No loan defaulters among rice farmers—RIFAN boss
in Business
Segun Atho is the National Vice
President, Rice Farmers Association of Nigeria (RIFAN). In this interview with
Charles Okonji, he gives fresh insights into how over one million members of
his Association benefited from Anchor Borrowers Fund (ABF) vis-à-vis challenges
and opportunities presented by the scheme. Excerpts:
How many of your members
benefited from ABF?
We are part of Anchor Borrowers
Fund, we have benefited immensely from the funds. We have a model. We are
professionally and gradually getting to where we are aiming to be. The Fund has
helped all the rice farmers in the whole country to improve and increase
production. We have started producing RIFAN rice.
Have you experienced any form
of challenge in the arrangement?
Yes, so far, the programme has
benefited our members tremendously, but some of the rice processors are trying
to sabotage us, so we had to device another strategy. We, the rice farmers
decided to start processing our rice on our own because we have discovered that
some of the rice millers have started jeopardizing our efforts. We are trying
to see how we can make fresh farm rice available for consumers all over the
country, starting from the 19 states in the North and the 17 states in the
South. All the members of the Association are covered by this Anchor
Borrowers’ Fund. We are currently doing the distribution of farm inputs to rice
farmers in the country to ensure that every farmer benefit from this programme.
I can tell without mincing words that the members of Rice Farmers Association
all over the country are utilising the funds.
Can you tell us about the rate
of compliance with regards to loan repayment?
I can tell you categorically that
almost all our members are complying. We have not recorded any defaulter that I
know of. We have not had any recent report that is involving default by any of
our members. It may have been in the past but not now because I am not aware of
any.
How has the programme impacted
rice production?
We have increased our output
astronomically due to impact of the ABF, and that happened because we have
enforced and monitored its utilisation strictly. The success is attributed to
the fact that we designed a model that does not involve giving money but
inputs, and other services. So, CBN has helped us to see that no bank disburses
cash to any famer. RIFAN will provide the necessary inputs and supply to all farmers.
No state of the federation is left out; every state is supplied with inputs. In
our own model, we provide our members with all the required inputs needed for
farming, but no cash. We have tractors of our own and we will be distributing
all the inputs to all our members soon, as this is our cultivation period.
How do you handle loan
recovery?
Our loan recovery method is in
line with the model we adopted. For instance, recently, we distributed
vehicles to farmers in Abuja and environs through our efforts to make sure that
we have monitoring team in every state, we have loan recovery team. This is to
enable us recover through the rice-paddy or cash alternatively from the
farmers. That is the arrangement that is on the ground now. Almost all our
members are complying because the Bank of Agriculture also has our money in
their custody.
Can you actually achieve
competitiveness in rice production and supply in Nigeria?
Yes, before 2020, we would have
flooded the Nigerian market with rice produced by Nigerians and the country
will no longer have business importing or smuggling rice because our price
would be competitive. We are seriously working hard to make sure that we
achieve this dream because rice is the only staple food we have in this
country.
Is the CBN borrowers’ scheme
spreading well enough among the geo-political zone?
Yes.
How can an individual take the
advantage of this borrowers programme?
You have to organise yourselves
into groups before you can benefit from this scheme, then, you will write to the
CBN indicating interest in participating in the borrowers scheme. So, you
have to indicate if you will like to come through our rice farmers association
before you can benefit from the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme. All what it will
take you is to be captured, and after which we will map your land to know the
size of your land, then you will start as a small holder farmer. Your
contribution as a small holder farmer starts from 0.5 hectare to the maximum of
five hectare.
Under the Anchor Borrowers
Scheme, there are people we called the “Off Takers”. We entered into
arrangement with all rice processors in the country as our Off-Takers. We
signed an agreement with them in the presence of Mr. President in Also Rock
Abuja. We signed an agreement with Rice Processors Association of Nigeria
(RIPAN), and Rice Farmers Association of Nigeria (RIFAN), that whatever rice we
are producing as an association, they are there on standby to off take
everything. We also got some banks which have opened zero-account for all the
farmers in our association that produce rice. If you produce rice as a member
of this association, your rice will be off-taken by RIPAN, and because it is a
loan, the loan will be deducted and your balance will be paid into your
account. We are working with Bank of Agriculture and Unity Bank all over the
country. So, off-taking of our products isn’t a problem in our association.
Can you sustain
self-sufficiency rice production?
Yes
we can, Nigeria can feed herself if the CBN injects more money into the
programme as earlier proposed in the beginning of this year, I can assure you
without mincing words that our production will not only improve, but explode.
Also, if all the state governments should tap into farming, especially coastal
states like Lagos that have the advantage of rice-paddy due to its natural
endowment, we would flood the market in no distance time. Lagos state for
instance, has never captured agriculture in its budget. It only focuses on the
infrastructural development, but has forgotten that it ought to invest also
such areas.
Govt
misses all key economic targets
June 09, 2019
Pakistan’s economic growth in the financial year ending in June
is expected to hit 3.3 per cent, well below the target of 6.3pc set by the
previous government, as the government has failed to meet targets in nearly all
sectors, according to the Economic Survey. — Reuters/File
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s economic
growth in the financial year ending in June is expected to hit 3.3 per cent,
well below the target of 6.3pc set by the previous government, as the
government has failed to meet targets in nearly all sectors, according to the
Economic Survey.
The Economic Survey of 2018-19 is
scheduled to be officially released a day before the next year’s budget on June
11, but some of its details were learnt by Dawn on Saturday.
It indicates that livestock is the
only sector whose growth went slightly above the official target while all
other sectors performed below expectation.
A sharp decline was witnessed in
the industrial sector that registered a growth of 1.4pc against the target of
7.6pc despite the fact that power generation witnessed an increase as several
power plants and other power sector projects were completed.
Also, the manufacturing sector slid
by 0.3pc and the large scale manufacturing (LSM) showed a negative growth of
2pc against the target 8.1pc.
Growth plunges to 3.3pc, as per
Economic Survey
The service sector grew by 4.7pc
against the target of 6.5pc, while the construction sector achieved the growth
of 7.6pc against a 10pc target.
Delays in making key policy
decisions by the government, including the one about going to the International
Monetary Fund (IMF) for a bailout package and those related to the construction
and industrial sectors, created confusions among investors, experts believed.
The only achievement made by the
government during this period was in the livestock sector that grew by four per
cent against the target of 3.8pc though policies of the previous government at
Centre and in the provinces played a key role in this regard.
An official of the national food
security ministry said extensive efforts were made to control foot and mouth
disease (FMD) and the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) had recognised
Pakistan’s success. “This has increased their survival rate and the number of
livestock has improved across the country, besides the ‘livestock loans
insurance scheme’, launched in 2013, too, encouraged more people to raise farm
animals,” the official added.
As the agriculture sector grew by
only 0.8pc against a 3.8pc target, the massive decline was mainly attributed to
unfavourable weather conditions.
“Pakistan will miss the target of
25.8 million tonnes of wheat produce this year because of untimely rains and
storms. Similarly, the drought-like situation in some areas of Sindh and
Balochistan, too, had an impact on the overall agriculture sector,” the
official added.
Cotton output dropped by 12.7pc
against 9.86 million bales in 2018-19 due to shortage of irrigation water, use
of low quality inputs such as inferior seed and fertilisers at the early stage
of the crop and reduction of 12pc in sown area.
Rice crop, too, decreased by 3.3pc,
sugarcane by 19.4pc against the last year’s production, while low water
availability led to 3.1pc and 17.9pc reduction in the sown area for rice and
sugarcane, respectively.
Commenting on the first year
performance of the government, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Information
Secretary Marriyum Aurangzeb said Prime Minister Imran Khan should read PML-N’s
first year economic survey and learn the difference ‘between the performance of
an elected government and a selected regime’.
She said that the PML-N had
achieved more than the targets set for its first year in government while the
Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) regime had started registering a retraction on
all economic indicators instead of progress.
“The Economic Survey of Pakistan’s
2018-2019 is an attested certificate of Imran Khan’s incompetence, failure and
inability,” she said, adding that Mr Khan should resign in national interest
and save himself the embarrassment of being ousted by the people of Pakistan.
Responding to the criticism of the
main opposition party, an official of the finance ministry said that ambitious
targets were set by the outgoing PML-N government just before the general
elections, while the incumbent government took office in August 2018.
Published in Dawn, June 9th, 2019
The demonising dollar
Published:
June 9, 2019
The author is the CEO of InfinIT
Labs & Project Chair for UNCTAD — Commonwealth Entrepreneurship Project in
Pakistan
This is what the media and ‘analysts’ tell us about the
current economic situation: it’s the end of times! The demonising dollar is all
set to gulp down the common man.
Hold on. Let’s break it down and see what textbooks tell
us about Pakistan’s economic base: it’s agriculture based, is among the largest
producers of cotton in the world and exports food items such as rice and wheat,
and mangoes and oranges, and non-food items including textile and apparel.
To put this in context, agriculture sector still
contributes around 18% to the GDP, employs 42% of the total labour force, and
constitutes 75% of total exports revenue. Pakistan is the fourth largest
producer of cotton in the world, following only China, India and US.
Approximately 1.5 million smallholder farmers rely on cotton for a living.
Sounds good, right? It’s time to take away some myths —
currency depreciation isn’t the best economic indicator. Sure. Dollar isn’t the
biggest demon. Sure.
Basic economics states that with a fall in a currency’s
value, imports become costlier, affecting the cost of production (assuming that
raw materials are imported), leading to a rise in market prices and therefore,
adversely affecting the consumer. It’s a chain process. The end user only gets
affected indirectly.
Here’s another perspective: The contribution of the
agriculture sector to the GDP has dropped from 21% in a decade. The yield per
hectare of major crops has also been on a decline over the years: wheat yield
is only 38% of what France produces, rice crop is merely 29% of yield per
hectare of the US and cotton produce is just 52% of what China grows per
hectare.
