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Lockdown Recipe of the Day: Chicken & Pears Potjie
By Tony Jackman• 10 September 2020
Chicken & Pears Potjie. (Photo: Tony Jackman)
Take advantage of an early spring afternoon and get a potjie going, even if you’re indoors working. Once it’s on the go, you only need to pop out once in a while to check that it has enough coals to keep cooking.
Ingredients
8 chicken portions
200 g dried pears
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1 onion, chopped
3 garlic cloves, chopped
2 Tbs coconut oil
400g chopped tomatoes
1 cinnamon stick
6 cardamom pods
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground cumin
100 g basmati rice
Salt to taste
Pepper to taste
Handful parsley, chopped
Method
Heat a clean, dry potjie over hot coals. Melt the coconut oil in it and add the onion and garlic, cinnamon stick and cardamom pods. Simmer for 5 minutes, then add the ground spices. Braise for a few minutes, then add the chicken pieces and cook for 5 minutes, stirring to coat them in the onion mix. Add the chopped tomatoes and the pears. Season to taste with salt and pepper, stir, put the lid on and simmer for 2 hours. Keep a few hot coals under the pot and a few on the lid at all times. After an hour, add the rice, stir and cover and continue cooking. Stir in chopped parsley and serve. DM/TGIFood
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Before arrival of Basmati in mandis, farmers, exporters demand waiver of market fee, rural development cess
They argued that the move will help farmers get good price for their crop from exporters, who are the main purchasers of the Basmati, adding that these taxes are otherwise also refundable to the exporters.
Ahead of the arrival of early varieties of Basmati in mandi, Punjab farmers and exporters are demanding a waiver of market fee and rural development fund (RDF) cess charged from exporters when they purchase Basmati from the farmers at Punjab Mandi Board (PMB) premises.
They argue that this move will help farmers get good price for their crop from exporters, who are the main purchasers of the Basmati, adding that these taxes are otherwise also refundable to the exporters.
Basmati would hit the state’s mandis this month.
Exporters said they pay 6.5 per cent tax in total on purchase of Basmati which includes market committee fee and RDF at the rate of 3 per cent each.
A leading exporter said: “As per the norms, Basmati exporters are not supposed to pay any tax and the RDF and market fee charged from them is also refundable. But for the past 2-3 years, no refund was given to the exporters by the Mandi Board and over Rs 200 crore of such funds are lying pending with the government.”
“We have written to the Punjab government to issue directions to the Mandi Board to release our long pending Market Fee and RDF dues on priority basis,” said Ashok Sethi, Director Punjab Rice Millers and Exporters Association, adding that if exporters will not get this refund and they are asked to pay both RDF and market fee then it would affect the farmers ultimately.
Another leading exporter said that when exporter will be required to pay these heavy taxes, he will certainly keep the price low at the time of purchase.
Other exporters that spoke to The Indian Express also Centre’s recent ordinances have raised many important issues which require immediate intervention of the state government.
“While Punjab Assembly has passed a resolution against this ordinance, other Basmati growing states like UP, Haryana, Himachal etc. have accepted the new ordinance and issued new advisories like waiving off market fee and RDF while levying ‘user charges’ (To use the yard of state Mandis) at very low percentage like Haryana would charge 1% use charges,” said Sethi, adding that taxes and levies are much higher in Punjab at over 6.5 per cent and this huge disparity in taxes and levies would affect the purchase from farmers.
“In such a condition, exporters will purchase more from those states where user charges are minimum and will pay less to the farmers here when they will have to spend more on the taxes,” said an exporter.
They demanded that the situation should be cleared before Basmati varieties like 1509 hit markets by the first week of September. Bhartiya Kisan Union (BKU) Dakaunda General Secretary Jagmohan Singh said that Basmati is one of the best alternative against Paddy (Parmal rice). “We support that taxes should not be levied on the traders or exporters when they purchase it from the farmers in the mandis but certainly when traders sell it further and make profits, a portion of the profit share must be charged by the government to utilise that amount for the development of our rural area from where farmers come to the mandis to sell their produce to the exporters,” he said.
“When exporters are free from such charges, government should not charge from them because they assume that they will not get the refund of these taxes and pay less to farmers and made big profits from farmers’ produce by exporting the premium crop,” said a Basmati grower Devinder Singh of Tarn Taran, who grows Basmati on 50 to 70 acres every year.
