Back to basics:
COVID-19 labour crunch brings direct seeding of paddy in focus
Since June, when kharif sowing started, 0.7 million ha has been
brought under DSR in Punjab
By Shagun Kapil
Last
Updated: Wednesday 15 July 2020
While other farmers of his village wondered how to overcome the
labour shortage caused by migration of workers during the novel coronavirus
disease (COVID-19) lockdown, Kewal Singh was without a worry. The 55-year-old
farmer from Kothe Amberhar village of Punjab’s Ferozepur district did not need
to hire labourers to sow rice. He had been doing it himself for the past five
years with minimal help.
It was in 2015 that Singh experimented with direct
seeded rice (DSR), also called broadcasting seed technique, an
alternative way of sowing rice. The traditional and the prevalent way across
India is transplanting rice (TPR) seedlings from a nursery to waterlogged
fields. But TPR is extremely labour- and water-intensive, unlike DSR.
Inspired by a fellow farmer of his village, Kewal shifted part
of his 16 hectare (ha) farmland to DSR in the first year. The yield increased
and the input cost reduced by Rs 7,000 per ha. He kept bringing more land under
DSR every year and this year, when the labour shortage was extreme, he used DSR
on his entire farmland.
There is no nationwide official data on how much rice in India
is grown through DSR. M L Jat, principal scientist with Mexico-based CIMMYT
(International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre), estimated that about 10 per
cent of India’s 44 million ha under rice cultivation is through DSR.
In the past few decades, many state governments have been
encouraging farmers to move to DSR because it is easier on the environment, but
without much success. Most recently, the Punjab government, on April 16, 2020,
issued a statement citing a Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) study asking
farmers to shift to DSR.
Since June, when kharif sowing
started, 0.7 million ha has been brought under DSR in Punjab, said the state
government, according to media reports.The government did not try hard
enough to popularise DSR all these years. But COVID-19 has done the trick,” said
BS Rajewal, president of Bharatiya Kisan Union’s Rajewal faction in Punjab.
“Bihar is also moving towards adopting DSR. So are Chhattisgarh,
Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and small areas in Madhya Pradesh,” said Jat.
A study by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research and
Indian Institute of Rice Research in 2016-17 stated that DSR is
gaining popularity among the farmers of Raichur, Koppal and Ballari districts
in Karnataka where water shortage is acute.
Globally, around 23 per cent rice was directly seeded in 2007,
according to the study ‘Weed Management in Direct Seeded Rice’, published in
Advances in Agronomy in 2011.
Countries have been gradually shifting to DSR. In south Asia and
southeast Asia, which produce, supply and consume a large proportion of the
global rice, the shift to DSR started in the late 1980s and 1990s, mainly in
growing economies such as Malaysia and Thailand as well as in countries where
rapid intensification of rice production took place, for example Vietnam, said
the study.
China shifted to DSR in the 1980s, Korea in 1991, and
experiments on direct seeding in Bangladesh started in the 2000s. Much of the
shift was due to rising wages and labour shortages.
Why isn’t DSR popular?
Ever since rice cultivation started, farmers across the world
followed the practice of broadcasting seeds directly on dry or puddled soils,
said Jat. The shift to TPR happened only in the past century primarily for two
reasons— seed rate and weeds.
“The seed rate was high, with farmers using 100 kg seed per ha
under DSR while transplanting rice needed just 15 to 10 kg per ha. Another
major factor was the emergence of weeds and the lack of effective weedicides,”
explained Jat.
In transplanting, since the field is waterlogged, weed growth is
minimal. Even in India, the practice of transplanting started only after the
Green Revolution. “All the rice grown in the country a hundred years ago was
through DSR,” said Jat.
When Punjab and Haryana shifted
from their traditional crops (maize, millet, pulses and oilseeds) to the
wheat-paddy cultivation cycle, the change in cropping pattern was to ensure
food security for the country and, therefore, neither the Centre nor the states
showed concern for the sustainability of the resources.
“Rice comes from wild plant species and its cultivation was
adopted in naturally flooded areas. So when farmers adopted it in non-naturally
flooded areas, they flooded the fields themselves,” said Surinder Singh Kukal,
dean, College of Agriculture, PAU, explaining how TPR became prevalent even in
regions that are not rich in water resources.
DSR benefits
Rice is the major kharif crop of India and is grown in all the
major agrarian states, such as Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Since
groundwater is the main source of irrigation in these states, rice cultivation
by TPR has depleted the water table.
In Punjab, for instance, the groundwater declined in about 85
per cent of the state between 1984 and 2016, according to Central Ground
Water Board data. In such a scenario, DSR can help reduce water consumption by
as much as 35 per cent, according to the 2011 study in Advances in Agronomy.
The study was an analysis of 77 published studies from across
the globe. It also stated that DSR can reduce labour needs by 60 per cent and
the cost of production by $30-51 per ha. The transplanting technique is also a
major source of methane, a greenhouse gas.
The study found that methane emissions were reduced by 6 per
cent to 92 per cent in the DSR method, depending on the type of variant used.
There are DSR variants that can be practised as per the agro-climatic and soil
conditions.
The two main methods are — dry DSR (in which rice seeds are sown
by drilling in dry soil) and wet DSR (in which sprouted seeds are sown in wet
soil). PAU, which first recommended DSR in 2010, has now suggested a few
refinements and called it tar wattar (optimum moisture) DSR.
Since groundwater is the main source of irrigation in Punjab, rice cultivation by transplantation has depleted the water table.
This is a modification of wet DSR. In tar wattar DSR, the field
is laser-levelled and a pre-sowing (rauni)
irrigation is done. The field is prepared to optimum soil moisture condition
and rice is seeded immediately. Herbicides to control weeds are sprayed
simultaneously with the help of drill machine. The first irrigation is done 21
days after sowing, which is a major departure from the DSR being tried earlier
in Punjab.
“The delay in first irrigation promotes deep root penetration
and minimises nutrient deficiencies. The three-week post-sowing period covers
most of the driest month of June in which no irrigation is done and hence water
is saved,” said MS Bhullar, principal agronomist, PAU.
PAU’s recommendation for DSR in 2010 was only for medium to
heavy textured soils, but demonstrations last year showed the refined DSR
technology can work even in sandy loam soils.
This has increased the area suitable for DSR in Punjab from 45
per cent to 85 per cent. However, there are a few drawbacks with DSR. Rain
immediately after seeding can reduce availability of soil nutrients and damage
the crop.
“Germination stopped on at least 30 per cent of my field after
the untimely rain on June 4,” said Gurbinder Singh Bajwa, a farmer from
Punjab’s Gurdaspur district, who had sowed rice on 0.8 ha through DSR on June
2.
“A crust got formed and to break that I irrigated before the
recommended 21 days. It didn’t work,” he added.
Jaskarana Singh Khosa, a farmer of Kothe Amberhar, planted rice
through DSR in eight ha this time, but the crop was destroyed since the machine
was faulty and the sowing was too deep. With DSR, farmers and researchers will
also have to work on weed management.
“The intensity and diversity of weeds keep increasing. New weeds
emerge; so it’s likely that the same medicine won’t work next time,” warned
Kukal. Bhullar, however, was optimistic. “Next year will be better. It
will take some time for farmers to fully adapt.”
Odisha set to
introduce locally produced millets into ICDS, PDS
Keonjhar district will introduce ragi for pre-school meals
through DMF funds from July
By Chinmayi Shalya
Last
Updated: Tuesday 30 June 2020
Locally cultivated ragi will be part of the Integrated Child
Development Services (ICDS) scheme for the first time in Odisha, with Keonjhar
district introducing it as part of the pre-school meal from July 2020 onwards.
Additionally, 14 districts — a part of the state’s Millet Mission — will
provide ragi through the
public distribution system (PDS) from September, the state
agriculture department said.
The initiatives are part of the state’s millet mission which was
initiated in 2017 with the aim to to popularise local
production of millets among farmers and increase local household
consumption for better dietary diversity and nutritional gains. One of the key
commitments was also to integrate locally grown millets as part of public food
systems such as ICDS and PDS, mid-day meals and eventually government-run
hostels and homes.
The idea is also to build
climate resilience among farmers and promote agroecological
farming methods for cultivation that draw on chemical-free agriculture
practices and locally sustained food systems.
Odisha has
an immense malnutrition burden to address, with about 45 per cent children who
are stunted and about 41 per cent women who have a below-normal body mass
index, according to the National Family Health Survey, 2015-16.
After Keonjhar, the initiative will be replicated in Sundargarh
district from August and scaled up in other districts in the coming months. The
districts will be using their District Mineral Foundation (DMF) funds for this.
Keonjhar has allocated Rs 1.5 crore for the initiative so far.
In Keonjhar, ragi laddoos (sphere-shaped
sweets) will be given as morning snacks for two days a week to pre-school
children over and above the usual meal and is likely to better address
nutritional deficits. After an initial pilot in one block, the initiative is
likely to reach 100,000 children enrolled in Anganwadis across the district,
according to officials.
“After the pilot from the districts, the learnings will be
analysed and integrated to launch the same initiative in other districts of the
state,” said Saurabh Garg, principal secretary of the state’s agriculture
department.
Since protocols over the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19)
are currently in place, the mix will be delivered to children’s homes for now,
said state officials.
In the first phase, the pilot will cover one block and 335 anganwadi
centres (AWC) and be extended to all AWCs in the district by September.
The cumulative ragi procurement made by Odisha this year at
minimum support price (MSP) from the 14 districts was 95,000 quintals, compared
to just 18,000 quintals last year. All the districts will provide 1. 5
kilogrammes ragi per person (out of the five kg per person entitlement) through
PDS.
Incentivising agronomic practices
Unlike the consumer and urban market-driven approach, the millet
drive is largely focused on local food diversity and ensuring people who
produce food also get to eat it.
In terms of agriculture practices, this
approach was described by locals as a ‘middle path’ by the
locals. The state government is incentivising agronomic practices including
pest and weed management through organic methods.
It does not, however, exclude farmers who want to use
chemical-based fertilisers.
“As farmers benefit from using bio-inputs, others also feel
encouraged,” said Garg. “We have not got into certifying bio-input produce
organic so far, since we are looking for a steady ecological change. We may
rethink once production scales up,” he added.
Farmers who have adopted bio-inputs and follow System of Millets
Intensification are given incentives for three years: Rs 5,000 per hectare in
the first year, Rs 3,000 per hectare in the second year and Rs 1,500 in the
third year.
The money is credited in the farmers’ account at the end of the
sowing and harvest season based on the report submitted by local implementation
agencies and vetted by the district administration.
Last year, about 54,000 farmers used bio-inputs and were paid
the incentive. The number is likely to increase to 70,000 farmers this year.
Seed centres, local enterprises around bio-inputs, rented
equipment etc was created by the districts to facilitate easy access. In
Keonjhar, there are custom hiring centres at the block level that are managed
by local self-help groups which provide equipment to enable agronomic
practices.
Sharing produce
Keonjhar district had rolled out its millets cultivation drive
last year. The ICDS initiative will be supported through its own local produce
and excess produce in other districts where cultivation under the mission was
ongoing since 2017.
There are currently four districts — Kalahandi, Koraput,
Malkangiri and Rayagada — that have excess ragi production, according to state
government estimates.
These will support ICDS initiatives in Keonjhar and Sundargarh, which
have the advantage of piloting through their own district-level budgets.
