19th may 2017 daily global regional local rice e-newsletter by riceplus magazine

Basmati lovers drive up rice import bill

- Sangam Prasain, Kathmandu

May 19, 2017-

Nepal’s cereal imports swelled by double digits despite a record food grain harvest this fiscal year, as consumers asserted their preference for aromatic basmati rice from India over the local product.Long grain basmati rice holds a unique charm in global markets including Nepal, and this has resulted in a growth in rice imports although the country produced surplus grain, agro experts said

According to the Trade and Export Promotion Centre, Nepal imported cereals worth Rs29.41 billion in the first nine months of the current fiscal year, up 11.9 percent from the same period last year. In the previous fiscal year 2015-16, cereal imports totalled Rs39.34 billion. 

Meanwhile, Nepal Rastra Bank’s statistics show that of the total cereal imports, the rice import bill came to Rs18.52 billion in the first nine months of the current fiscal year. The figure represents a 15.9 percent rise year-on-year. Paddy production jumped to an all-time high of 21.66 percent to 5.23 million tonnes this fiscal year, after two consecutive years of falling harvests triggered by drought. The country produced an additional 931,248 tonnes of paddy this year. In the last fiscal year, a crippling drought hit paddy production severely, dragging it down by 10.22 percent to 4.29 million tonnes.

Based on the average price of Rs21.45 per kg set by the ministry, this year’s output is valued at Rs113 billion, excluding the value of straw and husk. Although officials of the Ministry of Agricultural Development had estimated that the record harvest would bring down the country’s rice import bill, this did not happen. “It’s not surprising. The record paddy output this year has not dented the import bill because the expanding population of middle income Nepalis prefer to eat basmati rice,” said Bhola Man Singh Basnet, an agro expert and scientist. “We don’t have sufficient production of fine rice like basmati, so demand is met by imports.” India is the sole exporter of basmati rice to Nepal.

According to Basnet, there seems to be a direct link between remittance and food habits in Nepal. “Nepalis have been earning more from the last couple of years, and demand for basmati rice has grown accordingly.”  He said that Indian basmati rice was much cheaper compared to Nepal’s product due to the low cost of production and India’s heavily subsidized farm sector.  

The per capita rice consumption in many Asian countries has decreased as a new wealthy middle class replaced simple rice meals with meat-laden and Western style food, experts said. 

As per the Ministry of Agricultural Development, a Nepali consumes an average of 191 kg of food every year—90 kg of rice, 45 kg of maize, 45 kg of wheat and other foods like meat and dairy products.  

“Food habits in Nepal have not changed much. Eating white rice twice daily makes you weak,” said Yogendra Kumar Karki, spokesperson for the ministry. The contribution of rice to the energy intake in Nepal needs to be decreased and replaced by wheat, beans and other crops. “We have been launching various programmes and projects to educate people and encourage them to change their food habits.” He added that the government would be establishing a corn flake mill in the Eastern Region to promote cereals made by toasting flakes of corn and wean people away from traditional beaten rice.

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/05/rice-plant-engineered-tunable-immune-system-could-fight-multiple-diseases-once

http://kathmandupost.ekantipur.com/news/2017-05-19/basmati-lovers-drive-up-rice-import-bill.html

Basmati boom has India’s LT Foods seeking growth in Europe, Middle East

LT Foods looks at Europe and Middle East for expansion as it seeks to capitalize on surging demand for basmati rice

 Pratik Parija

Basmati rice accounts for about 38% of total rice consumption in the Middle East, 4.4% in Europe, 1.3% in the US and 1.2% in Asia.

News Delhi: LT Foods Ltd is targeting Europe and the Middle East for expansion after conquering the US market as one of India’s biggest basmati rice processors seeks to capitalize on surging demand for the aromatic grain.

Shares of LT Foods have more than doubled this year as the half-century old commodity trader increases focus on branded foods to exploit changing consumer desires in India and abroad.

“We want to concentrate and increase sales of our branded products, especially in the US and Europe, as we see huge potential there” and in the Middle East, Ashwani Arora, joint managing director, said on Monday in an interview in New Delhi.

The Mumbai-listed firm bought the Gold Seal Indus Valley and Rozana rice brands from Hindustan Unilever Ltd last year to strengthen its presence in the Middle East. It purchased the 817 Elephant brand in July to further boost sales in markets like the US and Canada, and is setting up a plant in Rotterdam to cater to Europe, Arora said.

