Basmati rice worth US$ 147.310mn exported in last five months
ISLAMABAD: Basmati rice worth US$ 147.310 million was exported from the country during first five months of current financial year as compared the exports of US$ 143.294 million of the corresponding period of last year. Exports of basmati rice from the country grew by 2.80 percent during the period form July-November, 2017-18 as it was recorded at 144,093 metric tons as against the exports of 150,631 metric tons exported in the same period of last year. Meanwhile, rice other then basmati valuing US$ 497.060 million exported during the period under review as compared the exports of US$ 414.42 million of of same period last year, according the data of Pakistan Bureau of Statistics. During the period under review, about 1,206,877 metric tons of rice other then basmati exported as against the exports of 1,125,225 metric tons of same period last year, it added. In five months of current financial year, rice exports from the country grew by 15.62 percent as about 1,350,916 metric tons of rice valuing US$ 644.370 million exported as compared the exports of 1,275,856 million worth US$ 557.336 million of same period of last year, it added. On the other hand exports of rice from the country on month on month basis also witnessed an increase of 12.85 percent as about 435,688 metric tons of rice valuing US$ 188.707 million exported as compered the exports of 417,721 metric tons worth US$ 165.742 million of same period of last year. It is pertinent to mention here that the overall food exports from the country witnessed increase of 13.05 percent during the first five months of the current fiscal year against the same period of last year. The food exports from the country during July-November (2017-18) were recorded at $1491.592 million against the exports of $1319.381 million during July-November 2016-17), the data revealed. The total merchandize exports from the country during July-November (2017-18) stood at $9.030 billion against the exports of $8.173 billion during the correspondent period of last year, showing growth of 10.49 percent. The imports into the country during the period under review also increased by 21.12 percent, from $19.864 billion to $24.060 billion, according to the data. Based on the figures, the trade deficit during the first five months of the current year was recorded at $15.030 billion against the deficit of $11.691 billion, showing growth of 28.56 percent in the overall deficit.
https://www.brecorder.com/2018/01/10/391914/basmati-rice-worth-us-147-310mn-exported-in-last-five-months/
Turkey Reduces Rice Import Duties
By Hartwig Schmidt
ARLINGTON, VA -- In an effort to lower food price inflation the government of Turkey recently passed a law to reduce import duties on different types of rice. The new import regime was published in the Turkish Trade Registry Gazette on December 31, 2017, and listed new import duties that will be applied on imported goods as of January 2018.
The new import regime lowers import duties for paddy rice from 34 percent to 5 percent; for brown rice from 36 percent to 10 percent; and for milled rice from 45 percent to 15 percent.
Food inflation in Turkey is caused by the large difference between producer and consumer prices, increased costs for agricultural producers due to devaluation of Turkish currency, and stockpiled goods that lead to high market prices.
The new import duties take effect immediately and last until July 1, 2018, at which point the previous duties will be re-applied. The government also lowered duties on many other imported agricultural items, including meat, corn, beans, and walnuts.
Because Turkey has a zero-tolerance policy on GMOs, the tax reduction for milled rice opens opportunities for U.S. Southern medium grain rice. The milling process reduces the risk of cross-contamination with GMO corn or GMO soy, which has stopped the import of Southern paddy medium grain in the past.
DA to spend P500 million for expansion of rice-corn blend project
By
Jasper Y. Arcalas
-
January 10, 2018
The Department of Agriculture (DA) will shell out at least P500 million next year to sustain the rice-corn (RiCo) blend project, which seeks to improve the country’s food security and cut its dependence on rice imports.
“Part of what we need to support PhilMaize [Philippine Maize Federation Inc.] will be included in the GAA [General Appropriations Act] of 2019. It will be around half a billion,” Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel F. Piñol told reporters in a recent interview.
Piñol said the DA will help the PhilMaize to consolidate corn produced by farmers for the RiCo blend project, which is starting this year. For this, he added, he committed an initial P50 million to kickstart the program.
The DA chief disclosed that RiCo blends would be commercially sold in the market starting the second quarter. “Perhaps, we will sell first the pure corn grits and the 50-50 blend, which is easier to mix [than other blends].”
The 50-50 RiCo blend is a rice-corn mix that consists of 50 percent white rice and 50 percent yellow or white corn.
The RiCo project, which was spearheaded by PhilMaize, is now supported by the DA and the National Food Authority. Under the project, the NFA is tasked to handle the initial marketing of the RiCo blend in Metro Manila.
“We have engaged SM, Rustans, Robinsons and big supermarkets. We will also be penetrating big supermarkets in Cebu and palengkes [wet markets],” Piñol said.
He added the government wants to encourage the private sector to invest in the RiCo project. “We would be encouraging private-sector participation. Since we have established the link with the NFA and supermarkets, then we could allow the private sector to enter and participate in this program.”
“Under the project, we would buy directly from farmers and engage private groups, who will deal with the NFA, who, in turn, would be responsible for the mixing and marketing of the products,” Piñol added.
Earlier, National Corn Competitiveness Board Executive Chairman and PhilMaize Chairman Emeritus Roderico R. Bioco said corn growers are targeting to sell 30,000 metric tons (MT) of RiCo this year to determine the product’s acceptability.
PhilMaize has decided to go into selling the RiCo blend to complement efforts of the government to achieve rice self-sufficiency and reduce the country’s reliance on imports.
Earlier the DA chief said the consumption of rice-corn blend could wipe out the country’s rice-supply shortfall by 2019.
“[RiCo] would end the country’s rice-supply shortfall with the infusion in 2019 of about 500,000 MT of corn grits and 1 million MT in 2020, thus effectively achieving food-staple sufficiency for only the second time in the history of the country,” Piñol said.
Piñol added the RiCo blend will be affordable because it will be sold at around P35 per kilogram, lower than the P50 per kg consumers spend for white rice
https://businessmirror.com.ph/da-to-spend-p500-million-for-expansion-of-rice-corn-blend-project/
India rice exports seen surging to record as Bangladesh boosts buying
Reuters Staff
4 MIN READ
* Industry officials say exports likely hit record in 2017
* Boost in shipments set to continue this year
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* Bangladesh has stepped up buying in wake of floods
By Rajendra Jadhav and Ruma Paul
MUMBAI/DHAKA, Jan 10 (Reuters) - India’s rice exports likely jumped 22 percent in 2017 to a record 12.3 million tonnes as neighbouring Bangladesh ramped up purchases after flooding hit its crops, industry officials told Reuters.
The boost in shipments from the world’s top exporter of the grain is set to extend into 2018 as Bangladesh and Sri Lanka continue to buy aggressively amid depleting inventories in No.2 exporter Thailand, the officials said.
“Bangladesh was actively buying throughout 2017. It offset the impact of slightly weaker demand from African countries,” said M. Adishankar, executive director at Sri Lalitha, a leading rice exporter located in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh.
Bangladesh’s purchases likely lifted India’s non-basmati rice exports by 38 percent in 2017 to 8.4 million tonnes and total exports to 12.3 million tonnes, the officials and exporters said. That would surpass 2014’s record of 11.5 million tonnes.
They based the 2017 export figures on their estimates for December shipments plus previously issued government data for January to November. Government numbers for December are expected to be released around the start of next month.
India exports non-basmati rice mainly to African and Asian countries and premium basmati rice to the Middle East, the United States and Britain.
Traditionally the world’s fourth-biggest rice producer, Bangladesh emerged as a major importer of the grain in 2017 after floods damaged crops and pushed domestic prices to record highs.
Bangladesh sourced more than 80 percent of its 2017 imports of 2.4 million tonnes from India, said Badrul Hasan, head of Bangladesh’s state grains buyer.
The South Asian nation’s overseas rice purchases are likely to remain robust until supply rises after its summer crop, also known as Boro, in May, Hasan said.
Boro contributes more than half Bangladesh’s typical annual rice output of around 35 million tonnes.
Last year Bangladesh reduced import taxes on rice to boost private buying. It also bought rice from India in state-to-state deals to quickly raise supplies and try to rein in prices.
But rice prices stayed high in Bangladesh despite the largest imports in nearly two decades, which will encourage farmers to expand the amount of land used to cultivate the staple crop, Hasan said.
NON-BASMATI
India’s rice exports in 2018 depend largely on non-basmati shipments as basmati exports are likely to remain more-or-less steady at around 4 million tonnes, said Vijay Setia, president of the All India Rice Exporters’ Association.
“Non-basmati exports depend on stock positions in importing countries like Bangladesh and Sri Lanka,” Setia said.
African nations stepped up buying from Thailand last year, but that could ease in 2018 as state stockpiles are depleted in the Southeast Asian country, potentially boosting appetite for Indian supply, said a Mumbai-based dealer with a global trading firm.
“For key markets like Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, India has freight advantage over Thailand. This will help even in 2018,” the Mumbai-based dealer said.
Reporting by Rajendra Jadhav in Mumbai and Ruma Paul in Dhaka; Editing by Joseph Radford
Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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https://www.reuters.com/article/india-bangladesh-rice/india-rice-exports-seen-surging-to-record-as-
Rice import rockets 18 times through Hili port
• Halim Al Raji, Hili (Dinajpur) Correspondent
• Published at 01:47 AM January 11, 2018
Trucks loaded with rice at the Hili portDhaka Tribune
Around 120-130 truckloads of rice is being imported through the port nowadays as the demand in the local market has been high
Import of rice through Hili land port has hit a record height in the last five years.
Bangladesh imported 360,607 metric tons of rice from India through the port in 2017, whereas the import was about 18 times less – 20,675 metric tons – in 2016.
The amount of rice import through the port in 2017 is only about 90,000 tonnes less than the total amount of rice import over the four preceeding years. Its import from 2013-2016 stood at 451,985 metric tons, according to sources at Hili port authorities.
A lower output of the staple crop in the last Boro and Aman seasons prompted the government to lower the duty on rice import from 28% to 2%, which is widely being considered as the driving force behind such a huge leap in the import through the port.
Mamunur Rashid, a rice importer, told the Dhaka Tribune: “As the commerce ministry lowered the duty on rice import from 28% to 2% in June 20, 2016, huge quantities of rice started to pour in the country from India. But the Indian exporters also took advantage of the duty cut. They increased the export prices of different rice varieties by $40-50.
“Under such circumstance, the government, in its bid to keep the market price of rice at a tolerable limit, lowered the duty again on August 16 last year and fixed it to 2% from 10%.”
Rajib Dutt, another rice importer, noted that around 120-130 truckloads of rice is being imported through the port nowadays as the demand in the local market has been high.
Rajib also noted that with the supply of newly harvested local paddy hitting the market, the Indian traders had lowered the export price a bit. “They have lowered export price and fixed it at $430-435 which is leading to the restoration of a bit of stability in the rice market of recent.”
At present the coarse rice (Guti Swarna) is being sold at Tk38-39 per kilogram in the retail market around Hili, he added.
Rice import rockets 18 times through Hili port
• Halim Al Raji, Hili (Dinajpur) Correspondent
• Published at 01:47 AM January 11, 2018
Trucks loaded with rice at the Hili portDhaka Tribune
Around 120-130 truckloads of rice is being imported through the port nowadays as the demand in the local market has been high
Import of rice through Hili land port has hit a record height in the last five years.
Bangladesh imported 360,607 metric tons of rice from India through the port in 2017, whereas the import was about 18 times less – 20,675 metric tons – in 2016.
The amount of rice import through the port in 2017 is only about 90,000 tonnes less than the total amount of rice import over the four preceeding years. Its import from 2013-2016 stood at 451,985 metric tons, according to sources at Hili port authorities.
A lower output of the staple crop in the last Boro and Aman seasons prompted the government to lower the duty on rice import from 28% to 2%, which is widely being considered as the driving force behind such a huge leap in the import through the port.
Mamunur Rashid, a rice importer, told the Dhaka Tribune: “As the commerce ministry lowered the duty on rice import from 28% to 2% in June 20, 2016, huge quantities of rice started to pour in the country from India. But the Indian exporters also took advantage of the duty cut. They increased the export prices of different rice varieties by $40-50.
“Under such circumstance, the government, in its bid to keep the market price of rice at a tolerable limit, lowered the duty again on August 16 last year and fixed it to 2% from 10%.”
Rajib Dutt, another rice importer, noted that around 120-130 truckloads of rice is being imported through the port nowadays as the demand in the local market has been high.
Rajib also noted that with the supply of newly harvested local paddy hitting the market, the Indian traders had lowered the export price a bit. “They have lowered export price and fixed it at $430-435 which is leading to the restoration of a bit of stability in the rice market of recent.”
At present the coarse rice (Guti Swarna) is being sold at Tk38-39 per kilogram in the retail market around Hili, he added.
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https://www.dhakatribune.com/business/2018/01/11/rice-import-rockets-18-times-hili-port/
Be wary of fake rice-import permits, NFA tells traders
By Jasper Y. Arcalas
January 10, 2018
The National Food Authority (NFA) on Wednesday revealed that three fake import permits for the 2017 minimum access volume (MAV) private-sector rice import scheme were sold to local traders and importers.
NFA Administrator Jason L.Y. Aquino said the Philippine International Trading Corp. (PITC) brought to his attention the three import permits supposedly issued by the food agency to the PITC. The PITC, a government-owned and -controlled corporation (GOCC) under the Department of Trade and Industry, wrote to the NFA last December 22 to verify the veracity of the import permits.
“The PITC has not applied for any rice-import permits with the NFA and neither authorized any party to apply for and in behalf of the PITC for such permits for 2017,” the GOCC said in its letter to the NFA.
Upon verification, Aquino said the three import permits were, indeed, spurious. In a letter-reply dated December 27, the NFA assured the PITC that an investigation on the matter will be conducted.
The three import permits covered a total of 42,000 metric tons (MT) of rice and were issued last August 24 and October 10. The ports of discharge were Davao for the 5,000 MT of imported rice and Cebu for the 7,000 MT. The third fake import permits for 30,000 MT of rice did not specify the port of discharge.