“Ideally, the aim is to make the district self-sufficient with
produce, procurement and distribution. However, that will take some time,” said
Ashima Chaudhary, the state coordinator for the Millet Mission.
“The districts that grow excess ragi are sparsely populated. The
excess can, thus, be redistributed according to the need within the state,” she
added.
Experts feel the onus on non-chemical approaches coupled with a
focus on nutrition and food security so far distinguishes the Odisha approach
from that of the Union government.
“Often, such interventions are driven towards creating
attractive markets and ignore household nutrition and food security. The fact
that this endeavour approaches millets from the point of nutrition and safe
food is important,” said Kavitha Kuruganthi of the Alliance for Sustainable and
Holistic Agriculture.
She closely follows the approaches in Andhra Pradesh and
Karnataka with respect to sustainable millet farming and integration within
government-run food programmes.
Apart from the cultivation, Kuruganthi said it is important that
Odisha is developing decentralised infrastructure for processing and
re-popularising millets. “That goes a long way in ensuring local availability
and improving dietary diversity,” she added.
Anheuser-Busch
Foundation to donate $130,000 to Arkansas Discovery Farms Project
LITTLE ROCK — The University of
Arkansas System Division of Agriculture will receive $130,000 from the
Anheuser-Busch Foundation in support of the Arkansas Discovery Farms Program.
The program is an effort by the
Division of Agriculture to improve soil and water health in agriculture through
edge-of-field runoff monitoring. There are currently 12 farms throughout the
state participating in the research program. The donation from the
Anheuser-Busch Foundation is intended to help establish research at an
additional farm within Arkansas.
The Division of Agriculture is
one of four land grant university institutions throughout the country to
receive funds through the Anheuser-Busch Foundation. The other institutions are
the University of Idaho, North Dakota State University and Montana State
University. The total funding being donated among the four institutions totals
$530,000.
According to a press release from
the foundation, the funds are intended to support “research that focuses on
expanding innovative, sustainable agricultural practices.”
According to the foundation,
supporting these programs advances Anheuser-Busch’s 2025 Sustainability Goals
by promoting the testing and sharing of sustainable, regenerative practices in
the brewer’s key growing regions. By focusing on water stewardship, rotations,
cover cropping, tillage, soil health and other farming best-practices,
Anheuser-Busch will be able to use this research to positively impact not only
farmers within these regions but those around the country.
“The work of land grant
universities is critical as we collectively look for ways to make farming more
sustainable and profitable,” Bill Bradley, vice president of Community Affairs
at Anheuser-Busch, said. “Our company’s commitment to farmers spans generations
and it’s exciting to work with those that represent the next generation. The
Anheuser-Busch Foundation is proud to work alongside these universities that
are the backbone of agricultural extension support to our growers and we thank
them for their longstanding efforts to help local agriculture communities
thrive.”
Arkansas is the nation’s No. 1
rice producer, typically harvesting more than 5,000 tons of rice from more than
1.4 million acres of land. Idaho and Montana are the top two barley producing
states in the United States. Both rice and barley are essential to the
beer-brewing process.
“We are grateful for the support
Anheuser-Busch is providing for Discovery Farms, a program whose mission is
sustainability,” said Mark Cochran, vice president-agriculture for the
University of Arkansas System, said. “The grant will enable us to expand the
work we’re already doing to improve water-use efficiency in rice and conserve a
resource that is so critical to our state and our farmers.”
To learn about extension programs
in Arkansas, contact your local Cooperative Extension Service agent or visit www.uaex.edu. Follow us on Twitter at @UAEX_edu. To learn more
about the Arkansas Discovery Farms Project, visit https://aaes.uark.edu/centers-and-programs/discovery-farm-program/.
To learn more about Division of
Agriculture research, visit the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station online
at https://aaes.uark.edu. Follow AAES on twitter at
@ArkAgResearch and Instagram at ArkAgResearch.
About The Anheuser-Busch Foundation
Established in 1975, the
Anheuser-Busch Foundation focuses on supporting organizations that help
individuals and communities thrive. Alongside Anheuser-Busch Companies, the
Anheuser-Busch Foundation has contributed to countless community organizations
across the country in support of those in need. Over the last 30 years,
Anheuser-Busch and its Foundation have donated more than $600 million to
charitable organizations, including those that support education, environmental
sustainability, economic development, military support and disaster
preparedness/relief. For more information, visit www.anheuser-busch.com.
About Anheuser-Busch
For more than 165 years,
Anheuser-Busch has carried on a legacy of brewing great-tasting, high-quality
beers that have satisfied beer drinkers for generations. Today, we own and
operate more than 100 facilities, including breweries, wholesaler distribution
centers, agricultural facilities and packaging plants, and have more than
18,000 colleagues across the United States. We are home to several of America’s
most recognizable beer brands, including Budweiser, Bud Light, Michelob ULTRA
and Stella Artois, as well as a number of regional brands that provide beer
drinkers with a choice of the best-tasting craft beers in the industry. From
responsible drinking programs and emergency drinking water donations to
industry-leading sustainability efforts, we are guided by our unwavering
commitment to supporting the communities we call home. For more information,
visit www.anheuser-busch.com.
About the Division of Agriculture
The University of Arkansas System
Division of Agriculture’s mission is to strengthen agriculture, communities,
and families by connecting trusted research to the adoption of best practices.
Through the Agricultural Experiment Station and the Cooperative Extension
Service, the Division of Agriculture conducts research and extension work
within the nation’s historic land grant education system.
The Division of Agriculture is
one of 20 entities within the University of Arkansas System. It has offices in
all 75 counties in Arkansas and faculty on five system campuses.
The University of Arkansas System
Division of Agriculture offers all its Extension and Research programs to all
eligible persons without regard to race, color, sex, gender identity, sexual
orientation, national origin, religion, age, disability, marital or veteran
status, genetic information, or any other legally protected status, and is an
Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer.
COVID-19: Pakistan revives mango diplomacy,
begins export to Japan
Country sending its best mangoes
to dignitaries 'after overcoming travel restrictions'
Islamabad: Pakistan’s world-famous mangoes are
more than just a national fruit. The fruit is an inherent part of culture, art,
poetry and diplomacy. Keeping the tradition alive despite the challenges posed
by the pandemic, Pakistan is sending the gift of its best mangoes to world
leaders. Initially, heads of state of 17 friendly countries will soon receive
the delicious gift.
Exports
begin to Japan despite travel restraints
At the same time, Pakistan has started
exporting its prized mangoes to Japan after temporary measures were announced
by Tokyo to allow the shipment despite COVID-19 restrictions. Every year, it
requires pre-clearance by Japanese inspectors who could not visit this year due
to the pandemic travel restrictions.
Relief
for exporters and growers
The move by Japan comes as a surprise for
exporters and a huge relief for the mango growers who were not expecting export
to Japan this year. This was made possible by the efforts of the Pakistan
Embassy in Japan who approached the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries
and Forestry MAFF.
“We requested an inspection by Pakistani
inspectors of Department of Plant Protection and were successful in getting a
waiver of pre-shipment inspection for this season,” Tahir Cheema, Trade and
Investment Counselor at the Embassy of Pakistan in Tokyo, told Gulf News.
Mango
exports sweeten Pakistan-Japan ties
“Around 20 tons of Pakistani mangoes have
arrived in Japan, and we expect to take the total to 150 tons this year,” he
said. In 2019, the export reached a record high of 120 tons and mangoes “were
favourably received in the Japanese market” according to the Japanese Embassy
statement.
For now, Japan only allows two varieties of
mangoes from Pakistan – Sindhri and Chaunsa – but Pakistan’s Trade Counselor
said he has requested to add more varieties for the coming seasons to further
sweeten Pakistan-Japan ties.
Pakistan has successfully shipped three mango
shipments to Japan so far. Pakistan’s Ambassador to Japan, Imtiaz Ahmed, received
the first consignment of mangoes along with businessman and mango exporter,
Ramzan Siddique, and other embassy officials.
Pakistan aims to boost fruit export
Pakistan is also aiming to boost the export of
other fruits to Tokyo. “We are pursuing request to get permission to export
Pakistani kinnow (oranges) to Japan this winter for the first time,” Cheema
told Gulf News. Pakistan’s sweet mangoes and flavourful oranges are among the
most popular and cherished fruits worldwide.
Japan
keen to import Basmati rice and mangoes from Pakistan
Last week, Ambassador of Japan Matsuda Kuninori
held a meeting with Pakistan’s Minister for National Food Security and Research
Syed Fakhar Imam and called for enhanced collaboration in the food and
agriculture sector to boost bilateral trade. The Japanese Ambassador expressed
interest in importing Pakistan’s Basmati rice and showed his fondness for
Pakistani mangoes.
The minister thanked the Japanese envoy for
facilitating the export of mangoes by exempting pre-clearance in the wake of
COVID-19 outbreak and urged to allow access of other Pakistani fruits
particularly citrus in Japanese markets. The Japanese government says it will
continue to support Pakistan in the agricultural field such as measures against
locust control, expanding export of agricultural products, and investment in
the food-processing sector.
Dim view for
second-half rice exports
PUBLISHED : 15 JUL 2020 AT 09:00
NEWSPAPER SECTION: BUSINESS
WRITER: PHUSADEE ARUNMAS
Thailand's rice export prospects
look murky in the second half of the year amid sluggish global demand caused by
the coronavirus crisis.
Charoen Laothammatas, president
of Thai Rice Exporters Association, said overall Thai rice export activity is
relatively quiet in July after the pandemic resulted in the collapse of Phoenix
Commodities, one of the world's biggest commodity traders.
"Phoenix Commodities'
collapse affects almost all rice exporters in Thailand," Mr Charoen said.
"Phoenix was a trading partner of many Thai rice exporters, particularly
those who ship rice to Africa."
The company is estimated to owe 1
billion baht to Thai exporters who sell rice on credit to the company.
Based in the United Arab
Emirates, Phoenix was founded in 2000. It rose to amass US$3bn in revenue by
2019. The firm traded in grains, coal, metals and other commodities.
According to Mr Charoen, another
global rice trading firm is reeling from severely tight liquidity and is likely
to face financial problems similar to Phoenix's.
"In the wake of the collapse
of the world's leading trading firm, some giant rice buyers stopped buying rice
for a month," he said. "More importantly, the stronger baht early
this month and drastic foreign exchange swings have led almost all exporters to
baulk at rice shipments."
According to Mr Charoen, Thai
rice exports are now pricier than those from other countries because of the
baht's relative strength.
Thailand's benchmark 5% broken
rice price is quoted at $440-$450 per tonne, down from $490-500 in the previous
few weeks. Rice from Vietnam, India and Myanmar is now quoted at $360 per
tonne.
In the first five months,
Thailand shipped a total of 2.57 million tonnes of rice, down 31.9% from the
same period last year, with an export value of 54.16 billion baht, down 13.2%
for the same period.
The top five rice importers from
Thailand for the period were the US (338,769 tonnes, up 41.2% year-on-year),
South Africa (231,412, down 12.6%), Angola (195,438, down 1.5%), China
(120,207, down 41.6%) and Japan (116,338, up 7.9%).
The association has set a
full-year rice export target of 7.5 million tonnes but is scheduled to adjust
the target on July 22.
Thailand shipped 7.58 million
tonnes of rice worth 131 billion baht in 2019, down 32% and 25% from the
previous year.