“We want to be recognized as a food company, not a commodity trader,” said Arora, whose family started the business as a grains trader in the 1950s and set up its first rice mill in 1978. “The trend is health plus convenience. We are following that trend and developing our whole product range based on the theme.”

Although it has captured more than 50% of the basmati rice market in the US, it’s share in the Middle East and European markets is nominal, according to the company, which also sells rice brands such as Daawat, Royal, and Hadeel.

LT Foods and Japan’s Kameda Seika Co. set up a joint venture in November to manufacture and market rice-based snacks in India. The Indian firm also joined hands with Future Group in December to process and sell south Indian rice.

Basmati rice

Basmati rice accounts for about 38% of total rice consumption in the Middle East, 4.4% in Europe, 1.3% in the US and 1.2% in Asia, according to a company presentation.

LT expects revenue will almost double to $1 billion by 2020 from an estimated Rs32 billion ($500 million) in the year ended 31 March, Arora said. Improvements in procurement, processing, sales and distribution should help lift operating profit as a percentage of revenue to 15% in the coming years from 12%, he said.

Rising income in India has encouraged consumers to shift to modern convenience stores from mom-and-pop shops, boosting demand for branded rice and pulses. Branded products account for 26% of total basmati sales in the country, according to the company.

LT Foods annually sells about 200,000 tonnes of branded basmati rice in India, capturing a market share of 20%, he said. Branded packaged rice accounts for about two-thirds of its sales, while trading and value added products such as organic cereals and brown rice make up the rest, Arora said.

The company, which competes with firms such as KRBL Ltd and Kohinoor Foods Ltd, is aiming to increase its annual rice processing volumes to 500,000 tonnes in two years from 400,000 tonnes by outsourcing mills owned by others, Arora said.

Ajay Thakur, an analyst with Anand Rathi Securities Pvt, said in a report in February that the company’s stock valuations were inexpensive and the rising share of its branded business, cost efficiency-led margin gains and better inventory management were expected to drive greater free cash flow and return ratios. He has a buy rating on the stock.

“We don’t want to make a fresh capital expenditure and we will outsource because there are a lot of idle capacities that are available,” Arora said. “We are keen on spending money on branding and advertising our products. The focus is to invest in brands and markets.” Bloomberg

Scientists Engineer Disease-Resistant Rice Without Sacrificing Yield

BY GUEST

ON MAY 17, 2017

Researchers have developed a way to make rice more resistant to bacterial blight and other diseases without reducing yield. Photo by Max Pixel.Researchers have successfully developed a novel method that allows for increased disease resistance in rice without decreasing yield. A team at Duke University, working in collaboration with scientists at Huazhong Agricultural University in China, describe the findings in a paper published May 17, 2017 in the journal Nature.Rice is one of the most important staple crops, responsible for providing over one-fifth of the calories consumed by humans worldwide. Diseases caused by bacterial or fungal pathogens present a significant problem, and can result in the loss of 80 percent or more of a rice crop.

Decades of research into the plant immune response have identified components that can be used to engineer disease-resistant plants. However, their practical application to crops is limited due to the decreased yield associated with a constantly active defense response.

“Immunity is a double-edged sword, ” said study co-author Xinnian Dong, professor of biology at Duke and lead investigator of the study. “There is often a tradeoff between growth and defense because defense proteins are not only toxic to pathogens but also harmful to self when overexpressed,” Dong said. “This is a major challenge in engineering disease resistance for agricultural use because the ultimate goal is to protect the yield.”

Previous studies have focused on altering the coding sequence or upstream DNA sequence elements of a gene. These upstream DNA elements are known as promoters, and they act as switches that turn on or off a gene’s expression. This is the first step of a gene’s synthesis into its protein product, known as transcription.By attaching a promoter that gives an “on” signal to a defense gene, a plant can be engineered to be highly resistant to pathogens, though at a cost to growth and yield. These costs can be partially alleviated by attaching the defense gene to a “pathogen specific” promoter that turns on in the presence of pathogen attack.

To further alleviate the negative effects of active defense, the Dong group sought to add an additional layer of control. They turned newly discovered sequence elements, called upstream open reading frames (uORFs), to help address this problem. These sequence elements act on the intermediate of a gene, or messenger (RNA, a molecule similar to DNA) to govern its “translation” into the final protein product. A recent study by the Dong lab in an accompanying paper in Nature has identified many of these elements that respond in a pathogen-inducible manner.