Remember, Pakistan is the fourth largest world producer of
cotton? Yet, its total produce has dipped almost 7% — as compared to same
period last year — and is less than even half of China, the top producer. The
country now imports cotton, consisting almost 2% of total imports, growing at a
rate of roughly 33%. Around 1.5 million smallholder farmers who rely on cotton
produce for a living are directly affected by the quality of produce, which in
most cases is determined by avoidable factors like the impact of a natural
disaster. It is then institutional and infrastructural systemic loopholes that
affect the common men. Fix them and you improve the life of a smallholder
farmer.
Where macroeconomic indicators are being worked on,
including the value of the rupee, policy efforts are spot on. For the small
farmer, a common man, it is in fact smaller policy actions such as support of
the entrepreneurial ecosystem, promotion of innovation and adoption of global
best practices that’ll save him.
Simultaneously, the government easing Pakistan’s visa
policy thereby attracting tourism, signing technical support MoU for
agriculture with China and is finalising details of overseas labour
opportunities in the Middle East. This is exactly what will improve the life of
a common Pakistani more than the adverse indirect effect of the drop in the
rupees value.
Taking away a myth: it is not the demonising dollar that
will gulp down the common man. Food imports value more than 10% of total
imports — half of this is spent on edible oil and tea, and the other half on
milk related products and other consumer items such as spices and pulses. Don’t
forget, Pakistan ranks among the top milk-producing countries in the world.
Thought provoking? Next time you head out for grocery, do
check the food label to see if it’s Made in Pakistan because the ‘dollar is
demonising’, right?
As the state fulfils its duty of brining sustainable and
impactful structural reforms, and nurturing and facilitating the local
industry, the common men too have a duty — support and believe in Pakistan. It
is definitely not the end of times!
Published in The Express
Tribune, June 9th, 2019.
Pakistan economic growth expected to hit 3.3%, well below target
of 6.3%: Report
The survey indicates that
livestock is the only sector whose growth went slightly above the official
target while all other sectors performed below expectation.
Pakistan's economic growth in the financial year ending in June
is expected to hit 3.3 percent, well below the target of 6.3 percent, as the
government failed to meet targets in nearly all sectors, according to the
Economic Survey.
The details of the Economic Survey of 2018-19, scheduled to be
officially released a day before the next year's budget on June 11, were
published by Dawn on June 9.
The survey indicates that livestock is the only sector whose
growth went slightly above the official target while all other sectors
performed below expectation, the report said.
A sharp decline was witnessed in the industrial sector that
registered a growth of 1.4 percent against the target of 7.6 percent despite
the fact that power generation witnessed an increase as several power plants
and other power sector projects were completed.
Also, the manufacturing sector slid by 0.3 percent and the large
scale manufacturing (LSM) showed a negative growth of 2 percent against the
target 8.1 percent.
The service sector grew by 4.7 percent against the target of 6.5
percent, while the construction sector achieved the growth of 7.6 percent
against a 10 percent target.
Delays in making key policy decisions by the government,
including the one about going to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a
bailout package and those related to the construction and industrial sectors,
created confusions among investors, experts believed.
The only achievement made by the government during this period
was in the livestock sector that grew by 4 percent against the target of 3.8
percent though policies of the previous government at Centre and in the
provinces played a key role in this regard.
An official of the national food security ministry said
extensive efforts were made to control foot and mouth disease (FMD) and the
Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) had recognised Pakistan's success.
"This has increased their survival rate and the number of
livestock has improved across the country, besides the 'livestock loans
insurance scheme', launched in 2013, too, encouraged more people to raise farm
animals," the official added.
As the agriculture sector grew by only 0.8 percent against a 3.8
percent target, the massive decline was mainly attributed to unfavourable
weather conditions.
"Pakistan will miss the target of 25.8 million tonnes of
wheat produce this year because of untimely rains and storms. Similarly, the
drought-like situation in some areas of Sindh and Balochistan, too, had an
impact on the overall agriculture sector," the official added.
Cotton output dropped by 12.7 percent against 9.86 million bales
in 2018-19 due to shortage of irrigation water, use of low quality inputs such
as inferior seed and fertilisers at the early stage of the crop and reduction
of 12 percent in sown area.
Rice crop, too, decreased by 3.3 percent, sugarcane by 19.4
percent against the last year's production, while low water availability led to
3.1 percent and 17.9 percent reduction in the sown area for rice and sugarcane,
respectively.
Commenting on the first year performance of the government,
Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Information Secretary Marriyum Aurangzeb
said Prime Minister Imran Khan should read PML-N's first year economic survey
and learn the difference ‘between the performance of an elected government and
a selected regime'.
She said that the PML-N had achieved more than the targets set
for its first year in government while the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI)
regime had started registering a retraction on all economic indicators instead
of progress.
"The Economic Survey of Pakistan's 2018-2019 is an attested
certificate of Imran Khan's incompetence, failure and inability," she
said, adding that Khan should resign in national interest and save himself the
embarrassment of being ousted by the people of Pakistan.
Responding to the criticism of the main opposition party, an
official of the finance ministry said that ambitious targets were set by the
outgoing PML-N government just before the general elections, while the
incumbent government took office in August 2018.
Incentives to ramp up local seeds
production on the cards
LAHORE: Government is expected to announce incentives to promote
local production of seeds for various crops in the country as rupee devaluation
is likely to push prices of the imported substitutes up by 15 to 20 percent,
people familiar with the matter said on Saturday.
Industry people said the government might slap customs duty on
seed imports to encourage local seeds production and promote research and
development to give advantage to local seed companies.
The industry people said the dependence on imported seeds have
undermined food security. Rising trend of seeds import is not a good omen for
the agriculture sector. Imports of seeds for planting crops like potatoes,
maize, vegetables and fodders have multiplied over the last decade, they added.
An official estimate showed that almost 100 percent of seeds for
the important vegetables were imported in the last 2017/18 fiscal year. Share
of imported seeds in vegetable segment (minus potato) was 93.12 percent, while
for maize share of imported seeds stood at 71.13 percent. For fodder
cultivation, dependence on imported seed was calculated at 86.33 percent during
the last fiscal year.
Shahzad Ali Malik, founding chairman of Seed Association of
Pakistan hoped that the government would announce some reliefs to agriculture
sector in the coming budget.
“Customs duty on imported hybrid rice seeds is to promote local
production and transfer of technology,” said Malik who attended a meeting with
the Prime Minister Imran Khan last week. “Import of hybrid rice seed in India
is also banned to promote local production and technology transfer.”
Malik, who also runs a seeds making company, said the country is
currently producing hybrid rice seeds to meet 45 percent of local demand.
“We are planning to increase it to 80 percent next year and
subsequently in the ensuing year to 100 percent,” he added. Locally-produced
seeds are cheap as well as perform better in local harsh weather conditions in
various ecological zones, including coastal belt.
Malik hoped that the ministries of commerce and national food
security and research would support incentives to local production of seeds.
“It is unfortunate that private seed companies including multinationals do not
invest in local production of seeds and research and development for seed
production.”
Industry people said trading approach of these companies proves
counterproductive to competitiveness of the farming sector as well as food
security of the country. A number of companies just import seeds and sell them
to farmers, while contributing nothing tangible to the agriculture sector of
the country.
Ibrahim Mughal, chairman of Agri Forum Pakistan agreed that urgent
steps are needed to make seed prices cheaper in the country. “Prices of imported
seeds are getting costlier day by day.”
Mughal said there is lack of resources, professional strength and
incentives to encourage researchers in public as well as private sectors. “We
cannot yield better results without encouraging researchers and breeders.”
Agri Forum Pakistan’s chief said there is also a need to enforce
regulatory framework for seeds industry. Establishment of a single and
independent seeds body would effectively control quality of seeds and promote
business of certified seeds, he added.
The government has taken steps to ensure availability of 50,192
tons of rice seeds as well as 2,757, metric tons of imported seeds in the
current sowing season. Overall, 7,799 tons of imported seeds compared to local
demands of 28,892 tons would be available this year.
World’s first rice straw biogas facility to open in Laguna
Published June 8, 2019, 10:00 PM
By Madelaine B. Miraflor
The world’s first Rice Straw to
Biogas (R2B) facility, developed by a company based in the United Kingdom (UK),
is set to formally start operations in the Philippines.
Straw Innovations Ltd. said it
will soon formally start operations of the world’s pilot plant for an R2B
project, which aims to use leftover rice straw to make clean energy.
The facility is located in
Victoria, Laguna and will be officially launched on June 26. “The official
launching will be an opportunity to share findings from the project, see the
system working and present plans for scaling out,” the company said in a
statement.
Rice is the world’s number one
food crop, but farmers are having a hard time to dispose the stems and leaves
(straw) out of unhusked rice. In Asia, this has become a major disposable
problem, with around 300 million tons of rice straws being burned in paddy
fields each year.
But then, prior research has shown
that the straw can be gathered and processed to release the methane in a
controlled environment, where it can be captured and used as a clean-burning
cooking fuel (biogas).
“Wouldn’t it be amazing if we
could transform a massive waste problem into an opportunity to make clean
energy, a soil enhancer and a source of jobs for rural areas?” it added.
The company’s R2B project in
Laguna is the first of its kind, which could make affordable, clean biogas fuel
and fertilizer from rice straw through a process called anaerobic digestion.
It is showcasing an efficient
method of collecting rice straw and feeding it into two dry anaerobic digesters
with gas processing equipment that can deliver a range of clean energy
products. This system is backed up by lab work and analysis by university and
commercial partners in the UK.
The company said the
internationally significant prototype is already bringing benefits to local
rice farmers, creating rural jobs and enhancing the environment as a viable
alternative to burning rice straw.
Outside the Philippines, China is
also constructing its first R2B plant.