Aside from the fact that the NFA did not issue any of three import permits under the 2017 MAV rice-importation program, the agency also clarified that the scheduled arrival of rice imports under Phase 1 of the 2017 MAV was set for December 20, 2017 to February 28, and for Phase 2 imports should arrive between June 1 and August 31.
“Also, based on the NFA Council-approved guidelines, the import permit under the 2017 MAV rice-importation program has a validity period of only 15 calendar days from the date of issuance and not for one year as specified in the spurious import permits,” the NFA said in a statement.
The PITC said the fake import permits are being offered or sold by unscrupulous parties to traders and importers.
Republic Act 10845 (RA), or the “Anti-Agricultural Smuggling Act of 2016,” classifies under Section 3 large-scale agricultural smuggling as economic sabotage. This includes “rice, with a minimum amount of P10 million, as valued by the Bureau of Customs, committed through any of the following acts: (a) Importing or bringing into the Philippines without the required import permit from the regulatory agencies; (b) Using import permits of persons, natural or juridical, other than those specifically named in the permit; and (c) Using fake, fictitious or fraudulent import permits or shipping documents.”
Under the section on penalties, Section 4 of RA 10845 specifies the penalty of life imprisonment and fine of twice the value of the smuggled agricultural product in addition to payment of taxes, duties and other charges against anyone found guilty of economic sabotage.
Any person or entity found guilty under the anti-agricultural smuggling law shall also suffer the penalty of perpetual absolute disqualification to engage in any business involving
importation.
https://businessmirror.com.ph/be-wary-of-fake-rice-import-permits-nfa-tells-traders/
Fertilizer Runoff is a Boon to Mosquito Growth
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A new study shows that fertilizer present in water where mosquitoes such as Anopheles gambiae breed can boost growth of bacteria, algae, and fungi, which mosquito larvae feed on, resulting in accelerated larval development and greater survival rates to adulthood. (Photo credit: James Gathany, CDC Public Health Image Library)
As mosquitoes seek standing water to lay their eggs, many are attracted to water rife with plant matter, which serves as a food source for larvae as they develop. Examples of such locations range from backyard flowerpots to flooded rice paddies. But what happens when humans apply a fertilizer that runs off into the mosquitoes’ breeding sites?
A new study published in December in the Journal of Medical Entomology shows the mosquitoes of at least two species develop both faster and in greater numbers when plant matter and fertilizer are combined in the water where the mosquito larvae grow.
Frédéric Darriet, a researcher at France’s Institute of Research for Development (MIVEGEC), tested the larval growth rate and adult emergence of Aedes aegypti and Anopheles gambiae mosquitoes in laboratory breeding settings containing varying levels of nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium fertilizer and plant matter. Across the tests, 1.7 to 3 times as many mosquito larvae developed to adulthood in settings with both plant matter and fertilizer compared to those in water with plant matter alone, and the mosquitoes’ development rate was two to four times as fast on the combo, as well.
“Fertilizer is not directly assimilated by the mosquito larvae,” says Frédéric Darriet. “However, the three minerals [nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium] enhance the development of bacteria, algae, and fungi, increasing the food biomass of the breeding sites. Larvae of mosquitoes exploit this additional biomass to proliferate.”
The mosquitoes seem to sense this advantage, too. In previous research, Frédéric Darriet found female mosquitoes were more attracted to breeding sites with chemical fertilizers in them. The problem, though, is not just one of simple proliferation of potentially disease-carrying mosquitoes. Because pesticides are often used alongside fertilizers in agricultural settings—again, think of those rice paddies—the conditions are ripe for accelerated insecticidal resistance developing in mosquitoes as well.
“The selection pressure induced is huge, and the resistance mechanisms present in the mosquitoes are selected all the more rapidly and efficiently as the mineral fertilizations and the insecticide treatments are frequent within a time span,” says Frédéric Darriet. “All my research on the subject shows us how the not-so-well-thought-out use of pesticides and fertilizers in agriculture not only impacts the mosquito environment but even generates new ecological systems beneficial to the proliferation of mosquitoes.”
These hotspots for mosquitoes fall into something of a no-man’s land between agriculture and mosquito management, both in practice and research.
“Insofar as the interface of agriculture and public health doesn’t come under the farmer’s competences nor the ones of the vector-control services, there still is a huge research area even nowadays that has only partly been explored,” Frédéric Darriet says. “The synergy of such a partnership between the scientists, the rice-growers, and the vector-control services would initiate pluridisciplinary research programs whose goal would be to protect the crops while reducing the mosquito populations as much as possible.
https://entomologytoday.org/2018/01/10/fertilizer-runoff-boon-mosquito-growth/
How Rice Pudding Gave Me Courage
By DORIE GREENSPAN JAN. 10, 2018
Rice pudding. CreditGentl and Hyers for The New York Times. Food stylist: Maggie Ruggiero. Prop stylist: Amy Wilson.
Our son was still only crawling when Marie-Cécile, a young Frenchwoman, became his babysitter. That she stayed with us for years explains why he has a near-perfect French accent and why I know the lyrics and accompanying hand motions to nursery songs from the 1960s. It’s also why I know the expression au pif.The first time I heard the words (pronounced “oh peef”) was when I asked Marie-Cécile how she made the rice pudding that was cooling on the counter. “Au pif,” she said, bouncing her index finger off the tip of her nose as though she were playing charades. Encouraged to give a definition, she shrugged her shoulders and shook her head slowly.As a noun, pif is slang for nose, and au pif can mean randomly, roughly or off the top of your head. Having cooked with Marie-Cécile a few times before then, I should have guessed that it had something to do with feeling your way around a dish. Marie-Cécile never turned to a recipe, not even to check a measurement, a step or a tip. She cooked simple, satisfying food, calmly and assuredly, partly from memories of things 3,600 miles away and partly from good kitchen sense.
Although it sounds most adorable in French, au pif is the way people everywhere cook. A dash of this. A bit of that. We toss broccoli into the pasta because we find some in the corner of the vegetable bin. We put the stew to braise in the oven when the stovetop is full; open the spice drawer, see star anise and flavor a stir-fry with it. We cook with what we have on hand, making changes to recipes as we go along. Sometimes cooking au pif is creative; sometimes it’s practical; and most of the time we don’t even think about it. It’s just how we move about the kitchen. It’s how we put together a meal — until we get to dessert, which so often involves more precision than inspiration.
Marie-Cécile never turned to a recipe, not even to check a measurement, a step or a tip.
Marie-Cécile’s desserts were never exact, formal or fussy. Those she returned to often — poached fruit; baked apples; a thick, sweet pancake; and a memorable rice pudding — were made in the spirit of au pif. I thought of them as this-and-that sweets: A little more of this or a little less of that, and they would still be fine. If precision were important and if recipes were required, Marie-Cécile, like so many good cooks faced with flour, sugar, butter and measuring cups, was timid.
When I knew her, I was timid, too. I was just learning to bake and hadn’t yet discovered that within the bounds of a recipe, a baker with an imagination could find room to play.
Simple rice pudding like Marie-Cécile’s — rice and sweetened milk cooked until soft and thick — was the first dessert I found the courage to play with. It was easy and rewarding to simmer the rice with bits of dried fruit that plumped and flavored the milk, fat strips of orange or lemon zest, a cinnamon stick, a few crushed cardamom pods, a hunk of ginger or a spoonful of dried lavender, which no one liked as much as I did. One day I stirred some dark chocolate into the almost-finished pudding, and that became my family’s favorite version. I folded crème fraîche into the cold pudding when I was serving it to guests. Company pudding also got a drizzle of caramel, honey, maple syrup or raspberry sauce, and sometimes fruit on top or alongside: apples or pears sautéed with butter and sugar in winter, berries in summer and orange slices year-round. Once, I topped the pudding with ice cream and hot fudge and called it a sundae.
From pudding, I went on to cookies and cakes, pies, custards, brownies and blondies, finding them all amenable to tweaks and reshaping. The first time I follow a recipe, I make it just the way it’s written: I want to understand what it’s meant to be. And then, I follow my pif, often adding spices, nuts or extracts to batters, cajoling dough into new forms, making cupcakes from recipes designed for towering layer cakes, doubling up on frosting or going heavy on chocolate chunks in just about anything, because I now know I can. I don’t tap my nose the way Marie-Cécile once did, but as I think about transforming her long-loved recipes, I’m almost tempted to
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/10/magazine/dessert-rice-pudding-courage-france.html Weather-weather lang ’yan: How nanoparticles can boost food supply despite climate change
By
Prime Sarmiento
-
January 10, 2018
in Photo: Photograph of butterhead lettuce harvested after one month in a normal greenhouse
In one of my previous columns (https://businessmirror.com.ph/old-and-new-technologies-support-climate-smart-agriculture), I discussed how old and new technologies are promoting climate-smart agriculture (CSA). This farming system, which is espoused by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), is not a novel concept as traditional farming practices like crop rotation and rainwater harvesting can be considered climate-smart, which, in this case, can refer to any practice and technology that can cut emissions while simultaneously raising yields and building farmers’ resilience.
Farmers are long used to changing weather patterns and have since adjusted their life and livelihood to cater to these changes. Who else but a farmer (and, of course, an influence peddler) can understand the many layers of meaning encapsulated in that catchphrase “weather-weather lang ’yan”? But climate change is a relatively new phenomenon and it has brought extreme weather events such as a more severe dry spell, stronger typhoons and heavy flooding that don’t only hurt farmers but all of us who have to live with declining food production. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said crop yields will decline by as much as 25 percent by 2050 owing to climate change. The FAO said extreme weather events can also cause more frequent and intense plant pest and disease outbreaks, as was the case during the desert locust outbreaks in Northwest Africa and in Yemen in late-2015 and early-2016. It also doesn’t help that the agriculture sector itself is a major carbon emitter, accounting for at least 20 percent of total greenhouse-gas emissions.
Photograph of butterhead lettuce harvested after one month in a greenhouse with anti-thermal coating
This is why it’s important too to explore novel technologies that have been developed in recent years to address these new challenges. As Matthew Tan, co-chairman of the Apec Partnership on Food Security, said in my recent interview with him, farmers need to learn to embrace new technology to make agriculture sustainable. Tan, who also serves as adjunct associate professor of the Nanyang Technological University (NTU), cited two climate-farming technologies that the Singapore-based university has developed and were launched in 2016: anti-thermal coating and a nano-gel that will help soil absorb more water.
Of the two, Tan told me that it’s the anti-thermal coating which is now commercially available and has gained interest not only in Singapore but in other countries like Hong Kong and Japan. Applying anti-thermal coating on a greenhouse’s roof can block about 90 percent of the heat and still allow light to pass through and help plants to grow and thrive.
This coating is a product of a research project that started in 2013 and is in response to the university’s staff request to make the school atrium cooler. But the research team, which is composed of scientists and researchers of NTU’s Energy Research Institute and the School of Materials Science and Engineering, didn’t only end up with a paint additive that could cool the university atrium but also has the potential to help farms adapt to a warmer temperature brought by climate change.
“If these changes in temperature are expected to worsen over the next 30 years, then understanding the potential impacts on the plant growth and development, as well as finding ways to overcome this issue, will help develop adaptation strategies to offset these impacts,” NTU senior scientist Dr. Goh Chin Foo said in an e-mail interview with the BusinessMirror.
Goh, who led the team that developed the anti-thermal coating, said the coating is based on nanoparticles that can be mixed with any paint. The final coating, when applied to any roof, could control the amount of light that can be transmitted or reflected through the greenhouse’s roof. The team validated its findings by applying the coating on the roof of a greenhouse owned by Oh Chin Huat hydrophonic farm in March 2017.
“Results showed that the solar reflective additive coated set blocked more than 20 percent of solar radiation energy and led to better growth of plants when compared to the uncoated one,” he said. Goh showed me photos of butterhead lettuce to illustrate his point. After one month of raising butterhead lettuce in separate greenhouses, the NTU team learned that those grown in a greenhouse with anti-thermal coating are heavier, with 10 samples of lettuce weighing 98 grams, while those raised without the coating weighed 78.6 grams.
Another technology, this time developed by NTU together with the National Parks Board, is a nano-gel—a water-absorbent nano-molecule that has soil-conditioning capabilities. When one sprays the solution on the soil, the soil can become a mini-reservoir—it can lock in excess water and release it during a prolonged period of drought. The nano-gel is not yet commercially available but is now being tested in the plants being grown by the National Parks Board and at the greenhouse of the National Institute of Education.
Apart from NTU, several key research agencies and universities have been developing climate-smart farm technologies in respond to these challenges.
Not far from home is the Los Baños-based International Rice Research Institute. Together with local partners, the IRRI has developed the alternate wetting and drying (AWD) technology that has been introduced to several countries, such as Thailand, Vietnam and the Philippines. Farmers using AWD alternately flood and dry their rice fields and can reduce a rice farm’s water consumption by 30 percent and methane emission by 50 percent. The IRRI has also developed climate-ready rice varieties that can tolerate climate stresses like drought, heat, salinity and flooding.
At the New Zealand Agricultural Greenhouse Gas Research Centre, scientists are developing a vaccine to purge cow stomachs of methanogens—the microbes that convert hydrogen into methane—and reduce the methane emitted by burping cows and ruminants. In India nonprofit farm tech start-up Kheyti is developing a low-cost modular greenhouse that can reduce heat stress and boost crop yield.
But such technologies will only be effective in promoting climate-smart agriculture if they will be widely adopted by farmers, specifically the 500 million smallholders who account for more than 80 percent of the world’s farming communities. The FAO said most smallholders still have limited access to the innovations, technology, knowledge and information owing to a decline in public-sector extension services. But Tan said price might deter farmers from adopting new technology. But he’s confident that government subsidies and the fact that the cost of technology goes down in the future can help farmers use these new technologies.