The Dong group hypothesized that adding this pathogen-inducible translational regulation would result in a tighter control of defense protein expression and minimize the lost yield associated with enhanced disease resistance.To test this hypothesis, the researchers started with Arabidopsis, a flowering plant commonly used in laboratory research. They created a DNA sequence that contains both the transcriptional and translational elements (uORFs) and fused them upstream of the potent “immune activator” gene called snc1.

 This hybrid sequence was called a “transcriptional/translational cassette” and was inserted into Arabidopsis plants.

When plants have snc1 constitutively active, they are highly resistant to pathogens, but have severely stunted growth. Strikingly, plants with the transcriptional/translational cassette not only have increased resistance, but they also lacked growth defects and resembled healthy wild-type plants. These results show the benefits of adding translational control in engineering plants that have increased resistance without significant costs.The Dong group then sought to apply these findings to engineer disease-resistant rice, as it is one of the world’s most important crops. They created transgenic rice lines containing the transcriptional/translational cassette driving expression of another potent “immune activator” gene called AtNPR1. This gene was chosen as it has been found to confer broad spectrum pathogen resistance in a wide variety of crop species, including rice, citrus, apple and wheat.

The dry yellowish leaves on these rice plants are a classic symptom of bacterial blight, a devastating disease that affects rice fields worldwide. Photo by Meng Yuan.

The transgenic rice lines containing the transcriptional/translational cassette were infected with bacterial/fungal pathogens that cause three major rice diseases — rice  blight, leaf streak, and fungal blast. These showed high resistance to all three pathogens, indicating broad spectrum resistance could be achieved. Importantly, when grown in the field, their yield — both in terms of grain quantity and quality per plant — was almost unaffected. These results indicate a great potential for agricultural applications.

This strategy is the first known use of adding translational control for the engineering of disease-resistant crops with minimal yield costs. It has many advantages, as it is broadly applicable to a variety of crop species against many pathogens. Since this strategy involves activating the plants’ endogenous defenses, it may also reduce the use of pesticides on crops and hence protect the environment.

Additionally, these findings may be broadly applicable to other systems as well. These upstream elements (uORFs) are widely present in organisms from yeast to humans, with nearly half of all human transcripts containing them. “The great potential in using these elements in controlling protein translation during specific biological processes has yet to be realized,” Dong said.

Corresponding author Xinnian Dong can be reached at xdong@duke.edu or (919) 613-8176.

CITATION:  “uORF-Mediated Translation Allows Engineered Plant Disease Resistance Without Fitness Costs,” Guoyong Xu, Meng Yuan,   Chaoren Ai, Lijing Liu, Edward Zhuang, Sargis Karapetyan, Shiping Wang and Xinnian Dong. Nature, May 17, 2017. DOI: 10.1038/nature22372

Booker sales surpass £5bn ahead of Tesco takeover

Booker supplies Budgens, Londis, Premier and Happy Shopper convenice stores 

18 MAY 2017 • 11:36AM

Booker sales have broken the £5bn sales mark for the first time ahead of its £3.7bn takeover by Britain's biggest retailer Tesco.

The cash and carry group recorded a 6.7pc lift in sales to £5.3bn for the year to March 24. Pre-tax profits rose 15pc to £174m during the year.

Like-for-like retail sales were up 0.5pc during the year with a 2.8pc growth in non-tobacco sales. Tobacco sales dropped by 4.6pc after being hit by new Government legislation.

Charles Wilson, Booker chief executive, said that around 90pc of tobacco products previously stocked by its retail customers at Budgens, Londis, Premier and Happy Shopper had to be taken off the shelves ahead of incoming rules that bans the sale of price-marked packaging and packs of 10 and 17 cigarettes. 

Booker chief executive Charles Wilson (left) handshaking on the £3.7bn deal with Tesco boss Dave Lewis

"In spite of a lacklustre fourth quarter, which saw Booker’s sales dragged down by falling tobacco sales, the wholesaler closed out the year on a high note," said David Alexander at Global Data. Meanwhile, the group's catering like-for-like sales rose by 4.4pc during the year after strong demand from restaurants, hotels and campsites on the south coast, which had seen a rise in visitor numbers as more people opted for staycations, Mr Wilson said. "Pubs with beer gardens have also done better because the weather has been better," the Booker boss added.