45th annual Eagle Lake Rice Field Day set for June 25
·
Jun
8, 2019Top
of Form
EAGLE LAKE – The 45th annual Eagle Lake Rice Field Day is
scheduled for 4 p.m. June 25 at the David R. Wintermann Rice Research Station
on Farm-to-Market Road 102, just north of Eagle Lake.
The field day will offer an opportunity for producers to tour the
research station, making stops along the way to hear about insect management,
weed management, plant nutrient management, disease management, varietal
testing, and rice breeding.
The field day is planned and coordinated by the Colorado County
Rice Committee, which is comprised of local producers who meet throughout the
year to identify topics for the event that are relevant and applicable to
producers in the area. Area agribusiness continues to provide crucial
sponsorship to support this event so that all who are interested in attending
can do so free of charge.
The evening program will be held at the Eagle Lake Community
Center with Steve Linscombe providing a brief update concerning the publication
of the USA Rice Sustainability Report followed by a discussion led by Pam West
and Maclane Peters concerning Texas rice exports.
Also on the agenda for the evening program are Joe Outlaw who
will provide an update on farm policy issues and Ted Wilson who will share some
observations concerning climate change data and potential impacts on rice
production.
A catered meal will be provided at the evening program. Two
continuing education units will be offered to all licensed pesticide
applicators who attend the tour and evening program.
For more information, contact the David R. Wintermann Rice
Research Station at 979-234-3578 or the Extension office for Colorado County at
979-732-2082.
Eagle Lake Rice Field Day
Tuesday, June 25 | 4:09 pm
David R. Wintermann Rice Research Station
What and
How You Eat Affects Your Odds for Type 2 Diabetes
June
8, 2019, at 9:00 a.m.
What and How You Eat Affects Your Odds for Type 2 Diabetes
By Serena Gordon
HealthDay Reporter
HealthDay Reporter
(HEALTHDAY)
SATURDAY, June 8, 2019 (HealthDay News) -- The kind of foods you
eat, and even the order in which you eat them can affect your odds of
developing type 2 diabetes, three new studies suggest.
The studies -- being presented to the American Society for
Nutrition -- found:
- Switching
to a mostly plant-based diet (but one that could still include meat and
dairy) could reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes by as much as 60%.
- Eating
greater amounts of vitamins B2 and B6 was linked to a lower risk of type 2
diabetes, while getting more B12 in the diet seemed to be associated with
a higher risk of type 2 diabetes.
- The order
that you eat your foods appears to matter. People who ate vegetables
before having meat or rice had lower blood sugar levels, along with positive
changes in their hunger hormones.
Dr. Rekha Kumar, an endocrinologist at NewYork-Presbyterian and Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York City, reviewed the findings.
"Emphasizing fruits and vegetables and whole foods is a
very practical and easy way to manage type 2 diabetes," she said.
"Half your plate should be green, even at breakfast, when you could have
an egg white omelet with spinach for example."
As for the sequence of eating, Kumar said vegetables, high-fiber
foods and even protein take longer to leave the stomach, which slows down the
rise in blood sugar levels.
"Theoretically, changing the order you eat foods could have
implications on weight and appetite control," she said.
Prioritize plants
The first study included more than 2,700 people recruited at an
average age of 25. Forty percent were black and nearly 60% were women. Their
health and diets were followed over 30 years.
People who made the greatest improvement in dietary quality from
early to middle adulthood cut their odds of diabetes by almost two-thirds
compared to those whose diet quality declined slightly, the study found.
What constitutes a quality diet? Researchers said it's one that
contains more "nutritionally rich, plant-centered" foods.
The study's lead author, Yuni Choi, a doctoral candidate at the
University of Minnesota-Twin Cities in St. Paul, said a plant-centered diet is
high "in natural plant foods, low in highly processed plant foods and
generally low in animal-based foods."
So, vegetables, fruits and whole grains get a thumbs-up, but
white bread and white rice get low-quality scores. Choi said this type of diet
can include some lean meat and low-fat dairy.
On average, those who improved their diets the most ate four or
more servings of vegetables daily, two servings of fruit, 1-1/2 servings of
nuts or seeds, nearly two servings of whole grains, less than one serving of
processed meat and about one serving of red meat, Choi said.
Choi and her advisor and co-author, David Jacobs, think the
diverse nutrients found in plant foods help to prevent diabetes.
'B' gets an A for health
The second study looked at dietary data from about 200,000
American adults over 15 years.
People who had the most vitamin B2 and B6 had a roughly 10%
reduction in their diabetes risk. B2 is found in eggs, lean meat, green
vegetables and fortified grain products such as cereals and bread, according to
the U.S. Department of Agriculture. B6 is found in fish, lean meat, fruits
(other than citrus), and potatoes and other non-starchy veggies.
Though total vitamin B12 intake wasn't linked to a higher risk
of type 2 diabetes, the odds rose 11% when researchers looked solely at B12
from food sources. They found no similar increase in diabetes risk from B12 in
diet supplements. They said this may be because B12 in foods often comes from
animal products.
The third study found that the order in which you eat can affect
your blood sugar levels. Researchers asked 16 Chinese adults, mostly men, to
eat five experimental meals in a set order. The meals contained a vegetable,
meat and rice, and portion sizes stayed the same.
Overall, the smallest spike in blood sugar levels resulted when
vegetables or meat were eaten first. The meal with vegetables, meat and rice
eaten separately, in that order, led to a lower increase in blood sugar and a
favorable response in appetite hormones.
"The way we eat and present food to our mouth may have
significant physiological effects," said study author Christiani Henry,
director of the Clinical Nutrition Research Center at Singapore Institute for
Clinical Sciences.
Henry said fiber and other nutrients in vegetables appear to
slow the transit time of food, which may also slow the rise in blood sugar
levels after eating.
Eating vegetables first is "a simple, practical way to
reduce blood glucose rise when eating rice," he said. Henry added that
more research is necessary to see if similar changes would help control blood
sugar spikes for foods eaten in places like the United States.
The three studies were scheduled to be presented between
Saturday and Tuesday at the American Society for Nutrition meeting in
Baltimore. Research presented at meetings is typically seen as preliminary
until published in a peer-reviewed journal.
More information
Read more about nutrition and diabetes from the U.S. National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney
Diseases.
SC allows Bohol’s Yap to travel abroad
The Supreme
Court has granted the appeal of Bohol governor-elect Arthur Yap to travel
abroad until June 29 to attend a program on solid waste management and
desalination, in the Netherlands and three more nations.
In
a resolution dated June 3, the SC’s First Division resolved to allow Yap, who
is facing graft case before the Sandiganbayan, to travel abroad on conditions
that he would post a travel bond of P100,000 with the High Court.
The
tribunal also imposed on Yap to designate in writing—in a form of a special
power of attorney—his personal agent with authority to act for and on his
behalf for the duration of his travel abroad and has to file written notice of
his arrival within 24 hours from his return to the Philippines.
Earlier,
Yap has also elevated several issues on his Sandiganbayan case before the SC
and his petition is still pending resolution.
Based
on the itinerary, Yap submitted to the SC, the outgoing member of the House of
Representatives, representing Bohol’s Third District and former secretary of
the Department of Agriculture, said he and members of his family would travel
to Belgium, the Netherlands, Japan, and South Korea from June 6 until June 29.
In
his appeal, Yap told the SC that his travel abroad would also be an opportunity
to bond with his family before he would assume his new position as Bohol
governor.
It
was not known immediately if Yap and members of his family have left the
country.
In
his manifestation, Yap said that he was not a flight risk considering that he
was an incumbent elected public official, and had been recently elected to a
new post.
According
to him, his personal, family and business interests remained in the country,
and he had previously posted a travel bond of P120,000 with the Sandiganbayan
and the bond had not been withdrawn.
“In
view of the manifestations and the assurances by the petitioner [Yap] that he
has no reason to flee the jurisdiction or to evade his responsibilities, the
Court finds that he has proven that he is not a flight risk,” the SC ruled.
Yap,
together with former Department of Science and Technology Secretary William
Padolina, was charged with violation of the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices
Act in connection with the P15.8 million car plan of the Philippine Rice
Research Institute in 2008 and 2009.
He
was charged in his capacity as chairperson of the rice research institute.
When
the Sandiganbayan denied his motion to dismiss the case, he elevated the issue
before the Supreme Court.
Punjab bona
fide residents who did not study in state eligible for MBBS seats
TNN |
Updated: Jun 9, 2019, 8:36 IST
image used for representational
purpose
CHANDIGARH:
Bona fide residents of Punjab, who aspire to take admission in bachelor of
medicine and bachelor of surgery (MBBS) and bachelor of dental surgery (BDS)
courses, are eligible to apply in medical colleges across the state, even if
they have not studied in the state, albeit with a rider.
The Punjab government has come out with an admission notification for the 2019-20 academic session, according to which anyone fulfilling either of the five conditions laid down in the 1996-notification regarding bona fide resident is eligible to apply.
The Punjab government has come out with an admission notification for the 2019-20 academic session, according to which anyone fulfilling either of the five conditions laid down in the 1996-notification regarding bona fide resident is eligible to apply.
Till last year, a candidate should have been a bona fide resident of Punjab and must have passed 10+1 and 10+2 examination from Punjab. However, this year the state government has done away with the mandatory condition of studying in Punjab for two years preceding the qualifying examination for the admission. It has also not included the earlier announced condition of making Class 10 mandatory from Punjab in addition to Class 10+1 and 10+2 from the 2019-20 session.
Who is eleigible
The candidate must fulfil either of the conditions mentioned in the bona fide resident rules.
Those who have studied for five years in Punjab or two years before qualifying examination are eligible to apply. Wards of Punjab government employees posted in or outside Punjab or working on deputation; employee of government of India posted in Chandigarh or in Punjab; wards of the pensioners of Punjab government; wards of persons who have settled in Punjab or had resided in Punjab for a period of at least five years; and wards of persons who held immovable property in Punjab for a period of five years are also eligible.