A separate statement issued by the IRRI noted that, while these technologies are scalable, that does not necessarily mean that they propagate by themselves without further inputs. This is why the IRRI regularly conducts training sessions to promote the new technologies that the agency has developed. More important, any technology and practices will need to be customized to fit the specific needs of a local farming community in order for it to
be scalable.
https://businessmirror.com.ph/weather-weather-lang-yan-how-nanoparticles-can-boost-food-supply-despite-climate-change/
Thailand's 2017 rice exports hit record 11.48 million tonnes
WED, JAN 10, 2018 - 5:01 PM
[BANGKOK] Thailand exported a record 11.48 million tonnes of rice in 2017, the commerce ministry said on Wednesday.
The amount, which surpassed the previous record of 10.96 million tonnes in 2014, was worth over US$5.1 billion, said Adul Chotinisakorn, deputy chief of the commerce ministry's department of foreign trade.
Thailand, the world's second-biggest rice exporter after India, is expected to ship out 9.5 million tonnes of rice worth US$4.7 billion this year.
A lower forecast is maintained as bad weather is affecting the crops, Adul said.
He added Thailand will be pursuing government-to-government deals this year with many countries, including Iraq, Iran and Indonesia, in addition to Bangladesh and China.
Thailand exported 9.88 million tonnes of rice in 2016.
Final Tally for Rice Ridge Fire Costs
January 11, 2018
Nathan Bourne, Pathfinder
A DC-10 drops a line of retardant on the south flank of the Rice Ridge Fire Saturday, Sept. 2 (left). The fire made a push towards the north end of Seeley Lake, but aerial resources were able to hold the spot fire. Saturday, Dec. 30 the same photo was taken after the valley was blanketed in more than 30 inches of snow.
SEELEY LAKE - U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue announced Sept. 14 that wildland fire suppression costs for the fiscal year exceeded $2 billion, making 2017 the most expensive year on record. The price tag for Montana's fires was nearly $400 million by the end of September. This included $62 million of state funding.
The Rice Ridge and Lolo Peak fires traded places for the most expensive fire in Montana for the year. As of Oct. 3, when command of the Rice Ridge Fire was returned to the Seeley Lake Ranger District, the incident cost $49.1 million. That is roughly $307 per acre for the 160,187 acre fire. The Burned Area Emergency Response work that is on-going through the end of the summer of 2018 is funded separately.
The Rice Ridge fire's direct suppression costs totaled nearly $30.5 million for suppression efforts from July 24-Oct. 3. This included $12.7 million for equipment; $9 million for aircraft; nearly $5.4 million for firefighting crews; and $3.3 million for line personnel.
Indirect costs made up the remaining $18.6 million including the camp support and personnel. Camp support included land-use agreements; facilities at the camp and on the fire; buses, showers, supplies, water tenders and the caterer paying out at $13.1 million. The camp personnel cost $5.5 million.
In comparison, the Liberty Fire that burned 28,689 acres southwest of Seeley Lake cost $20.3 million on its last report Sept. 19. Suppression cost $708 per acre.
http://www.seeleylake.com/story/2018/01/11/news/final-tally-for-rice-ridge-fire-costs/3103.html
RDB loans $30M to boost rice purchases
Cheng Sokhorng | Publication date 10 January 2018 | 19:07 ICT
A woman harvests her rice crop at a paddy field in Phnom Penh’s Dangkor district in 2016. Heng Chivoan
The government has provided $30 million in loans to rice millers since September to facilitate the purchase of paddy rice, with the head of a state-run bank saying more money was available if necessary.
The loans were issued to 38 rice millers by the state-owned Rural Development Bank (RDB) following September’s rice harvest, and would need to be paid back by April this year, according to RDB’s CEO Kao Thach.
“Demand for loans keeps increasing, however it still has not met what the government has provided,” Thach said. “We still hope the need for loans will increase by next harvest season, as capacity of storage and drying will be ready.”
Over the past two years, the RDB has focused on beefing up millers’ storage and drying capacity to improve processing and enable the staggered purchase of paddy rice, which could raise paddy rice prices and help farmers.
That effort has proved moderately successful, though some farmers have said that other issues, such as lack of access to water and pests, have eaten into any profits that higher prices might have brought.
Rice miller Khmer Food group, which received about $10 million loan from the RDB last year to expand drying and storage facilities, has received about $1 million this season from the RDB to buy paddy rice, according to CEO Kim Savuth.
“The demand of the international rice market has increased, and rice millers saw the opportunity for profit, so they applied for loans to buy the paddy rice,” Savuth said. He also predicted the demand for loans would increase as the expanded storage and drying facilities came online in the coming months.
The emergency rice fund was launched with $27 million in September 2016, following large protests from rice farmers in Battambang province. The government injected another $23 million in August last year.
Savuth, who is also the vice-president of the Cambodia Rice Federation, said that while the ADB’s actions had provided relief for the rice sector, persistent problems – such as high logistical costs and bloated energy prices – were still threats to the industry.
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/business/rdb-loans-30m-boost-rice-purchases
Ministry blames traders for rice price increase
Jakarta | Wed, January 10, 2018 | 06:47 pm
A worker carries a sack of rice at Cipinang Rice Wholesale Market in East Jakarta in an undated file photograph. (Antara/Makna Zaezar)
Trade Minister Anggartiasto Lukita has blamed the recent increase in rice prices on traders accused of controlling rice stocks.
“We have a food task force. We are tough against those who act suspiciously; we will not tolerate them,” Enggartiasto said on Tuesday while inspecting a rice warehouse owned by the National Logistics Agency (Bulog) in North Jakarta as quoted by kompas.com.
According to the National Strategic Food Prices Information Center (PIHPSN), the price of medium-quality rice reached Rp 14,100 (99 US cents) per kilogram on average, much higher than the price ceiling of Rp 9,450 per kg.
The highest price was found in West Papua at Rp 14,250 per kilogram, compared to the province’s price ceiling of Rp 10,250 per kg. The lowest price for rice, meanwhile, was found in West Nusa Tanggara (NTB), at Rp 9,740 per kg, which is still higher than the province’s price ceiling.
Enggartiasto remained upbeat that a planned “market operation” to maintain stable rice availability would push down prices.
“We will monitor [prices] in the coming days; they are expected to decrease,” he said, adding that the intervention would continue until prices fall below the price ceilings.
Previously, Bulog president director Djarot Kusumayakti said the agency had prepared 950,000 tons of rice for the market operation in 2018.
He said the market operation was held in cooperation with the Indonesian Rice Millers and Entrepreneurs Association (Perpadi).
“We met Perpadi yesterday [Tuesday] to discuss actions to lower rice prices,” he added. (bbn)
Chili price reaches Rp 140,000 per kg in Jakarta
Jakarta | Wed, January 11, 2017 | 02:50 pm
A farmer shows bad chilies in Montok village, Pamekasan, East Java, on Jan. 6. The price of bird’s eye chili has been rising due to changing weather that affects crops. (Antara/Saiful Bahri)
The price of chili reached Rp 140,000 (US$ 10.52) at Palmerah Market in West Jakarta on Wednesday, although the price from farmers was still lower than Rp 30,000.
Deputy chairman of House of Representatives Commission IV, overseeing agricultural affairs, Herman Khaeron expressed concern over the skyrocketing price of bird’s eye chili.
“On Jan. 11, prices were still between Rp 50,000 and Rp 55,000, but now the price has reached Rp 140,000 per kiloliter at this market,” said Herman as quoted by tribunnews.com while visiting the market on Wednesday.
“It is an irrational price as the farmer only gets less than Rp 30,000,” he added.
(Read also: Chili price hike bites sellers at Kramat Jati market)
He suspected a distribution issue, as many regions were able to harvest chili normally. He expressed the hope that the government would pay serious attention to the distribution of the commodity to ensure that it took place smoothly.
But President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo said the price hike of the commodity was particularly caused by the unfavorable weather to plant chili.
Sellers and restaurants have said that they have been affected by the rising price of bird’s eye chili—a key ingredient in many Indonesian dishes. (bbn)
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2017/01/11/chili-price-reaches-rp-140000-per-kg-in-jakarta.html
Local paddy rice processors beg for training in Jigawa
By Aliyu M. Hamagam, Dutse | Publish Date: Jan 11 2018 2:00AM
•
Rice parboilling in progress
Though parboiling and milling of paddy rice is one of the fastest growing small scale businesses in Jigawa State, owing to increase in the production of the crop, majority if not all of the processors ventured into it without formal training.
Most of the processors engaged in parboiling and milling rice rely on the traditional procedure of boiling the grain before milling it for the production of processed rice that is free of stones and other debris.
Hadejia zone is the hub of such business in the state, being the area where the crop is largely produced, though, despite the concentration of the processors, the available market for the commodity is limited to some local government areas within the zone. This is because they hardly produce enough to supply other markets beyond Hadejia.
This reporter, who visited some of areas, gathered that majority of those in the business follow the traditional way of processing the commodity, particularly the parboiling procedure.
Daily Trust gathered that some of the millers processed as much as 60 bags of paddy rice daily at the peak of production while at some other period the production drops to as low as 30 bags.
Speaking to our reporter, one of the rice processors, Alhaji Awaisu Umar, said he did not know about any other effective procedure of processing paddy rice than the traditional way.
“We process our paddy rice using the traditional method. We have never received any training or assistance from either government or any private sector concern. “Lack of exposure to new techniques of processing paddy rice into polished rice is a great setback for our business.
“In the past, many organisations from the private sector, mostly NGOs and other international donor partners promised to give us some form of assistance and training but that is yet to happen,” he said.
Also speaking to Daily Trust, another rice miller, Yahaya Umar Latafa, said he did not acquire any formal training apart from his traditional knowledge of processing rice. He said after parboiling the rice for eight to 10 hours, it will be dried and winnowed before milling.
According to him, for the parboiling of 30 bags of paddy rice to be effectively done, he needed a truck load of firewood which they usually bought at the cost of N16,000.
On how they get their supply, Latafa said they buy from farmers through their agents saying, they buy a bag of paddy rice at the cost of N8,500 to 9,000 depending on the season.
https://www.dailytrust.com.ng/local-paddy-rice-processors-beg-for-training-in-jigawa.html
Paddy purchase stopped, farmers start distress sale
By Express News Service | Published: 11th January 2018 04:46 AM |
Last Updated: 11th January 2018 07:11 AM |
JEYPORE: With closure of mandis following dispute over delivery of custom milled rice (CMR), distress sale of paddy has been reported in several parts of the tribal-dominated Koraput district.
Sources said, the Odisha State Civil Supply Corporation had recently stopped paddy procurement for kharif marketing season abruptly after the rice millers met their ‘limited target’.
As a result of restriction on paddy procurement target, only seven lakh quintals have been procured so far, while more than 10 lakh quintals are yet to be purchased from farmers.
Taking advantage of the situation, private traders are purchasing paddy from the doorstep of farmers much below the minimum support price (MSP). This year, the MSP of common variety of paddy conforming to fair average quality (FAQ) is `1,550 per quintal, while Grade-A variety has been fixed at `1,590.
This year, the district administration had targeted to procure 14 lakh quintals of paddy from the registered farmers through 46 mandis. Initially, 43 millers who have delivered their CMR by September were allowed to participate in the procurement process. They were asked to procure paddy in the ratio of 1:6 over their security deposits with the Civil Supply Department.
Later, 47 millers, who had failed to deliver their CMR target by September, approached the department and sought more time. Following this, the Corporation allowed the millers to deliver their rice by December and participate in the procurement process. However, the millers were asked to procure paddy in the ratio of 1:1 ratio over their security deposits with the department. Later, the department also restricted 24 millers from participation in the procurement as they failed to deliver 10 per cent of CMR against their paddy.
Meanwhile, irate farmers have threatened to intensify their agitation if the State Government fails to resolve the matter soon.
District Civil Supply Officer BCH Dash said the issue would be resolved after arrival of the Managing Director of the corporation who is likely to visit the district to review paddy procurement soon
http://www.newindianexpress.com/states/odisha/2018/jan/11/paddy-purchase-stopped-farmers-start-distress-sale-1750525.html
CM for action against defaulting millers
January 11 2018
Bhubaneswar: Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik Wednesday directed officials of the Food Supplies and Consumer Welfare (FSCW) department to take stern action against millers who have not delivered rice against the allotted paddy stock within the deadline.
The CM was reviewing the paddy procurement in the state at Secretariat Wednesday. The FSCW department had earlier identified 81 defaulting millers and has stopped supply of rice to them as they had failed to return the same, against the paddy stock they had been allotted previously.
As per the provisions, the millers have to return the rice against the paddy stock within two months. The FSCW department is in the process of initiating legal action against the defaulting millers in case of further delay, sources said. While the target for Kharif 2017-18 is 56 lakh tonne this year the state government is hopeful that the procurement will cross 70 lakh tonnes.
The review meeting was informed that as of January 9 this Kharif season 11.05 lakh farmers have registered themselves to take part in the procurement. The number was 9.76 lakh during the orresponding period in last kharif.
Officials said that the state government has already procured 17.90 lakh tonne paddy from the farmers and has paid `2356.75 crore to them. Three lakh farmers have sold their paddy so far, they added.
During the meeting the Chief Minister asked official to ensure inclusion of more small and marginal farmers in the procurement process.
PNN
https://www.orissapost.com/cm-for-action-against-defaulting-millers/
Govt opens rice import option
Reporter: antara 16 hours ago
Illustration. Imported rice. ( ANTARA documentation/Oky Lukmansyah) ()
Jakarta (ANTARA News) - The government through the Ministry of Trade stated that it opened the option of importing special rice to strengthen the stock.
Trade Minister Enggartiasto Lukita asserted that if the imports is carried out by the government, then the rice to be imported is not that of the medium quality, but special rice and is done in an effort to strengthen government stock.
