flooded paddy as long as it
is available at a base price of 950 riel per kg. I’ve got to do this so that
the price of their paddy does not fall.”
CRF secretary-general Lun Yeng told The Post on Tuesday that
although the flood situation had eased, the federation continues to call on its
members to purchase affected paddy.
He said: “Bearing in mind that we are nearing the end of the
harvest season for early-maturing rice varieties, paddy remains at some level
of risk. We call on our members to buy paddy to avoid panic among farmers.”
According to the Ministry of Water Resources and Meteorology,
the Kingdom will continue to experience scattered rains resulting from Saudel –
the 17th typhoon of the year – and Tropical Storm Nangka, which are forecast to
make landfall in the Kingdom at the weekend.
https://www.phnompenhpost.com/business/crf-calls-members-buy-paddy-after-floods
UCD, Morehouse leaders explain how cries for social justice,
health equity are intertwined
OCTOBER 14, 2020 05:00 AM,
This story was written and reported by The Sacramento
Bee's Equity Lab, a community-funded journalism team exploring issues of
equity, wealth, race, power and justice in the region. Click here for
more stories and to support The Equity Lab.
Your access to walkable spaces,
the fresh food options you have and ultimately your life expectancy will
largely be determined by where you live, but to understand why and to improve
people’s lives, you have to go beyond geography.
That’s the message that Dr.
Valerie Montgomery Rice, the dean of Atlanta’s Morehouse School of Medicine and
a Harvard University-trained physician, conveyed to faculty, staff and students
at UC Davis Health in a Facebook forum marking October as Global
Diversity Month.
“We’ve figured out that just
going into a community and telling people what they should be doing is not
enough to expect that people are going to respond and change their lifestyle,”
Montgomery Rice said. “We needed policies that would lead to sustainability,
particularly in those areas where we had the lowest life expectancy and that
were influenced by psychological barriers.”
She joined Gary May, the
chancellor of the University of California, Davis, and Allison Brashear, the
dean of the UCD College of Medicine, for a
presentation laid right at the intersection of social justice and health equity.
The talk came as the new coronavirus continues to kill disproportionately high
numbers of Latinos, African Americans and Pacific Islanders.
Discussions like this one are
crucial, Brashear said, because the COVID-19 pandemic and systemic social
injustice “has made it very clear that we need to do more to ensure that
everyone in our community has access to high-quality and culturally sensitive
health care that they need and deserve.”
May said the conversation was
particularly meaningful to him because his mother was among the first group of
African-American students to integrate the University of Missouri back in the
1950s during Jim Crow.
“People think that stuff was so
long ago, but for me and for many, that was just one generation ago,” he said.
“Then, if you fast-forward, when I finished graduate school in 1991 at UC
Berkeley, that year, I was one of only 30 African Americans to earn a Ph.D. in
engineering. That was 30 in the entire United States. You could have fit us all
in one classroom.”
Montgomery Rice also used a
personal illustration to bring home the impact of social inequities. In her
Facebook presentation, she showed a map of her hometown, Macon, Georgia,
showing neighborhoods where African Americans were systematically denied
services and home-buying opportunities for more than a century after slavery
was abolished. Then Montgomery Rice presented a map she’d marked up with a
Sharpie showing neighborhoods that still struggle today in Macon versus those
that are wealthy.
That city’s highest-income
communities remain in areas where African Americans had long been excluded,
Montgomery Rice’s map showed, and there remains a redlining of opportunities
for outdoor exercise, pre-kindergarten education, access to fresh fruits and
vegetables in ZIP codes outside those areas of affluence.
It’s the same pattern identified
by researchers in an exhaustive 2006 study of thousands of US counties, noted
Montgomery Rice, in which Harvard-based researchers identified eight Americas and the socioeconomic and
cultural factors that produced disparate health outcomes.
These so-called social determinants
of health shape everything from people’s relationship to exercise and food to
how many encounters they’ll have with law enforcement, researchers have found.