Additional chief secretary health and medical education Satish Chandra said that the move is aimed at providing benefit to Punjabis working in different parts of the country. “Earlier, wards of Punjabis working in other states were deprived of their right to seek admission in medical colleges in the state,” said Satish Chandra.
Move will favour outsiders
The move will hurt the interest of local students, as it will be exploited by outsiders to grab seats in Punjab feel experts and politicians.
“All states/UTs should have eligibility criteria for state quota seats, which protect the rights of actual residents of that state/UT. This is only possible when a mandatory period of schooling along with a mandatory period of residence is made the eligibility criteria for state quota seats. This will put an end to all the resentment and multiple litigations,” said Dr Arvind Goyal, a National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) trainer. He further questioned: “Why the Punjab government is allowing outsiders to take admission in state-run medical colleges when the students from Punjab are not eligible to apply in other states?” Experts have also questioned the timing of the notification, which was issued after the result of entrance test was announced.
A total of 13,783 students from Punjab had appeared for NEET exam out of which 9,456 cleared. There are 1,295 MBBS seats in 10 colleges in Punjab. In Haryana, as many as 33,047 students had appeared for NEET exam of which 22,499 qualified. There are about 1,600 MBBS seats in Haryana.
Taking a dig at the government, leader of opposition Harpal Singh Cheema said that students of Punjab should be priority of the government and not outsiders.
Punjabi Ekta Party (PEP) president Sukhpal Singh Khaira has taken up the issue with the government and demanded that conditions should be reviewed to safeguard the interest of local students.
Unawareness
is constraint in adoption of direct seeding of rice : Study
Sanjeev Verma | TNN | Updated: Jun 9, 2019, 8:42 IST
Paddy being transplanted
in Bathinda on Saturday
CHANDIGARH:
Non-availability of seed drill,
higher number of unwanted plants and lack of awareness among Punjab farmers are
major constraints in direct seeding of rice. As compared to paddy
transplanting practice, direct seeding has great potential of saving
groundwater.
The study was conducted by assistant economist Baljinder Kaur Sidana and Sumit Bhardwaj of PAU on a total sample of 80 farmers, including equal number of adopters as well as non-adopters of direct seeding of rice in two districts of Punjab — Faridkot and Ferozepur. It has come out in the study that the socio-economic profile of the farmers clearly revealed that young, educated and progressive farmers went for adoption of direct seeded rice technology.
The researchers have found that out of 20 million tubewells in the country, 1.3 million are in Punjab alone, contributing to fast paced groundwater extraction and its depletion. The average water use of Basmati rice in non-direct seeded rice fields was found around 6,452 cubic metre per hectare, whereas it was 4,639 in direct seeded rice fields depicting a water saving of 28%farms. At the same time, direct seeding of rice fields was effective in saving of irrigation water to the tune of 25% in non-Basmati fields. The researchers have reasoned that in direct seeding of rice, the irrigation is applied at three and four days interval instead of continuous ponding during early plantation. Further, when the crop becomes one month old, the irrigation is applied at seven to nine days interval.
The study was conducted by assistant economist Baljinder Kaur Sidana and Sumit Bhardwaj of PAU on a total sample of 80 farmers, including equal number of adopters as well as non-adopters of direct seeding of rice in two districts of Punjab — Faridkot and Ferozepur. It has come out in the study that the socio-economic profile of the farmers clearly revealed that young, educated and progressive farmers went for adoption of direct seeded rice technology.
The researchers have found that out of 20 million tubewells in the country, 1.3 million are in Punjab alone, contributing to fast paced groundwater extraction and its depletion. The average water use of Basmati rice in non-direct seeded rice fields was found around 6,452 cubic metre per hectare, whereas it was 4,639 in direct seeded rice fields depicting a water saving of 28%farms. At the same time, direct seeding of rice fields was effective in saving of irrigation water to the tune of 25% in non-Basmati fields. The researchers have reasoned that in direct seeding of rice, the irrigation is applied at three and four days interval instead of continuous ponding during early plantation. Further, when the crop becomes one month old, the irrigation is applied at seven to nine days interval.
It has also been found that the average use of other agriculture inputs like use of tractor, and fertilizer in Basmati as well as non-Basmati varieties was high for non-adopters of direct seeding of rice technology than adopters of this technology. However, there is an exception where the farmers using direct seeding of rice technology have to spend more on paddy plant protection (Rs 3,690 per hectare) as compared to non-adopters of this technology (Rs 2,375 per hectare).
“Basmati as reported by sample farmers is less susceptible to insect/pest attack and is more resistant to weeds when using direct seeding of rice technology as compared to other paddy varieties,” reveals the study.
our bowl of
rice is hurting climate more than you think
June 10, 2019
A
farmer holds rice stalks.
Eco-conscious consumers are giving
up meat and driving electric cars to do their part for the environment, but
what about that bowl of rice?
Global rice farming, it turns
out, could have the same detrimental effect on global warming in the
short term as 1,200 average-sized coal power plants, according to the New
York-based Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) advocacy group.
That means the grain is just as
damaging over the long term as annual carbon-dioxide emissions from fossil
fuels in Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK combined.
As the sheer size of the staple
food’s carbon footprint becomes clearer to scientists, companies,
including the maker of Uncle Ben’s rice and Olam International Ltd., the
world’s second-biggest rice supplier, are starting to source more of the grain
from farms that aren’t flooded, a widespread cultivation technique that
releases methane gas into the atmosphere.
“The amount of attention that
rice receives for these issues is relatively small compared to the size of the
problem,” said Paul Nicholson, who heads rice research and sustainability for
Olam from Singapore. “People are very informed on their chocolate, coffee,
hair-care solutions, but rice is an afterthought.”
Rice is the staple food of
hundreds of millions of Asians and by far the most polluting grain—emitting
twice as much of the harmful gases as wheat. Yet, it hasn’t been in the
spotlight as much as, say, beef, which produces far more emissions per calorie
and along with other animal products is the culprit behind almost 60
percent of greenhouse-gas emissions coming from food.
That’s changing as socially
conscious consumers, especially in Europe and North America, increasingly
demand evidence that the foods they spend their money on are doing the least
harm to the environment—and treating farmers and workers in developing
countries fairly.
With agriculture emitting almost
as much greenhouse gas as transportation, those demands will only intensify.
For millennia, rice farmers from
Spain to Indonesia have relied on the practice of flooding paddy fields
because it stops weeds from growing.
But there’s a big drawback:
submerging the crop allows tiny underwater microbes to decay organic matter,
producing methane, a greenhouse gas that is 25 times more potent than carbon
dioxide even though it lingers in the atmosphere for a shorter time.
Growing rice in flooded
conditions causes up to 12 percent of global emissions of methane, a gas
blamed for about one quarter of global warming caused by humans.
The Sustainable Rice Platform
(SRP), overseen by the United Nations and International Rice Research Institute
(IRRI), is trying to promote change.
Earlier this year, the
Bangkok-based body released updated guidelines on growing rice more
sustainably by, for instance, alternately wetting and drying the crop rather
than keeping it flooded, not burning what’s left of the crop after it has been
harvested, using organic fertilizers and promoting fair working conditions.
The SRP is working with thousands
of farmers in countries like India, Nigeria, Thailand and Vietnam to give them
a score based on these and other factors, with its work funded by corporate
members and nongovernment organizations.
Rice that complies with the
standard will eventually be eligible to carry an “SRP-verified” logo, a
certification that will be rolled out later this year—giving consumers a choice
for the first time.
Mars Inc., the producer of the
Uncle Ben’s brand popular in the US and Europe, shifted to sourcing 87 percent
of its rice under the standard this year, a ratio it expects to boost to
100 percent by 2020.
Olam, too, said it’s
pursuing initiatives to get farmers to grow sustainable rice in
five Asian and African countries.
“We are working with farmers to
develop new methods,” said Louke Koopmans, Mars Food’s global sustainable sourcing
manager.
As an example, she said the
company’s work with 2,500 basmati rice farmers in India and Pakistan has
reduced water use by 30 percent, along with increasing their crop yield and
boosting their wages.
“It requires a careful dance of
water levels to manage two populations of microbes,” she said.
But alternative growing methods
carry their own risks.
While farmers can drastically
curtail overall emissions if they alternate between wetting and drying, this
only works if they flood the crops shallowly.
Otherwise as water levels
fluctuate, it brings in oxygen, which mingles with the nitrogen in the soil and
fertilizers to release nitrous oxide, according to K. Kritee, a scientist
at the EDF. Nitrous oxide is 300 times more damaging than CO2 and stays around for more
than 100 years longer.
“It requires a careful dance of
water levels to manage two populations of microbes,” she said.
To reduce emissions risk from
both gases, a study by the EDF in India suggested keeping the water
level between 5 centimeters above the surface and 5 cm below.
Over a 20-year horizon, total
greenhouse-gas emissions from rice could take the same toll on the environment
as 1,200 coal plants, with the impact dropping to the equivalent of 600
coal plants over 100 years, EDF research shows.
While a lot of farmers in
countries like Vietnam, Cambodia and LaoPDR are already being encouraged to
grow rice on non-flooded fields, part of the challenge is that farmers
need to be trained, for instance, in how to use field water tubes to measure
moisture levels.
Rolling out such methods in India
and China, where rice is a daily staple, will be difficult because of the
prevalence of small-scale farms where the grain is produced by families
for their own consumption.
At the moment, it can take more
than 1,400 liters of water to produce 1 kilogram of rice, according to the
IRRI.
Olam and SRP aim to train 150,000
farmers by 2023 in Asia and Africa. But even that will barely move the needle,
accounting for only 0.1 percent of the households farming rice globally.