"Option of import is open, but I choose special rice only so that it would not harm our farmers and rice production," said Lukita, when met at his office in Jakarta on Wednesday.
The emergence of the rice import option is a response to the statement of Vice President Jusuf Kalla who asked state-logistics board Bulog to review rice import option to bring down rice prices at the consumer level. In recent times, the price of rice, especially that of the medium quality, has climbed and above the Highest Retail Price (HET) set by the government.
Based on data from Bulog, the current stock is approximately 950 thousand tons. Commercial rice stocks are only about 11 thousand tons, while cheap rice or rice assistance for the poor (rastra) is still declared safe is able to meet the needs of up to four months ahead.
Vice President Jusuf Kalla has asked for studies of import option of medium-grade rice to stabilize prices which continue to increase in the market.
"The import option is not prohibited but we asked that it should first be studied in case there is something necessary such as constant price increases that require immediate rice import," he told reporters at the Presidential Office on Tuesday.
The Vice President has earlier held a rice-related meeting with ministers and related officials.
The Vice President conveyed that response in relation to the continuing upward trend if rice price which has now reached more than Rp11,000 per kg, exceeding the highest retail price (HET) of Rp9.450 per kg.
The Basic Necessity Market Monitoring System (SP2KP) of the Trade Ministry, sees that the price of medium quality rice has continued to increase. On Sunday (Jan 7), the national average price of medium quality rice was Rp11,041 but on Monday it increased to Rp11,131 per kilogram and Tuesday it rose to Rp11,177 per kg.
The Vice President on the occasion asked state logistics board Bulog to conduct a massive market operation to curb the price increase.
Referring to the report of the Minister of Agriculture, Amran Sulaiman, according to Vice President, in January there will also be rice harvest for rice that was planted in October so that it will increase rice stock.
(A014/b003/B003)
(T.A014/A/KR-BSR/B003)
Editor: Heru Purwanto
https://en.antaranews.com/news/114217/govt-opens-rice-import-option
Rice exports seen surging to record as Bangladesh boosts buying
India’s rice exports likely jumped 22% in 2017 to a record 12.3 million tonnes as neighbouring Bangladesh ramped up purchases after flooding hit its crops
Last Published: Wed, Jan 10 2018. 02 14 PM IST
Rajendra JadhavRuma Paul
Bangladesh’s purchases likely lifted India’s non-basmati rice exports by 38% in 2017 to 8.4 million tonnes. Photo: Mint
Mumbai: India’s rice exports likely jumped 22% in 2017 to a record 12.3 million tonnes as neighbouring Bangladesh ramped up purchases after flooding hit its crops, industry officials told Reuters.
The boost in shipments from the world’s top exporter of the grain is set to extend into 2018 as Bangladesh and Sri Lanka continue to buy aggressively amid depleting inventories in No.2 exporter Thailand, the officials said.
“Bangladesh was actively buying throughout 2017. It offset the impact of slightly weaker demand from African countries,” said M. Adishankar, executive director at Sri Lalitha, a leading rice exporter located in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh.
Bangladesh’s purchases likely lifted India’s non-basmati rice exports by 38% in 2017 to 8.4 million tonnes and total exports to 12.3 million tonnes, the officials and exporters said. That would surpass 2014’s record of 11.5 million tonnes.
They based the 2017 export figures on their estimates for December shipments plus previously issued government data for January to November. Government numbers for December are expected to be released around the start of next month.
India exports non-basmati rice mainly to African and Asian countries and premium basmati rice to the Middle East, the United States and Britain.
Traditionally the world’s fourth-biggest rice producer, Bangladesh emerged as a major importer of the grain in 2017 after floods damaged crops and pushed domestic prices to record highs.
Bangladesh sourced more than 80% of its 2017 imports of 2.4 million tonnes from India, said Badrul Hasan, head of Bangladesh’s state grains buyer.
The South Asian nation’s overseas rice purchases are likely to remain robust until supply rises after its summer crop, also known as Boro, in May, Hasan said.
Boro contributes more than half Bangladesh’s typical annual rice output of around 35 million tonnes.
Last year Bangladesh reduced import taxes on rice to boost private buying. It also bought rice from India in state-to-state deals to quickly raise supplies and try to rein in prices.
But rice prices stayed high in Bangladesh despite the largest imports in nearly two decades, which will encourage farmers to expand the amount of land used to cultivate the staple crop, Hasan said.
Non-Basmati
India’s rice exports in 2018 depend largely on non-basmati shipments as basmati exports are likely to remain more-or-less steady at around 4 million tonnes, said Vijay Setia, president of the All India Rice Exporters’ Association.
“Non-basmati exports depend on stock positions in importing countries like Bangladesh and Sri Lanka,” Setia said.
African nations stepped up buying from Thailand last year, but that could ease in 2018 as state stockpiles are depleted in the Southeast Asian country, potentially boosting appetite for Indian supply, said a Mumbai-based dealer with a global trading firm.
“For key markets like Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, India has freight advantage over Thailand. This will help even in 2018,” the Mumbai-based dealer said
http://www.livemint.com/Politics/EQST3crSSl7qkf2FmWyuxH/Rice-exports-seen-surging-to-record-as-Bangladesh-boosts-buy.html
Thailand to export 9.5 mln tons of rice in 2018
BANGKOK, Jan. 10 (Xinhua) -- Thailand is expected to have some 9.5 million tons of rice for export this year, a senior government official said on Wednesday. The 9.5 million tons of the Thai rice will bring some 4.7 billion U.S. dollars in export value thoughout 2018, according to acting Foreign Trade Department director general Adul Chotinisakorn. That compared to last year's 11.48 million tons of the Thai rice which secured 5.1 billion U.S. dollars in export value, the acting department chief said. However, Thailand has remained the world's largest exporter of Hom Mali (fragrant jasmine) quality rice, he said. The forecast drop in the export volume of the Thai rice would apparently result from unfavorable weather conditions and the government's policy to cut down the overall producing volume for fear of oversupply to the world market.
http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2018-01/10/c_136885710.htm
India rice exports seen surging to record as Bangladesh boosts buying
10-Jan-2018
MUMBAI/DHAKA India's rice exports likely jumped 22 percent in 2017 to a record 12.3 million tonnes as neighbouring Bangladesh ramped up purchases after flooding hit its crops, industry officials said. The boost in shipments from the world's top exporter of the grain is set to extend into 2018 as Bangladesh and Sri Lanka continue to buy aggressively amid depleting inventories in No.2 exporter Thailand, the officials said. "Bangladesh was actively buying throughout ..
www.economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/6244259
Welcome to Rice News Today
Bangladesh develops first GMO rice variety
Daily Star | January 10, 2018
Scientists in Bangladesh have developed the country's first biotech rice variety giving farmers an answer to the difficulties they face in harvesting the staple with machines.
Stems of BRRIdhan-86, the variety that got release approval yesterday, are strong and stout and easy to reap by mechanical harvesters. This will come handy to farm owners, who have dearth of labourers and also find it difficult to use harvesters.
BRRI breeders told UNB that the new variety, with half a tonne of extra yield potential per hectare over the country's most produced rice variety BRRIdhan-28, is derived from Iranian rice variety Niamat through application of a biotech tool called anther culture.
Anther culture, applied for the first time in rice science in Bangladesh, is a biotech plant culturing technique where immature pollens are made to divide and grow into tissues either on solid and liquid medium.
The scientists at the Bangladesh Rice Research Institute (BRRI) have also developed a new rice variety with the highest ever zinc (27.6 mg/kg) content. BRRIdhan-84 also got approval along with three more new rice varieties yesterday.
...
The prospect of higher rice yield through the release of the new varieties also comes against the backdrop of diminishing returns from the country's rice fields.
https://geneticliteracyproject.org/2018/01/10/bangladesh-develops-first-gmo-rice-variety/
Ministry blames traders for rice price increase
•
News Desk
The Jakarta Post
Jakarta | Wed, January 10, 2018 | 06:47 pm
A worker carries a sack of rice at Cipinang Rice Wholesale Market in East Jakarta in an undated file photograph. (Antara/Makna Zaezar)
Trade Minister Anggartiasto Lukita has blamed the recent increase in rice prices on traders accused of controlling rice stocks.
“We have a food task force. We are tough against those who act suspiciously; we will not tolerate them,” Enggartiasto said on Tuesday while inspecting a rice warehouse owned by the National Logistics Agency (Bulog) in North Jakarta as quoted by kompas.com.
According to the National Strategic Food Prices Information Center (PIHPSN), the price of medium-quality rice reached Rp 14,100 (99 US cents) per kilogram on average, much higher than the price ceiling of Rp 9,450 per kg.
The highest price was found in West Papua at Rp 14,250 per kilogram, compared to the province’s price ceiling of Rp 10,250 per kg. The lowest price for rice, meanwhile, was found in West Nusa Tanggara (NTB), at Rp 9,740 per kg, which is still higher than the province’s price ceiling.
Enggartiasto remained upbeat that a planned “market operation” to maintain stable rice availability would push down prices.
“We will monitor [prices] in the coming days; they are expected to decrease,” he said, adding that the intervention would continue until prices fall below the price ceilings.
Previously, Bulog president director Djarot Kusumayakti said the agency had prepared 950,000 tons of rice for the market operation in 2018.
He said the market operation was held in cooperation with the Indonesian Rice Millers and Entrepreneurs Association (Perpadi).
“We met Perpadi yesterday [Tuesday] to discuss actions to lower rice prices,” he added. (bbn)
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2018/01/10/ministry-blames-traders-for-rice-price-increase.html
Global Rice Bran Oil Market 2018 – Ricela 79, SVROil 89, Vaighai 93, Jain Group of Industries 105
By
James Gorden
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January 11, 2018
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Rice Bran Oil Market 2018
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Rice Seed Market Report 2018-2023: Definitive Analysis and Competitive Landscape
The market for Global Rice Seed Market research report 2018 has been undergoing a transitional phase over the recent past. The continual advancements in technologies and the swift increase in infrastructural development projects have influenced the demand for market research report 2018 substantially over the past few years. The swift rise in urbanization and the significant increase in the disposable income of people are likely to maintain the demand pace of market research report 2018 in the near future. The augmenting interest of investors, government funding, and the rising trend of automation are also projected to reflect positively on this market in the years to come.
The regional analysis of the global Rice Seed market splits the market into key regions that include both continents as well as specific countries that are currently shining in terms of either demand volume or growth in demand volume. Users of the report can focus on these regions if they are looking to expand their borders of business. The key regions explained in the report include North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific (APAC), Middle East & Africa and Latin America. As mentioned before, emerging economies among the Asia Pacific countries are showing promising rates of increase in demand volume and are expected to be grounds for current players to expand their business as well as for new players.
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According to the research report, the global Rice Seed market is witnessing a continual rise in its valuation with the advancement in technologies, which is impacting the consumer behavior and, accordingly, their purchasing patterns to a great extent. In addition to this, the increasing penetration of internet and the surge in mobile surfing are anticipated to boost the market across the world, states the research report.
This research study presents an all-inclusive evaluation of the global Rice Seed market, taking various industry parameters, such as the capacity of production, product pricing, demand, supply, and sales dynamics, returns on investments, and the growth rate of the overall market into consideration.
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The research report profiles the key players of the global Rice Seed market and provides a definitive understanding of the competitive landscape. Furthermore, the publication also offers a thorough evaluation of the research and development activities of these players, analysis of their business and marketing strategies, and their financial outlooks. The research report also assesses the threat from new players and the bargaining power of suppliers and buyers. The publication also offers valuable insights into the key market trends through expert comments and recommendations.
The research report also presents a thorough assessment of the competitive landscape of the Global Rice Seed market research report 2018 by reviewing the company profiles of the leading players functioning in this market. The market hierarchy has also been identified in this study by analyzing the current developments and future prospects of these players.
Table of Content:
Global Rice Seed Market Research Report 2018-2023
Chapter 1 Global Rice Seed Market Overview
Chapter 2 Global Economic Impact
Chapter 3 Competition by Manufacturer
Chapter 4 Production, Revenue (Value) by Region (2018-2023)
Chapter 5 Supply (Production), Consumption, Export, Import by Regions (2018-2023)
Chapter 6 Production, Revenue (Value), Price Trend by Type
Chapter 7 Analysis by Application
Chapter 8 Manufacturing Cost Analysis
Chapter 9 Industrial Chain, Sourcing Strategy and Downstream Buyers
Chapter 10 Marketing Strategy Analysis, Distributors/Traders
Chapter 11 Market Effect Factors Analysis
Chapter 12 Market Forecast (2018-2023)
Chapter 13 Appendix
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ISLAMABAD: Basmati rice worth US$ 147.310 million was exported from the country during first five months of current financial year as compared the exports of US$ 143.294 million of the corresponding period of last year. Exports of basmati rice from the country grew by 2.80 percent during the period form July-November, 2017-18 as it was recorded at 144,093 metric tons as against the exports of 150,631 metric tons exported in the same period of last year. Meanwhile, rice other then basmati valuing US$ 497.060 million exported during the period under review as compared the exports of US$ 414.42 million of of same period last year, according the data of Pakistan Bureau of Statistics. During the period under review, about 1,206,877 metric tons of rice other then basmati exported as against the exports of 1,125,225 metric tons of same period last year, it added. In five months of current financial year, rice exports from the country grew by 15.62 percent as about 1,350,916 metric tons of rice valuing US$ 644.370 million exported as compared the exports of 1,275,856 million worth US$ 557.336 million of same period of last year, it added. On the other hand exports of rice from the country on month on month basis also witnessed an increase of 12.85 percent as about 435,688 metric tons of rice valuing US$ 188.707 million exported as compered the exports of 417,721 metric tons worth US$ 165.742 million of same period of last year. It is pertinent to mention here that the overall food exports from the country witnessed increase of 13.05 percent during the first five months of the current fiscal year against the same period of last year. The food exports from the country during July-November (2017-18) were recorded at $1491.592 million against the exports of $1319.381 million during July-November 2016-17), the data revealed. The total merchandize exports from the country during July-November (2017-18) stood at $9.030 billion against the exports of $8.173 billion during the correspondent period of last year, showing growth of 10.49 percent. The imports into the country during the period under review also increased by 21.12 percent, from $19.864 billion to $24.060 billion, according to the data. Based on the figures, the trade deficit during the first five months of the current year was recorded at $15.030 billion against the deficit of $11.691 billion, showing growth of 28.56 percent in the overall deficit.
https://www.brecorder.com/2018/01/10/391914/basmati-rice-worth-us-147-310mn-exported-in-last-five-months/
Turkey Reduces Rice Import Duties
By Hartwig Schmidt
ARLINGTON, VA -- In an effort to lower food price inflation the government of Turkey recently passed a law to reduce import duties on different types of rice. The new import regime was published in the Turkish Trade Registry Gazette on December 31, 2017, and listed new import duties that will be applied on imported goods as of January 2018.
