Indian
Scientists Develop Zinc-Enriched Rice to Fight Malnutrition
PTI, Modified: May 25, 2015 17:30
IST
Researchers from Indira Gandhi Agriculture University (IGAU),
Raipur have developed zinc-enriched rice that’s expected to play a crucial role
in fighting malnutrition in tribal-dominated Chhattisgarh where nearly seven
lakh children are still malnourished. The new paddy seed, called 'Chhattisgarh
Zinc Rice-1' is the first zinc bio-fortified rice variety in India.
It was launched by the State Variety Release Committee in March
and its production is likely to 
begin from the next kharif
season. "We focused on increasing our crop production since the
inception of the Green Revolution with the aim to eliminate hunger. In the
process, we managed to yield high production, but the quality of crop did not
improve," said professor Chandel from the Indira Gandhi Agriculture
University.
begin from the next kharif
season. "We focused on increasing our crop production since the
inception of the Green Revolution with the aim to eliminate hunger. In the
process, we managed to yield high production, but the quality of crop did not
improve," said professor Chandel from the Indira Gandhi Agriculture
University.
In a survey done in the year 2000, the Centre, along with health
organizations foun d that 60-70 per cent of population was suffering from
malnutrition because of deficiency of micro-nutrients, particularly iron, zinc
and Vitamin A. Following this, the government decided to come out with a
research programme to improve the variety of three staple crops - rice, wheat
and maize - in different states. Under the programme, Chhattisgarh, considered
as the rice bowl of the country, decided to work on the quality aspect and took
up 'Rice Bio Fortification Research Project'.In the first phase of the project
in 2003-2005, about 200 rice germplasm lines with high grain nutritive values
but low-yielding quality were identified, he said. Subsequently, in the next
phase of 2006-2011, seeds were multiplied and subjected to genetic improvement
exercise, which led to seven high-yielding zinc-enriched rice varieties. In
2013, the Centre decided to conduct a separate exercise coordinated by
Directorate of Rice Research (DRR), Hyderabad, to analyze the outcome of the
researches being conducted in different parts of the country.
Finally, four varieties were adjudged best in terms of quality,
of which the top two came from Chhattisgarh. "Currently, we have 100 kg
seeds of this new variety and we are planning to multiply it in 10 acres. By
December this year, we will distribute it to about 5,000 farmers across the
state. Its sowing would be started in the next kharif season," professor
Chandel said.
http://food.ndtv.com/food-drinks/indian-scientists-develop-zinc-enriched-rice-to-fight-malnutrition-765876
Sustainable
agriculture needed to tackle
climate impacts in ASEAN
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | World | Tue, May 26 2015,
12:38 PM
Riza Bernabe, has said ASEAN can help small-scale farmers and
fisherfolk in Southeast Asian countries to become resilient to climate change
by reproducing sustainable agriculture practices on a wider scale across the
region.“ASEAN governments must also pour in more money in helping small-scale
farmers and fisherfolk adapt to climate change, and incentivize farmers to
practice sustainable and agro-ecological farming,” said Bernabe on the launch
of Oxfam’s new report entitled “Harmless Harvest” on Tuesday.
The report found that in Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Myanmar and
Vietnam, rainfall has been below average since 2009, resulting in droughts,
which are associated with lower yields and increased pest and disease
infestation.In 2013, super typhoon Haiyan decimated swathes of coconut farms in
central Philippines, on which thousands of families depend for their
livelihood.Rising sea levels have also posed threats to coastal regions. In
Indonesia, almost 15 percent of total rice output is affected by salinity,
while in Vietnam, soil salination has affected 100,000 hectares in four
provinces, the report says, citing findings of S.K. Redfern et al presented at
the FAO / OECD workshop in Rome, Italy, in 2012.Saltwater intrusion is also
threatening rice production in Myanmar, according to an Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change (IPCC) report.
“One such sustainable practice is SRI or Systems of Rice
Intensification, a way of growing rice that optimizes harvests and incomes
without degrading the environment,” said Harmless Harvest.A study by the
International Rice Research Institute found that a 1 percent rise in minimum
temperature during growing season can result in 10 percent drop in rice yield.
Golden
Rice in India: Is it necessary? What are impediments to adoption?
May
25, 2015
There is a saying in Chinese used
to wish others well that means, “may you never live in interesting times.” In a
complex world full of conflict, disease, and death, the idea of living in a
simpler world without the plagues of the present must seem comforting to most.