Global methane emissions soar to
record high
JULY 15, 2020
Global emissions of methane have reached the highest levels on
record. Increases are being driven primarily by growth of emissions from coal
mining, oil and natural gas production, cattle and sheep ranching, and
landfills.
Between 2000 and 2017, levels of the potent greenhouse gas barreled up toward pathways that climate models suggest will lead to 3-4 degrees Celsius of warming before the end of this century. This is a dangerous temperature threshold at which scientists warn that natural disasters, including wildfires, droughts and floods, and social disruptions such as famines and mass migrations become almost commonplace. The findings are outlined in two papers published July 14 in Earth System Science Data and Environmental Research Letters by researchers with the Global Carbon Project, an initiative led by Stanford University scientist Rob Jackson.
In 2017, the last year when complete global methane data are available, Earth's atmosphere
absorbed nearly 600 million tons of the colorless, odorless gas that is 28
times more powerful than carbon dioxide at
trapping heat over a 100-year span. More than half of all methane emissions now
come from human activities. Annual methane emissions are up 9 percent, or 50
million tons per year, from the early 2000s, when methane concentrations in the
atmosphere were relatively stable.
In terms of warming potential, adding this much extra methane to
the atmosphere since 2000 is akin to putting 350 million more cars on the
world's roads or doubling the total emissions of Germany or France. "We
still haven't turned the corner on methane," said Jackson, a professor of
Earth system science in Stanford's School of Earth, Energy & Environmental
Sciences (Stanford Earth).
Growing sources of methane
Globally, fossil fuel sources and cows are twin engines powering
methane's upward climb. "Emissions from cattle and other ruminants are almost
as large as those from the fossil fuel industry for methane," Jackson
said. "People joke about burping cows without realizing how big the source
really is."
Throughout the study period, agriculture accounted for roughly
two-thirds of all methane emissions related to human activities; fossil fuels
contributed most of the remaining third. However, those two sources have
contributed in roughly equal measure to the increases seen since the early
2000s.
Methane emissions from agriculture rose to 227 million tons of
methane in 2017, up nearly 11 percent from the 2000-2006 average. Methane from
fossil fuel production and use reached 108 million tons in 2017, up nearly 15
percent from the earlier period.
Amid the coronavirus pandemic, carbon emissions plummeted as manufacturing and transportation
ground to a halt. "There's no chance that methane emissions dropped as
much as carbon dioxide emissions because of the virus," Jackson said.
"We're still heating our homes and buildings, and agriculture keeps
growing."
Emissions around the globe
Methane emissions rose most sharply in Africa and the Middle
East; China; and South Asia and Oceania, which includes Australia and many
Pacific islands. Each of these three regions increased emissions by an estimated
10 to 15 million tons per year during the study period. The United States
followed close behind, increasing methane emissions by 4.5 million tons, mostly
due to more natural gas drilling, distribution and consumption.
"Natural gas use is rising quickly here in the U.S. and
globally," Jackson said. "It's offsetting coal in the electricity
sector and reducing carbon dioxide emissions, but increasing methane emissions
in that sector." The U.S. and Canada are also producing more natural gas.
"As a result, we're emitting more methane from oil and gas wells and leaky
pipelines," said Jackson, who is also a senior fellow at Stanford's Woods
Institute for the Environment and Precourt Institute for Energy.
Europe stands out as the only region where methane emissions
have decreased over the last two decades, in part by tamping down emissions
from chemical manufacturing and growing food more efficiently. "Policies
and better management have reduced emissions from landfills, manure and other
sources here in Europe. People are also eating less beef and more poultry and
fish," said Marielle Saunois of the Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin
in France, lead author of the paper in Earth
System Science Data.
Possible solutions
Tropical and temperate regions have seen the biggest jump in
methane emissions. Boreal and polar systems have played a lesser role. Despite
fears that melting in the Arctic may unlock a burst of methane from thawing
permafrost, the researchers found no evidence for increasing methane emissions
in the Arctic—at least through 2017.
Human driven emissions are in many ways easier to pin down than
those from natural sources. "We have a surprisingly difficult time
identifying where methane is emitted in the tropics and elsewhere because of
daily to seasonal changes in how waterlogged soils are," said Jackson, who
also leads a group at Stanford working to map wetlands and waterlogged soils
worldwide using satellites, flux towers and other tools.
According to Jackson and colleagues, curbing methane emissions
will require reducing fossil fuel use and controlling fugitive emissions such
as leaks from pipelines and wells, as well as changes to the way we feed
cattle, grow rice and eat. "We'll need to eat less meat and reduce emissions
associated with cattle and rice farming," Jackson said, "and replace
oil and natural gas in our cars and homes."
Feed supplements such as algae may help to reduce methane burps
from cows, and rice farming can transition away from permanent waterlogging
that maximizes methane production in low-oxygen environments. Aircraft, drones
and satellites show promise for monitoring methane from oil and gas wells.
Jackson said, "I'm optimistic that, in the next five years, we'll make
real progress in that area."
Farmers ‘not hurt’ by exports to US
Hin Pisei |
Publication date 14 July 2020 | 21:58 ICT
Cambodia Rice Federation (CRF)
officials have refuted claims that the Kingdom’s rice exports to the US will
hurt farmers there.
This comes as the USA Rice
Federation (USA Rice), a global advocate for all segments of the US rice
industry, testified at the US International Trade Commission (USITC) hearing
late last month, supporting the removal of rice from a list of eligible
commodities under GSP.
USA Rice said the US has long
provided GSP benefits to developing countries, providing duty-free access,
though it is only for parboiled rice.
For least-developed countries
like Cambodia and Myanmar, all rice is eligible for duty-free access into the
US.
USA Rice submitted a petition to
the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR) in March, which has since moved
forward into the formal review process.
Information seen by The Post last
week said as part of the 2020 Annual Review for modification of the GSP
programme, the Trade Policy Staff Committee (TPSC) has decided to accept
certain product petitions for review.
“USTR accepted the petition to
remove rice products from GSP. It’s under consideration. USITC held a hearing
on whether rice should be removed.
“USITC will submit a confidential
report to USTR by August 31. USTR is expected to issue a ruling on or before
October 31, and becomes effective on or before November 1,” the TPSC said.
It said the countries affected
are Thailand, India (which lost GSP status in June last year), Pakistan,
Brazil, Vietnam, Argentina and Cambodia.
CRF president Song Saran told a
meeting at the Ministry of Commerce on Monday: “US imports of Cambodian rice
are not a detriment to their farmers because only 2,000 tonnes are shipped
there per annum.
“These are of the indica rice,
organic and fragrant romduol varieties, which are different from the ones grown
in the US.”
US farmers are more known to grow
varieties such as Japonica rice, and its medium-grain variant Calrose, he said.
CRF secretary-general Lun Yeng
told The Post on Tuesday that although striking rice off the list of eligible
commodities under GSP would stifle exports to the US, its impact on overall
rice exports would be miniscule.
He noted that the Kingdom
exported about 2,000 tonnes of rice to the US last year and just slightly more
than 1,000 tonnes in the first half of this year.
“Taking into account that shipments
to the US market account for less than one per cent of Cambodia’s total rice
exports, there won’t be much of a repercussion,” Yeng said, acknowledging that
small-scale organic-rice farmers would face most of the risks of the
transition.
Local media reported Yeng as
saying that with the removal of GSP, a $20 per tonne tax will be applied on
imports of Cambodian rice.
Commerce ministry spokesman Seang
Thay told The Post that his ministry currently does not have any concrete
measures in place to respond to a potential withdrawal.
Monday’s was a “technical meeting
to gather feedback and no specific decisions have been made so far”, he said.
Cambodia exported 1,819 tonnes of
milled rice to the US market worth $1.672 million last year and 1,100 tonnes
worth $1.014 million in the first six months of this year, Thay said.
The Kingdom exported 397,000
tonnes of milled rice to the international market in the first half of this
year, surging 41 per cent from the year-ago period, data from the Ministry of
Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries show. The exports reeled in $264 million in
revenue.
The primary markets for the
Kingdom’s milled rice are China, the EU, the UK and other countries in the
ASEAN bloc.
Contact author: Hin Pisei
Dim view for second-half rice
exports
PUBLISHED : 15 JUL 2020 AT 09:00
NEWSPAPER SECTION: BUSINESS
WRITER: PHUSADEE ARUNMAS
Thailand's
rice export prospects look murky in the second half of the year amid sluggish
global demand caused by the coronavirus crisis.
Charoen
Laothammatas, president of Thai Rice Exporters Association, said overall Thai
rice export activity is relatively quiet in July after the pandemic resulted in
the collapse of Phoenix Commodities, one of the world's biggest commodity
traders.
"Phoenix
Commodities' collapse affects almost all rice exporters in Thailand," Mr
Charoen said. "Phoenix was a trading partner of many Thai rice exporters,
particularly those who ship rice to Africa."
The
company is estimated to owe 1 billion baht to Thai exporters who sell rice on
credit to the company.
Based
in the United Arab Emirates, Phoenix was founded in 2000. It rose to amass
US$3bn in revenue by 2019. The firm traded in grains, coal, metals and other
commodities.
According
to Mr Charoen, another global rice trading firm is reeling from severely tight
liquidity and is likely to face financial problems similar to Phoenix's.
"In
the wake of the collapse of the world's leading trading firm, some giant rice
buyers stopped buying rice for a month," he said. "More importantly,
the stronger baht early this month and drastic foreign exchange swings have led
almost all exporters to baulk at rice shipments."
According
to Mr Charoen, Thai rice exports are now pricier than those from other
countries because of the baht's relative strength.
Thailand's
benchmark 5% broken rice price is quoted at $440-$450 per tonne, down from
$490-500 in the previous few weeks. Rice from Vietnam, India and Myanmar is now
quoted at $360 per tonne.
In
the first five months, Thailand shipped a total of 2.57 million tonnes of rice,
down 31.9% from the same period last year, with an export value of 54.16
billion baht, down 13.2% for the same period.
The
top five rice importers from Thailand for the period were the US (338,769
tonnes, up 41.2% year-on-year), South Africa (231,412, down 12.6%), Angola
(195,438, down 1.5%), China (120,207, down 41.6%) and Japan (116,338, up 7.9%).
The
association has set a full-year rice export target of 7.5 million tonnes but is
scheduled to adjust the target on July 22.
Thailand
shipped 7.58 million tonnes of rice worth 131 billion baht in 2019, down 32%
and 25% from the previous year.
Back to basics:
COVID-19 labour crunch brings direct seeding of paddy in focus
Since June, when kharif sowing
started, 0.7 million ha has been brought under DSR in Punjab
Last Updated: Wednesday 15 July 2020
While other farmers of his village wondered how to overcome the
labour shortage caused by migration of workers during the novel coronavirus
disease (COVID-19) lockdown, Kewal Singh was without a worry. The 55-year-old
farmer from Kothe Amberhar village of Punjab’s Ferozepur district did not need
to hire labourers to sow rice. He had been doing it himself for the past five
years with minimal help.
It was in 2015 that Singh experimented with direct
seeded rice (DSR), also called broadcasting seed technique, an
alternative way of sowing rice. The traditional and the prevalent way across
India is transplanting rice (TPR) seedlings from a nursery to waterlogged
fields. But TPR is extremely labour- and water-intensive, unlike DSR.