The new import regime lowers import duties for paddy rice from 34 percent to 5 percent; for brown rice from 36 percent to 10 percent; and for milled rice from 45 percent to 15 percent.
Food inflation in Turkey is caused by the large difference between producer and consumer prices, increased costs for agricultural producers due to devaluation of Turkish currency, and stockpiled goods that lead to high market prices.
The new import duties take effect immediately and last until July 1, 2018, at which point the previous duties will be re-applied. The government also lowered duties on many other imported agricultural items, including meat, corn, beans, and walnuts.
Because Turkey has a zero-tolerance policy on GMOs, the tax reduction for milled rice opens opportunities for U.S. Southern medium grain rice. The milling process reduces the risk of cross-contamination with GMO corn or GMO soy, which has stopped the import of Southern paddy medium grain in the past.
DA to spend P500 million for expansion of rice-corn blend project
By
Jasper Y. Arcalas
-
January 10, 2018
The Department of Agriculture (DA) will shell out at least P500 million next year to sustain the rice-corn (RiCo) blend project, which seeks to improve the country’s food security and cut its dependence on rice imports.
“Part of what we need to support PhilMaize [Philippine Maize Federation Inc.] will be included in the GAA [General Appropriations Act] of 2019. It will be around half a billion,” Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel F. Piñol told reporters in a recent interview.
Piñol said the DA will help the PhilMaize to consolidate corn produced by farmers for the RiCo blend project, which is starting this year. For this, he added, he committed an initial P50 million to kickstart the program.
The DA chief disclosed that RiCo blends would be commercially sold in the market starting the second quarter. “Perhaps, we will sell first the pure corn grits and the 50-50 blend, which is easier to mix [than other blends].”
The 50-50 RiCo blend is a rice-corn mix that consists of 50 percent white rice and 50 percent yellow or white corn.
The RiCo project, which was spearheaded by PhilMaize, is now supported by the DA and the National Food Authority. Under the project, the NFA is tasked to handle the initial marketing of the RiCo blend in Metro Manila.
“We have engaged SM, Rustans, Robinsons and big supermarkets. We will also be penetrating big supermarkets in Cebu and palengkes [wet markets],” Piñol said.
He added the government wants to encourage the private sector to invest in the RiCo project. “We would be encouraging private-sector participation. Since we have established the link with the NFA and supermarkets, then we could allow the private sector to enter and participate in this program.”
“Under the project, we would buy directly from farmers and engage private groups, who will deal with the NFA, who, in turn, would be responsible for the mixing and marketing of the products,” Piñol added.
Earlier, National Corn Competitiveness Board Executive Chairman and PhilMaize Chairman Emeritus Roderico R. Bioco said corn growers are targeting to sell 30,000 metric tons (MT) of RiCo this year to determine the product’s acceptability.
PhilMaize has decided to go into selling the RiCo blend to complement efforts of the government to achieve rice self-sufficiency and reduce the country’s reliance on imports.
Earlier the DA chief said the consumption of rice-corn blend could wipe out the country’s rice-supply shortfall by 2019.
“[RiCo] would end the country’s rice-supply shortfall with the infusion in 2019 of about 500,000 MT of corn grits and 1 million MT in 2020, thus effectively achieving food-staple sufficiency for only the second time in the history of the country,” Piñol said.
Piñol added the RiCo blend will be affordable because it will be sold at around P35 per kilogram, lower than the P50 per kg consumers spend for white rice
https://businessmirror.com.ph/da-to-spend-p500-million-for-expansion-of-rice-corn-blend-project/
India rice exports seen surging to record as Bangladesh boosts buying
Reuters Staff
4 MIN READ
* Industry officials say exports likely hit record in 2017
* Boost in shipments set to continue this year
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* Bangladesh has stepped up buying in wake of floods
By Rajendra Jadhav and Ruma Paul
MUMBAI/DHAKA, Jan 10 (Reuters) - India’s rice exports likely jumped 22 percent in 2017 to a record 12.3 million tonnes as neighbouring Bangladesh ramped up purchases after flooding hit its crops, industry officials told Reuters.
The boost in shipments from the world’s top exporter of the grain is set to extend into 2018 as Bangladesh and Sri Lanka continue to buy aggressively amid depleting inventories in No.2 exporter Thailand, the officials said.
“Bangladesh was actively buying throughout 2017. It offset the impact of slightly weaker demand from African countries,” said M. Adishankar, executive director at Sri Lalitha, a leading rice exporter located in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh.
Bangladesh’s purchases likely lifted India’s non-basmati rice exports by 38 percent in 2017 to 8.4 million tonnes and total exports to 12.3 million tonnes, the officials and exporters said. That would surpass 2014’s record of 11.5 million tonnes.
They based the 2017 export figures on their estimates for December shipments plus previously issued government data for January to November. Government numbers for December are expected to be released around the start of next month.
India exports non-basmati rice mainly to African and Asian countries and premium basmati rice to the Middle East, the United States and Britain.
Traditionally the world’s fourth-biggest rice producer, Bangladesh emerged as a major importer of the grain in 2017 after floods damaged crops and pushed domestic prices to record highs.
Bangladesh sourced more than 80 percent of its 2017 imports of 2.4 million tonnes from India, said Badrul Hasan, head of Bangladesh’s state grains buyer.
The South Asian nation’s overseas rice purchases are likely to remain robust until supply rises after its summer crop, also known as Boro, in May, Hasan said.
Boro contributes more than half Bangladesh’s typical annual rice output of around 35 million tonnes.
Last year Bangladesh reduced import taxes on rice to boost private buying. It also bought rice from India in state-to-state deals to quickly raise supplies and try to rein in prices.
But rice prices stayed high in Bangladesh despite the largest imports in nearly two decades, which will encourage farmers to expand the amount of land used to cultivate the staple crop, Hasan said.
NON-BASMATI
India’s rice exports in 2018 depend largely on non-basmati shipments as basmati exports are likely to remain more-or-less steady at around 4 million tonnes, said Vijay Setia, president of the All India Rice Exporters’ Association.
“Non-basmati exports depend on stock positions in importing countries like Bangladesh and Sri Lanka,” Setia said.
African nations stepped up buying from Thailand last year, but that could ease in 2018 as state stockpiles are depleted in the Southeast Asian country, potentially boosting appetite for Indian supply, said a Mumbai-based dealer with a global trading firm.
“For key markets like Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, India has freight advantage over Thailand. This will help even in 2018,” the Mumbai-based dealer said.
Reporting by Rajendra Jadhav in Mumbai and Ruma Paul in Dhaka; Editing by Joseph Radford
Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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https://www.reuters.com/article/india-bangladesh-rice/india-rice-exports-seen-surging-to-record-as-
Rice import rockets 18 times through Hili port
• Halim Al Raji, Hili (Dinajpur) Correspondent
• Published at 01:47 AM January 11, 2018
Trucks loaded with rice at the Hili portDhaka Tribune
Around 120-130 truckloads of rice is being imported through the port nowadays as the demand in the local market has been high
Import of rice through Hili land port has hit a record height in the last five years.
Bangladesh imported 360,607 metric tons of rice from India through the port in 2017, whereas the import was about 18 times less – 20,675 metric tons – in 2016.
The amount of rice import through the port in 2017 is only about 90,000 tonnes less than the total amount of rice import over the four preceeding years. Its import from 2013-2016 stood at 451,985 metric tons, according to sources at Hili port authorities.
A lower output of the staple crop in the last Boro and Aman seasons prompted the government to lower the duty on rice import from 28% to 2%, which is widely being considered as the driving force behind such a huge leap in the import through the port.
Mamunur Rashid, a rice importer, told the Dhaka Tribune: “As the commerce ministry lowered the duty on rice import from 28% to 2% in June 20, 2016, huge quantities of rice started to pour in the country from India. But the Indian exporters also took advantage of the duty cut. They increased the export prices of different rice varieties by $40-50.
“Under such circumstance, the government, in its bid to keep the market price of rice at a tolerable limit, lowered the duty again on August 16 last year and fixed it to 2% from 10%.”
Rajib Dutt, another rice importer, noted that around 120-130 truckloads of rice is being imported through the port nowadays as the demand in the local market has been high.
Rajib also noted that with the supply of newly harvested local paddy hitting the market, the Indian traders had lowered the export price a bit. “They have lowered export price and fixed it at $430-435 which is leading to the restoration of a bit of stability in the rice market of recent.”
At present the coarse rice (Guti Swarna) is being sold at Tk38-39 per kilogram in the retail market around Hili, he added.
Rice import rockets 18 times through Hili port
• Halim Al Raji, Hili (Dinajpur) Correspondent
• Published at 01:47 AM January 11, 2018
Trucks loaded with rice at the Hili portDhaka Tribune
Around 120-130 truckloads of rice is being imported through the port nowadays as the demand in the local market has been high
Import of rice through Hili land port has hit a record height in the last five years.
Bangladesh imported 360,607 metric tons of rice from India through the port in 2017, whereas the import was about 18 times less – 20,675 metric tons – in 2016.
The amount of rice import through the port in 2017 is only about 90,000 tonnes less than the total amount of rice import over the four preceeding years. Its import from 2013-2016 stood at 451,985 metric tons, according to sources at Hili port authorities.
A lower output of the staple crop in the last Boro and Aman seasons prompted the government to lower the duty on rice import from 28% to 2%, which is widely being considered as the driving force behind such a huge leap in the import through the port.
Mamunur Rashid, a rice importer, told the Dhaka Tribune: “As the commerce ministry lowered the duty on rice import from 28% to 2% in June 20, 2016, huge quantities of rice started to pour in the country from India. But the Indian exporters also took advantage of the duty cut. They increased the export prices of different rice varieties by $40-50.
“Under such circumstance, the government, in its bid to keep the market price of rice at a tolerable limit, lowered the duty again on August 16 last year and fixed it to 2% from 10%.”
Rajib Dutt, another rice importer, noted that around 120-130 truckloads of rice is being imported through the port nowadays as the demand in the local market has been high.
Rajib also noted that with the supply of newly harvested local paddy hitting the market, the Indian traders had lowered the export price a bit. “They have lowered export price and fixed it at $430-435 which is leading to the restoration of a bit of stability in the rice market of recent.”
At present the coarse rice (Guti Swarna) is being sold at Tk38-39 per kilogram in the retail market around Hili, he added.
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Be wary of fake rice-import permits, NFA tells traders
By Jasper Y. Arcalas
January 10, 2018
The National Food Authority (NFA) on Wednesday revealed that three fake import permits for the 2017 minimum access volume (MAV) private-sector rice import scheme were sold to local traders and importers.
NFA Administrator Jason L.Y. Aquino said the Philippine International Trading Corp. (PITC) brought to his attention the three import permits supposedly issued by the food agency to the PITC. The PITC, a government-owned and -controlled corporation (GOCC) under the Department of Trade and Industry, wrote to the NFA last December 22 to verify the veracity of the import permits.
“The PITC has not applied for any rice-import permits with the NFA and neither authorized any party to apply for and in behalf of the PITC for such permits for 2017,” the GOCC said in its letter to the NFA.
Upon verification, Aquino said the three import permits were, indeed, spurious. In a letter-reply dated December 27, the NFA assured the PITC that an investigation on the matter will be conducted.
The three import permits covered a total of 42,000 metric tons (MT) of rice and were issued last August 24 and October 10. The ports of discharge were Davao for the 5,000 MT of imported rice and Cebu for the 7,000 MT. The third fake import permits for 30,000 MT of rice did not specify the port of discharge.
Aside from the fact that the NFA did not issue any of three import permits under the 2017 MAV rice-importation program, the agency also clarified that the scheduled arrival of rice imports under Phase 1 of the 2017 MAV was set for December 20, 2017 to February 28, and for Phase 2 imports should arrive between June 1 and August 31.
“Also, based on the NFA Council-approved guidelines, the import permit under the 2017 MAV rice-importation program has a validity period of only 15 calendar days from the date of issuance and not for one year as specified in the spurious import permits,” the NFA said in a statement.
The PITC said the fake import permits are being offered or sold by unscrupulous parties to traders and importers.
Republic Act 10845 (RA), or the “Anti-Agricultural Smuggling Act of 2016,” classifies under Section 3 large-scale agricultural smuggling as economic sabotage. This includes “rice, with a minimum amount of P10 million, as valued by the Bureau of Customs, committed through any of the following acts: (a) Importing or bringing into the Philippines without the required import permit from the regulatory agencies; (b) Using import permits of persons, natural or juridical, other than those specifically named in the permit; and (c) Using fake, fictitious or fraudulent import permits or shipping documents.”
Under the section on penalties, Section 4 of RA 10845 specifies the penalty of life imprisonment and fine of twice the value of the smuggled agricultural product in addition to payment of taxes, duties and other charges against anyone found guilty of economic sabotage.