Where you grow up will determine
your answers to questions like: Were you reared in a place where you could
safely ride a bike or walk to a park? Historically, what kind of food did your
family eat and what recipes were passed from generation to generation? What
kind of preschool education did you receive? How did you access health care?
The origin of some social
determinants date back centuries, Montgomery Rice noted in an interview with
The Bee. Slavery, for instance, has had a longstanding impact on the
nutritional health of African Americans. As enslaved people, they were given
proteins and foods considered undesirable, she said, and when slavery ended,
many lived on subsistence wages that limited food choices to what was cheapest.
“You saw the beginnings of
malnutrition and then poor nutrition that led to diseases like diabetes and
hypertension,” she said. “Combining that with (health care) access challenges,
those diseases could not be managed appropriately. So, these disparities
definitely started early on, and they have sprawled over the years. I believe
they are longstanding and systemic.”
To counter these intractable
challenges, the Harvard-led Eight Americas researchers urged government and
public health leaders to take these steps:
▪ Identify cost-effective
interventions that will reduce the factors that put people at greater risk of
chronic diseases such as obesity, diabetes and hypertension. While some
interventions may work across all groups, some may need to be specifically
tailored.
▪ Put in place systems to monitor
benchmarks for local populations who would benefit from those interventions.
▪ Publicly report to each community
the interventions that are being taken, along with metrics that show the
progress.
“We have to ask ourselves what
can we do to influence policy,” Montgomery Rice said. “At the end of the day,
sustainability of interventions only is realized through policy, so lots of
people have had great intentions about how to address housing challenges or
transportation challenges or even redlining, right? Many communities have dealt
with that. But unless you wrap a policy around it that actually continues to
monitor the protection that is afforded to those areas, then you will never see
the opportunity for achieving equity and then that, of course, will inform
health equity.”
As a Washington Post article
recently noted, Montgomery Rice said, African Americans pay 13% more, on average, in property taxes than
White neighbors in similarly priced homes, yet their neighborhoods often
receive less investment in parks and other infrastructure that would benefit
their health. Residents should ask public officials to provide data on property
tax burdens, Montgomery Rice said, and how spending is apportioned.
What people often fail to see,
Montgomery Rice added, is that the recent protests over social injustices are
actually directly linked to statistics on longevity and poor health outcomes.
To address this, the Eight
Americas researchers recommended that policymakers act to reduce socioeconomic
inequalities. One way to do this, Montgomery Rice said during The Bee
interview, would be to expand access to preschool education.
Controlled experiments at the
Perry Preschool Project in Ypsilanti, Mich., in the 1960s, and the Carolina
Abcedarian Project in the 1970s randomly assigned African American
children to a preschool program or to a control group that didn’t go to
preschool.
After decades of following those
children, researchers reported significantly higher education, income, home
ownership levels and markedly less involvement with the criminal justice system
among those who attended preschool compared with the control group.
The Harvard researchers also
recommended that civic leaders remove physical, behavioral and cultural
barriers to care and make health insurance and health care more affordable.
It takes courage, Montgomery Rice
said, to remove those barriers, those fences that keep certain groups in
society from access to services that can improve their lives and ultimately the
overall well-being of all Americans.
“You have to recognize that the
fence actually exists, and most of the time, it’s unintentional,” Montgomery
Rice said. “It is about educating ourselves, accepting the fact that we have
unconscious biases, because once we recognize that they exist, then we can work
on what the solution would be to move that fence because most of the time, it
is unconsciously holding us back from helping you to reach your full
opportunity.”
Haryana CM asks officers to monitor procurement of Kharif crops in
Mandis across State
Wednesday, 14 October 2020 | PNS |
Chandigarh
·
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Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar on Tuesday
directed the officials engaged in procurement of Kharif crops to visit the
field to monitor the procurement process in the Mandis across the State.