Sadly, this is not the world we live in, no matter how much one may wish it
into reality. For those living in rural India, life can be a constant struggle.According
to data collected at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, the
leading cause of life-altering disability in India are health risks linked to
poor diets. Nutritional deficiencies are especially common in Indian children.
This is both unacceptable and preventable. For much of the population in India,
rice is the primary dietary staple as it is cheap and marginally nutritious. It
is, however, without a sufficient level of β-carotene, a precursor to vitamin
A. Without a lack of variety in many Indian diets, deficiencies often occur.
Large consumptions of rice without supplemental nutritional diversity can
ostensibly lead to vitamin A deficiency.
Vitamin A deficiency, or VAD, can
cause respiratory, GI, and urinary infections, as well as blindness and a
significantly impaired immune system that can lead to a number of other
corresponding ailments. Symptoms of vitamin A deficiency are most severe in
children. Recent studies, such as those published by WHO, have pinpointed a
number of causes for VAD ranging from substandard education, poor sanitary
practices, the absence of strict laws pertaining to food production, and a lack
of effective monitoring and surveillance systems. In many instances, people
continue to suffer due to the structural instability of the governments in
developing nations, as India. However, the root of this issue still remains
with the lack of dietary variety.
Continual developments in plant
genetics have yielded a strong candidate for a solution to these incessant, yet
preventable woes. Golden rice is a type of transgenic Asian rice created for
humanitarian purposes. Its creation has received praise by a preponderance of
the scientific community, as this species of rice contains sufficient levels of
β-carotene within its edible portion. Dispersing golden rice seeds to Indian
farmers has the potential to curb the increasing rate of VAD within a generation.
Rice consumed in India would no longer be susceptible to the same failure as
Vitamin A supplements, which did not succeed for a number of reasons including
poor government oversight and the increasingly likely connections between
vitamin A supplementation and certain cancers.
If golden rice, or vitamin-A
fortified rice, were grown throughout India, there would be no need to
implement or administer an additional program as agricultural systems are
already firmly in place. Lifelong disability caused by the inability to
diversify diets would begin to make progress in the other direction, as vitamin
A intake in this manner would not lead to the same potentially detrimental
conclusions as direct vitamin A supplementation.
India is home to over 1 billion people,
second only in population to China with a dizzying number of ethnic groups,
each with their own traditions, languages, and dialects. The primary languages
spoken are Hindi and English and the vast majority of Indians tend to practice
Hindu or Buddhism, although there are a plethora of variants practiced. With
more than 50 cities with populations over a million, India is urbanizing and
fast. However, the vast majority of citizens are still located in rural areas,
with little to no government assistance. Within its borders, India contains the
largest number of rural poor and those without homes in rural areas in the
world.
The rural poor in India are, in
some ways, dually marginalized by not only their low financial status, but
additionally by their low social rung in the caste system that, though not
officially, still dictates social life in India. Though there are certainly
many impoverished citizens in urban areas, the rural poor are often too far
spread out for adequate government assistance and observation. The continued
existence of the caste system only seems to solidify their station.
According to information gathered
by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, India’s leading causes
of death in recent years have been respiratory infections and diarrheal
diseases. The continued struggle against the rise of diarrheal diseases
throughout India, chiefly within urban slums and rural villages, an increasing
resistance to antibiotics has been noted. Similarly, acute respiratory
infections, or ARIs, are running rampant throughout the Indian landscape with
its effects most lethal in children under the age of 5. The Indian government,
at its current state, has a very limited ability to affect change through
policy implementation, as these issues would require increasingly complex
methods of observation, reporting, and analyzing. Not only does India lack the
public funding for massive vaccination and antibiotic programs, but growing
economic losses may occur due to the increased strain on its health care system
due to frequent hospitalizations.
India spends approximately 1.5% of
its GDP on public health, which is well below the global average of 5%
spending. This is an issue often addressed by critics and India is in the
process of drafting a new national health policy expected to be released later
in 2015, aiming to more adequately address the poor health of a rapidly
industrializing nation. Lately, India has taken the path of a number of 5-year
plans that seem to be slowly handing the responsibility of public health care
over to private companies. This could be a troubling transformation as those
suffering most are nearly penniless, which could only make worse the health
woes of the nation. Over 40% of India’s children are underweight due to
malnutrition making health reform completely necessary. Food struggle is not
news for India, who has dealt with a number of deadly famines throughout the
decades.