Any person or entity found guilty under the anti-agricultural smuggling law shall also suffer the penalty of perpetual absolute disqualification to engage in any business involving
importation.
https://businessmirror.com.ph/be-wary-of-fake-rice-import-permits-nfa-tells-traders/
Fertilizer Runoff is a Boon to Mosquito Growth
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A new study shows that fertilizer present in water where mosquitoes such as Anopheles gambiae breed can boost growth of bacteria, algae, and fungi, which mosquito larvae feed on, resulting in accelerated larval development and greater survival rates to adulthood. (Photo credit: James Gathany, CDC Public Health Image Library)
As mosquitoes seek standing water to lay their eggs, many are attracted to water rife with plant matter, which serves as a food source for larvae as they develop. Examples of such locations range from backyard flowerpots to flooded rice paddies. But what happens when humans apply a fertilizer that runs off into the mosquitoes’ breeding sites?
A new study published in December in the Journal of Medical Entomology shows the mosquitoes of at least two species develop both faster and in greater numbers when plant matter and fertilizer are combined in the water where the mosquito larvae grow.
Frédéric Darriet, a researcher at France’s Institute of Research for Development (MIVEGEC), tested the larval growth rate and adult emergence of Aedes aegypti and Anopheles gambiae mosquitoes in laboratory breeding settings containing varying levels of nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium fertilizer and plant matter. Across the tests, 1.7 to 3 times as many mosquito larvae developed to adulthood in settings with both plant matter and fertilizer compared to those in water with plant matter alone, and the mosquitoes’ development rate was two to four times as fast on the combo, as well.
“Fertilizer is not directly assimilated by the mosquito larvae,” says Frédéric Darriet. “However, the three minerals [nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium] enhance the development of bacteria, algae, and fungi, increasing the food biomass of the breeding sites. Larvae of mosquitoes exploit this additional biomass to proliferate.”
The mosquitoes seem to sense this advantage, too. In previous research, Frédéric Darriet found female mosquitoes were more attracted to breeding sites with chemical fertilizers in them. The problem, though, is not just one of simple proliferation of potentially disease-carrying mosquitoes. Because pesticides are often used alongside fertilizers in agricultural settings—again, think of those rice paddies—the conditions are ripe for accelerated insecticidal resistance developing in mosquitoes as well.
“The selection pressure induced is huge, and the resistance mechanisms present in the mosquitoes are selected all the more rapidly and efficiently as the mineral fertilizations and the insecticide treatments are frequent within a time span,” says Frédéric Darriet. “All my research on the subject shows us how the not-so-well-thought-out use of pesticides and fertilizers in agriculture not only impacts the mosquito environment but even generates new ecological systems beneficial to the proliferation of mosquitoes.”
These hotspots for mosquitoes fall into something of a no-man’s land between agriculture and mosquito management, both in practice and research.
“Insofar as the interface of agriculture and public health doesn’t come under the farmer’s competences nor the ones of the vector-control services, there still is a huge research area even nowadays that has only partly been explored,” Frédéric Darriet says. “The synergy of such a partnership between the scientists, the rice-growers, and the vector-control services would initiate pluridisciplinary research programs whose goal would be to protect the crops while reducing the mosquito populations as much as possible.
https://entomologytoday.org/2018/01/10/fertilizer-runoff-boon-mosquito-growth/
How Rice Pudding Gave Me Courage
By DORIE GREENSPAN JAN. 10, 2018
Rice pudding. CreditGentl and Hyers for The New York Times. Food stylist: Maggie Ruggiero. Prop stylist: Amy Wilson.
Our son was still only crawling when Marie-Cécile, a young Frenchwoman, became his babysitter. That she stayed with us for years explains why he has a near-perfect French accent and why I know the lyrics and accompanying hand motions to nursery songs from the 1960s. It’s also why I know the expression au pif.The first time I heard the words (pronounced “oh peef”) was when I asked Marie-Cécile how she made the rice pudding that was cooling on the counter. “Au pif,” she said, bouncing her index finger off the tip of her nose as though she were playing charades. Encouraged to give a definition, she shrugged her shoulders and shook her head slowly.As a noun, pif is slang for nose, and au pif can mean randomly, roughly or off the top of your head. Having cooked with Marie-Cécile a few times before then, I should have guessed that it had something to do with feeling your way around a dish. Marie-Cécile never turned to a recipe, not even to check a measurement, a step or a tip. She cooked simple, satisfying food, calmly and assuredly, partly from memories of things 3,600 miles away and partly from good kitchen sense.
Although it sounds most adorable in French, au pif is the way people everywhere cook. A dash of this. A bit of that. We toss broccoli into the pasta because we find some in the corner of the vegetable bin. We put the stew to braise in the oven when the stovetop is full; open the spice drawer, see star anise and flavor a stir-fry with it. We cook with what we have on hand, making changes to recipes as we go along. Sometimes cooking au pif is creative; sometimes it’s practical; and most of the time we don’t even think about it. It’s just how we move about the kitchen. It’s how we put together a meal — until we get to dessert, which so often involves more precision than inspiration.
Marie-Cécile never turned to a recipe, not even to check a measurement, a step or a tip.
Marie-Cécile’s desserts were never exact, formal or fussy. Those she returned to often — poached fruit; baked apples; a thick, sweet pancake; and a memorable rice pudding — were made in the spirit of au pif. I thought of them as this-and-that sweets: A little more of this or a little less of that, and they would still be fine. If precision were important and if recipes were required, Marie-Cécile, like so many good cooks faced with flour, sugar, butter and measuring cups, was timid.
When I knew her, I was timid, too. I was just learning to bake and hadn’t yet discovered that within the bounds of a recipe, a baker with an imagination could find room to play.
Simple rice pudding like Marie-Cécile’s — rice and sweetened milk cooked until soft and thick — was the first dessert I found the courage to play with. It was easy and rewarding to simmer the rice with bits of dried fruit that plumped and flavored the milk, fat strips of orange or lemon zest, a cinnamon stick, a few crushed cardamom pods, a hunk of ginger or a spoonful of dried lavender, which no one liked as much as I did. One day I stirred some dark chocolate into the almost-finished pudding, and that became my family’s favorite version. I folded crème fraîche into the cold pudding when I was serving it to guests. Company pudding also got a drizzle of caramel, honey, maple syrup or raspberry sauce, and sometimes fruit on top or alongside: apples or pears sautéed with butter and sugar in winter, berries in summer and orange slices year-round. Once, I topped the pudding with ice cream and hot fudge and called it a sundae.
From pudding, I went on to cookies and cakes, pies, custards, brownies and blondies, finding them all amenable to tweaks and reshaping. The first time I follow a recipe, I make it just the way it’s written: I want to understand what it’s meant to be. And then, I follow my pif, often adding spices, nuts or extracts to batters, cajoling dough into new forms, making cupcakes from recipes designed for towering layer cakes, doubling up on frosting or going heavy on chocolate chunks in just about anything, because I now know I can. I don’t tap my nose the way Marie-Cécile once did, but as I think about transforming her long-loved recipes, I’m almost tempted to
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/10/magazine/dessert-rice-pudding-courage-france.html Weather-weather lang ’yan: How nanoparticles can boost food supply despite climate change
By
Prime Sarmiento
-
January 10, 2018
in Photo: Photograph of butterhead lettuce harvested after one month in a normal greenhouse
In one of my previous columns (https://businessmirror.com.ph/old-and-new-technologies-support-climate-smart-agriculture), I discussed how old and new technologies are promoting climate-smart agriculture (CSA). This farming system, which is espoused by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), is not a novel concept as traditional farming practices like crop rotation and rainwater harvesting can be considered climate-smart, which, in this case, can refer to any practice and technology that can cut emissions while simultaneously raising yields and building farmers’ resilience.
Farmers are long used to changing weather patterns and have since adjusted their life and livelihood to cater to these changes. Who else but a farmer (and, of course, an influence peddler) can understand the many layers of meaning encapsulated in that catchphrase “weather-weather lang ’yan”? But climate change is a relatively new phenomenon and it has brought extreme weather events such as a more severe dry spell, stronger typhoons and heavy flooding that don’t only hurt farmers but all of us who have to live with declining food production. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said crop yields will decline by as much as 25 percent by 2050 owing to climate change. The FAO said extreme weather events can also cause more frequent and intense plant pest and disease outbreaks, as was the case during the desert locust outbreaks in Northwest Africa and in Yemen in late-2015 and early-2016. It also doesn’t help that the agriculture sector itself is a major carbon emitter, accounting for at least 20 percent of total greenhouse-gas emissions.
Photograph of butterhead lettuce harvested after one month in a greenhouse with anti-thermal coating
This is why it’s important too to explore novel technologies that have been developed in recent years to address these new challenges. As Matthew Tan, co-chairman of the Apec Partnership on Food Security, said in my recent interview with him, farmers need to learn to embrace new technology to make agriculture sustainable. Tan, who also serves as adjunct associate professor of the Nanyang Technological University (NTU), cited two climate-farming technologies that the Singapore-based university has developed and were launched in 2016: anti-thermal coating and a nano-gel that will help soil absorb more water.
Of the two, Tan told me that it’s the anti-thermal coating which is now commercially available and has gained interest not only in Singapore but in other countries like Hong Kong and Japan. Applying anti-thermal coating on a greenhouse’s roof can block about 90 percent of the heat and still allow light to pass through and help plants to grow and thrive.
This coating is a product of a research project that started in 2013 and is in response to the university’s staff request to make the school atrium cooler. But the research team, which is composed of scientists and researchers of NTU’s Energy Research Institute and the School of Materials Science and Engineering, didn’t only end up with a paint additive that could cool the university atrium but also has the potential to help farms adapt to a warmer temperature brought by climate change.
“If these changes in temperature are expected to worsen over the next 30 years, then understanding the potential impacts on the plant growth and development, as well as finding ways to overcome this issue, will help develop adaptation strategies to offset these impacts,” NTU senior scientist Dr. Goh Chin Foo said in an e-mail interview with the BusinessMirror.
Goh, who led the team that developed the anti-thermal coating, said the coating is based on nanoparticles that can be mixed with any paint. The final coating, when applied to any roof, could control the amount of light that can be transmitted or reflected through the greenhouse’s roof. The team validated its findings by applying the coating on the roof of a greenhouse owned by Oh Chin Huat hydrophonic farm in March 2017.
“Results showed that the solar reflective additive coated set blocked more than 20 percent of solar radiation energy and led to better growth of plants when compared to the uncoated one,” he said. Goh showed me photos of butterhead lettuce to illustrate his point. After one month of raising butterhead lettuce in separate greenhouses, the NTU team learned that those grown in a greenhouse with anti-thermal coating are heavier, with 10 samples of lettuce weighing 98 grams, while those raised without the coating weighed 78.6 grams.
Another technology, this time developed by NTU together with the National Parks Board, is a nano-gel—a water-absorbent nano-molecule that has soil-conditioning capabilities. When one sprays the solution on the soil, the soil can become a mini-reservoir—it can lock in excess water and release it during a prolonged period of drought. The nano-gel is not yet commercially available but is now being tested in the plants being grown by the National Parks Board and at the greenhouse of the National Institute of Education.
Apart from NTU, several key research agencies and universities have been developing climate-smart farm technologies in respond to these challenges.
Not far from home is the Los Baños-based International Rice Research Institute. Together with local partners, the IRRI has developed the alternate wetting and drying (AWD) technology that has been introduced to several countries, such as Thailand, Vietnam and the Philippines. Farmers using AWD alternately flood and dry their rice fields and can reduce a rice farm’s water consumption by 30 percent and methane emission by 50 percent. The IRRI has also developed climate-ready rice varieties that can tolerate climate stresses like drought, heat, salinity and flooding.
At the New Zealand Agricultural Greenhouse Gas Research Centre, scientists are developing a vaccine to purge cow stomachs of methanogens—the microbes that convert hydrogen into methane—and reduce the methane emitted by burping cows and ruminants. In India nonprofit farm tech start-up Kheyti is developing a low-cost modular greenhouse that can reduce heat stress and boost crop yield.
But such technologies will only be effective in promoting climate-smart agriculture if they will be widely adopted by farmers, specifically the 500 million smallholders who account for more than 80 percent of the world’s farming communities. The FAO said most smallholders still have limited access to the innovations, technology, knowledge and information owing to a decline in public-sector extension services. But Tan said price might deter farmers from adopting new technology. But he’s confident that government subsidies and the fact that the cost of technology goes down in the future can help farmers use these new technologies.
A separate statement issued by the IRRI noted that, while these technologies are scalable, that does not necessarily mean that they propagate by themselves without further inputs. This is why the IRRI regularly conducts training sessions to promote the new technologies that the agency has developed. More important, any technology and practices will need to be customized to fit the specific needs of a local farming community in order for it to
be scalable.
https://businessmirror.com.ph/weather-weather-lang-yan-how-nanoparticles-can-boost-food-supply-despite-climate-change/
Thailand's 2017 rice exports hit record 11.48 million tonnes
WED, JAN 10, 2018 - 5:01 PM
[BANGKOK] Thailand exported a record 11.48 million tonnes of rice in 2017, the commerce ministry said on Wednesday.
The amount, which surpassed the previous record of 10.96 million tonnes in 2014, was worth over US$5.1 billion, said Adul Chotinisakorn, deputy chief of the commerce ministry's department of foreign trade.
Thailand, the world's second-biggest rice exporter after India, is expected to ship out 9.5 million tonnes of rice worth US$4.7 billion this year.
A lower forecast is maintained as bad weather is affecting the crops, Adul said.
He added Thailand will be pursuing government-to-government deals this year with many countries, including Iraq, Iran and Indonesia, in addition to Bangladesh and China.
Thailand exported 9.88 million tonnes of rice in 2016.