Inspired by a fellow farmer of his village, Kewal shifted part
of his 16 hectare (ha) farmland to DSR in the first year. The yield increased
and the input cost reduced by Rs 7,000 per ha. He kept bringing more land under
DSR every year and this year, when the labour shortage was extreme, he used DSR
on his entire farmland.
There is no nationwide official data on how much rice in India
is grown through DSR. M L Jat, principal scientist with Mexico-based CIMMYT
(International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre), estimated that about 10 per
cent of India’s 44 million ha under rice cultivation is through DSR.
In the past few decades, many state governments have been
encouraging farmers to move to DSR because it is easier on the environment, but
without much success. Most recently, the Punjab government, on April 16, 2020,
issued a statement citing a Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) study asking
farmers to shift to DSR.
Since June, when kharif sowing
started, 0.7 million ha has been brought under DSR in Punjab, said the state
government, according to media reports.The government did not try hard
enough to popularise DSR all these years. But COVID-19 has done the trick,”
said BS Rajewal, president of Bharatiya Kisan Union’s Rajewal faction in Punjab.
“Bihar is also moving towards adopting DSR. So are Chhattisgarh,
Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and small areas in Madhya Pradesh,” said Jat.
A study by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research and
Indian Institute of Rice Research in 2016-17 stated that DSR is
gaining popularity among the farmers of Raichur, Koppal and Ballari districts
in Karnataka where water shortage is acute.
Globally, around 23 per cent rice was directly seeded in 2007,
according to the study ‘Weed Management in Direct Seeded Rice’, published in
Advances in Agronomy in 2011.
Countries have been gradually shifting to DSR. In south Asia and
southeast Asia, which produce, supply and consume a large proportion of the
global rice, the shift to DSR started in the late 1980s and 1990s, mainly in
growing economies such as Malaysia and Thailand as well as in countries where
rapid intensification of rice production took place, for example Vietnam, said
the study.
China shifted to DSR in the 1980s, Korea in 1991, and
experiments on direct seeding in Bangladesh started in the 2000s. Much of the
shift was due to rising wages and labour shortages.
Why isn’t DSR popular?
Ever since rice cultivation started, farmers across the world
followed the practice of broadcasting seeds directly on dry or puddled soils,
said Jat. The shift to TPR happened only in the past century primarily for two
reasons— seed rate and weeds.
“The seed rate was high, with farmers using 100 kg seed per ha
under DSR while transplanting rice needed just 15 to 10 kg per ha. Another
major factor was the emergence of weeds and the lack of effective weedicides,”
explained Jat.
In transplanting, since the field is waterlogged, weed growth is
minimal. Even in India, the practice of transplanting started only after the
Green Revolution. “All the rice grown in the country a hundred years ago was
through DSR,” said Jat.
When Punjab and Haryana shifted
from their traditional crops (maize, millet, pulses and oilseeds) to the
wheat-paddy cultivation cycle, the change in cropping pattern was to ensure
food security for the country and, therefore, neither the Centre nor the states
showed concern for the sustainability of the resources.
“Rice comes from wild plant species and its cultivation was
adopted in naturally flooded areas. So when farmers adopted it in non-naturally
flooded areas, they flooded the fields themselves,” said Surinder Singh Kukal,
dean, College of Agriculture, PAU, explaining how TPR became prevalent even in
regions that are not rich in water resources.
DSR benefits
Rice is the major kharif crop of India and is grown in all the
major agrarian states, such as Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Since
groundwater is the main source of irrigation in these states, rice cultivation
by TPR has depleted the water table.
In Punjab, for instance, the groundwater declined in about 85
per cent of the state between 1984 and 2016, according to Central Ground
Water Board data. In such a scenario, DSR can help reduce water consumption by
as much as 35 per cent, according to the 2011 study in Advances in Agronomy.
The study was an analysis of 77 published studies from across
the globe. It also stated that DSR can reduce labour needs by 60 per cent and
the cost of production by $30-51 per ha. The transplanting technique is also a
major source of methane, a greenhouse gas.
The study found that methane emissions were reduced by 6 per
cent to 92 per cent in the DSR method, depending on the type of variant used.
There are DSR variants that can be practised as per the agro-climatic and soil
conditions.
The two main methods are — dry DSR (in which rice seeds are sown
by drilling in dry soil) and wet DSR (in which sprouted seeds are sown in wet
soil). PAU, which first recommended DSR in 2010, has now suggested a few
refinements and called it tar wattar (optimum moisture) DSR.
Since groundwater is the main source of irrigation in Punjab, rice cultivation by transplantation has depleted the water table.
This is a modification of wet DSR. In tar wattar DSR, the field
is laser-levelled and a pre-sowing (rauni)
irrigation is done. The field is prepared to optimum soil moisture condition
and rice is seeded immediately. Herbicides to control weeds are sprayed
simultaneously with the help of drill machine. The first irrigation is done 21
days after sowing, which is a major departure from the DSR being tried earlier
in Punjab.
“The delay in first irrigation promotes deep root penetration
and minimises nutrient deficiencies. The three-week post-sowing period covers
most of the driest month of June in which no irrigation is done and hence water
is saved,” said MS Bhullar, principal agronomist, PAU.
PAU’s recommendation for DSR in 2010 was only for medium to
heavy textured soils, but demonstrations last year showed the refined DSR
technology can work even in sandy loam soils.
This has increased the area suitable for DSR in Punjab from 45
per cent to 85 per cent. However, there are a few drawbacks with DSR. Rain
immediately after seeding can reduce availability of soil nutrients and damage
the crop.
“Germination stopped on at least 30 per cent of my field after
the untimely rain on June 4,” said Gurbinder Singh Bajwa, a farmer from
Punjab’s Gurdaspur district, who had sowed rice on 0.8 ha through DSR on June
2.
“A crust got formed and to break that I irrigated before the
recommended 21 days. It didn’t work,” he added.
Jaskarana Singh Khosa, a farmer of Kothe Amberhar, planted rice
through DSR in eight ha this time, but the crop was destroyed since the machine
was faulty and the sowing was too deep. With DSR, farmers and researchers will
also have to work on weed management.
“The intensity and diversity of weeds keep increasing. New weeds
emerge; so it’s likely that the same medicine won’t work next time,” warned
Kukal. Bhullar, however, was optimistic. “Next year will be better. It
will take some time for farmers to fully adapt.”
Nigerian Farmers to Reduce Price
of Rice
14 JULY 2020
By Hussein
Yahaya & Vincent A. Yusuf
There may soon be relief over the present high cost of rice in
the country as the growers of the popular stable food have begun major moves to
bring down its price.
Rice farmers under the auspices of the Rice Farmers Association
of Nigeria have flagged off the sale of paddy rice for N11,000 per 100kg bag, a
situation that will see the price of milled rice go down to N12,000 per 50kg
bag.
The national president of the association, Alhaji Aminu Goronyo,
confirmed to Daily Trust that the RIFAN had started the process that will force
the price of milled rice down to N12, 000 per 50kg bag.
This is not the first time the association is making such a move
in the country in a bit to curtail the raising price of paddy.
Paddy currently sells for between N18, 000 and N23, 000 per 100
kg, depending on the size of the bag and location across the country.
Mrs Nnenna Ejim, the national women leader of the association,
said the association had commenced the sale of paddy at N11, 000 in some
locations.
In Taraba State, sources said the association had sold 3,600
tonnes (36,000 bags) collected from members as 30% equity of the 2019/2020 dry
season recovery and sold to millers in the state.
The millers, are however, to sell the milled product for N15,
000 per 50kg in the market under the existing Memoranda of Understanding
between the farmers and the association.
Some farmers said there might be variation in the prices in some
locations because of other factors such as transportation
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Musa Akwaba, who has been a farmer for over 20 years, forecasts
crash in the price as many farmers join in the cultivation of the crop.
"Looking at the planting this year, almost every farmer is
now planting rice.
"So the possibility of hiking the price may not be there
again," he said.
'Why rice price is high now'
Experts are of the view that since the federal government closed
the borders, some persons have reportedly been engaging in hoarding, buying and
storing both paddy and milled rice.
One of them, Mr Toyin Aina, said inadequate paddy was
frustrating processors' efforts to control the price of rice in the market.
"In the market now, the price of N50 kg bag of rice ranges
from N18, 000 to N19000 depending on the location, and you cannot blame the
processors for that; it is the cost of the paddy they bought among other
things," he said.
But the farmers said if the Anchor Borrower Programme introduced
by the Central Bank of Nigeria was sustained, the issue of inadequate paddy in
the country would be permanently addressed.
The Secretary of the Taraba State chapter of rice farmers
Association, Mamman Rabiu, noted: "The essence of Anchor Borrower
Programme is to ensure food safety and security."
A rice miller, Alhaji Nuhu Hamza, said the decision of the
farmers to reduce the price of the paddy was a welcome one, but worried if that
would be enough for the price of milled rice to crash at the moment.
He said at present, there was no enough paddy for all the
processors to buy, making price regulation difficult.
Listen
Up to the New USA Rice Podcast
ARLINGTON, VA -- USA Rice's media empire expanded
today with the official launch of the organization's podcast, The Rice
Stuff. The first episode, "The Voice of the Farmer Garden in
Washington, DC," is about the Farm Journal Foundation's project on the
National Mall. The twice monthly podcast is hosted by USA Rice's Michael
Klein and Lesley Dixon, and will offer a deep dive into rice topics from
promotion efforts here and around the world to the latest in agronomy, and
everything in between.
"Podcast listenership has been steadily increasing for years with 155 million Americans reporting that they listen to podcasts and 68 million Americans listening weekly," said Klein, USA Rice vice president of communications and domestic promotion. "It's a great way to reach people on their own schedule with topics they are interested in, and with harvest around the corner, we think there's going to be a lot of combine listening."
Klein said he and his team have spent a year researching the market, technology, and best practices, talking to other podcasters in and out of ag, including Jim Morris, host of the California Rice podcast, Ingrained; Kurt Richter, host of Rice Radio; Dr. Bobby Golden, host of Mississippi Crop Situation, and Jeff Lenard, host of Convenience Matters, a wildly popular podcast for the fuel and convenience store industry.
"On the advice of a lot of people, we're keeping our episodes focused and short -- under 30 minutes is our goal," said Dixon, USA Rice staff writer. "The time goes by quickly, but we try to pack as much useful information in as possible."
About half the episodes will look at rice farming and specifically sustainability practices. USA Rice's in-house sustainability experts Dr. Steve Linscombe and Lydia Holmes will helm those episodes.
"We're having a great time planning and recording episodes and we really hope people enjoy listening," Klein said. "We've already got episodes on the U.S. Rice Industry Sustainability Report, international rice promotion in the western hemisphere, and the role U.S. rice plays in food aid, with plenty more to come. We encourage everyone in the industry to subscribe today."
Each episode features a cameo intro from a USA Rice member and provides an opportunity for listeners to reach out to Klein and Dixon via email (podcast@usarice.com) or Twitter using #RiceStuff.
The Rice Stuff publishes new episodes on the second and fourth Tuesday of every month and can be found on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, and Google Podcasts or at www.thericestuffpodcast.com.
"Podcast listenership has been steadily increasing for years with 155 million Americans reporting that they listen to podcasts and 68 million Americans listening weekly," said Klein, USA Rice vice president of communications and domestic promotion. "It's a great way to reach people on their own schedule with topics they are interested in, and with harvest around the corner, we think there's going to be a lot of combine listening."