The last major famine in India
occurred in 1943 and is known as the Bengal Famine. During this disastrous period,
over one and a half million Indians lost their lives. As India was under
British rule at this period, many blame their careless handling of public
health systems with a preference instead on civil defense. In her report at the
tail end of the famine, Sydney Bailey remarks that “food shortage is not
unknown in India” but the total mismanagement of the food supply and the
subsequent relief efforts by the British were completely bungled. Though the
fault was not entirely on the British. Grain producers, during this year, knew
that another food shortage was likely and opted to raise the prices of their
product with a flagrant disregard of the nationally regulated limits of maximum
prices and chose to profit while many, many others starved. Once rations and
other forms of relief began to surface across India, still efforts were
hampered by poor transportation methods and lackluster infrastructure.
Perhaps there is less being done
about the rampant malnutrition because it is not necessarily as easy to see when
walking by. During a famine, one would expect to see bodies in the streets,
piling up every hour with a building hysteria. In the case of malnutrition, it
is far less obvious but just as deadly. Malnutrition can kill, and certainly
does, but it takes time. India’s malnutrition rate is not only higher than its
nearby competitor China, but also underperforms compared to sub-Saharan African
nations whose governments have far less ability to assist
As has been previously discussed,
vitamin A deficiency most often affects the poorer populations around the
world, and India is no different. In fact, India has the highest prevalence of
VAD in all of South East Asia, the region where this problem is the most
pressing. One third of the global mortality rate is owed to malnutrition such
as VAD throughout India and its neighboring Bangladesh. The best sources of
vitamin A exist in foods like dairy, eggs, and animal tissues. Food like this
is often the most expensive and therefore the hardest to obtain among the poorest
populations in developing countries and thus deficiencies are created.
The necessity of normalized vitamin
A levels allows for the bodily maintenance of healthy vision, tissue
regeneration, and infection resistance. Malnutrition caused by VAD is long lasting
and exponentially lethal and this can create economic distress both from the
public health standpoint and by simply decreasing the number of healthy
workers. Prolonged VAD leads to a number of physiological issues including the
breakdown of “tissue development, metabolism, and resistance to infections,” as
is noted in Akhtar et al.’s recent study on the matter.
The most common symptom of VAD is
night blindness, or xerophthalmia. Children and expecting mothers, in rural
areas especially, are increasingly affected with xerophthalmia. Among rural
expecting women in India, some 13.7% suffer from this symptom caused by VAD.
Accordingly, lower levels of vitamin A will also be present in the breast milk
of these expecting mothers allowing the cycle continued by passing it down to
their offspring. Among children afflicted with xerophthalmia across the globe,
85% of them reside in India. In recent years, the Indian government has offered
vitamin A supplementation to mostly urban centers but, of course, the reach to
rural areas was minimal at best. Vitamin A intake through supplementation has
also gained a growing number of critics.
Studies published in the New
England Journal of Medicine, the Cochrane
Database and the Annals of Internal Medicine have all found that the
supplementation of vitamin A and β-carotene could lead to a significant
increase in the risk of lung cancer, intestinal cancer and heart failure. It
should be pointed out, however, that the volunteers in these studies were not
malnourished or significantly deficient in vitamin A, but the shadow of doubt
remains.
Is Golden Rice viable?
The most effective solution with
the lowest probability of failure is the implementation of Golden Rice into the
rice fields of rural India. This rice, enhanced with carotenoids, will vastly
improve those suffering from VAD throughout India. As rice is the staple food
that provides the majority of calories to these people, it is the best solution
to curb the problem. Golden Rice is also equipped with additional amounts of
iron and zinc to further battle hunger in the developing world. Indica rice
cultivars, specifically IR64 and BR29, were used as a base in completing
modification of this enhanced rice, as it is the most common form grown and
consumed globally, India included.