Apart from this, the officials at Head Quarter level should
ensure online approval for H-Form, J- Form, Gate Passes and I Form for the
process of crop lifting from Mandi to Warehouse during paddy procurement. The
payment of farmers should also be ensured on priority basis within one week
after issuing H Form and within 72 hours after the approval of I Form, he
added.
Presiding over a review meeting of officials of Departments
engaged in the paddy procurement process here, Khattar said that even if one of
the officers or employees involved in the procurement process is found
neglecting their duty then the whole process stalls.
He said that the accountability of everyone including the
officials of Mandi Board, Secretary, Ahrtiyas, Millers and Transporters should
be fixed. The proportionate stock should be allocated to every rice mill
attached to the concerned grain market. It should also be ensured that no mill
gets more stock than its prescribed allocated quota, he added.
The Chief Minister said that a chart of the entire process based
on Mandi wise, Farmer wise and Commission agents wise should be prepared and
uploaded on the website so that any person can consult it. Notably, the farmer
should be aware about the day when his H Form is released so that he can follow
the schedule.
The Chief Minister said that he himself will continue to get
information about the entire procurement process on the dashboard while at
Chandigarh.
In the meeting, the Department of Food Civil Supplies and
Consumer Affairs apprised the Chief Minister that earlier the procurement
process was offline which has now been made online. Every precise information
including the day of issuing H Form, J Form, Gate Pass and I Form will be made
available on the website. Besides this the information regarding the timings of
clicking Pay-Now Button for online payments by the district manager or bankers
will be available.
Nigeria now Africa’s largest rice producer –FG
Published October 14, 2020
Okechukwu Nnodim, Abuja
Nigeria is now the largest producer of rice in Africa, the
Federal Government said on Tuesday.
Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Sabo Nanono, said
this in Abuja at an event to mark the 2020 World Food Day, celebrated annually
on October 16.
Nanono said, “Significant progress has been made to improve
agricultural productivity since the inception of the present administration.
“To boost food security, Nigeria has curbed imports and has
established a robust rice production programme to encourage more rice
production at home.
“Efforts in this direction are starting to show results as
Nigeria is now Africa’s largest producer of rice. The country is also the
largest producer of cassava in the world.”
The minister said a range of policies and initiatives to
strengthen the rice and cassava value chains had been put in place.
According to him, the economic potential of both livestock and
fisheries are also being harnessed.
Nanono stated that in an attempt to diversify the economy, the
Federal Government had continued with its focus on the agricultural sector.
“The government has deepened the culture with the Anchor
Borrowers Programme initiative and ban on the importation of some
agro-commodities,” he said.
The minister further stated that the Federal Government through
the Agro Processing Productivity Enhancement and Livelihood Improvement Support
project had set aside N600bn as loan support to farmers across the country.
He said no fewer than 2.4 million farmers were expected to
benefit from the loan which had zero interest.
Container
shortage may hamper rice exports from Vid
|
Date :14-Oct-2020 |
By Ravi Chandpurkar
:
Exporters are
facing huge container shortage and rising freight rates which may hamper
non-Basmati rice exports from Vidarbha. There is a huge pile up of loaded rice
in containers at CONCOR-MIHAN and DLI freight terminal, Borkhedi. Containers
are not being railed out to the Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT), Mumbai.
This is because of lack of space on ships. Shipping lines blame the trade
imbalance to be the main reason for the situation.
The current
situation may derail the boom in non-Basmati rice exports from Vidarbha region.
This was revealed by Shivkumar Rao, President of Vidarbha Economic Development
Council (VED) while speaking to The Hitavada. The COVID-19 crisis has disrupted
the supply chain as there have been lockdowns in various countries at different
time durations.