Klein said he and his team have spent a year researching the market, technology, and best practices, talking to other podcasters in and out of ag, including Jim Morris, host of the California Rice podcast, Ingrained; Kurt Richter, host of Rice Radio; Dr. Bobby Golden, host of Mississippi Crop Situation, and Jeff Lenard, host of Convenience Matters, a wildly popular podcast for the fuel and convenience store industry.
"On the advice of a lot of people, we're keeping our episodes focused and short -- under 30 minutes is our goal," said Dixon, USA Rice staff writer. "The time goes by quickly, but we try to pack as much useful information in as possible."
About half the episodes will look at rice farming and specifically sustainability practices. USA Rice's in-house sustainability experts Dr. Steve Linscombe and Lydia Holmes will helm those episodes.
"We're having a great time planning and recording episodes and we really hope people enjoy listening," Klein said. "We've already got episodes on the U.S. Rice Industry Sustainability Report, international rice promotion in the western hemisphere, and the role U.S. rice plays in food aid, with plenty more to come. We encourage everyone in the industry to subscribe today."
Each episode features a cameo intro from a USA Rice member and provides an opportunity for listeners to reach out to Klein and Dixon via email (podcast@usarice.com) or Twitter using #RiceStuff.
The Rice Stuff publishes new episodes on the second and fourth Tuesday of every month and can be found on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, and Google Podcasts or at www.thericestuffpodcast.com.
Who owns groundwater in water-stressed Pakistan?
Pakistan has passed two laws that could radically change how water
is managed, but they leave many questions unanswered.
Fazilda NabeelUpdated
Pakistan ranks fourth in the world in terms of annual groundwater
abstraction — the amount of water taken from an underground source. This puts
it in close competition with
The header photo by Alamy shows a farmer washing her cow in the
village of Khushpur.
larger countries such as India, China and the United States. It
is also the world’s largest exporter of groundwater, which reflects the volume
of groundwater used in the country’s water-intensive export products such as
rice, leather and textiles.
Clearly, access to groundwater is critical to Pakistan’s
economy, with the agricultural sector heavily dependent on groundwater pumping
to meet irrigation requirements, as well as growing industrial and domestic
demand. Worryingly, groundwater reserves are fast being depleted, with some
areas reporting a two-three metre decline per year. The Indus Basin aquifer,
from which Pakistan extracts its groundwater reserves, has been ranked as the
second most overstressed aquifer in the world.
Commitment in 2018
Pakistan has recently demonstrated a commitment to take its
water woes somewhat seriously by trying to set out the institutional and legal
architecture of water resource management, at least on paper. The country’s
first ever water policy was enacted in 2018, proclaiming a commitment by
federal and provincial governments to avert the water crisis.
Despite the many criticisms levelled against the National Water
Policy and the lack of follow-through on its implementation, the fact that
Pakistan at least has such a policy is a big positive. The National Water Policy
was also supposed to address the issue of groundwater over-abstraction and
called for the creation of a Groundwater Authority in Islamabad as well as
water authorities within the provinces. More than two years into the policy’s
enactment, there has been little progress on its promise on sustainable
groundwater governance.
Punjab Water Act of 2019
More recently the province of Punjab, which is the biggest user
of groundwater in the country, has come up with its own legislation to protect
its fast-depleting reserves. The Punjab Water Act, which was announced on
December 13, 2019, stipulates a radical change in the way entitlements to use
groundwater are administered within the province.
Previously, the right to use groundwater was defined by a piece
of colonial legislation called the Indian Easements Act of 1892. This law
essentially ties groundwater abstraction rights to private property rights,
entitling the owner of a piece of land to "collect and dispose within his
own limits of all water under the land which does not pass in a defined channel
and all water on its surface which does not pass in a defined channel."
By this definition groundwater users are technically independent
of the state, which ties in with the reality on the ground. Most users do not
need licenses, and often the only contact between the user and the state is for
connection to the state energy grid to power tubewells (where a tube or pipe is
bored into an underground aquifer). The limited dependency of groundwater users
on the state is changing somewhat with the rapid proliferation of solar
tubewells, which can pump water without the state energy grid.
Punjab’s new act changes the way groundwater is to be used and
governed, without making any reference to existing rights granted by the Indian
Easements Act. It stipulates the formation of a 22-member Punjab Water
Resources Commission, headed by the chief minister and the irrigation minister
of Punjab, with members from all stakeholder departments of the provincial
government. The commission was supposed to be formed within six months of the
commencement of the act, which have passed with no news on the formation of the
commission that will lay out the roadmap for the Punjab Water Act’s
implementation.
Who owns the water?
The Punjab Water Act 2019 raises a lot of questions about the
management of groundwater. According to the act, the commission would control
surface water resources (as defined in the Canal and Drainage Act of 1873),
water in lakes or reservoirs, water in drains, and groundwater resources. Thus
the act makes the commission responsible for conserving,
"controlling" and allocating effectively all the water resources in
Punjab. For groundwater use, this means that the commission has the authority
to issue licenses for the abstraction and disposal of groundwater for
agricultural, domestic, industrial and mining purposes. It is not clear how the
state will set up a system of licensing and abstraction for sustainable water
under the new law.
The act states that providers of water and sewerage services,
called "undertakers", are to be appointed by the commission. This
provider could be a company, local government or a statutory authority. The act
stipulates that the undertaker is allowed to "charge" for these services.
What does this mean for all the different groundwater users?
Should users anticipate pay-as-you-pump charges and volumetric pricing of
groundwater under the new law? Some groundwater users such as bottled water
companies have already started paying a per-litre surcharge to the government
for groundwater abstracted under a separate order issued by the chief justice
in 2019. Others await what they see as impending doom in the form of volumetric
groundwater pricing that Section 38 of the act allows "undertakers" to
charge for.
Does this effectively mean that the act is a step towards
groundwater privatisation? Some would argue that "economic" pricing
and valuation of groundwater is long overdue and is the necessary demand-side
solution for sustainable groundwater management. But this view does not take
into account the equity implications of privatisation — the economic shock to
poorer farmers and households, on top of the fuel cost (mostly diesel) to run
water-extraction mechanisms.
In Pakistan, laws governing groundwater use, abstraction and
pollution have long been a careless mix of colonial and post-colonial
legislation without thinking through the effect of new laws on the entitlements
granted by old ones. None of the laws around groundwater governance passed
after independence in 1947 have been fully or consistently implemented.
Effective groundwater legislation is a herculean task in a country where new
laws overlap with entitlements granted by old ones, and where there are
millions of individual groundwater users with their own water-extraction
mechanisms.
Monitoring groundwater and controlling extraction is not easy.
Spain and Mexico, for example, passed laws declaring that groundwater falls
under state control, with a system of licensing regimes and user fees for
groundwater. It is not clear from their experience whether state control and
monitoring of groundwater resources leads to sustainable management. When
Pakistan starts to carefully implement its policies and legislation on
groundwater, their impact on this precious resource will become clearer.
________________________________________
Fazilda Nabeel is a doctoral researcher at the University of
Sussex in the UK. She studies the political ecology of groundwater governance
in Pakistan and transboundary hydropolitics across the Indus river basin.
Naji Akbar
A famous bottled-water
giant company has been pumping undisclosed amounts of water from the
drought-ridden California, USA for quite some time, potentially rendering the
land permanently dry. I hear contacts have also been made by the various
industries to privatize water sources in other developed countries. If this
happens in Pakistan, one can well imagine the plight of the common person. The
only answer to this crisis is downscaling economies that, at this moment, use
up most of the earth's finite resources concentrating wealth in the hands of
the 'few'. People collectively own the commons. that is, the land, air and
water. Only a locally owned and controlled community use can guarantee a
sustainable handling of the resources on which our life depends.
M. Emad
Massive extraction of
groundwater by tube wells pumping in Indus River basin and sub-basins for
irrigation and urban domestic consumption for a long period together with
surface water mis-management would led to large-scale negative environmental,
agriculture, economic impacts including aquifer collapse, soil salinity in
Pakistan
ChrÃs
Dăń
a day ago
An interesting
photograph.Seems, Farmers are more civilized about animal rights than many
living in cities and hating animal.
Any
course on water management in any University of Pakistan.
Like
most problems - this issue isn't unique to Pakistan and we should examine how
other countries have resolved this issue.
Majid
Wazir Ali
I really dont
understand the point of exporting underground water when your own local
population in some areas are yearning for water
Javed
about 16 hours ago
California's central
valley had (still have) a similar problem and the California Department of
Water Resources come up with a water management plan
(water.ca.gov/Programs/Groundwater-Management). That could be a model for
Pakistan. However, they have to look at the whole Indus river basin and include
all the stakeholders on board. Farmers in all of Pakistan has to sit together
and develop a consensus (good luck with that). If they don't, they will all go
down together and it will be a catastrophe. People should remember, one of the
reasons of disappearance of Indus valley civilization was water shortage.
Salt-tolerant rice, innovations
help farmers deal with salinity in the Sundarbans
by Vaishnavi Chandrashekhar on 14 July 2020
Increasing salinity from rising sea levels, storm surges and declining river flow, threatens the livelihood of millions of paddy farmers in the Indian Sundarbans and other Asian deltas. - Scientists have been developing
salt-tolerant rice strains to help farmers since excess salt can retard
plant germination and growth.
- Water harvesting and soil management are
also needed to help farmers survive climatic and development pressures.
A decade ago, Manirul Saha grew just one crop a year on his
small farm in the Sundarbans, the sea-soaked land some hours south of Kolkata.
The 40-something sowed rice before the summer monsoon and reaped the harvest at
rains’ end. A second crop was always unreliable: As the water evaporated in the
post-monsoon months, more salt would rise to the surface of this coastal land,
making the soil saline and retarding plant growth. Saha had to work as a day
labourer to survive.
Then, with the help of scientists at the Central Soil Salinity
Research Institute (CSSRI), Saha adopted new farming techniques, including the
use of improved salt-tolerant rice varieties and water-saving techniques. That
allowed him to expand to a second crop.
“I hardly saved anything before,” he said. “Now I’m saving a
lakh [rupees] a year.”
Low-lying coastal regions like the Sundarbans, the
mangrove-tipped edge of the Ganges-Brahmaputra delta that cradles eastern India
and Bangladesh, are under threat from rising seas and more frequent storms,
such as the cyclone Amphan that hit the region a few weeks ago. But the
climate danger is not just about sudden destruction or gradual submergence.
Sea-level rise, storm surge, and coastal erosion also raise the
risk of salinity ingress into wells, farms, and ecosystems. Excess salt can
make water undrinkable, ruin soil, and hinder germination of seeds.
Salinization of coastal lands
threatens the livelihoods of millions of small paddy farmers that live in
Asia’s deltas. An estimated 16 to 20 million hectares of coastal land in South
and Southeast Asia are already affected by salinity. In India, that figure is 3
million hectares, concentrated in the eastern states of Odisha and West Bengal.
Research suggests that, for every unit of increase in salinity above a certain
threshold, there is a 12 percent drop in rice yield.
The threat has pushed institutes like CSSRI to develop and
disseminate new salt-tolerant rice varieties to help farmers over the recent
years, along with improved farming techniques. The largest of these efforts is
from the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), which ran a project for
Stress Tolerant Rice for Africa and South Asia from 2007-2019.