Currently, the technology to create
this type of enhanced rice through conventional plant breeding does not exist
as the desired genes for this scenario are not to be found in the known rice
gene pool. With this in mind, Golden Rice, created with a transgenic approach,
is the most ideal. In this method, genes are incorporated into the rice
originating from other sources, which is then expressed in new rice seeds. The
expression of β-carotene in a number of different rice cultivars had varying
results, with some expressing more than others. For example, IR64 was found to
have less β-carotene expression than that of BR29. Differences in expression
can have any number of explanations including the unique backgrounds of the
selected plant varieties, or simply because of the specific section of an event
of the rice’s transgenic lines. In terms of plant genetics, the desired
additional trait is entirely dependent on the phenotype. Most phenotypes such
as height or yield are quantitative traits. This means that hundreds, perhaps
even thousands of genes, to a very small effect, control these phenotypes.
By contrast, simple traits, or
pathways, are controlled by a relatively small number of genes to a large
effect. This means that, thankfully, it’s essentially impossible to find a
transgene that would significantly affect crop yield, which is good news when
considering Golden Rice implementation in the developing world. The carotenoid
pathway is quite simple, which further speaks to the ease with which Golden Rice
can be created. In most instances, it would be ideal to use standard plant
breeding methods, but in the case of desired phenotypes with simple pathways
like that of carotenoids, the transgenic method of Golden Rice is far more
logical.
Golden Rice is currently in the
process of being field evaluated in both Louisiana, in the United States, as
well as further tests in the Philippines, Bangladesh, and Indonesia. According
to results collected by the International Rice Research Institute, data in the
Philippines has, at this point, been the most extensive, however data is often
skewed due to vandalism by rebel groups with frequent unrest occurring in the
countryside. With the first round of field tests being completed in the
Philippines from 2012-2013, the results were hopeful, but there was still work
to be done. The desired level of β-carotene was attained during this run,
though the crop yields were lower than expected as they did not perform as well
as rice grown by other nearby farmers, though some of the blame falls on the
vandalism caused by militants.
As of 2014, data suggests that
specific cultivars have been selected for further field tests due to superior
performance in past testing. The cultivars, GR-R and GR-E, are now in the
stages of being rigorously tested for their abilities to resist pests and yield
in numbers comparable or superior to rice species grown currently in developing
nations.
The Bill and Melinda Gates
Foundation has had a vested interest in GM crops for some time now. As of late,
their focus has been in the cultivation of “climate-ready maize” for use in
sub-Saharan Africa. “Climate-ready” refers to the drought-resistance qualities
of the maize being studied and perfected by researchers for climates with very
little annual rainfall. After rigorous testing, with $33 million in funding
assistance by the Gates Foundation, over 30 varieties of the climate-ready
maize has been distributed to millions of smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan
Africa.
Similar to that of rice in Southeast Asia, maize is a staple food
in sub-Saharan Africa as a means for dietary and financial subsistence. After a
number of droughts led to further starvation and poverty in the region, the
Gates Foundation saw an opportunity to help. Developed by the International Maize
and Wheat Improvement Center, this drought-tolerant corn also found success
through higher yields, which is a hugely beneficial factor for subsistence
agriculture. According to papers published by the Gates Foundation, these new
corn varieties are “expected to boost maize yields by as much as 30% for up to
40 million African farmers…by 2016”. These are astounding numbers in such a
short span of time. GM crops used for humanitarian purposes have the potential
to rapidly and effectively reduce hunger within the 21st century.
Vandana Shiva leads anti-Golden
rice “progressive” coalition
However, the pathway to mass seed
distribution is not as simple. It is no secret that the use of genetically
modified organisms is an extremely contentious issue globally. There is a
widely held perception that the risk of GMOs outweighs the benefits, which is
especially present in mass media. This stigma is growing in the West and has
allowed for the rise of anti-GMO speakers. A speaker and activist from India
famous for her work against GMOs, is Vandana Shiva. Ms. Shiva has time and
again expressed her disdain for Golden Rice, asserting that a focus on only one
type of food is a fool’s errand. Her proposed solution, however, is inherently
unworkable. Ms. Shiva has presented her idea to simply diversify the diets of
those in the developing world, which of course would be ideal but people of the
poorest strata in the developing world can most certainly not afford the
fruits, vegetables, meat, and dairy required on a daily basis.
Ms. Shiva’s rhetoric is not only
deceptive, but her self-described biography is dually murky. In various
speeches she has represented herself, at times, as a scientist, nuclear
physicist, or a quantum physicist, when in fact she holds a PhD in philosophy. None
of these qualifications have the slightest ounce to do with plant genetics. Her
current buzzwords are “seed freedom” and “food democracy”, clearly playing on
people’s ideals for liberty. The obvious implication is that those who do not
support her views do not support “freedom” or “democracy”.