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 2020 2:45Rice farmers. FILE PHOTO | NMG
Rice is the third most consumed staple in the country, yet we are not self-sufficient to meet our demand. With a growing population and increase in per capita rice consumption, the government and other policymakers have been left with only a few options to meet future demand for rice; through increased imports and increased productivity.
Our national rice consumption is estimated at 500,000 metric tonnes a year. Despite this being a clear indication of Kenyans uptake of rice as a principal food, our annual production of 100,000 metric tonnes pales in comparison.
According to the National Rice Development Strategy-2, 2019-2030, the annual consumption of rice in Kenya is increasing at a rate of over 12 percent owing to the progressive change in eating habits of Kenyans, especially in urban areas.
This, together with a annual projected population growth rate of 2.7 percent, will mean that the estimated annual national need for rice is expected to reach up to 1,290,000 tonnes by 2030.
Given that Food Security and Nutrition is one of the pillars of the Big Four Agenda which our President is steadfast to implement, increasing the productivity of rice shall form an important component in this pillar. In addition to enhancing food security, it should also alleviate poverty by raising farmer incomes and increase the prospects of creating new jobs in the whole value chain from farm to fork. Investment in the rice sector should therefore become a key priority in the agriculture sector.
The largest rice irrigation scheme in the country is the Mwea Rice Scheme which was started in 1956 during the colonial times when a seed variety from India called the Basmati was planted in the scheme and hence the birth of what is famously known as the Kenya Pishori rice.
Over the years, the scheme has expanded to 30,000 acres. The other rice schemes across the country are the West Kano and Ahero (in Nyanza) and Bunyala. The much anticipated rice scheme in the Tana river under Tarda was a failure from its onset.
So the key question is what has been ailing this sector to scale up production?
The rice sector has always been overseen by the National Irrigation Board (NIB) which falls under the Ministry of Water. This is because of the provision of water under irrigation.
However, in essence the mandate of seed production, varietal development, good farming practice and market linkage should technically be the oversight of the Ministry of Agriculture.
This could possibly be one of the primary reasons why we lost focus on prioritising rice as a strategic food crop. The constant squabbles between the farmers and NIB in the late 1990s due to the political interference of rice marketing in the scheme also created a lethargy in the development of the sector.
To revive this sector, we need to take a multipronged approach which revolves around agronomy and infrastructure development, farmer financing and market linkages. Let us explore each one separately.
Research into new seed development shall remain crucial to ensure farmers get optimal productivity and quality.
The choice of variety is based on its agronomical performance and not economic reasons since varieties like the Pishori when grown in the West Kano and Ahero have proven to be failures due to its microclimate.
In addition, to ensure efficiency, farmers should work in co-operatives and find ways of aggregating their smaller pieces of land to farm commercially as large tracts which can enable mechanisation.
Provision of farm extension services to educate farmers on best farming practices including the appropriate use of farm inputs such as fertiliser and pesticides shall also play a crucial role in productivity.
Finally, there should be a security of source of water for this irrigated crop to perform well. This means that there should be adequate water source from dams and one should not rely on just the river source which frequently get affected by rainfall patterns.
A case in point is how the delay in building the Thiba dam which would serve the Mwea Rice Scheme has greatly affected the growth of this scheme.
Provision of affordable finance is very crucial for the security of the farmer income. Due to the lack of access to this finance, farmers have the tendency of borrowing from shylocks whose exorbitant finance costs makes it prohibitive for farmers to earn anything for their hard work.
Abject poverty
Many farmers also find it more attractive to lease out their pieces of land rather than farm for the same low income expectation.
In addition to finance, well-structured crop insurance can also protect the farmer from the vagaries of weather and disease leading to crop failures which wipes out the farmer’s income and sets them back into abject poverty.
There’s need to work in co-operatives which will also improve the bargaining of farmers to purchase farm inputs as well as obtaining finance from banks.
The adoption of the warehouse receipting programme also ensures farmers obtain finance for their produce once harvested in a formalised structure and have the flexibility of trading in their produce at their free will when the timing and pricing is right.
The third component is market linkages. Without a market for their produce at the right price, it is an exercise in futility for the farmer.
Except for a portion of the crop which the farmer can keep for their subsistence use, there has to be a surety of market for the remainder of their produce.
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