Around 90pc of products Booker sources is in sterling, which limits the foreign exchange impact from the weaker pound, Mr Wilson said. However some customers are swapping ingredients to mitigate rising commodity costs, which includes a 68pc jump in the price of Basmati rice, he added

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/05/18/booker-sales-surpass-5bn-ahead-tesco-takeover/

Rice plant engineered with a ‘tunable’ immune system could fight multiple diseases at once

By Ryan CrossMay. 18, 2017 , 5:00 PM

A Chinese rice field afflicted by rice blight (Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae), one of the diseases that the newly engineered rice crops successfully resisted.

Meng Yuan, of Huazhong Agricultural University, China

Farmers are constantly spraying pesticides on their crops to combat an array of viral, bacterial, and fungal invaders. Scientists have been trying to get around these chemicals for years by genetically engineering hardy plants resilient to the array of diseases caused by microbial beasties. Most attempts so far confer protection against a single disease, but now researchers have developed a rice plant that fights multiple pathogens at once—without loss to the crop yield—by hooking up a tunable amplifier to the plant’s immune system.

“For as long as I have been in this field, people have been scratching their heads about how to activate a defense system where and when it is needed,” says Jonathan Jones, who studies plant defense mechanisms at the Sainsbury Laboratory in Norwich, U.K. “It is among the most promising lines of research in this field that I have seen.”

Plants don’t have a bloodstream to circulate immune cells. Instead, they use receptors on the outsides of their cells to identify molecules that signal a microbial invasion, and respond by releasing a slew of antimicrobial compounds. Theoretically, identifying genes that kick off this immune response and dialing up their activity should yield superstrong plants.

Plant biologist Xinnian Dong at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, has been studying one of these genes for 20 years—a “master regulator,” she says, of plant defense. The gene, called NPR1 in the commonly studied thale cress plant (Arabidopsis thaliana)—a small and weedy plant topped with white flowers—has been a popular target for scientists trying to boost immune systems of rice, wheat, apples, tomatoes, and more. But turning up NPR1 works too well and “makes the plants miserable, so it is not very useful for agriculture,” Dong says.

To understand why, consider the human immune system. Just as sick people aren’t very productive at work when their fever is high, plants grow poorly when their own immune systems are overloaded. Likewise, keeping the NPR1 gene turned on all the time stunts plant growth so severely there is no harvest for the farmers.

To make NPR1 useful, researchers needed a better control switch—one that would crank up the immune response only when the plant was under attack, but otherwise would turn it down to let the plants grow. Two papers published in Nature this week from Dong’s team at Duke, in collaboration with researchers at Huazhong Agricultural University in Wuhan, China, describe the discovery and application of such a mechanism.

While investigating an immune system-activating protein called TBF1 in Arabidopsis, Dong discovered an intricate system that speedily instigates an immune response. It works by taking ready-to-go messenger RNA molecules that encode TBF1, and quickly translating these molecules into TBF1 proteins, which then kick-start an array of immune defenses. Dong quickly recognized that a segment of DNA, which she calls the “TBF1 cassette,” was acting as a control switch for this plant immune response, so she copied that TBF1 cassette from the Arabidopsis genome and pasted it alongside and in front of the NPR1 gene in rice plants.

The result is a strain of rice that can rapidly and reversibly ramp up its immune system in bursts that are strong enough to fend off offending pathogens but short enough to avoid the stunted growth seen in previously engineered crops.

The researchers demonstrated that their rice was superior compared with regular rice by inoculating their leaves with the bacterial pathogens that cause rice blight (Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae) and leaf streak (X. oryzae pv. oryzicola), as well as the fungus responsible for blast disease (Magnaporthe oryzae). Whereas the infections spread over the leaves of the wild rice plants, the engineered plants readily confined the invaders to a small area. “These plants perform very well in the field, and there is no obvious fitness penalty, especially in the grain number and weight,” Dong says.

The research could be a boon for farmers in developing countries someday, says Jeff Dangl, an expert on plant immunity at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, who was not involved in the study. For instance, rice blast disease, which the plants effectively combatted, causes an estimated 30% loss of the annual rice crop worldwide. “In the developing world, when farmers that can’t afford fungicide get the disease in their fields, they can lose their whole crop,” Dangl says.

Julia Bailey-Serres, a plant biologist at the University of California, Riverside, is excited about the study too. “They haven’t done large trials yet to show how robust it will be, but our back of the envelope calculation shows that this really could have a big impact,” she says. “It could easily be applicable to multiple species of crops,” she says, adding that “it is impressive that it worked across two kingdoms” of fungal and bacterial pathogens.