Ms. Shiva has created an
organization called Navdanya apparently dedicated to promote “nonviolent
farming”, referencing the 1984 violence in Punjab. The events in Punjab were
complex and not necessarily to do with agricultural practices. Much of the
violence took place between the police and armed militants. These militants
formed in the rural region of Punjab for a number of reasons, one of them being
the economic effects of the Green Revolution in the 1960s and 1970s, among
others. The Green Revolution was a response to continual food shortages and
famines in India, responding with technological advancements in agricultural
infrastructure as well as the development and implementation of high-yield
crops, which effectively staved off further food shortages and transformed
India into a food-surplus nation for a time. A downside to this so-called
revolution was increased unemployment due to the mechanization of agricultural
practices. Ostensibly, those out of work should have been able to find work
elsewhere, as India was quickly industrializing, though it was more difficult
for residents of Punjab to accomplish this due to worry from the Indian
government of the dangers of setting up any important industrial sites in a
state bordering Pakistan, the two of whom have historically shared a
contentious relationship.
Ms. Shiva’s reference to the events of Punjab may share some roots
in the agricultural revolution of the 20th century, but her fear of GMOs in India
is without merit. Her organization, Navdanya, also touts its accomplishment of
setting up organic farms spread over lands in India in an attempt to “fight
globalization.” The hypocrisy of creating a global organization to fight other
global organizations is astounding. In a joint study carried out by researchers
at McGill University and the University of Minnesota, organic crops yield 25%
less than conventional crops. In a nation with significant suffering due to
food shortages and malnutrition, organic farming is certainly not the answer.
With this in mind, it is pertinent for governments across the globe to become
more accepting of genetically modified crops in order to assist humanitarian
causes that are so desperately needed.
Ms. Shiva’s views mirror those of
many others in the Western world and this perception matters when it comes down
to the deliberation of government policy of GM crops. Genetically modified
crops are regulated on a nation-to-nation basis. In India, GM crops are very
stringently assessed on a case-to-case basis. In the case of Golden Rice, there
is some concern that a low-level presence of its traits could present
themselves in rice grown and shipped to nations that receive their rice through
imports, as it is not grown natively. Places like Western Europe, for example,
import their rice. The understandable concern is that, as Europeans are not
vitamin A deficient, if they were to accidentally consume rice with low-level
similarities to Golden Rice, it could be detrimental to their health. For this
reason, certain precautions must be agreed upon and enforced in order to
prevent this.
Luckily for India, most of the rice
that it grows is consumed within a close proximity, largely alleviating this
global concern. Current regulations that must be followed by signatories of the
Cartagena Protocol, with regard to GM crops, lead to increased costs and
delays. For example, under the protocol, GM crops must first be grown in glass
houses, then screen houses, then finally open fields for further study before
being allowed to grow openly in these nations. This may sound like a good idea,
but keep in mind the years of field studies already taking place across the
world. These additional tests are redundant and unnecessary, especially when
malnutrition continues to kill more Indian women and children every year. As of
23 January 2001, India has been a participating party in the Cartagena
Protocol. This unnecessary red tape will only waste time for an issue so
desperately in need of a solution.
Many dissenters of GM crops
highlight the “corporate-ness” of the business. It is true that the developers
of Golden Rice, Ingo Potrykus and Peter Beyer, licensed the technology they
created to Syngenta for its use commercially. To some, this may seem inherently
distressing as it could potentially lead to unfair treatment to struggling
farmers in developing areas for the profit of the company. Fortunately, for
Golden Rice, this is absolutely not the case. The professors licensed their
technology with the understanding that their seed traits would be distributed
to small and local farmers in developing nations for no cost at all. No person
or company will benefit financially from the adoption of Golden Rice to those
nations who need it most.
The funding required for this
project will not be for the physical adoption of Golden Rice in India, but for
the education of those in power. It is necessary that they see that the
benefits do indeed outweigh any risks. Though Golden Rice does not require
funding for its global distribution, it could certainly benefit from an
education campaign to better inform the public of its safety and benefits.