According to Abdelbagi M Ismail, principal scientist at IRRI,
the multinational effort improved research infrastructure, trained researchers,
and helped get 1 million tons of stress-tolerant rice seeds—for salinity,
drought, and flood—-produced and distributed to over 30 million farmers in
Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.
“There is a need for new varieties that have higher tolerance
than existing ones as the severity of the problem increases with time,” he
said.
India’s CSSRI, meanwhile, has developed 120 stress-tolerant rice
varieties in the past decade, 40 of them with higher resistance to salinity.
Some are suitable for the monsoon crop, others for the dry season, said Dhiman
Burman, head of the CSSRI regional field station at Canning Town in the
Sundarbans of West Bengal. There are also different kinds of salt-tolerant
seeds for different types of land and rice consumption preferences. Seeds that
are tolerant to multiple stressors—salinity as well as drought, for
instance—are increasingly necessary, he said.
“Salinity usually coexists with
other challenges,” agreed IRRI’s Ismaili. “The solution is to develop
climate-resilient varieties that can withstand all these conditions, because it
is not possible to predict what will happen in next season.”
But developing these seeds isn’t easy. The process takes time
and money. There are genomic boundaries to raising rice’s tolerance to salinity—though
some researchers are cracking that with genetic modification. Getting them into
a market dominated by commercial breeders is another hurdle.
And there are limits to what technology can accomplish in
landscapes shaped by complex human and natural pressures. “On the ground, there
are many challenges,” said Burman.
Declining freshwater flow and salinity
Four million people live in the Indian Sundarbans, on land that
lies just one to two metres above sea level. Farming has always been difficult
here due to frequent flooding, paucity of freshwater, and acidic soil. Most
paddy farmers are small or marginal landholders; more than 40% of the
population lives below the poverty line.
Increasing salinity is adding to that challenge but is not only
due to rising seas and storms. Upstream dams and other development pressures
have drastically reduced freshwater flows in the rivers that braid the region.
The pressures were evident on the road from Kolkata to Canning
in February. Initially the landscape is dotted with large-scale brackish
aquaculture farms that leak salt into surrounding fields and brick kilns that
ruin the soil for agriculture. Along the way are glimpses of the Matla River,
which once carried water from the Ganges into the sea but is now largely fed by
the monsoon and tides. Salinity in the Matla increased by around 32% between
1984 and 2013, according to one study. At Canning, the river is a brown ribbon
of silt.
The effects of rising salinity
are already apparent in the ecosystem. Some mangrove species, including the
‘sundari’ that gave the area its name, are dwindling. The potential impact on
farming was made clear in 2009 when Cyclone Aila hit the coast with a 4 metre
storm surge. The inundation left an encrustation of salt on the land. Thousands
abandoned their fields and migrated to Kolkata and other cities for work. Even
after ten years, the land has not fully recovered, said Sujit Mondal, a farmer
in Rangabelia village on Gosaba Island. He still cannot grow chili, which was
his most profitable crop before Aila.
After Aila, local farmer-activists like Amales Misra in Sagar
Island revived heirloom rice varieties that had been side-lined after the Green
Revolution. These flourished in newly saline soil where commercial seeds
failed. CSSRI also collected 63 traditional varieties, some of which they used
to create new ones. Traditional varieties are hardy, said senior scientist SK
Sarangi, but low in yield. And the grain shape and texture is often not what
consumers want. The challenge for scientists like Sarangi is to create seeds
that satisfy diverse requirements.
Diverse requirements
On Gosaba, farmers say they prefer tall, long-duration rice for
the monsoon when fields are submerged for four months. Yield and texture are
less important because monsoon rice is for home consumption. But in the dry
season, they want high-yielding salt-tolerant breeds that produce long fine
grain that sells well on the market; a variety called Laliminikit is popular
here. Soil and water conditions can be hyperlocal: Gosaba has enough fresh
water for farmers to sow a second rice crop; the neighbouring island of Bali
does not. Finally, said Sarangi, these rice varieties can’t require too much
fertiliser or pesticides. “The farmers can’t afford to spend much,” he said.
For that reason, CSSRI and NGOs like the Tagore Society for
Rural Development are promoting water harvesting, drip irrigation, soil
management and crop diversity, alongside better seeds. In Rangbelia, Mondal has
started growing grass pea, or laythra, along with rice in the dry season. He
has a small pond to store water for irrigation and cultivate fresh-water fish
that supplements his income. Dry straw mulching can be seen on some fields to
protect soil moisture. CSSRI is also promoting ridge and furrow land-shaping
techniques—the furrows help with drainage and the less-saline ridges can be
used to grow vegetables.
Better farming methods along with
improved seeds can increase crop productivity by half a ton per hectare in this
saline land, said CSSRI’s Burman. At least for some farmers, that has been
true. Panchanan Saha, a farmer near Canning, has seen his income almost double
in recent years. He has expanded from one crop a year to three—the last a
harvest of beans, cucumber and bitter gourd. He used to go to Kolkata several
months a year to supplement his income by working on construction sites. Now,
he said, “I don’t have to go to the city anymore.”
This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center.
Banner image: Paddy fields in the Indian
Bengal Delta are converting to aquaculture and brick kilns, including in
Minakhan a few hours from Kolkata. Commercial aquaculture is profitable but can
leak saltwater into the surrounding soil. Brick kilns produce material for the
expanding city; their number has expanded by 18% between 2010-11 and 2016-17 in
the delta. Photo by Vaishnavi Chandrashekhar.
Chipotle to test cauliflower
rice amid rise of plant-based foods
, Bloomberg
NewsPieces of washed cauliflower sit prior to packaging at a warehouse of Bigbasket, an e-grocer operated by Supermarket Grocery Supplies Pvt, in Bengaluru, India, on Monday, Feb. 26, 2018. Bangalore-based Bigbasket delivers everyday cooking essentials like ghee (clarified butter), diced coconut and fragrant basmati rice, as well as 18,000 other items from bread to laundry detergent to eight million customers in 25 Indian cities. Photographer: Samyukta Lakshmi/Bloomberg , Bloomberg
That rice in your burrito may not actually be rice.
With consumers increasingly embracing plant-based substitutes to popular foods, Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. plans to test cauliflower rice as an alternative to its traditional grains. The new option will be sold in 55 restaurants in Denver and across Wisconsin starting this week.
The move underscores the fast-food industry’s efforts to appeal to health-conscious customers, even amid a pandemic that has complicated dine-in operations, disrupted supply chains and permanently closed many shops.
Restaurants like Burger King and Starbucks Corp. offer faux-meat options in their sandwiches, and sales of plant-based foods have jumped since March.
While Chipotle’s CEO has previously criticized meat substitutes as overly processed, the company is exploring new menu options and aims to debut one or two products yearly. It has recently rolled out items like carne asada and queso nationally.
COVID-19 hasn’t slowed the pace of trials, but the company has had to rethink its product-development process, Chief Marketing Officer Chris Brandt said in an interview. Rather than sit around a table to discuss their opinions, taste-testers are now eating in their cars and sharing thoughts via conference call, he said.
Eyes in sky: how real-time data
will revolutionise rice farming
About 10 percent of the world’s arable land is
dedicated to rice cultivation. Yet there is no consistent global monitoring of
yields or greenhouse gas emissions. Working with international collaborators,
Professor Budiman Minasny will change that with a real-time app to be called
Paddy Watch.
Satellite image (left) and
processed rice monitoring image in Central Java showing rice at different
stages of development and (in orange) non-rice areas.
Google
Earth, the Group on Earth Observations and the University of Sydney will
develop the world’s first real-time monitoring platform for rice fields
globally. The ambitious project will help realise the Zero Hunger target of the
United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals.
Rice is the staple crop for more
than half the world’s population and 10 percent of all arable land is dedicated
to rice farming, but there are currently no accurate maps outlining rice yields
and land use using consistent methodology.
“Accurate and up-to-date information on how much rice has been
planted and how much harvest can be achieved is crucial to achieving global
food and water security,” said project leader Professor Budiman Minasny from the Sydney
Institute of Agriculture at the University of Sydney.
“Working with our partners in
Asia, we will use the Google Earth Engine to build the first real-time mobile
application that will allow farmers, agricultural scientists, non-government
organisations and government planners to manage land use to ensure food
security in the world’s rice bowls.”
Professor Budiman Minasny.
The
real-time land-use data generated using Google Earth will be verified by field
operators in India, China, Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam. This will allow the
agricultural scientists to calibrate monitoring to ensure its accuracy
worldwide.
These five partner countries make
up more than 40 percent of the world’s population. India, China and Indonesia
are the world’s three-largest producers of rice and together account about 60
percent of total world production.
Jointly developed with the
Universiti Malaysia Terengganu, the mobile monitoring app – Paddy Watch – will
allow farmers, scientists and agricultural economists to:
§ determine the extent of arable land under rice
cropping in near real-time;
§ estimate potential yields;
§ manage water use and water security;
§ account for greenhouse gas emissions (paddy rice
releases methane);
§ develop policies for education, economic growth,
gender equity and reducing social inequality.
The Paddy Watch app will build on
work already undertaken in Malaysia and Indonesia by Professor Minasny and
colleagues at Universiti Malaysia Terengganu. Using the Google Earth Engine and
cloud computing technology the project will improve on that work using the
latest deep learning techniques to forecast crop yields and water consumption.
Professor Alex McBratney is Director of the Sydney Institute for Agriculture and Professor of
Digital Agriculture and Soil Science. He said this project “is digital
agriculture writ large on a global canvas”.
“Digital agriculture is
post-industrial agriculture,” he said. “This type of technology means we can
have confidence in our ability to feed the world’s population in a sustainable
way.”
The project announced today is one of 32 projects supported by
the GEO-Google Earth Engine partnership, which incorporates
more than 100 national governments working with the search engine company and
its mapping agency. The consortium will have access to a Google Earth licence
for two, valued by Google at $US3 million ($4.3 million), plus technical
support valued at $US1 million.
Led by Professor Minasny at the
University of Sydney, Paddy Watch is being developed in partnership with
Universiti Malaysia Terengganu; the Indonesian Centre for Agricultural Land
Resources Research and Development in the Indonesian Ministry of Agriculture;
IADA Ketara, Ministry of Agriculture, Malaysia; the Institute of Soil Science
at the Chinese Academy of Sciences; Indian Agricultural Research Institute; and
RIICE remote sensing, Vietnam.
Background
The Group on Earth Observations (GEO) and Google Earth Engine (GEE) are unveiling 32
projects from 22 countries that will be awarded $US3 million towards production
licenses and $US1 million in technical support from EO Data Science to tackle
some of the world’s greatest challenges using open Earth data. The GEO-GEE
Programme is also supporting projects with the United Nations Environment
Programme (UNEP) and the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for
Western Asia (UNESCWA) to use the Earth Engine to support climate change and
disaster monitoring activities over the next two years.
GEO is an Intergovernmental
Partnership of 111 countries and coordinates more than 60 global activities in
the GEO Work Programme. GEO’s mission is to inform decision making and enable
better policies through open Earth observation data, information and knowledge.
The GEO network will ensure that the beneficiaries receive support as they
deliver data, insights and key findings to reach critical decision makers
across the globe.
Declaration
This project is supported by the GEO-Google Earth Engine program.
/University Release. View in full here.