About 800 to 900
loaded containers of rice bound for exports are stranded at CONCOR MIHAN and
DLI terminals. Imports to India has dropped drastically due to which there is
shortage of containers. To worsen the situation, the freight rates of shipping
vessels from Mumbai to West African ports which were at $1,100 per container to
$1,200 per container has shot up to $1,600 per container to $1,700 per
container, a rise of 25 per cent to 30 per cent, he said. On a monthly average
4,000 to 5,000 containers are exported from Nagpur. That is expected to rise to
8,000 to 9,000 containers per month with the current agri-export boom.
Currently rice is witnessing a bumper crop due to good weather conditions.
Plus there is huge
demand for non-Basmati rice from Vidarbha to West African countries. Sources
said that further delay in container shipments could hit non-Basmati exports
from Vidarbha and a big opportunity could be lost. To aggravate the situation,
the loaded rice containers could get spoilt if held up for long period at the
terminals. In addition, orders of exporters could get cancelled which would
damage the reputation of the country in the international market. To ease the
delay in container shipments, international shipping companies should try to
allocate more containers and vessels for Indian exports. The Government should
intervene and do something about the situation and find a solution at the
earliest, sources demanded.
10,000 evacuated in Cambodia
due to flooding; rice crop hit
Oct. 14, 2020 Updated: Oct. 14, 2020 4 a.m.
1of9Buddhist monks
walk through a flooded pagoda following recent rains on the outskirts of Phnom
Penh, Cambodia, Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2020. A Cambodian disaster official said
Wednesday that more than 10,000 people have been evacuated to safety places
after a tropical storm hit the country, causing the flash flood.Photo: Heng Sinith, AP
2of9Villagers walk
down a flooded dirt road following recent rains on the outskirts of Phnom Penh,
Cambodia, Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2020. A Cambodian disaster official said
Wednesday that more than 10,000 people have been evacuated to the safety places
after the tropical storm hit the country by causing the flash flood.Photo: Heng Sinith, AP
3of9A man, right,
sits on a bamboo bed as his wife, left, who wades through their flooded home
following recent rains on the outskirts of Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Wednesday,
Oct. 14, 2020. A Cambodian disaster official said Wednesday that more than
10,000 people have been evacuated to safety places after a tropical storm hit
the country, causing the Photo: Heng Sinith, AP
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — More than 10,000
people have been evacuated in Cambodia after a tropical storm triggered flash
floods, an official said Wednesday.
Seasonal rains made worse by the storm caused
flooding in 19 of the country’s 25 provinces, affecting 140,000 people in all,
said Khun Sokha, a spokesman for the National Committee for Disaster
Management.
The flooding also destroyed thousands of
hectares (acres) of rice, he said. The capital, Phnom Penh, was not badly hit,
though police moved more than 500 families in a southern part of the city to
safer ground.
Khun Sokha said the heavy rains have killed at
least 11 people since the beginning of the month. They are expected to continue
until this weekend as two more tropical storms are set to hit Cambodia in the
next few days.
Transportation has also been affected, with
trucks banned from several major roads in the worst-hit provinces to avoid
damaging their surfaces. Another road leading south from Phnom Penh was closed
to all vehicles because of a bridge that was weakened by the floodwaters.
DA seeks improved rice quality to address
shifting preferences
PHILSTAR
THE Department of Agriculture
(DA) said it hopes to improve the quality of domestic rice due to shifting
consumer preferences, and to better align farmers’ production with market
expectations.
“We need to adapt to the changes
brought about by the Republic Act No. 11203 or the Rice Tariffication Law, one
of which is consumers’ preference for quality rice. This is now an integral
part of the overall transformation of the country’s rice industry,” Agriculture
Secretary William D. Dar said in a statement after consulting with farmers, millers,
and traders.
Mr. Dar said traders and millers
reported that many farmers produce low-quality palay which when milled produces
rice that is easily broken and with a chalky consistency.
“For the succeeding cropping
seasons, we are not just after attaining production targets, but also producing
quality rice for Filipino consumers that will provide higher income for
farmers,” Mr. Dar said.