One solution for the environment,
according to Kritee, would be for consumers to shift to eating more alternative
grains—like maize and wheat—that leaves less of a footprint.
But rice consumption is rising in
Europe and the US as more people adopt vegetarian and vegan diets. Even so, the
US makes up less than 1 percent of total consumption,
compared with almost 50 percent in China and India.
To meet growing demand in the
next 25 years, rice production must increase by 25 percent, according to the
IRRI.
“It’s a dilemma how to deal with
this because rice is a staple and of deep cultural value for all in Asia,”
Kritee said.
No solution in sight for falling palay prices
Philippine Daily Inquirer / 05:15 AM June 10, 2019
Not even the Rice Competitiveness
Enhancement Fund (RCEF) may save farmers from the falling prices of palay.
In an interview, Socioeconomic Planning
Undersecretary Rosemary Edillon said the RCEF program—a subsidy of P10 billion
yearly for the rice industry—would not help in raising palay rates, adding that
it might take at least three years before palay prices would stabilize.
The government’s latest price monitoring
report showed that the farmgate price of palay further slid to P18.20 a
kilogram during the third week of May, continuing the downward trend that
started in January.
This is 13.7 percent lower from year-ago
level, although economic managers stressed that last year was an “abnormal”
period for the rice industry given the huge spike in rice prices.
“The expectation is that prices will
stabilize at some point,” Edillon said, referring to the staple. “Right now,
it’s still finding its price which depends on supply and demand … It would take
some time to find that steady state because players are trying to find that
balance under the new rice regime.”
She said importers were just beginning to
look not just into the Philippine market but the world market for rice. This
explains why big companies like the SM Group, Aboitiz’s food arm Pilmico,
Puregold Price Club and AgriNurture Inc. have yet to start importing rice even after
securing the required permits.
Asked whether the RCEF program of the
government would help in pushing prices up, the official gave a firm no.
“Not even the funds [could help] because
when the funds are disbursed, they will still need to go to the farmers. It may
take three to five years before the price will stabilize,” she said.
The RCEF is intended to cushion rice
farmers from the blows of liberalization by subsidizing them with machinery and
seeds and by providing credit and training to ensure that their produce will be
competitive against imports.
The fund is mandated by the new rice law and should run for the next six years starting this year, but this year’s allocation has yet to be released and disbursed.
The fund is mandated by the new rice law and should run for the next six years starting this year, but this year’s allocation has yet to be released and disbursed.
Once the subsidy is exhausted, import duties
from rice would be funneled into the RCEF to ensure the continuity of the
fund’s life, which was estimated to hit billion a year.
Edillon said the economic agency was
scheduled to meet on Tuesday to discuss an in-depth study on rice which the
National Economic and Development Authority had commissioned.
Read more: https://business.inquirer.net/272301/no-solution-in-sight-for-falling-palay-prices#ixzz5qRODrLfd
Follow us: @inquirerdotnet on Twitter | inquirerdotnet on Facebook
Trials
underway for saltwater rice strains
By WANG XIAOYU | China Daily | Updated: 2019-06-10 06:58
Researchers from Saline-Alkali Tolerant Rice Research and
Development Center apply fertilizer to rice seedlings in Qingdao, East China's
Shandong province, May 9, 2019. [Photo/Xinhua]
China has planted about 300 new
strains of saltwater-tolerant rice on 670 hectares of experimental alkali
fields in search of resilient, high-yield varieties that can grow on previously
unproductive land.
Qualified varieties will then be
promoted for commercial cultivation nationwide, covering about one-fifth of the
100 million hectares of saltwater soil that is believed to have potential for
rice cultivation in the country, according to the Saline-Alkali Tolerant Rice
Research and Development Center in Qingdao, Shandong province.
Facing the dual pressures of
shrinking productive arable acreage and dwindling irrigation capacity, research
into saltwater-resistant rice can help safeguard food security in China, said
Zhang Guodong, deputy director of the center.
This year, the center plans to
submit the first group of seven marketable rice strains to the Ministry of
Agriculture and Rural Affairs for evaluation, Zhang said. If certificates are
obtained, the strains will be promoted for large-scale cultivation nationwide.
Areas for trial planting, which
are expected to exceed 1,300 hectares by year's end, include five types of land
with heavy salt content. They are located in Heilongjiang, Shandong and Shaanxi
provinces and in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, he said.
Preliminary tests with different
strains have already demonstrated stark contrasts in average yields, Zhang
said. For instance, crops planted in test fields in Qingdao are capable of
yielding about 10 metric tons per hectare in one harvest year, compared with
3.1 tons per hectare in stretches of salty-alkaline land in Daqing,
Heilongjiang province.
"Several factors have led to
lower yields, such as the impact of natural disasters. Also, some varieties are
simply incompatible with the local environment," he said.
One barometer for determining if
a new strain of rice has the potential for mass cultivation is its average
output, which needs to be about 4.5 tons per hectare, Zhang said.
"We will further improve our
plant breeding and protection methods while strengthening precautions against
inclement weather and natural disasters," he said.
"Eventually, we aim to sort
out high-yield varieties with stress resiliency designed for salty-alkaline
land," he added.
The vast swaths of test fields
will also provide insights into how to utilize new technology to boost
productivity while cutting down on the use of water, fertilizers and
pesticides, said Liu Lin, chief engineer at the center.
"Most salty-alkaline land is
in less-densely populated regions. A shortage of labor, coupled with remote
distances from abundant freshwater, prompted us to develop intelligent tools
and automated machinery to increase efficiency."
In November, the center, in collaboration
with telecom giant Huawei, launched a platform that uses big data, the internet
of things and cloud computing to offer smart monitoring of salt content in the
soil.
The system is also able to
collect comprehensive data on changes in the environment and early signs of
disease outbreaks or pest infestations, and transfer such information to
agricultural experts for analysis and decision-making.
Dubbed the nervous system of
smart agriculture, the system has been installed on experimental farmland in
Shandong and will soon be rolled out across all test fields, Liu said.
Efforts to transform barren salty
land into fertile rice paddies have been going on for at least three decades in
China.
In recent years, dozens of
research institutes, including the Hunan Hybrid Rice Research Center and the
Jiangsu Academy of Agricultural Sciences, have joined the mission. Together,
they formed a cooperative alliance dedicated to establishing standards
applicable to seawater-tolerant varieties.
Zhang said the center is planning
to establish international research and promotion centers in Africa and the
Middle East in the near future. A handful of countries, including Ghana,
Nigeria and Pakistan, have expressed interest in deeper cooperation with
Chinese agricultural researchers in rice cultivation.
Govt to
increase direct procurement from farmers
Emran
Hossain | Published: 01:32, Jun 10,2019 | Updated: 01:45, Jun
10,2019
The
government is planning to increase direct procurement of un-husked rice from
the farmers, officials in the ministries of food and agriculture told New Age
Sunday.
The policy shift is needed as the government has been facing severe public criticism for buying husked rice from the millers putting the farmers into an unprecedented crisis.
The viability of the plan was discussed by food minister Sadhan Chandra Majumder and agriculture minister Muhammad Abdur Razzaque at the latter’s office, they said.
The meeting took place after Sadhan visited Razzaque after the Eid vacation.
The food minister would seek the prime minister’s approval to the proposal, they said.
Before the food minister met him, Razzaque told New Age that the government was worried over the low price of un-husked rice.
Until now this boro season, the government procured barely 40,000 tonnes of un-husked rice from the growers against the target of procuring 1.5 lakh tonnes directly from farmers and 10 lakh tonnes of husked rice from the millers.
The government set the rate of buying un-husked rice from the farmers at Tk 1,040 for 40 kg and at Tk 1,440 for buying husked rice from the millers.
Agricultural economists blasted the government policy and asked it to procure at least 50 lakh tonnes of un-husked rice directly from the farmers to keep the price at a reasonable level for the growers.
The government cited inadequate storage facilities in place for the limited procurement from the farmers.
An agriculture ministry official said after emerging from the meeting that the government might request the millers to partially store un-husked rice to be bought from the growers.
The government has the facilities to store 18 lakh tonnes of rice and it already stored 14 lakh tonnes in its warehouses.
The government needs 22 lakh tonnes of rice to run its social safety net and rationing programmes.
The syndicate of corrupt food officials, influential ruling party politicians and the wealthy millers does not allow the government to directly procure un-husked rice from the growers.
Economists said that the harsh ground realities compelled the farmers to sell their un-husked boro rice at a maximum price of Tk 600 for 40 kg which is far below their production cost of Tk 1,000 per 40 kg.
Increased rice imports from India also brought down the price of rice grown in Bangladesh.
The policy shift is needed as the government has been facing severe public criticism for buying husked rice from the millers putting the farmers into an unprecedented crisis.
The viability of the plan was discussed by food minister Sadhan Chandra Majumder and agriculture minister Muhammad Abdur Razzaque at the latter’s office, they said.
The meeting took place after Sadhan visited Razzaque after the Eid vacation.
The food minister would seek the prime minister’s approval to the proposal, they said.
Before the food minister met him, Razzaque told New Age that the government was worried over the low price of un-husked rice.
Until now this boro season, the government procured barely 40,000 tonnes of un-husked rice from the growers against the target of procuring 1.5 lakh tonnes directly from farmers and 10 lakh tonnes of husked rice from the millers.
The government set the rate of buying un-husked rice from the farmers at Tk 1,040 for 40 kg and at Tk 1,440 for buying husked rice from the millers.
Agricultural economists blasted the government policy and asked it to procure at least 50 lakh tonnes of un-husked rice directly from the farmers to keep the price at a reasonable level for the growers.
The government cited inadequate storage facilities in place for the limited procurement from the farmers.
An agriculture ministry official said after emerging from the meeting that the government might request the millers to partially store un-husked rice to be bought from the growers.