But all are careful to note that it is still early days for immune-boosted crops. For one, the particular kind of uplift conferred by NPR1 is unlikely to provide protection against plant-munching insects. A second caveat is that the study only tested the rice’s response to microbes that parasitize living host cells; their defense against a different class of pathogens that kill cells for food is still untested. “I would keep the champagne on ice until there are a few more pathogen systems tested in the field,” Jones says.

Still, Jones says he’s hopeful the work—and more like it—could eventually lead to the end of pesticides. “I like to imagine in 50 years’ time my grandchildren will say, ‘Granddad, did people really use chemicals to control disease when they could have used genetics?’ And I’ll say, ‘Yeah, they did.’ That’s where we want to get to.

Scientists Engineer Disease-Resistant Rice Without Sacrificing Yield

May 18, 2017

Researchers have successfully developed a novel method that allows for increased disease resistance in rice without decreasing yield. A team at Duke University, working in collaboration with scientists at Huazhong Agricultural University in China, describe the findings in a paper published May 17, 2017 in the journal Nature.

Rice is one of the most important staple crops, responsible for providing over one-fifth of the calories consumed by humans worldwide. Diseases caused by bacterial or fungal pathogens present a significant problem, and can result in the loss of 80 percent or more of a rice crop.

Decades of research into the plant immune response have identified components that can be used to engineer disease-resistant plants. However, their practical application to crops is limited due to the decreased yield associated with a constantly active defense response.

“Immunity is a double-edged sword, ” said study co-author Xinnian Dong, professor of biology at Duke and lead investigator of the study. “There is often a tradeoff between growth and defense because defense proteins are not only toxic to pathogens but also harmful to self when overexpressed,” Dong said. “This is a major challenge in engineering disease resistance for agricultural use because the ultimate goal is to protect the yield.”

Previous studies have focused on altering the coding sequence or upstream DNA sequence elements of a gene. These upstream DNA elements are known as promoters, and they act as switches that turn on or off a gene’s expression. This is the first step of a gene’s synthesis into its protein product, known as transcription.

By attaching a promoter that gives an “on” signal to a defense gene, a plant can be engineered to be highly resistant to pathogens, though at a cost to growth and yield. These costs can be partially alleviated by attaching the defense gene to a “pathogen specific” promoter that turns on in the presence of pathogen attack.

To further alleviate the negative effects of active defense, the Dong group sought to add an additional layer of control. They turned newly discovered sequence elements, called upstream open reading frames (uORFs), to help address this problem. These sequence elements act on the intermediate of a gene, or messenger (RNA, a molecule similar to DNA) to govern its “translation” into the final protein product. A recent study by the Dong lab in an accompanying paper in Nature has identified many of these elements that respond in a pathogen-inducible manner.

The Dong group hypothesized that adding this pathogen-inducible translational regulation would result in a tighter control of defense protein expression and minimize the lost yield associated with enhanced disease resistance.

To test this hypothesis, the researchers started with Arabidopsis, a flowering plant commonly used in laboratory research. They created a DNA sequence that contains both the transcriptional and translational elements (uORFs) and fused them upstream of the potent “immune activator” gene called snc1. This hybrid sequence was called a “transcriptional/translational cassette” and was inserted into Arabidopsis plants.

When plants have snc1 constitutively active, they are highly resistant to pathogens, but have severely stunted growth. Strikingly, plants with the transcriptional/translational cassette not only have increased resistance, but they also lacked growth defects and resembled healthy wild-type plants. These results show the benefits of adding translational control in engineering plants that have increased resistance without significant costs.

The Dong group then sought to apply these findings to engineer disease-resistant rice, as it is one of the world’s most important crops. They created transgenic rice lines containing the transcriptional/translational cassette driving expression of another potent “immune activator” gene called AtNPR1. This gene was chosen as it has been found to confer broad spectrum pathogen resistance in a wide variety of crop species, including rice, citrus, apple and wheat.

The transgenic rice lines containing the transcriptional/translational cassette were infected with bacterial/fungal pathogens that cause three major rice diseases — rice  blight, leaf streak, and fungal blast. These showed high resistance to all three pathogens, indicating broad spectrum resistance could be achieved. Importantly, when grown in the field, their yield — both in terms of grain quantity and quality per plant — was almost unaffected. These results indicate a great potential for agricultural applications.

This strategy is the first known use of adding translational control for the engineering of disease-resistant crops with minimal yield costs. It has many advantages, as it is broadly applicable to a variety of crop species against many pathogens. Since this strategy involves activating the plants’ endogenous defenses, it may also reduce the use of pesticides on crops and hence protect the environment.