Tags:Agriculture, Australia, Chinese
Academy of Sciences, climate change, Commission, environment, Government, Indonesian, inequality, production, Scientists, sustainable, Sydney, technology, United Nations, university, University of Sydney
Palay farmgate
prices continue to increase
THE
average farmgate prices of palay (unmilled rice) was recorded at P19.16 per
kilo during the fifth week of May, a sustained increase of 6.4 percent from its
level of P18 per kilo in the same period in 2019, the Philippine Statistics
Authority (PSA) said.
In its weekly Palay, Rice and Corn Prices report, the PSA said
the farmgate buying price of palay rose by 0.2 percent from the previous week’s
P19.12 per kilo.
The Department of Agriculture (DA) said the increasing prices of
palay was “a manifestation of the normalization of the rice industry,”
following the country’s transition from quantitative restriction to a tariffied
rice trade regime.
To recall, the drop in the palay prices at the farmgate level
started in early 2019 as an effect of the government’s implementation of
Republic Act 11203 or “Rice Tariffication Law,” which allowed the unlimited
entry of imported rice from other countries.
According to Agriculture Secretary William Dar, the DA was
banking on the various programs under the law’s Rice Competitive Enhancement
Fund (RCEF), which will be supplemented by the DA’s P8.5-billion Rice
Resiliency Project, to help palay price to further recover.
In the same report, PSA said the prices of both well-milled rice
and regular milled rice generally decreased at the wholesale and retail trades
during the reference week.
The average wholesale price for well-milled rice went down by
0.2 percent to P39.41 per kilo from P39.48 per kilo in the previous week. It
likewise fell by 0.3 percent from its level in the same period in May 2019.
At retail trade, its latest quotation dropped to P42.57 per kilo
from P42.60 per kilo week-on-week. On an annual basis, it was lower by 1.2
percent compared to last year’s P43.10 per kilo.
On the other hand, the average wholesale price for regular
milled rice fell by 0.5 percent to P35.83 per kilo from the previous week’s
P36.01 per kilo. However, it increased by 0.8 percent from P35.55 per kilo
year-on-year.
Its equivalent price at the retail trade slightly went up to
P38.37 per kilo from P38.27 per kilo on a weekly basis, or by 0.3 percent. It
was, however, lower by 0.8 percent from P38.68 per kilo in May last year.
Govt to develop
30,000 hectares of farmland in North Sumatra
·
Dzulfiqar Fathur Rahman
The Jakarta Post
Jakarta
/ Tue, July 14, 2020 / 07:45 am
Farmers harvest rice using a new machine in Sleman
regency, Yogyakarta, on April 1. (JP/Tarko Sudiarno)
The government is planning to
develop 30,000 hectares (ha) of farmland in Humbang Hasundutan district, North
Sumatra, next year in an effort to secure the country’s food supply, a senior
official has said.
A variety of crops will be grown on the land, including garlic, shallots and potatoes, according to the soil’s potential, Agriculture Minister Syahrul Yasin said.
The plan seeks to address the government’s concerns about a looming food crisis as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic, heeding an earlier warning from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
“The global supply chain is threatened by export restrictions. The COVID-19 pandemic is disrupting food distribution at home and is hitting people’s purchasing power,” Syahrul said in a virtual briefing on Monday. “We need the right strategy so that this country can survive and come out of this pandemic.”
A variety of crops will be grown on the land, including garlic, shallots and potatoes, according to the soil’s potential, Agriculture Minister Syahrul Yasin said.
The plan seeks to address the government’s concerns about a looming food crisis as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic, heeding an earlier warning from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
“The global supply chain is threatened by export restrictions. The COVID-19 pandemic is disrupting food distribution at home and is hitting people’s purchasing power,” Syahrul said in a virtual briefing on Monday. “We need the right strategy so that this country can survive and come out of this pandemic.”
To develop the land, the ministry
will provide farmers with tractors, tillers and hybrid corn seeds, among other
forms of assistance.
The COVID-19 crisis has aggravated Indonesia’s food security issues. In late April, a month after the country’s first outbreak, President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo reported that key commodities, such as garlic, sugar, chili and chicken eggs, were in short supply in more than 20 provinces, while rice, a staple food for Indonesians, was lacking in seven provinces.
The COVID-19 crisis has aggravated Indonesia’s food security issues. In late April, a month after the country’s first outbreak, President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo reported that key commodities, such as garlic, sugar, chili and chicken eggs, were in short supply in more than 20 provinces, while rice, a staple food for Indonesians, was lacking in seven provinces.
Making matters worse, the dry
season looms on the horizon and may impact the overall output of the
agricultural sector, which employs more than a quarter of the nation’s
workforce.
The Indonesia office of the World
Food Programme (WFP) has estimated that that the country experienced a decline
in rice production of 13.2 percent year-on-year to 16.1 million tons in the
first half of 2020.
Statistics Indonesia (BPS) data
shows that the country’s rice production had already fallen by 7.75 percent to
31.31 million tons in 2019, compared to 2018. In the same year, the land area
used to cultivate rice fell by 6.15 percent year-on-year to 10.68 million
hectares.
To ensure food availability in the
country, the agriculture minister previously revealed a plan to develop 164,598
ha of farmland, including scrubland, in Pulau Pisang Regency, Central
Kalimantan. About half of the land already serves as farmland.
The development is expected to be
completed in 2022 and is expected to raise rice and corn production, with an
expected yield of 2 tons of rice per hectare.
The Jokowi administration has also
brought the rice-planting season forward this year, to May and June, so that
the harvest season will be in August and September.
It estimates a harvest of 12.5
million to 15 million tons of rice by December.
Although the farmland being developed may help offset declining productivity, the government should ensure the development does not come at the expense of the environment by, among other things, banning the use of harmful pesticides, said Galuh Octania, a researcher focusing on food security at the Center for Indonesian Policy Studies (CIPS), a Jakarta-based think tank.
“The use of pesticides harmful to the environment may cause damage to the soil,” Galuh told The Jakarta Post by text message on Monday.
Government
to develop 165,000 hectares land in Central Kalimantan for food-estate program
Jakarta / Thu, June 11, 2020 / 08:32 am
Farmers harvest rice using a new machine in Sleman,
Yogyakarta on April 1. President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo has instructed the Public
Works and Housing Ministry to expand the government’s food-estate program by
developing 165,000 hectares of land in Pulang Pisau regency, Central
Kalimantan, into farmland. (JP/Tarko Sudiarno)
President
Joko “Jokowi” Widodo has instructed the Public Works and Housing Ministry to
expand the government’s food-estate program by developing 165,000 hectares of
land in Pulang Pisau regency, Central Kalimantan, into farmland, a senior
official has said.
Minister Basuki Hadimulyono said a
total of 85,500 ha of land in the area already functioned as farmland so the
ministry only needed to clear 79,500 ha of scrubland for the development. The
project aims to boost productivity by 2 tons of rice for each ha of land.
“We will start developing the land
this year until 2022. This project is our second-highest priority after the
development of the National Strategic Tourist Areas [KSPN],” he said during an
online video conference on Tuesday.
He further said the land designated
for the project was alluvial and not peatland, even though it was previously
used in the government’s Peatland Development Project (PLG).
The ministry will require Rp1.05
trillion (US$74.5 million) to build the project’s irrigation system, according
to Basuki, and the development project will be carried out in conjunction with
the State-Owned Enterprise Ministry through an investment scheme.
“We will handle the irrigation
system rehabilitation program on this former PLG land,” he said.
Government data presented by
President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo on April 28 showed that over 20 provinces faced
shortages of staple foods, such as garlic, sugar, chilis and eggs, making food
security one of his administration’s priorities.
However, Agrarian Reform Consortium
(KPA) secretary-general Dewi Kartika said the government’s botched agrarian
reform program was to blame for the shortages as vast plots of farmland were
constantly being encroached on by mining concessions and corporate plantations.
Agrarian reform was among the
National Priority Programs pushed by Jokowi’s first-term administration in an
effort to better distribute development and improve the quality of people’s
lives.
It includes programs that are
expected to alleviate poverty in villages, improve the country’s food security
and land production, acknowledge ownership rights over land owned by
individuals, the state and the general public, including land utilization in
the popular interest.
“According to National Land Agency
data, our farmland shrank by 650,000 ha in 2018. Much of this was converted to
be used by other business sectors such as palm oil, natural resources
extraction and infrastructure,” Dwi said in May.
She added that she feared the
government’s plan to clear 600,000 ha of peatland in Central Kalimantan would
yield the same result as a similar measure taken under former president
Soeharto, which ended up leading to crop failures and subsequent food
shortages.
PARC to strengthen rice research: Chairman
By News desk
July 14, 2020
Staff Reporter
Islamabad
Chairman Pakistan Agriculture
Research Council (PARC) Dr. Muhammad Azeem Khan has said the Council is
committed to strengthen the rice research and development in the country
through human resource development and allied facilities. He appreciated the role
of private and public sector for the interest in research and development of
rice in the country.
The Chairman PARC was addressing the conclusion session of a two-day Annual Rice Research Review and Planning meeting, held at National Agricultural Research Centre (NARC) Islamabad.
The meeting was attended by representatives from provincial agriculture research and Extension system, Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission. The representatives of private sector (seed companies, service providers Millers and exporters also participated.
The Chairman PARC was addressing the conclusion session of a two-day Annual Rice Research Review and Planning meeting, held at National Agricultural Research Centre (NARC) Islamabad.
The meeting was attended by representatives from provincial agriculture research and Extension system, Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission. The representatives of private sector (seed companies, service providers Millers and exporters also participated.
Nigerian
farmers to reduce price of rice
By
Hussein Yahaya & Vincent A. Yusuf |
Jul 14, 2020 7:41 AM
TwitterFacebookWhatsAppTelegram There may soon be relief over the present high
cost of rice in the country as the growers of the popular stable food have
begun major moves to bring down its price. Rice farmers under the auspices of
the Rice Farmers Association of Nigeria have flagged off the sale of paddy rice
for N11,000 per 100kg bag, a situation that will see the price of milled rice
go down to N12,000 per 50kg bag. Prices of food stuff continue to soar despite
lifting of inter-state travel ban Yes, private COVID-19 tests are now allowed
in Lagos, Nigeria – at a price The national president of the association,
Alhaji Aminu Goronyo, confirmed to Daily Trust that the RIFAN had started the
process that will force the price of milled rice down to N12, 000 per 50kg bag.
This is not the first time the association is making such a move in the country
in a bit to curtail the raising price of paddy. Paddy currently sells for
between N18, 000 and N23, 000 per 100 kg, depending on the size of the bag and
location across the country. Mrs Nnenna Ejim, the national women leader of the
association, said the association had commenced the sale of paddy at N11, 000
in some locations. In Taraba State, sources said the association had sold 3,600
tonnes (36,000 bags) collected from members as 30% equity of the 2019/2020 dry
season recovery and sold to millers in the state. The millers, are however, to
sell the milled product for N15, 000 per 50kg in the market under the existing
Memoranda of Understanding between the farmers and the association. Some
farmers said there might be variation in the prices in some locations because
of other factors such as transportation. Musa Akwaba, who has been a farmer for
over 20 years, forecasts crash in the price as many farmers join in the
cultivation of the crop. “Looking at the planting this year, almost every
farmer is now planting rice. “So the possibility of hiking the price may not be
there again,”
he said. ‘Why rice price is high now’
Experts are of the view that since the federal government closed the borders,
some persons have reportedly been engaging in hoarding, buying and storing both
paddy and milled rice. One of them, Mr Toyin Aina, said inadequate paddy was
frustrating processors’ efforts to control the price of rice in the market. “In
the market now, the price of N50 kg bag of rice ranges from N18, 000 to N19000
depending on the location, and you cannot blame the processors for that; it is
the cost of the paddy they bought among other things,” he said
.