The government has the facilities to store 18 lakh tonnes of rice and it already stored 14 lakh tonnes in its warehouses.
The government needs 22 lakh tonnes of rice to run its social safety net and rationing programmes.
The syndicate of corrupt food officials, influential ruling party politicians and the wealthy millers does not allow the government to directly procure un-husked rice from the growers.
Economists said that the harsh ground realities compelled the farmers to sell their un-husked boro rice at a maximum price of Tk 600 for 40 kg which is far below their production cost of Tk 1,000 per 40 kg.
Increased rice imports from India also brought down the price of rice grown in Bangladesh.
More about:
Vietnamese
agricultural products face barriers to enter China market
Asia News Network | Publication date 10 June 2019
| 13:00 ICT
Two officials from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural
Development check the quality of cassava in the southern province of Tay Ninh. THANH
TAN/VIETNAM NEWS AGENCY/VIET NAM NEWS
Many of Vietnam’s agricultural
products – especially rice, vegetables and cassava – have faced barriers
preventing their export to China, according to the Ministry of Agriculture and
Rural Development.
The ministry’s Agricultural
Product Processing and Market Development Department said cassava is the latest
export from Vietnam to China to face strict controls on labelling, packaging
and information as well as a tightening of import procedures at border gates.
The department said cassava
exports to China are expected to be reduced in the second quarter of this year
due to lower demand.
Cassava is one of the
agricultural products to have seen billions of US dollars of exports in recent
years. But in the first five months of this year, the sector earned a revenue
of about $414 million from shipping 1.08 million tonnes, down 11 per cent in
value and 17.6 per cent in volume year-on-year, vietnamnet.vn reported.
China continues to be the largest
export market for Vietnamese cassava, but the first four months of this year
saw exports of the product to the Chinese market fall by 16.4 per cent in
volume and 3.5 per cent in value compared to the same period last year.
Previously, the most populous
market in the world also strengthened barriers to Vietnamese rice exports.
From the beginning of last year,
China increased import duties on sticky rice from five per cent to 50 per cent
and added stricter controls on other rice imports.
Only 20 out of 150 rice export
enterprises in Vietnam have received permission to bring their products to
China.
Le Thanh Hoa, deputy director of
the Agricultural Product Processing and Market Development Department, said the
new fees and standards have made it hard to sell rice in the traditional export
market.
Vietnam exported a total of 2.83
million tonnes of rice in the first five months of this year, earning $1.21
billion. These numbers were down four per cent in volume and 20.7 per cent in
value year-on-year.
China dropped to Vietnam’s
seventh largest rice export market in the first two months of this year,
according to the General Department of Customs.
Although there are many trade
barriers, Hoa still expects Vietnam’s high quality rice exports to China to
increase after China has announced that 22 Vietnamese enterprises will be
permitted to export to this market.
The Ministry of Industry and
Trade will also negotiate rice export quotas to South Korea.
Vietnam expects to increase rice
exports to the Indonesian market in the third and fourth quarters. It has also
opened talks with the Philippines on contracts to import the product, according
to the department.
China has promoted traceable
origins and quality management and has asked fruit exporters to register codes
showing where the fruits were planted. The changes have created disadvantages
for Vietnamese fruit exporters, especially for those that sell fresh local
fruits. For instance, exports of pineapples from Lao Cai province and bananas
from Lai Chau province have slumped severely.
The vegetable and fruit sector
promoted exports to highly demanding countries in the first four months of this
year including Australia (up 39.9 per cent), the Netherlands (up 29.22 per
cent), South Korea (up 25.53 per cent) and France (up 24.81 per cent).
Recently, Vietnamese mangoes have
begun to be exported to the US. Mangoes are Vietnam’s sixth fruit licensed for
export to the US market after dragon fruit, rambutan, longan, lychee and star
apple.
The export value of Vietnamese
fruits and vegetables in the first five months of this year reached $1.83
billion, a year-on-year increase of 10.3 per cent.
Experts in the sector said the
efforts to find alternative markets will help Vietnam’s agricultural sector
reduce its dependence on the Chinese market and grow despite China’s new trade
barriers. VIET NAM NEWS/ASIA NEWS NETWORK
Contact author: Asia News Network
Palay farmgate price continues to fall in late May
June 10, 2019 | 12:05 am
PHILSTAR/MICHAEL
VARCAS
THE AVERAGE farmgate price of
palay, or unmilled rice, fell 0.2% week-on-week during the fourth week of May
to P18.20 per kilogram (kg), the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) said.
The PSA said the average
wholesale price of well-milled rice fell 0.1% week-on-week to P39.44. At
retail, it rose 0.1% to P43.10 per kg.
The wholesale price of
regular-milled rice fell 0.2% week-on-week to P35.73 during the period. At
retail, the price increased 0.03% to P38.76.
The farmgate price of yellow corn
grain during the period declined 0.6% week-on-week to P13.97 per kg. The
average wholesale price fell 8.8% to P18.43 and the retail price decreased 4.2%
to P23.96.
The average farmgate price of
white corn grain fell 1.4% week-on-week to P16.11. The average wholesale price
fell 1.5% to P22.41, and the average retail price remained at P29.12 for a
seventh straight week.
The implementation of the Rice
Tarrification Law, or the liberalization of rice imports, has been pressuring
the price of palay, the form in which domestic farmers sell their rice, in the
past few months. The prospect of buying cheap foreign rice has given traders
more leverage in the market while also dampening farmers’ planting intentions.
Tariffs collected from the rice
imports will finance the P10-billion Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund,
which will support farm mechanization, high-yielding rice seeds, credit
support, and training for farmers. — Vincent Mariel P. Galang
Govt to
increase direct procurement from farmers
Emran Hossain | Published: 01:32, Jun
10,2019 | Updated: 01:45, Jun 10,2019
The government is planning to
increase direct procurement of un-husked rice from the farmers, officials in
the ministries of food and agriculture told New Age Sunday.
The policy shift is needed as the government has been facing severe public criticism for buying husked rice from the millers putting the farmers into an unprecedented crisis.
The viability of the plan was discussed by food minister Sadhan Chandra Majumder and agriculture minister Muhammad Abdur Razzaque at the latter’s office, they said.
The meeting took place after Sadhan visited Razzaque after the Eid vacation.
The food minister would seek the prime minister’s approval to the proposal, they said.
Before the food minister met him, Razzaque told New Age that the government was worried over the low price of un-husked rice.
Until now this boro season, the government procured barely 40,000 tonnes of un-husked rice from the growers against the target of procuring 1.5 lakh tonnes directly from farmers and 10 lakh tonnes of husked rice from the millers.
The government set the rate of buying un-husked rice from the farmers at Tk 1,040 for 40 kg and at Tk 1,440 for buying husked rice from the millers.
Agricultural economists blasted the government policy and asked it to procure at least 50 lakh tonnes of un-husked rice directly from the farmers to keep the price at a reasonable level for the growers.
The government cited inadequate storage facilities in place for the limited procurement from the farmers.
An agriculture ministry official said after emerging from the meeting that the government might request the millers to partially store un-husked rice to be bought from the growers.
The government has the facilities to store 18 lakh tonnes of rice and it already stored 14 lakh tonnes in its warehouses.
The government needs 22 lakh tonnes of rice to run its social safety net and rationing programmes.
The syndicate of corrupt food officials, influential ruling party politicians and the wealthy millers does not allow the government to directly procure un-husked rice from the growers.
Economists said that the harsh ground realities compelled the farmers to sell their un-husked boro rice at a maximum price of Tk 600 for 40 kg which is far below their production cost of Tk 1,000 per 40 kg.
Increased rice imports from India also brought down the price of rice grown in Bangladesh.
The policy shift is needed as the government has been facing severe public criticism for buying husked rice from the millers putting the farmers into an unprecedented crisis.
The viability of the plan was discussed by food minister Sadhan Chandra Majumder and agriculture minister Muhammad Abdur Razzaque at the latter’s office, they said.
The meeting took place after Sadhan visited Razzaque after the Eid vacation.
The food minister would seek the prime minister’s approval to the proposal, they said.
Before the food minister met him, Razzaque told New Age that the government was worried over the low price of un-husked rice.
Until now this boro season, the government procured barely 40,000 tonnes of un-husked rice from the growers against the target of procuring 1.5 lakh tonnes directly from farmers and 10 lakh tonnes of husked rice from the millers.
The government set the rate of buying un-husked rice from the farmers at Tk 1,040 for 40 kg and at Tk 1,440 for buying husked rice from the millers.
Agricultural economists blasted the government policy and asked it to procure at least 50 lakh tonnes of un-husked rice directly from the farmers to keep the price at a reasonable level for the growers.
The government cited inadequate storage facilities in place for the limited procurement from the farmers.
An agriculture ministry official said after emerging from the meeting that the government might request the millers to partially store un-husked rice to be bought from the growers.
The government has the facilities to store 18 lakh tonnes of rice and it already stored 14 lakh tonnes in its warehouses.
The government needs 22 lakh tonnes of rice to run its social safety net and rationing programmes.
The syndicate of corrupt food officials, influential ruling party politicians and the wealthy millers does not allow the government to directly procure un-husked rice from the growers.
Economists said that the harsh ground realities compelled the farmers to sell their un-husked boro rice at a maximum price of Tk 600 for 40 kg which is far below their production cost of Tk 1,000 per 40 kg.
Increased rice imports from India also brought down the price of rice grown in Bangladesh.
Not fad but to feed: A millennial trains to spruce up farming
skills, be a change agent
by Sahana
Ghosh on 10 June 2019
- A
young farmer in Uttarakhand experiments with agricultural technology but
is hindered by the lack of recognition and financial support to women
cultivators.
- A
rice cultivator, Ranjana Kukreti, has diversified into cropping seasonal
vegetables and mushrooms in her greenhouse to supplement her income.