Responding with science
The global resistance against GMO
use is immense. Consequently, there is a dire need for global education on the
topic as much of the dissent is based on fear mongering or misunderstandings of
the issue. There are certainly a small, but growing, number of advocacy groups
aiming to create a better-informed public yet their effect is nominal. People
in various fields like Pamela Ronald and Kevin Folta; professors of plant
genetics at UC Davis and UF-Gainesville, Kavin Senapathy, a freelance writer,
and Mark Lynas, an environmental activist are all outspoken advocates for GMOs
who are dedicated to making a meaningful difference in public opinion.
There are also a small number of
organizations such as the Genetic Literacy Project, Biofortified, and
AgBioWorld as well as Facebook groups like GMOLOL, SciBabes, and We Love GMOs
and Vaccines. They are all working hard to reaching a common goal but more must
be done in order to sway both the public and their governments. Though the
issue certainly extends far outside of India’s borders, it is prudent to stay
fast to the goal of implementing Golden Rice into its impoverished communities.
Therefore this is where the need for funding resides. With a series of
educational conferences and subsequent campaigns, the probability of Golden
Rice seed distribution increase will largely increase.
The first step is to hold a seminar
with a panel of plant geneticists and other GM advocates to an audience of
invited government officials. The format will be brief presentations by panel
members followed by an open conversation between officials and the panel.
Members of the Council of the State, the House of the people, as well as
India’s executive branch will be welcomed to this event with any additional
seating open to the public depending on venue selection. This will serve as a
way to both educate and to quell concerns in an open and respectful forum between
the Indian government and those most knowledgeable in the science behind
genetically modified crops.
A contingency plan will also be put
into play depending on the outcome of the seminar. If the outcome is positive,
it would be prudent for the Gates Foundation to partner with the Indian
government to implement a large-scale GM education program, much like South
Africa’s partnership with loveLife for youth HIV prevention. Similarly, the
Indian government would ideally agree to share the budgetary cost with the
Gates Foundation with a growing contribution with a reevaluation of the
program’s effectiveness every 3 years. If the outcome is not positive, then it
would be beneficial to host the seminar annually as well as implement street
teams in urban areas with higher voter turnout in order to hand out pamphlets
and speak to people in the streets in an attempt to sway public opinion.
Golden Rice, with the
implementation of the government education seminar and the following public
awareness campaign, will become available in the near future after years of
rigorous testing. It is in the interest of every malnourished man, woman, and
child in the rural states of India to adopt this trait characteristic and
introduce this into their dietary practices. For the mothers losing their
sight, for the children losing their lives, this could save their world.
Ryan Lenz is a student at the
University of Wisconsin pursuing a degree in International Studies. This
analysis was originally prepared for a Global Health seminar course.
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http://www.geneticliteracyproject.org/2015/05/25/golden-rice-in-india-is-it-necessary-what-are-impediments-to-adoption/
Asian nations advised to stock up on rice
as demand rises
PUBLISHED ON MAY 26, 2015 6:03 AM
BANGKOK - Asian countries need to build up rice stocks as global
supply may shrink due to growing demand from major buyers such as China and
India, which will eventually push up prices, according to global research house
The Rice Trader."China is still not on the pace to meet (an annual
purchase of) 4.5 million tonnes this year, but it will make it. The fact that
it now has only 2.2 million tonnes suggests that it will buy
aggressively," said Mr Jeremy Zwinger, president and CEO of the
California-based research institute.China, now the world's biggest rice buyer,
imported four million tonnes of rice last year, up from 3.2 million tonnes in
2013, according to data from the United States Department of Agriculture.
The
country's rice imports in 2014 set a new record for a fourth consecutive year.
The dramatic increase in rice demand from the world's most populous nation
began in 2007, when imports increased to more than seven times the average of
the previous five years.The Rice Trader also expects Indian rice stocks to jump
to nearly 10 million tonnes this year. As of early this month, India's rice
stocks had plunged by 22 per cent to 22.23 million tonnes from the previous
year, according to statistics from the Food Corporation of India issued
recently.Rice Trader data from five rice-exporting countries - Thailand, India,
Vietnam, Pakistan and the United States - shows that overseas shipments last
year reached historically high levels at 34.67 million tonnes, up 12.4 per cent
from 2013.
Mr
Zwinger said that over the next several months, rice prices would stay at a low
level on abundant supplies from rice-producing countries, particularly
Thailand.Within such a buyer's market, he recommended Asian countries,
including China, Indonesia and the Philippines, to buy overseas, as the
situation might change into a seller's market immediately, describing the
current situation as a "transition" moment."The price now is
very acceptable, especially with the risk that the oil price will go back (up),
the risks of weather we keep seeing and the fact we had many years of lower production,"
he said during the Thai Rice Convention recently.