Final Tally for Rice Ridge Fire Costs
January 11, 2018
Nathan Bourne, Pathfinder
A DC-10 drops a line of retardant on the south flank of the Rice Ridge Fire Saturday, Sept. 2 (left). The fire made a push towards the north end of Seeley Lake, but aerial resources were able to hold the spot fire. Saturday, Dec. 30 the same photo was taken after the valley was blanketed in more than 30 inches of snow.
SEELEY LAKE - U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue announced Sept. 14 that wildland fire suppression costs for the fiscal year exceeded $2 billion, making 2017 the most expensive year on record. The price tag for Montana's fires was nearly $400 million by the end of September. This included $62 million of state funding.
The Rice Ridge and Lolo Peak fires traded places for the most expensive fire in Montana for the year. As of Oct. 3, when command of the Rice Ridge Fire was returned to the Seeley Lake Ranger District, the incident cost $49.1 million. That is roughly $307 per acre for the 160,187 acre fire. The Burned Area Emergency Response work that is on-going through the end of the summer of 2018 is funded separately.
The Rice Ridge fire's direct suppression costs totaled nearly $30.5 million for suppression efforts from July 24-Oct. 3. This included $12.7 million for equipment; $9 million for aircraft; nearly $5.4 million for firefighting crews; and $3.3 million for line personnel.
Indirect costs made up the remaining $18.6 million including the camp support and personnel. Camp support included land-use agreements; facilities at the camp and on the fire; buses, showers, supplies, water tenders and the caterer paying out at $13.1 million. The camp personnel cost $5.5 million.
In comparison, the Liberty Fire that burned 28,689 acres southwest of Seeley Lake cost $20.3 million on its last report Sept. 19. Suppression cost $708 per acre.
http://www.seeleylake.com/story/2018/01/11/news/final-tally-for-rice-ridge-fire-costs/3103.html
RDB loans $30M to boost rice purchases
Cheng Sokhorng | Publication date 10 January 2018 | 19:07 ICT
A woman harvests her rice crop at a paddy field in Phnom Penh’s Dangkor district in 2016. Heng Chivoan
The government has provided $30 million in loans to rice millers since September to facilitate the purchase of paddy rice, with the head of a state-run bank saying more money was available if necessary.
The loans were issued to 38 rice millers by the state-owned Rural Development Bank (RDB) following September’s rice harvest, and would need to be paid back by April this year, according to RDB’s CEO Kao Thach.
“Demand for loans keeps increasing, however it still has not met what the government has provided,” Thach said. “We still hope the need for loans will increase by next harvest season, as capacity of storage and drying will be ready.”
Over the past two years, the RDB has focused on beefing up millers’ storage and drying capacity to improve processing and enable the staggered purchase of paddy rice, which could raise paddy rice prices and help farmers.
That effort has proved moderately successful, though some farmers have said that other issues, such as lack of access to water and pests, have eaten into any profits that higher prices might have brought.
Rice miller Khmer Food group, which received about $10 million loan from the RDB last year to expand drying and storage facilities, has received about $1 million this season from the RDB to buy paddy rice, according to CEO Kim Savuth.
“The demand of the international rice market has increased, and rice millers saw the opportunity for profit, so they applied for loans to buy the paddy rice,” Savuth said. He also predicted the demand for loans would increase as the expanded storage and drying facilities came online in the coming months.
The emergency rice fund was launched with $27 million in September 2016, following large protests from rice farmers in Battambang province. The government injected another $23 million in August last year.
Savuth, who is also the vice-president of the Cambodia Rice Federation, said that while the ADB’s actions had provided relief for the rice sector, persistent problems – such as high logistical costs and bloated energy prices – were still threats to the industry.
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/business/rdb-loans-30m-boost-rice-purchases
Ministry blames traders for rice price increase
Jakarta | Wed, January 10, 2018 | 06:47 pm
A worker carries a sack of rice at Cipinang Rice Wholesale Market in East Jakarta in an undated file photograph. (Antara/Makna Zaezar)
Trade Minister Anggartiasto Lukita has blamed the recent increase in rice prices on traders accused of controlling rice stocks.
“We have a food task force. We are tough against those who act suspiciously; we will not tolerate them,” Enggartiasto said on Tuesday while inspecting a rice warehouse owned by the National Logistics Agency (Bulog) in North Jakarta as quoted by kompas.com.
According to the National Strategic Food Prices Information Center (PIHPSN), the price of medium-quality rice reached Rp 14,100 (99 US cents) per kilogram on average, much higher than the price ceiling of Rp 9,450 per kg.
The highest price was found in West Papua at Rp 14,250 per kilogram, compared to the province’s price ceiling of Rp 10,250 per kg. The lowest price for rice, meanwhile, was found in West Nusa Tanggara (NTB), at Rp 9,740 per kg, which is still higher than the province’s price ceiling.
Enggartiasto remained upbeat that a planned “market operation” to maintain stable rice availability would push down prices.
“We will monitor [prices] in the coming days; they are expected to decrease,” he said, adding that the intervention would continue until prices fall below the price ceilings.
Previously, Bulog president director Djarot Kusumayakti said the agency had prepared 950,000 tons of rice for the market operation in 2018.
He said the market operation was held in cooperation with the Indonesian Rice Millers and Entrepreneurs Association (Perpadi).
“We met Perpadi yesterday [Tuesday] to discuss actions to lower rice prices,” he added. (bbn)
Chili price reaches Rp 140,000 per kg in Jakarta
Jakarta | Wed, January 11, 2017 | 02:50 pm
A farmer shows bad chilies in Montok village, Pamekasan, East Java, on Jan. 6. The price of bird’s eye chili has been rising due to changing weather that affects crops. (Antara/Saiful Bahri)
The price of chili reached Rp 140,000 (US$ 10.52) at Palmerah Market in West Jakarta on Wednesday, although the price from farmers was still lower than Rp 30,000.
Deputy chairman of House of Representatives Commission IV, overseeing agricultural affairs, Herman Khaeron expressed concern over the skyrocketing price of bird’s eye chili.
“On Jan. 11, prices were still between Rp 50,000 and Rp 55,000, but now the price has reached Rp 140,000 per kiloliter at this market,” said Herman as quoted by tribunnews.com while visiting the market on Wednesday.
“It is an irrational price as the farmer only gets less than Rp 30,000,” he added.
(Read also: Chili price hike bites sellers at Kramat Jati market)
He suspected a distribution issue, as many regions were able to harvest chili normally. He expressed the hope that the government would pay serious attention to the distribution of the commodity to ensure that it took place smoothly.
But President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo said the price hike of the commodity was particularly caused by the unfavorable weather to plant chili.
Sellers and restaurants have said that they have been affected by the rising price of bird’s eye chili—a key ingredient in many Indonesian dishes. (bbn)
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2017/01/11/chili-price-reaches-rp-140000-per-kg-in-jakarta.html
Local paddy rice processors beg for training in Jigawa
By Aliyu M. Hamagam, Dutse | Publish Date: Jan 11 2018 2:00AM
•
Rice parboilling in progress
Though parboiling and milling of paddy rice is one of the fastest growing small scale businesses in Jigawa State, owing to increase in the production of the crop, majority if not all of the processors ventured into it without formal training.
Most of the processors engaged in parboiling and milling rice rely on the traditional procedure of boiling the grain before milling it for the production of processed rice that is free of stones and other debris.
Hadejia zone is the hub of such business in the state, being the area where the crop is largely produced, though, despite the concentration of the processors, the available market for the commodity is limited to some local government areas within the zone. This is because they hardly produce enough to supply other markets beyond Hadejia.
This reporter, who visited some of areas, gathered that majority of those in the business follow the traditional way of processing the commodity, particularly the parboiling procedure.
Daily Trust gathered that some of the millers processed as much as 60 bags of paddy rice daily at the peak of production while at some other period the production drops to as low as 30 bags.
Speaking to our reporter, one of the rice processors, Alhaji Awaisu Umar, said he did not know about any other effective procedure of processing paddy rice than the traditional way.
“We process our paddy rice using the traditional method. We have never received any training or assistance from either government or any private sector concern. “Lack of exposure to new techniques of processing paddy rice into polished rice is a great setback for our business.
“In the past, many organisations from the private sector, mostly NGOs and other international donor partners promised to give us some form of assistance and training but that is yet to happen,” he said.
Also speaking to Daily Trust, another rice miller, Yahaya Umar Latafa, said he did not acquire any formal training apart from his traditional knowledge of processing rice. He said after parboiling the rice for eight to 10 hours, it will be dried and winnowed before milling.
According to him, for the parboiling of 30 bags of paddy rice to be effectively done, he needed a truck load of firewood which they usually bought at the cost of N16,000.
On how they get their supply, Latafa said they buy from farmers through their agents saying, they buy a bag of paddy rice at the cost of N8,500 to 9,000 depending on the season.
https://www.dailytrust.com.ng/local-paddy-rice-processors-beg-for-training-in-jigawa.html
Paddy purchase stopped, farmers start distress sale
By Express News Service | Published: 11th January 2018 04:46 AM |
Last Updated: 11th January 2018 07:11 AM |
JEYPORE: With closure of mandis following dispute over delivery of custom milled rice (CMR), distress sale of paddy has been reported in several parts of the tribal-dominated Koraput district.
Sources said, the Odisha State Civil Supply Corporation had recently stopped paddy procurement for kharif marketing season abruptly after the rice millers met their ‘limited target’.
As a result of restriction on paddy procurement target, only seven lakh quintals have been procured so far, while more than 10 lakh quintals are yet to be purchased from farmers.
Taking advantage of the situation, private traders are purchasing paddy from the doorstep of farmers much below the minimum support price (MSP). This year, the MSP of common variety of paddy conforming to fair average quality (FAQ) is `1,550 per quintal, while Grade-A variety has been fixed at `1,590.
This year, the district administration had targeted to procure 14 lakh quintals of paddy from the registered farmers through 46 mandis. Initially, 43 millers who have delivered their CMR by September were allowed to participate in the procurement process. They were asked to procure paddy in the ratio of 1:6 over their security deposits with the Civil Supply Department.
Later, 47 millers, who had failed to deliver their CMR target by September, approached the department and sought more time. Following this, the Corporation allowed the millers to deliver their rice by December and participate in the procurement process. However, the millers were asked to procure paddy in the ratio of 1:1 ratio over their security deposits with the department. Later, the department also restricted 24 millers from participation in the procurement as they failed to deliver 10 per cent of CMR against their paddy.
Meanwhile, irate farmers have threatened to intensify their agitation if the State Government fails to resolve the matter soon.
District Civil Supply Officer BCH Dash said the issue would be resolved after arrival of the Managing Director of the corporation who is likely to visit the district to review paddy procurement soon
http://www.newindianexpress.com/states/odisha/2018/jan/11/paddy-purchase-stopped-farmers-start-distress-sale-1750525.html
CM for action against defaulting millers
January 11 2018
Bhubaneswar: Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik Wednesday directed officials of the Food Supplies and Consumer Welfare (FSCW) department to take stern action against millers who have not delivered rice against the allotted paddy stock within the deadline.
The CM was reviewing the paddy procurement in the state at Secretariat Wednesday. The FSCW department had earlier identified 81 defaulting millers and has stopped supply of rice to them as they had failed to return the same, against the paddy stock they had been allotted previously.
As per the provisions, the millers have to return the rice against the paddy stock within two months. The FSCW department is in the process of initiating legal action against the defaulting millers in case of further delay, sources said. While the target for Kharif 2017-18 is 56 lakh tonne this year the state government is hopeful that the procurement will cross 70 lakh tonnes.
The review meeting was informed that as of January 9 this Kharif season 11.05 lakh farmers have registered themselves to take part in the procurement. The number was 9.76 lakh during the orresponding period in last kharif.
Officials said that the state government has already procured 17.90 lakh tonne paddy from the farmers and has paid `2356.75 crore to them. Three lakh farmers have sold their paddy so far, they added.
During the meeting the Chief Minister asked official to ensure inclusion of more small and marginal farmers in the procurement process.
PNN
https://www.orissapost.com/cm-for-action-against-defaulting-millers/
Govt opens rice import option
Reporter: antara 16 hours ago
Illustration. Imported rice. ( ANTARA documentation/Oky Lukmansyah) ()
Jakarta (ANTARA News) - The government through the Ministry of Trade stated that it opened the option of importing special rice to strengthen the stock.
Trade Minister Enggartiasto Lukita asserted that if the imports is carried out by the government, then the rice to be imported is not that of the medium quality, but special rice and is done in an effort to strengthen government stock.
"Option of import is open, but I choose special rice only so that it would not harm our farmers and rice production," said Lukita, when met at his office in Jakarta on Wednesday.
The emergence of the rice import option is a response to the statement of Vice President Jusuf Kalla who asked state-logistics board Bulog to review rice import option to bring down rice prices at the consumer level. In recent times, the price of rice, especially that of the medium quality, has climbed and above the Highest Retail Price (HET) set by the government.
Based on data from Bulog, the current stock is approximately 950 thousand tons. Commercial rice stocks are only about 11 thousand tons, while cheap rice or rice assistance for the poor (rastra) is still declared safe is able to meet the needs of up to four months ahead.
Vice President Jusuf Kalla has asked for studies of import option of medium-grade rice to stabilize prices which continue to increase in the market.
"The import option is not prohibited but we asked that it should first be studied in case there is something necessary such as constant price increases that require immediate rice import," he told reporters at the Presidential Office on Tuesday.
The Vice President has earlier held a rice-related meeting with ministers and related officials.
The Vice President conveyed that response in relation to the continuing upward trend if rice price which has now reached more than Rp11,000 per kg, exceeding the highest retail price (HET) of Rp9.450 per kg.