- Reduction
in land area and water availability throw up challenges for her arduous
farming efforts in the western Himalayan hill slopes.
- Trained
by the International Rice Research Institute, Ranjana Kukreti hopes to be a
changemaker in her village and coach others in farming technologies.
In the climate-controlled and meticulously monitored environment of her polyhouse in Dehradun plains, the rice cultivator’s painstaking efforts yield a steady supply of vegetables such as tomatoes, cucumber, bright green spinach and chillies.
While a section of Indian millennials, driven by food safety and sustainability concerns, takes on urban farming with gusto, aided by agri-tech start-ups, Kukreti, a post-graduate in rural development, has resolved to be a farmer, to feed the country’s growing population.
Unlike many urban agriculturalists, farming is Kukreti’s primary source of income.
Guided by her familial ties to agriculture, Kukreti has diversified from rice, pulse and maize cultivation to growing finger millets, vegetables and mushroom, driven by innovations, in her family-owned agricultural plot in Shuklapur village, nestled amid Dehradun’s scenic hills.
“My father was in the defence but was also involved in agriculture. My mother too is active in the field. I have been into it since I was a child. If people from our generation do not take up farming then how do we produce grains for our growing population,” stressed Kukreti.
Ranjana Kukreti and her parents. Photo by Ranjana
Kukreti“Land area and water availability are shrinking and weather patterns have changed. There are thorns and roses in agriculture and more challenges for us hill farmers. We need more youth participation in farming,” said Kukreti.
“More importantly, women have been an integral part of the agricultural workforce but there is a need to recognise more women as professionals, especially now when we are willing to experiment and bring about innovations in this sector,” noted Kukreti.
Encouraging
women in professional farming
According to the Census
2011, 55 percent of women workers were
agricultural labourers and 24 percent were cultivators. However,
only 12.8 percent of the operational holdings were owned by women, which
reflect the gender disparity in ownership of landholdings in agriculture.
Moreover, 25 percent of this land belonged to the “marginal and small holdings
categories.”In Uttarakhand, 75 to 85 percent of the population make their living from agriculture, a sector that is pressuring the government to come up with a hill-centric policy.
Situated in one of the most hazard-prone belts in Asia, Uttarakhand is susceptible to earthquakes, landslides and floods that often make headlines. Sheet erosion and landslides contribute substantially to soil loss resulting in the decline of productivity of agricultural land. In addition, the hill-dwelling communities have been hit hard by climate change.
Which is why Kukreti is keen to dabble in different techniques to the use the available resources to their best potential on her small landholding.
Tomatoes growing in the greenhouse. Photo by Ranjana
Kukreti“Before that, I received training in Odisha where I learnt a great deal about the time-specific nuances of rice planting such as the right time to prepare a nursery. In the Philippines, learning to use the crop calendar was very interesting. Among other subjects, we were taught to fabricate a pipe-based tool for optimising water use during paddy cultivation. It tells you when to add water,” explained Kukreti.
A cropping calendar is a schedule of the rice-growing season from the fallow period and land preparation, to crop establishment and maintenance, to harvest and storage. Using a crop calendar allows better planning of all farm activities and the cost of production.
Kukreti plans to put her freshly gained insights to use in this year’s paddy growing season starting in July. “Water availability has dwindled in the hills and we are dependent on the monsoon rainfall. Earlier I used to add more water than what was necessary for paddy. I plan to install the pipe-based tool for better water use. I also want to apply the crop calendar for improved planning of farm activities,” she said.
“We do not use too much chemical fertiliser but I am trying to reduce it still, thanks to the training,” she said.
Empowerment
through training, finance and technology
When not busy getting her hands
dirty in the paddy field, Kukreti is immersed in potting mushrooms.“There is a high market demand for mushrooms. I grow oyster mushrooms in the rainy season and the button variety in winter. These are basically six-month crops and they supplement my income from the farm,” she beamed.
Kukreti is now trying to think out-of-the box to commandeer unused spaces into potential farming plots.
“My recent focus has been on using spaces that go to waste for planting purposes. For example, rooftop planting is something I am experimenting with now. After meeting farmers from other parts of India during workshops I have realised that I could do a lot if I had a bit more space,” Kukreti said.
Kukreti hopes to develop her plot into a model farm so she can train her peers.
“Now that my father has retired, he has more time to spend with me on the farm and we have planned to get more technological tools and combine them with the traditional knowledge that we have in farming,” said Kukreti.
“But for any kind of intervention and sustainability, I need financial support which is difficult to access as an individual but I can access credit as part of a group,” she said.
Poornima Ravi Shankar, a senior specialist with IRRI’s Knowledge Management and Outreach, who looks after the IRRI-DBT training project, explained that women farmers like Kukreti, who do not have ownership over land, are unable to secure collateral for loans.
“The land is in her father’s name and she can’t pledge assets to avail loans. The loan has to be through her father. Even recognition is an issue – women are seen as workers on farms. It is easier for them if they are part of a group or federated. There is a certain safety in numbers,” Shankar told Mongabay-India.
India’s Economic Survey 2017-18 that underscores “the feminisation of agriculture” in the country with an increasing number of women in multiple roles as cultivators, entrepreneurs, and labourers, also emphasised that women farmers should have enhanced access to resources like land, water, credit, technology and training.
Ranjana tends to her livestock on the farm. Photo
from Ranjana Kukreti.“Our ultimate aim is to build the capacity of women farmers so they can go back to their villages and be change agents. As our trainees are associated with self-help groups and federations, they can train their peers,” Shankar said.
While affiliation to a group or federation was one of the selection criteria for the trainees, Shankar said the willingness to learn and freedom to implement solutions on farms were extremely important yardsticks to gauge the potential of the farmers to be considered for the training.
“Ranjana has a lot of freedom to experiment and she is very keen to try out new things. A lot of women in her position will not have the same freedom. Further, they were also coached in leadership skills and how to handle male workers. It is a challenge, to command respect from male workers and assert yourself in a different way to manage your farm,” said Shankar.
“She could have done anything else but she chose to be a farmer and we need to support such efforts by building capacities,” added Shankar.
Banner image: Ranjana Kukreti tends to cucumber vines in her polyhouse where she loves experimenting with science-based farm methods and agri-tech. Photo from Ranjana Kukreti.
Eating That Bowl of Rice Is Actually Really
Damaging to The Environment, Here’s Why
June 10, 2019
By
Source: En.People.CN & Proudly Chinese Sa
There’s one staple of Asian food
goes well with just about any dish you care to name. No matter what your
preference, be it Masak Merah, Kong Po or curry, it’s got to be paired with a
nice, hot, fluffy bowl of rice.
But if your bowl of rice is very
much contributing to the global emergency that is climate change, would you be
able to stop eating it?
“The
amount of attention that rice receives for these issues is relatively small
compared to the size of the problem,” said Mr Paul Nicholson, who heads rice
research and sustainability for Olam International, the world’s second-biggest
rice supplier, to Singapore’s Straits
Times.
The effects of global rice farming
can be compared to at least 1,200 average-sized power plants or the annual
carbon dioxide emission from fossil fuels in Germany, Italy, Spain and Britain
combined.
The reason behind the effects of
rice farming can be pinpointed to the widely used method of flooding paddy
fields.
Farmers flood paddy fields to stop weeds from growing, but unfortunately,
flooding the fields causes underwater microbes to decay organic matter, a process which then produces methane (a greenhouse gas that’s 25
times more potent than Carbon Dioxide).
These flooded conditions cause up to 12% of global emissions of methane, which is also the gas said to be
responsible for up to a quarter of global warming caused by humans.
Olam International has since
started sourcing for farms that choose alternative methods for growing paddy.
Some of the ideas put forward to help farmers deviate away from
the unintentional global warming effect of farming the crop include the
rotational irrigation method (alternately wetting and drying crops rather than
keeping it flooded). Farmers are also advised not burn what’s left of the crops after harvesting and to use organic fertilisers.
Source: Teri
Considering the rotational
irrigation method does take time and effort as farmers need to be trained,
scientists are also in the brainstorming stages of other suitable tactics to
replace paddy field flooding. Hopefully, a solution is in the offing as the
rice consumption of Western countries is currently on the rise, fuelling even
more demand for rice.
Well, rice makes you fat anyways.
Your bowl of
rice is hurting climate more than you think
June 10, 2019
113
A
farmer holds rice stalks.
Eco-conscious consumers are
giving up meat and driving electric cars to do their part for the environment,
but what about that bowl of rice?
Global rice farming, it turns
out, could have the same detrimental effect on global warming in the
short term as 1,200 average-sized coal power plants, according to the New
York-based Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) advocacy group.
That means the grain is just as
damaging over the long term as annual carbon-dioxide emissions from fossil
fuels in Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK combined.
As the sheer size of the staple
food’s carbon footprint becomes clearer to scientists, companies,
including the maker of Uncle Ben’s rice and Olam International Ltd., the
world’s second-biggest rice supplier, are starting to source more of the grain
from farms that aren’t flooded, a widespread cultivation technique that
releases methane gas into the atmosphere.
“The amount of attention that
rice receives for these issues is relatively small compared to the size of the
problem,” said Paul Nicholson, who heads rice research and sustainability for
Olam from Singapore. “People are very informed on their chocolate, coffee,
hair-care solutions, but rice is an afterthought.”
Rice is the staple food of
hundreds of millions of Asians and by far the most polluting grain—emitting
twice as much of the harmful gases as wheat. Yet, it hasn’t been in the
spotlight as much as, say, beef, which produces far more emissions per calorie
and along with other animal products is the culprit behind almost 60
percent of greenhouse-gas emissions coming from food.
That’s changing as socially
conscious consumers, especially in Europe and North America, increasingly
demand evidence that the foods they spend their money on are doing the least
harm to the environment—and treating farmers and workers in developing
countries fairly.