Additionally, these findings may be broadly applicable to other systems as well. These upstream elements (uORFs) are widely present in organisms from yeast to humans, with nearly half of all human transcripts containing them. “The great potential in using these elements in controlling protein translation during specific biological processes has yet to be realized,” Dong said.

https://scienceblog.com/494089/scientists-engineer-disease-resistant-rice-without-sacrificing-yield/

Rice now being smuggled through creeks — Customs

May 19, 20176:04 amIn Crime Guard, News by OkogbaComments

By Daud Olatunji

ABEOKUTA—The Ogun Area Command Controller, Nigeria Customs Service, Sani Madugu, said smugglers now use the creeks along the border communities at Idiroko, Ipokia Local Government Area, to smuggle bags of rice and other prohibited products into the country.

The Customs boss, who took over the command on 25th April 2017, said within the period, officers and men of the command during surveillance intercepted 483 bags of rice, 721 cartons of imported croaker fish, two exotic cars (Mercedes Benz S-class 2015 model and Toyota corolla 2009 model) and one Volvo truck.

He said in summary all the intercepted goods have Duty Payable value of over N37m.

He disclosed this yesterday at the command’s border office at Idiroko, while briefing newsmen about seizure of prohibited goods coming through land borders made by the command in the last three weeks.

Madugu, said: ” We have discovered one of the new methods of smuggling bags of rice and other prohibited products into Nigeria through Idiroko, is through the creeks in Ipokia.”

“The smugglers now use small, small canoes to bring in the bags of rice. They were not aware that we had mounted surveillance there, as they were bringing in the consignments, our operatives swooped on them. In the last three weeks, we have made seizure of 483 of 50kg bags of rice.

“Also, we also intercepted along Idiroko axis two buses with number plates AKD ,674 XU and KJA 635 XU, carrying 721 cartons of croaker fish. Two exotic cars, Mercedes Benz S-class 2015 model, Toyota corolla 2009 model and one Volvo truck.”

While making veiled reference to the recent clash between Customs operatives and smugglers around the Tollgate area at Sango-Ota, the Customs boss warned that any smuggler who engaged operatives in gun battle would get “fire for fire.”

http://www.vanguardngr.com/2017/05/rice-now-smuggled-creeks-customs/

GST exempts various commodities like pulses and rice,hair and soaps will get cheaper

Published by : Avinash Nandakumar

GST exempts various commodities like pulses and rice,hair and soaps will get cheaper

NEW DELHI,May19: The Goods and Services Tax or GST will bring good news for crores in the country. In a crucial meeting, the GST council in Srinagar today finalised the rates at which various commodities will be taxed once the one tax for all kicks in from July 1. Staples like pulses and rice will get cheaper. Both of these along with foodgrain have been added to the exempt list, which means there will be no GST on these commodities. Till now both the staples invited taxes in different states between 1 and 5 per cent. Milk has been added to the exempted category though in states like UP it was not taxed.Consumer durables will also get a price cut after the implementation of GST. Due to multiplicity of taxes, items like air conditioners used to invite 32 per cent or more tax. Now they have been put in 28 per cent slab which means the sector which has been battling dipping sales figures can expect a shot in the arm.

But for those aspiring to buy cars, there may not be much to cheer. Cars will not get cheaper due to GST. Cars will attract three categories of cesses 1, 3 and 15 per cent. High-end motorcycles will attract 3 per cent cess with 28 per cent GST rate. The GST council on Day 1 of the meet ruled that 55 items will invite cess.The GST Council still has a lot of work to do as rates of items like biscuits, footwear, gold, textiles, handloom handicraft, power-driven agricultural equipment are yet to be decided.

 The GST Council discussed the tax rates for thousands of commodities which have to be grouped in seven categories of taxes – 0 per cent, 5 per cent, 12 per cent, 18 per cent, 28 per cent, special category and luxury items category.Currently 299 items are on the exempt list from taxes at the central level and 99 in states. While the states demanded that several items of daily use in their region should be add to the free-from-taxes category the centre wanted to keep the list restricted to 100-odd items.After hours of deliberation today, Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia announced toothpaste, soaps, hair oil will get cheaper post GST.