The
market is wary of the potential of a long drought caused by the El Nino weather
phenomenon which might pose a significant threat to rice production.Australia's
weather bureau has already declared the major event of El Nino, which is caused
by a reversal of trade winds in the Pacific, causing ocean temperatures to
rise.Scientists have warned that the world is on track for another year of
record-setting heat, with temperatures having hit a new high in the first four
months of this year.
THE JAKARTA POST/ASIA NEWS NETWORK
APEDA News (India)
International
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Rice
procured at negotiated prices from millers’
SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
Telangana Civil Supplies
Commissioner Rajat Kumar has maintained that the Civil Supplies
Corporation/Department has been procuring rice required for government schemes
at negotiated prices from millers, as has been the practice since 1983. In
response to a news item “Free lunch for millers” published in these columns on
May 23, the Commissioner said ‘sanna biyyam’ (fine rice) required for welfare
hostels and mid-day meal scheme was also purchased from millers in the same
manner. It was ensured that only varieties grown in Telangana were delivered
and no unintended benefit was given to them, Dr. Rajat Kumar added.Further, the
Commissioner said fine rice required for 2015-16 had already been procured
http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Hyderabad/rice-procured-at-negotiated-prices-from-millers/article7246257.ece
Indonesian
minister fears govt sabotage in contaminated rice scare
Mon May 25, 2015 9:43am GMT
By
Fergus Jensen
JAKARTA May 25 (Reuters) - Indonesia's home minister called for a police
investigation into the suspected contamination of rice with plastic, saying it
may be an attempt at sabotaging the government, media reported on Monday.President
Joko Widodo has called for calm after reports that tainted rice may have caused
the hospitalization of a girl in Medan on Sunday and made some customers at a
food market in Bekasi sick last week.Rice is a common food staple in Indonesia,
the world's third biggest importer, and reports of contamination can quickly
cause food scares in the vast archipelago."The synthetic rice distributor
... may be making an attempt at treason or trying to sabotage the
government," Home Minister Tjahjo Kumolo was quoted as saying by the
English-daily Jakarta Post.The scare began last week when customers complained
of nausea and dizziness after eating suspect rice from a vendor in Bekasi, a
town neighbouring the capital of Jakarta.
Initial tests indicated the rice was contaminated with plastic and
plastic softeners.Widodo, however, urged consumers to wait for official
government test results before jumping to conclusions."Don't everyone just
talk and make the problem bigger," Widodo told reporters on Sunday as
quoted by online news site Detik.com. "What is most important is to look
at the root problem and check if it really was in Bekasi or just one
vendor."Police were waiting for the results of official tests before
continuing their investigation, Assistant Police Commissioner Siswo told
Reuters.The Bekasi vendor, Dewi Septiani, told reporters that the rice she had
sold in porridge was "clearly very different and smelled different too.
It's not like natural rice". (Additional reporting by Cindy Silviana;
Editing by Randy Fabi)
http://af.reuters.com/article/commoditiesNews/idAFL3N0YG24I20150525
Amira Nature Foods
expands product distribution in US
FBR Staff WriterPublished 25 May
2015
Packaged Indian specialty rice
supplier Amira Nature Foods has expanded product distribution in the US by
adding a new retailer.Jewel-Osco, owned by New Albertsons, will sell five Amira
brand SKUs at its stores in Illinois, Indiana and Iowa, starting in August this
year.Amira's products to be available in Jewel-Osco stores include Amira brand
Natural Basmati Rice, Natural Brown Basmati Rice, Natural Thai Jasmine Rice,
Natural Thai Jasmine Brown Rice and Smoked Basmati Rice.Amira Nature Foods
chairman Karan A Chanana said: "Jewel-Osco is an established Midwest
retailer with a strong market presence in the third largest city in the United
States."This is another huge win for the Amira brand, as we work
diligently to expand our distribution to new retailers and enhance our
visibility across the United States."Based in the UAE, Amira Nature Foods
offers branded packaged Indian specialty rice and other products in over 60
countries across the globe.The company primarily sells Basmati rice, which is a
premium long-grain rice grown only in certain regions of the Indian
sub-continent, under its flagship Amira brand as well as under other third
party brands.
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