With agriculture emitting almost
as much greenhouse gas as transportation, those demands will only intensify.
For millennia, rice farmers from
Spain to Indonesia have relied on the practice of flooding paddy fields
because it stops weeds from growing.
But there’s a big drawback:
submerging the crop allows tiny underwater microbes to decay organic matter,
producing methane, a greenhouse gas that is 25 times more potent than carbon
dioxide even though it lingers in the atmosphere for a shorter time.
Growing rice in flooded
conditions causes up to 12 percent of global emissions of methane, a gas
blamed for about one quarter of global warming caused by humans.
The Sustainable Rice Platform
(SRP), overseen by the United Nations and International Rice Research Institute
(IRRI), is trying to promote change.
Earlier this year, the
Bangkok-based body released updated guidelines on growing rice more
sustainably by, for instance, alternately wetting and drying the crop rather
than keeping it flooded, not burning what’s left of the crop after it has been
harvested, using organic fertilizers and promoting fair working conditions.
The SRP is working with thousands
of farmers in countries like India, Nigeria, Thailand and Vietnam to give them
a score based on these and other factors, with its work funded by corporate
members and nongovernment organizations.
Rice that complies with the
standard will eventually be eligible to carry an “SRP-verified” logo, a
certification that will be rolled out later this year—giving consumers a choice
for the first time.
Mars Inc., the producer of the
Uncle Ben’s brand popular in the US and Europe, shifted to sourcing 87 percent
of its rice under the standard this year, a ratio it expects to boost to
100 percent by 2020.
Olam, too, said it’s
pursuing initiatives to get farmers to grow sustainable rice in
five Asian and African countries.
“We are working with farmers to
develop new methods,” said Louke Koopmans, Mars Food’s global sustainable
sourcing manager.
As an example, she said the
company’s work with 2,500 basmati rice farmers in India and Pakistan has
reduced water use by 30 percent, along with increasing their crop yield and
boosting their wages.
“It requires a careful dance of
water levels to manage two populations of microbes,” she said.
But alternative growing methods
carry their own risks.
While farmers can drastically
curtail overall emissions if they alternate between wetting and drying, this
only works if they flood the crops shallowly.
Otherwise as water levels
fluctuate, it brings in oxygen, which mingles with the nitrogen in the soil and
fertilizers to release nitrous oxide, according to K. Kritee, a scientist
at the EDF. Nitrous oxide is 300 times more damaging than CO2 and stays around for more
than 100 years longer.
“It requires a careful dance of
water levels to manage two populations of microbes,” she said.
To reduce emissions risk from
both gases, a study by the EDF in India suggested keeping the water
level between 5 centimeters above the surface and 5 cm below.
Over a 20-year horizon, total greenhouse-gas
emissions from rice could take the same toll on the environment as 1,200
coal plants, with the impact dropping to the equivalent of 600 coal plants over
100 years, EDF research shows.
While a lot of farmers in
countries like Vietnam, Cambodia and LaoPDR are already being encouraged to
grow rice on non-flooded fields, part of the challenge is that farmers
need to be trained, for instance, in how to use field water tubes to measure
moisture levels.
Rolling out such methods in India
and China, where rice is a daily staple, will be difficult because of the
prevalence of small-scale farms where the grain is produced by families
for their own consumption.
At the moment, it can take more
than 1,400 liters of water to produce 1 kilogram of rice, according to the
IRRI.
Olam and SRP aim to train 150,000
farmers by 2023 in Asia and Africa. But even that will barely move the needle,
accounting for only 0.1 percent of the households farming rice globally.
One solution for the environment,
according to Kritee, would be for consumers to shift to eating more alternative
grains—like maize and wheat—that leaves less of a footprint.
But rice consumption is rising in
Europe and the US as more people adopt vegetarian and vegan diets. Even so, the
US makes up less than 1 percent of total consumption,
compared with almost 50 percent in China and India.
To meet growing demand in the
next 25 years, rice production must increase by 25 percent, according to the
IRRI.
“It’s a dilemma how to deal with
this because rice is a staple and of deep cultural value for all in Asia,”
Kritee said.
Image
Credits: Tomohiro Ohsumi/Bloomberg
Why China prefers silence on imported Pakistani sugar?
Published: June 10, 2019
PHOTO: REUTERS
BEIJING: “We know little about the import of
Pakistani sugar,” said China Sugar Association (CSA) Chairman Jia Zhiren and
CSA Vice Chairman Hu Zhijiang at the World Sugar Seminar on May 25. They both
kept silent on the reporter’s questions.
The 2019 China Sugar Expo and World Sugar
Seminar was held in Guangxi, a province whose produced sugar accounts for 60%
of China’s total sugar output. At the venue of hundreds of people, can the
reporter find any signs of the previously reported 300,000 tons of imported
Pakistani sugar?
“I’ve been studying sugar all my life, but I
still don’t know who’s in charge of the sugar price,” said Jia, who did not
respond directly to the sugar issue, pointing straight at the price of sugar.
According to Jia, China’s sugar-making
enterprises lost 1.9 billion yuan last year, and most of the main producing
areas are in the border, and poor areas with leftover children and the elderly,
including Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, Guangxi, Yunnan, and Guangdong.
China’s sugar farmers are about 40 million,
and their income contributes around 70% of the sales income of sugar
enterprises.
Such a high proportion of sugarcane farmers’
income mainly refers to the purchasing price of sugarcane, that is, the raw
material price from sugar enterprises.
At the intervals of the meeting, Xu Sheng, a
senior researcher of white sugar at the agricultural sector from Shanghai Chaos
Investment Co Ltd, analysed three reasons why the purchasing price of sugarcane
in China could not be reduced. First, the difficulty of mechanised planting,
second is the increase in labour costs, and third, the rigidity of land rent.
“There are many sloping fields in the south,
it is difficult to drive jeeps, let alone popularising mechanised production.
Now that sugarcane cutters have been paid no less than 120 yuan per mu of land,
the sugar factory will not be able to bring down the purchasing price of 490
yuan per ton for sugar farmers,” said Xu Sheng.
Joining in the sugar price discussion, Wang
Jiabo, a senior researcher of SDIC ESSENCE Futures, remarked, “Recently, some
sugarcane farmers have seen a fall in sugar prices and a rise in fruit prices,
so they intended to give up sugarcane planting, turn to fruit planting. Next
year, Guangxi may have competition in the planted area, if this figure falls
domestically, we will see a rising market.”
In the process of exploring the sugar
market, various views and remarks on sugar price bring to mind the nickname
“demon sugar”, since the domestic sugar commodity prices go up and down, and
with unpredictable mystery. The market mentioned above is the domestic sugar
prices.
When talking about domestic sugar prices,
the most discussed is ‘sugar No 11’ – New York raw sugar futures, FOB prices of
29 sugar producers around the world, which is an indicator of international raw
sugar prices. Moreover, the key factor that connects domestic and international
sugar prices is import tariff.
In 2019, the in-quota tariff rate of 1.945
million tons of imported sugar in China is 15%, and the out-quota import tariff
is applied to the trade guaranteed rate of 85%, with 70% difference between.
“Every country has protection measures
against its domestic sugar prices, so does the United States and Japan. Japan
has the highest import tariffs of 100%,” said Wang.
The price of ‘sugar No 11’ would drop to
11.62 cents per pound and $256 per ton (about 1,856 yuan), after a likely
rebound from 85% to 50% a year later, Brazil’s Ministry of Agriculture said on
May 21.
On the same day, the spot prices of domestic
coastal ports were between 5,300 yuan and 5,400 yuan, and the price difference
between futures and spot was 3,544 yuan per ton.
According to survey data from the research
group of the Agricultural Trade Promotion Centre of the Ministry of
Agriculture, the price of ‘sugar No 11’, with additional out-of-quota tariff,
freight charges and refined processing in China, tumbled to 3,900 yuan in
September 2014.
Even though the average price of domestic
sugar had sunk to the lowest in the same period, it was 100 yuan higher than
the refined after-tax price of imported raw sugar. Therefore, it is
self-evident that the industry is sensitive to international sugar imports, especially
low-priced imported sugar.
“Pakistan will certainly benefit from
selling sugar to China with high sugar prices, but their low-priced sugar will
bring impact on our domestic market. And China’s 40 million sugar farmers will
absolutely have to surrender part of the profits. As far as we know, 182,000
tons of Pakistani sugar has gone through customs clearance, whether the next
120,000 tons will be settled within the year, I don’t know yet,” commented Xu
Sheng, who was the first among the participants to mention Pakistani sugar.
Since the domestic sugar industry is so
concerned about the import of Pakistani sugar, the total sugar import and its
distribution among the major sugar-producing countries is also the core
concern.
Jia Zhiyan said at the sidelines of the
event that China’s annual average import of sugar from 2011 to 2018 was 3.46
million tons. “China’s total import each year is planned. If there is more of
this, there will be less of that,” he said.
Martin Todd, General Manager of UK LMC
International, believes that Pakistan does not have a sustained supply capacity
for sugar export and has a higher probability of one-off export to China.
In mid-April, in an interview in Lahore,
Adviser to PM on Commerce Abdul Razak Dawood said that China’s first $1 billion
special access for Pakistan, including sugar, rice and yarn, has been launched.
As this first $1 billion agreement is completed, China will grant a second $1
billion special access.
The director-general of the International
Sugar Organisation, Joseph Orif, believes that Pakistan has sugar stocks this
year and that special access next year is likely to be replaced by other
categories.
A sugar researcher, who spoke on condition
of anonymity, gave the reporter a retail price list of sugar in Pakistan.
“After the export to China, the price of sugar in Pakistan has gradually risen,
surging by over 20% in April compared with the same period last year. As far as
we know, sugar may not be expected to be exported next year.”
This article originally appeared on the
China Economic Net