With the cascading impact of multiple central and state level will be gone due to GST, several other daily use items like toothpaste, hair oil, and soap will attract 18 per cent GST against 28 per cent tax currently.Even cereals prices will witness a climb down as they have joined the exempt category compared to the 5 per cent tax rate levied on them. Sugar, tea, coffee will meanwhile attract 5 per cent tax rate.Addressing a press conference, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said, “GST is an efficient system of taxation and this inherent efficiency will help curbing tax evasion.”

http://www.vanguardngr.com/2017/05/rice-now-smuggled-creeks-customs/

China emerges as Vietnam’s largest fragrant rice importer

China, already the largest importer of Vietnam’s sticky rice, has emerged as the biggest buyer of Vietnamese fragrant rice, according to exporters.

Farmers are seen harvesting rice in the Mekong Delta 

Last month Vietnam exported over 140,000 tons of fragrant rice, with 36% of it going to the Chinese market, which made China the largest importer of this kind of grain.

Ivory Coast and Ghana were the second and third largest importers of Vietnamese fragrant rice last month with each buying about 30,000 tons. Singapore and Malaysia were also among the top fragrant rice markets of Vietnam in April but their import volumes were insignificant.

The country’s total fragrant rice exports in January-April amounted to over 355,000 tons, with China alone accounting for a staggering 46%. Ivory Coast, Ghana, Malaysia and Singapore were also major importers of Vietnamese fragrant rice in the first four months of the year.

China is also known as Vietnam’s largest glutinous rice importer. Last year glutinous rice shipments to China amounted to over 940,000 tons, accounting for over 90% of the total.

According to data of the Vietnam Food Association (VFA), although Vietnamese rice exports to China in 2016 inched down against the previous year, the northern neighbor remained Vietnam’s largest rice importer.

Last year saw rice exports to China amounting to 1.8 million tons, representing nearly 37% of the nation’s total but dipping nearly 20% compared to 2015.

A Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development report said Vietnam’s January-April rice exports reached over 1.8 million tons, with China accounting for over 40%

http://english.vietnamnet.vn/fms/business/178656/china-emerges-as-vietnam-s-largest-fragrant-rice-importer.html  

 

 

 

Philippines likely to import more rice from VN

Update: May, 18/2017 - 15:00

Viet Nam News

HÀ NỘI — The Philippines is likely to import an additional 250,000 tonnes of rice from Việt Nam and Thailand. The Philippines government on Tuesday said the country would import more rice to boost its stocks ahead of the lean harvest season.The National Food Authority Council did not specify the quantity, but demand from the Philippines, one of the world’s largest rice importers, could underpin prices in Thailand and Việt Nam -- its main suppliers and major exporters.

The National Food Authority had been seeking the council’s approval to import 250,000 tonnes under government-to-government schemes with Việt Nam and Thailand. The committee that decides on the quantity to be imported will meet on Thursday.The NFA also announced it would shift from government-to-government importation to government-to-private importation to make the bidding more competitive, transparent and less corrupt.Rice inventory in the Philippines is running low, with government stockpiles shrinking to the least in more than three years in April, just enough to cover 10 days of the national requirement. — VNS

http://vietnamnews.vn/economy/376666/philippines-likely-to-import-more-rice-from-vn.html#ltuou1zKRvrWSivU.99

NFA urged buy rice farmers

Thursday, May 18, 2017 By REYNALDO G. NAVALES MABALACAT CITY –

The Anakpawis Party-list has urged the National Food Authority (NFA) to support the Filipino farmers by procuring more rice from them. Anakpawis-Partylist Representative Ariel Casilao said this in reaction to NFA statements of low supply of rice and the approval of importing from private suppliers. Casilao said that the NFA should buy more palay (unhusked rice) from the farmers “to beef up its stock, than almost totally relying from those sourced from abroad.” “NFA is sowing fear about having low supply, by consciously hiding the fact they only intend to stock up imported rice and totally neglecting its supposed mandate of puchasing palay from Filipino farmers, instead of from foreign governments or private entities,” Casilao said in a statement. Casilao said NFA’s “over-reaction” does not imply that there is no or critically low rice stock in the country.

 He claimed that the agency is controlled by the private sector. From 2011 to 2015, there was an upward trend in palay production, 16.6 million metric tons (translating to 10.9 million MT of rice at 65 percent milling rate) to as high as 18.9 million MT in 2014, then 17.6 million MT in 2015, according to Casilao. “The NFA’s problem is due to its import-dependence, which is actually reflected by its dis-orientation or embracing a neoliberal outlook, that its local purchase share to total production reaches almost zero percent, and its importation dwarfs the stock from Filipino farmers,” Casilao said.