According to rice millers and
traders, consumers want rice varieties that are long-grain and tastes and smell
good when cooked. The market is demanding so-called four-M rice. The four Ms
stand for maganda, mura, mabango, at malambot (attractive,
cheap, fragrant, and soft).
The DA said that in an informal
survey, consumers who said they prefer rice with those attributes accounted for
40% of the market.
Rice millers and traders urged
Mr. Dar to plant varieties that hold up to the milling process and possess good
eating qualities.
They also offered assistance to
the Philippine Rice Research Institute in promoting recommended rice varieties
to be used by farmers in future planting seasons.
Mr. Dar said he will consult with
seed producers, farmers, traders, and other stakeholders to define current
industry trends, market demand, consumer needs and preferences, and any
required policy shifts or reforms.
“Kung ano demand ng market, kung ano ang pangangailangan ng consuming
public iyon ang dapat i-produce ng ating mga magsasaka. (Market demand and the needs of
the consuming public should determine what farmers produce) We need to adapt to
changes brought about by the new regime,” Mr. Dar said. — Revin Mikhael D. Ochave
High rice yield in heavy saline-alkali soil of NE China
China.org.cn, October 13, 2020
On Oct. 10, experts organized by
the Cultivated Land Quality Monitoring and Protection Center (CLQMPC) of the
Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs (MARA) estimated the yield of a
demonstration paddy field with heavy saline-alkali soil.
On this land, a 1,000 mu (about 67
hectares) field in Da'an City of northeast China's Jilin province, the experts
randomly selected three plots for harvest and yield calculation. After land
measuring, weighing, moisture measuring, impurity removal, and other strict
procedures, the results showed that the average yield per mu of the three
pieces was 659.714 kg, up 50.99% compared with 436.921 kg per mu of the control
fields.
"The yield per hectare is
close to a staggering 10,000 kg, which is the level of the high-yielding rice
fields in our city," said Li Jinyou, an official from Da'an Natural
Resources Bureau.
"Even grass couldn't survive
on such saline-alkali soil," said Li Guo, a rice farmer of a selected
plot. "Previous attempts only led to a yield of less than 2,000 kg per
hectare. Now the yield has multiplied."
Da'an City is located in the heart
of Songnen Plain, one of the world's three major tracts of soda saline-alkali
land. Known as "soil cancer," saline-alkali land exhibits problems
such as soil compaction, low content of organic matter and poor soil
physicochemical properties, all of which are unsuitable for crop growth.
The soil in the demonstration field
was ameliorated through organosilicon soil conditioner and a set of technical
routes for saline-alkali soil treatment. These new technologies were developed
by Hebei Silicon Valley Research Institute of Agricultural Sciences.
These technologies can promote soil
granulation and improve permeability, both favorable to the propagation of
beneficial organisms. It can also hinder the rise of salt-bearing groundwater
to make the arable layer less salinized. Under such circumstances, the
irrigation water tends to seep down, taking salt away from the surface.
"Our conditioner also contains
nutrients that can meet the growth needs of crops and create a good environment
for their root system, improving both yield and quality," noted Nie
Hongmin, a technical expert with the research institute.
The cultivated land in China is
divided into one to ten grades based on its quality from high to low. According
to a MARA bulletin on the quality grade of cultivated land in China in 2019,
the area of cultivated land evaluated as grade four to ten in northeast China
is 215 million mu, of which 66 million mu is saline-alkali land.
"The improvement of every 10
million mu of saline-alkali cultivated land in northeast China will lead to an
increase of five billion kg in the overall grain production. This is a
successful demonstration. We hope these new technologies and models can be
applied widely to saline-alkali land, converting saline-alkali wastelands into
high-yield farmland," commented Li Rong, deputy director of CLQMPC.
Content created in partnership with
Science and Technology Daily.
http://www.china.org.cn/china/2020-10/13/content_76801809.htm
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