But the farmers said if the Anchor Borrower Programme introduced by the Central
Bank of Nigeria was sustained, the issue of inadequate paddy in the country
would be permanently addressed. The Secretary of the Taraba State chapter of
rice farmers Association, Mamman Rabiu, noted: “The essence of Anchor Borrower
Programme is to ensure food safety and security.” A rice miller, Alhaji Nuhu
Hamza, said the decision of the farmers to reduce the price of the paddy was a
welcome one, but worried if that would be enough for the price of milled rice
to crash at the moment. He said at present, there was no enough paddy for all
the processors to buy, making price regulation difficult. Related
https://www.dailytrust.com.ng/nigerian-farmers-to-reduce-price-of-rice.html
https://www.dailytrust.com.ng/nigerian-farmers-to-reduce-price-of-rice.html
Nigeria: How Nigeria Has Fared in
Rice Production Since 1999
Rice processing in south-east Nigeria.
14 JULY 2020
By Abdulkareem
Mojeed
Nigeria has produced more rice in the last five years than at
any other time since the return of democracy in 1999, data from the United
Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) shows.
The FAO data shows that between 2014 and 2019, Nigeria
maintained top spot among rice producers in Africa.
Between 2014 and 2016, Nigeria's rice paddy production figures
constantly rose from 6.0 to 6.2 and to 7.5 million metric tonnes respectively.
In 2017, Nigeria's production figure fell to 6.61 mmt, but
increased in 2018 to 6.81 mmt. Again, in 2019, it dropped to 5.1 mmt.
When compared by government administrations in the last two
decades, rice paddy production has so far averaged at about 7 mmt under the
Buhari administration -- the highest.
It averaged at 4.1mmt, 5.4mmt and 3.3 mmt during presidencies of
Musa Yar'Adua, Goodluck Jonathan and Olusegun Obasanjo respectively.
Rice paddy production in Nigeria increased from 325,000 tonnes
in 1969 to 5.1 million metric tonnes in 2019, growing at an average annual rate
of 8.76 per cent, the data show.
The president of Rice Farmers Association of Nigeria (RIFAN),
Aminu Goronyo, attributed the increase seen in rice production to the Anchor
Borrower's Programme and ban on forex for food importation, coupled with land
border closure.
"That alone is a sign, an indication and a true testimony
that this administration has achieved self sufficiency in rice production for
Nigerians," he said.
More production, not affordable
Before the border closure in 2019, a ranking by the United
States Department of Agriculture (USDA) showed that, at 2 mmt, Nigeria was the
second largest importer of rice in the world in 2016, behind China at 5 mmt.
As of June 2020, the index shows that
Nigeria is the fourth-largest importer of rice in the world.
However, despite the increased production in recent years, the
cost of milled rice per 50kg bag has increased.
A finance analyst and managing director of financial derivatives
company, Bismarck Rewane, attributed the increase in the prices of processed
rice to inflation.
"Minimum wage was N7,900 in
1999, now it is N30,000, four times increment," he told PREMIUM TIMES.
"Now multiply the price of rice then by four and you will see the
answer."
Also, the managing director of Kebbi-based Labana rice mill,
Abdullahi Zuru, said the increase in price is not exclusive to rice.
"The prices of all other food items have increased,"
he said.
Like Mr Goronyo, Mr Zuru said the increase in rice production in
recent years was due to the the Anchor Borrower Programme (ABP) introduced by
the Buhari-administration in 2015.
"Don't forget that before 2015, we had about 13-15 standard
rice mills in Nigeria. After the launch of the ABP, the hectares of land being
cultivated for rice doubled by over 200 per cent, which attracted more
investors and currently we now have over 50 standard rice mills in the
country," he said.
Anchor Borrowers Programme
In November 2015, Mr Buhari launched the ABP to provide farm
inputs in kind and cash to small-holder farmers (SHFs) to boost agricultural
production and for the country to reverse its negative balance of payments on
food.
Farmers captured under this programme include those cultivating
cereals (rice, maize, wheat etc.) cotton, roots and tubers, sugarcane, tree
crops, legumes, tomato and livestock.
The loans are disbursed through any of the Deposit Money Banks
(DMBs), Development Finance Institutions (DFIs) and Microfinance Banks (MFBs),
all of which the programme recognises as Participating Financial Institutions
(PFIs).
According to the guidelines of the programme, upon harvest,
benefiting farmers are expected to repay their loans with harvested produce
(which must cover the loan principal and interest) to an 'anchor' who pays the
cash equivalent to the farmer's account.
"The ABP is what boosted rice production in Nigeria"
Mr Goronyo said, before 2015, what our farmers are getting from their hectares
is between 1.5 metric tonnes to a maximum of 2.5 metric tonnes.
"But today, the same farmers are getting between 5-9 metric
tonnes from the same hectares. It is all about the support we're getting from
the Central bank through the ABP initiative," he said.
Upon kickoff, the programme got its takeoff grant from the N220
billion Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Development Fund (MSMEDF). Farmers
get loans at nine per cent interest rate. They are expected to repay based on
the gestation period of their commodities.
Border closure -- good and bad?
In August last year, the Nigerian government
closed its land borders three months after signing the African
Continental Free Trade Agreement (ACFTA), to curb the influx of smuggled goods
from neighbouring countries such as Benin, Niger and Cameroon, and as well
boost local food production.
The former general manager of Kebbi State Urban Development
Authority (KUDA), Babangida Gwandu, who grows rice at the Dukku River axis of
Birnin Kebbi, said the border closure has affected them both positively and
negatively.
.
"Last year I was selling a bag of rice paddy at the rate of
N6000- N7000, and I cannot buy a bag of fertilizer. But this year, as we speak,
we're selling a bag of rice paddy at N15,000, with that, I can buy at least two
bags of fertilizers," he said.
However, he said, the border closure has taken a toll on the
livelihoods of border communities as it has affected free trading.
"If you go to these borders, life has been very difficult
for them," he said.
Nigeria against Africa
Before 2014, Egypt was Africa's largest rice producer, but it
was overthrown by Nigeria in 2014, and it has remained so till date.
Egypt purposefully reduced
her production so as to have "sufficient water to cultivate other crops
and for domestic use" and "as a result of water scarcity, given that
one sedan of rice consumes 7,000 cubic meters of water"
Even at that, on the average, in the last two decades, Egypt,
with 5.8 mmt, produced the highest amount of rice in Africa.
The north African country is followed by Nigeria, with
approximately 4.5 mmt, and Madagascar with 3.6 mmt, data shows.
Others include Tanzania with 1.8mmt; Guinea, 1.6mmt; Côte
d'Ivoire, 1.2mmt; Ghana, 0.4mmt; Niger, 0.7mmt; Kenya, 0.8mmt; and Benin,
0.2mmt.
ASEAN’s largest dam resumes distributing water
in Sagaing
14
Jul 2020
Farmers
gathering crops at a paddy field in Yangon. Photo: Aung Htay Hlaing/The Myanmar
Times
ASEAN’s
largest dam resumes distributing water in Sagaing
Thapanseik
dam, the largest in Southeast Asia, has resumed distributing water to irrigate
rice fields in Sagaing Region, seven months after ceasing operation due to low
water levels.The dam distributed water to 1.7 million hectares of rice fields in Sagaing on July 7, officials said, the first time it released water since November 30.
Officials said that on July 7, the dam distributed water via its Kin Tat diversion weir to Kar Boe dam, Shwe Bo channel, and Yay Oo channel.
Thapanseik dam is 108 feet high, 22,587 feet long and stores 2.79 billion acre feet of water, which benefits about 1 million people in ten townships of Sagaing.
The dam’s water level declined for the first time in 20 years in 2019, and the ancient city of Ko Htet Nay Chi Thit emerged. - Translated
Hin Pisei |
Publication date 14 July 2020 | 21:58 ICT
The Kingdom exported 397,000 tonnes
of milled rice to the international market in the first half of this year,
surging 41 per cent year-on-year. YOUSOS APDOULRASHIM
Cambodia
Rice Federation (CRF) officials have refuted claims that the Kingdom’s rice
exports to the US will hurt farmers there.
This
comes as the USA Rice Federation (USA Rice), a global advocate for all segments
of the US rice industry, testified at the US International Trade Commission
(USITC) hearing late last month, supporting the removal of rice from a list of
eligible commodities under GSP.
USA
Rice said the US has long provided GSP benefits to developing countries,
providing duty-free access, though it is only for parboiled rice.
For
least-developed countries like Cambodia and Myanmar, all rice is eligible for
duty-free access into the US.
USA
Rice submitted a petition to the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR)
in March, which has since moved forward into the formal review process.
Information
seen by The Post last week said as part of the 2020 Annual Review for
modification of the GSP programme, the Trade Policy Staff Committee (TPSC) has
decided to accept certain product petitions for review.
“USTR
accepted the petition to remove rice products from GSP. It’s under
consideration. USITC held a hearing on whether rice should be removed.
“USITC
will submit a confidential report to USTR by August 31. USTR is expected to
issue a ruling on or before October 31, and becomes effective on or before
November 1,” the TPSC said.
It
said the countries affected are Thailand, India (which lost GSP status in June
last year), Pakistan, Brazil, Vietnam, Argentina and Cambodia.
CRF
president Song Saran told a meeting at the Ministry of Commerce on Monday: “US
imports of Cambodian rice are not a detriment to their farmers because only
2,000 tonnes are shipped there per annum.
“These
are of the indica rice, organic and fragrant romduol varieties, which are
different from the ones grown in the US.”
US
farmers are more known to grow varieties such as Japonica rice, and its
medium-grain variant Calrose, he said.
CRF
secretary-general Lun Yeng told The Post on Tuesday that although striking rice
off the list of eligible commodities under GSP would stifle exports to the US,
its impact on overall rice exports would be miniscule.
He
noted that the Kingdom exported about 2,000 tonnes of rice to the US last year
and just slightly more than 1,000 tonnes in the first half of this year.
“Taking
into account that shipments to the US market account for less than one per cent
of Cambodia’s total rice exports, there won’t be much of a repercussion,” Yeng
said, acknowledging that small-scale organic-rice farmers would face most of
the risks of the transition.
Local
media reported Yeng as saying that with the removal of GSP, a $20 per tonne tax
will be applied on imports of Cambodian rice.
Commerce
ministry spokesman Seang Thay told The Post that his ministry currently does
not have any concrete measures in place to respond to a potential withdrawal.
Monday’s
was a “technical meeting to gather feedback and no specific decisions have been
made so far”, he said.
Cambodia
exported 1,819 tonnes of milled rice to the US market worth $1.672 million last
year and 1,100 tonnes worth $1.014 million in the first six months of this
year, Thay said.
The
Kingdom exported 397,000 tonnes of milled rice to the international market in
the first half of this year, surging 41 per cent from the year-ago period, data
from the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries show. The exports
reeled in $264 million in revenue.
The
primary markets for the Kingdom’s milled rice are China, the EU, the UK and
other countries in the ASEAN bloc.