The Basic Necessity Market Monitoring System (SP2KP) of the Trade Ministry, sees that the price of medium quality rice has continued to increase. On Sunday (Jan 7), the national average price of medium quality rice was Rp11,041 but on Monday it increased to Rp11,131 per kilogram and Tuesday it rose to Rp11,177 per kg.
The Vice President on the occasion asked state logistics board Bulog to conduct a massive market operation to curb the price increase.
Referring to the report of the Minister of Agriculture, Amran Sulaiman, according to Vice President, in January there will also be rice harvest for rice that was planted in October so that it will increase rice stock.
(A014/b003/B003)
(T.A014/A/KR-BSR/B003)
Editor: Heru Purwanto
https://en.antaranews.com/news/114217/govt-opens-rice-import-option
Rice exports seen surging to record as Bangladesh boosts buying
India’s rice exports likely jumped 22% in 2017 to a record 12.3 million tonnes as neighbouring Bangladesh ramped up purchases after flooding hit its crops
Last Published: Wed, Jan 10 2018. 02 14 PM IST
Rajendra JadhavRuma Paul
Bangladesh’s purchases likely lifted India’s non-basmati rice exports by 38% in 2017 to 8.4 million tonnes. Photo: Mint
Mumbai: India’s rice exports likely jumped 22% in 2017 to a record 12.3 million tonnes as neighbouring Bangladesh ramped up purchases after flooding hit its crops, industry officials told Reuters.
The boost in shipments from the world’s top exporter of the grain is set to extend into 2018 as Bangladesh and Sri Lanka continue to buy aggressively amid depleting inventories in No.2 exporter Thailand, the officials said.
“Bangladesh was actively buying throughout 2017. It offset the impact of slightly weaker demand from African countries,” said M. Adishankar, executive director at Sri Lalitha, a leading rice exporter located in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh.
Bangladesh’s purchases likely lifted India’s non-basmati rice exports by 38% in 2017 to 8.4 million tonnes and total exports to 12.3 million tonnes, the officials and exporters said. That would surpass 2014’s record of 11.5 million tonnes.
They based the 2017 export figures on their estimates for December shipments plus previously issued government data for January to November. Government numbers for December are expected to be released around the start of next month.
India exports non-basmati rice mainly to African and Asian countries and premium basmati rice to the Middle East, the United States and Britain.
Traditionally the world’s fourth-biggest rice producer, Bangladesh emerged as a major importer of the grain in 2017 after floods damaged crops and pushed domestic prices to record highs.
Bangladesh sourced more than 80% of its 2017 imports of 2.4 million tonnes from India, said Badrul Hasan, head of Bangladesh’s state grains buyer.
The South Asian nation’s overseas rice purchases are likely to remain robust until supply rises after its summer crop, also known as Boro, in May, Hasan said.
Boro contributes more than half Bangladesh’s typical annual rice output of around 35 million tonnes.
Last year Bangladesh reduced import taxes on rice to boost private buying. It also bought rice from India in state-to-state deals to quickly raise supplies and try to rein in prices.
But rice prices stayed high in Bangladesh despite the largest imports in nearly two decades, which will encourage farmers to expand the amount of land used to cultivate the staple crop, Hasan said.
Non-Basmati
India’s rice exports in 2018 depend largely on non-basmati shipments as basmati exports are likely to remain more-or-less steady at around 4 million tonnes, said Vijay Setia, president of the All India Rice Exporters’ Association.
“Non-basmati exports depend on stock positions in importing countries like Bangladesh and Sri Lanka,” Setia said.
African nations stepped up buying from Thailand last year, but that could ease in 2018 as state stockpiles are depleted in the Southeast Asian country, potentially boosting appetite for Indian supply, said a Mumbai-based dealer with a global trading firm.
“For key markets like Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, India has freight advantage over Thailand. This will help even in 2018,” the Mumbai-based dealer said
http://www.livemint.com/Politics/EQST3crSSl7qkf2FmWyuxH/Rice-exports-seen-surging-to-record-as-Bangladesh-boosts-buy.html
Thailand to export 9.5 mln tons of rice in 2018
BANGKOK, Jan. 10 (Xinhua) -- Thailand is expected to have some 9.5 million tons of rice for export this year, a senior government official said on Wednesday. The 9.5 million tons of the Thai rice will bring some 4.7 billion U.S. dollars in export value thoughout 2018, according to acting Foreign Trade Department director general Adul Chotinisakorn. That compared to last year's 11.48 million tons of the Thai rice which secured 5.1 billion U.S. dollars in export value, the acting department chief said. However, Thailand has remained the world's largest exporter of Hom Mali (fragrant jasmine) quality rice, he said. The forecast drop in the export volume of the Thai rice would apparently result from unfavorable weather conditions and the government's policy to cut down the overall producing volume for fear of oversupply to the world market.
http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2018-01/10/c_136885710.htm
India rice exports seen surging to record as Bangladesh boosts buying
10-Jan-2018
MUMBAI/DHAKA India's rice exports likely jumped 22 percent in 2017 to a record 12.3 million tonnes as neighbouring Bangladesh ramped up purchases after flooding hit its crops, industry officials said. The boost in shipments from the world's top exporter of the grain is set to extend into 2018 as Bangladesh and Sri Lanka continue to buy aggressively amid depleting inventories in No.2 exporter Thailand, the officials said. "Bangladesh was actively buying throughout ..
www.economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/6244259
Welcome to Rice News Today
Bangladesh develops first GMO rice variety
Daily Star | January 10, 2018
Scientists in Bangladesh have developed the country's first biotech rice variety giving farmers an answer to the difficulties they face in harvesting the staple with machines.
Stems of BRRIdhan-86, the variety that got release approval yesterday, are strong and stout and easy to reap by mechanical harvesters. This will come handy to farm owners, who have dearth of labourers and also find it difficult to use harvesters.
BRRI breeders told UNB that the new variety, with half a tonne of extra yield potential per hectare over the country's most produced rice variety BRRIdhan-28, is derived from Iranian rice variety Niamat through application of a biotech tool called anther culture.
Anther culture, applied for the first time in rice science in Bangladesh, is a biotech plant culturing technique where immature pollens are made to divide and grow into tissues either on solid and liquid medium.
The scientists at the Bangladesh Rice Research Institute (BRRI) have also developed a new rice variety with the highest ever zinc (27.6 mg/kg) content. BRRIdhan-84 also got approval along with three more new rice varieties yesterday.
...
The prospect of higher rice yield through the release of the new varieties also comes against the backdrop of diminishing returns from the country's rice fields.
https://geneticliteracyproject.org/2018/01/10/bangladesh-develops-first-gmo-rice-variety/
Ministry blames traders for rice price increase
•
News Desk
The Jakarta Post
Jakarta | Wed, January 10, 2018 | 06:47 pm
A worker carries a sack of rice at Cipinang Rice Wholesale Market in East Jakarta in an undated file photograph. (Antara/Makna Zaezar)
Trade Minister Anggartiasto Lukita has blamed the recent increase in rice prices on traders accused of controlling rice stocks.
“We have a food task force. We are tough against those who act suspiciously; we will not tolerate them,” Enggartiasto said on Tuesday while inspecting a rice warehouse owned by the National Logistics Agency (Bulog) in North Jakarta as quoted by kompas.com.
According to the National Strategic Food Prices Information Center (PIHPSN), the price of medium-quality rice reached Rp 14,100 (99 US cents) per kilogram on average, much higher than the price ceiling of Rp 9,450 per kg.
The highest price was found in West Papua at Rp 14,250 per kilogram, compared to the province’s price ceiling of Rp 10,250 per kg. The lowest price for rice, meanwhile, was found in West Nusa Tanggara (NTB), at Rp 9,740 per kg, which is still higher than the province’s price ceiling.
Enggartiasto remained upbeat that a planned “market operation” to maintain stable rice availability would push down prices.
“We will monitor [prices] in the coming days; they are expected to decrease,” he said, adding that the intervention would continue until prices fall below the price ceilings.
Previously, Bulog president director Djarot Kusumayakti said the agency had prepared 950,000 tons of rice for the market operation in 2018.
He said the market operation was held in cooperation with the Indonesian Rice Millers and Entrepreneurs Association (Perpadi).
“We met Perpadi yesterday [Tuesday] to discuss actions to lower rice prices,” he added. (bbn)
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2018/01/10/ministry-blames-traders-for-rice-price-increase.html
Global Rice Bran Oil Market 2018 – Ricela 79, SVROil 89, Vaighai 93, Jain Group of Industries 105
By
James Gorden
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January 11, 2018
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Rice Bran Oil Market 2018
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The scope of the report includes a detailed study of global and regional markets on Global Organic Rice Market with the reasons given for variations in the growth of the industry in certain regions. This enables the buyer of the report to gain a telescopic view of the competitive landscape and plan the strategies accordingly.
Region (North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, South America, Middle East, Africa):
Regional Market
Production Development
Sales
Regional Trade
Regional Forecast
Company (Doguet’s Rice, Randallorganic, Sanjeevani Organics, Kahang Organic Rice, Texas Best Organics, Texas Best Organics, CAPITAL RICE, YINCHUAN, URMATT, Vien Phu, SUNRISE foodstuff JSC, KHAOKHO TALAYPU, BEIDAHUANG, Yanbiangaoli, Jinjian, HUICHUN FILED RICE, Dingxiang, Heilongjiang Taifeng, Heilongjiang Julong etc.):
Company Profile
Product & Service
Business Operation Data
Market Share
Investment Analysis:
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Points covered in the Organic Rice Market research reports:
Chapter 1: Organic Rice Product overview along with Scope, Classification, Market size, price analysis and application of Organic Rice Market is covered in this Chapter.
Chapter 2: In this Chapter various Organic Rice industry leading players are studied with respect to their company profile and sales area.
Chapter 3: Organic Rice Production Capacity, Gross Margin, Revenue by Value and Region is analysed here.
Chapter 4: this section studies Supply (Production), Consumption, Export, Import by Region for the Organic Rice Market.
Chapter 5-6: Organic Rice Consumption, Market Share by Application, Growth Rate by Application, Drivers and Opportunities, Potential Analysis is explained in this section.
Chapter 7: In this Section, Organic Rice Industry Manufacturing Base with Manufacturers Profiles, Sales Area and Its Competitors Product Category, application and Specification are studied.
Chapter 8-12: Apart from the above information, trade and distribution analysis for the Organic Rice Market, contact information of major manufacturers, suppliers and key consumers is also given. Also, SWOT analysis for new projects and feasibility analysis for new investment are included.
The Organic Rice Market report covers the market landscape and its growth prospects over the coming years, the Report also brief deals with the product life cycle, comparing it to the relevant products from across industries that had already been commercialized details the potential for various applications, discussing about recent product innovations and gives an overview on potential regional Organic Rice market shares.
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Rice Seed Market Report 2018-2023: Definitive Analysis and Competitive Landscape
The market for Global Rice Seed Market research report 2018 has been undergoing a transitional phase over the recent past. The continual advancements in technologies and the swift increase in infrastructural development projects have influenced the demand for market research report 2018 substantially over the past few years. The swift rise in urbanization and the significant increase in the disposable income of people are likely to maintain the demand pace of market research report 2018 in the near future. The augmenting interest of investors, government funding, and the rising trend of automation are also projected to reflect positively on this market in the years to come.
The regional analysis of the global Rice Seed market splits the market into key regions that include both continents as well as specific countries that are currently shining in terms of either demand volume or growth in demand volume. Users of the report can focus on these regions if they are looking to expand their borders of business. The key regions explained in the report include North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific (APAC), Middle East & Africa and Latin America. As mentioned before, emerging economies among the Asia Pacific countries are showing promising rates of increase in demand volume and are expected to be grounds for current players to expand their business as well as for new players.
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According to the research report, the global Rice Seed market is witnessing a continual rise in its valuation with the advancement in technologies, which is impacting the consumer behavior and, accordingly, their purchasing patterns to a great extent. In addition to this, the increasing penetration of internet and the surge in mobile surfing are anticipated to boost the market across the world, states the research report.
This research study presents an all-inclusive evaluation of the global Rice Seed market, taking various industry parameters, such as the capacity of production, product pricing, demand, supply, and sales dynamics, returns on investments, and the growth rate of the overall market into consideration.
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The research report profiles the key players of the global Rice Seed market and provides a definitive understanding of the competitive landscape. Furthermore, the publication also offers a thorough evaluation of the research and development activities of these players, analysis of their business and marketing strategies, and their financial outlooks. The research report also assesses the threat from new players and the bargaining power of suppliers and buyers. The publication also offers valuable insights into the key market trends through expert comments and recommendations.
The research report also presents a thorough assessment of the competitive landscape of the Global Rice Seed market research report 2018 by reviewing the company profiles of the leading players functioning in this market. The market hierarchy has also been identified in this study by analyzing the current developments and future prospects of these players.
Table of Content:
Global Rice Seed Market Research Report 2018-2023
Chapter 1 Global Rice Seed Market Overview
Chapter 2 Global Economic Impact
Chapter 3 Competition by Manufacturer
Chapter 4 Production, Revenue (Value) by Region (2018-2023)
Chapter 5 Supply (Production), Consumption, Export, Import by Regions (2018-2023)
Chapter 6 Production, Revenue (Value), Price Trend by Type
Chapter 7 Analysis by Application
Chapter 8 Manufacturing Cost Analysis
Chapter 9 Industrial Chain, Sourcing Strategy and Downstream Buyers
Chapter 10 Marketing Strategy Analysis, Distributors/Traders
Chapter 11 Market Effect Factors Analysis
Chapter 12 Market Forecast (2018-2023)
Chapter 13 Appendix
CATEGORIESBUSINESS, GOOGLE NEWS, SATP HTTP://WWW.SATPRNEWS.COM/2018/01/11/RICE-SEED-MARKET-REPORT-2018-2023-DEFINITIVE-ANALYSIS-AND-COMPETITIVE-LANDSCAPE/