 The lawmaker added that NFA already surrendered to the private sector its mandate of securing the rice stocks when its share to the inventory was surpassed by the commercial stock as early as mid-2012. As of NFA’s latest data of stock inventory on November 2016, its stock of 546 thousand MT was a minority 17 percent of the total 3.3 million MT, while commercial stock at more than 1 million MT composed 33 percent, and 1.6 million MT or 51 percent as household stock, Casilao said. “Why is the NFA acting like it is securing the rice stock in the country, when it is already at the hands of private traders aka cartel, meaning, it is the urgent task of the Duterte government to regulate this stock, while purchasing more and majority of the palay on the immediate next harvest season, as regulatory function in the rice market,” Casilao said.

Casilao recalled that President Rodrigo Duterte promised in May 2016 that the country will reach rice self-sufficiency and bar rice importation by the private sector. “The president seriously knows the impact of the inaccessibility of rice on the poor people, that is why, he went to aid on the farmers during the Kidapawan carnage in April last year, if he is only to replicate the programs and policies of the past administration, more similar unrest will be brought to his attention by the very people who believed in him,” Casilao said.

http://www.sunstar.com.ph/pampanga/local-news/2017/05/18/nfa-urged-buy-rice-farmers-542607

Asia Rice-Thai, Vietnam prices hit multi-month high; India stays sluggish

* Thai upward price trend continues on ongoing demand, export prospects

* Vietnamese traders store rice, anticipate more gains

* India's high prices slow down trade, turn away main buyers

By Patpicha Tanakasempipat and My Pham

BANGKOK/HANOI, May 18 Rice prices hit multi-month peak in Thailand and Vietnam this week on export prospects, while high rates in India kept buyers at bay, traders said on Thursday.

Thai benchmark 5-percent broken rice RI-THBKN5-P1 rose this week to $385-$411 a tonne, free-on-board (FOB) Bangkok, from $387-$392 last week. At a mean of $398 per tonne, Thai rice prices hit their highest in nine months, Reuters data showed.

Traders said as Thai exporters are still buying stocks to fill shipments, heightened expectations of more demand from some of the world's top importers also helped prices to surge.

Last week, Bangladesh's state grains buyer said they will import 600,000 tonnes of rice. It has already issued two tenders for a total of 100,000 tonnes of rice.

"Exporters continue to sell, ships are still being loaded, and big buyers are now coming in," said a Bangkok-based trader.

"If buyers keep purchasing, prices will keep increasing," said another trader from Bangkok.

Vietnam's 5-percent broken rice RI-VNBKN5-P1 was quoted at $365-370 a tonne, FOB Saigon, up from $355-$360 last week, following the trend in Thailand.

Averaging $367.50 per tonne, Vietnamese rice prices are at an 11-month high, according to Reuters data.

Anticipating more demand from leading importing countries, Vietnam traders are storing rice in order to sell later as prices advance.

"People expect demand to jump further so they are not rushing to sell now," said a Ho Chi Minh-based trader.

Vietnam shipped an estimated 1.84 million tonnes of the grain between January and April, down 8.8 percent from the same period last year.

Thailand and Vietnam are the world's second- and third-biggest rice exporters.

In India, the world's biggest rice exporter, 5-percent broken parboiled rice prices RI-INBKN5-P1 eased by $3 per tonne to $391-$396 a tonne this week on sluggish export demand.

In the past two months, there has been a sharp rise in Indian rates on government buying and as appreciation in the rupee caused a rally in local paddy prices.

The rupee has risen more than 5 percent so far this year and is trading near its highest level in 21 months. A strong rupee trims returns of exporters, who cannot afford to cut prices.

"African buyers are shifting to Vietnam. Indian rice is not competitive at the current price level," said an exporter based at Kakinada in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh.

India mainly exports non-basmati rice to African countries and premier basmati rice to the Middle East.

The Indian government buys rice from local farmers at a fixed price to supply subsidised food and meet any emergency needs such as a sudden spike in prices.

The government has bought 36 million tonnes rice from farmers so far in 2016/17, up 24 percent from a year ago. (Reporting by Patpicha Tanakasempipat in BANGKOK and My Pham in HANOI; Additional reporting by Rajendra Jadhav in MUMBAI; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips)

http://in.reuters.com/article/asia-rice-idINL4N1IK1T3

JICA, IRRI, PhilRICE share rice seed production expertise with African farmers

Published May 18, 2017, 10:01 PM

A group of African farmers graduated recently from a training extended by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), and Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice) as part of development cooperation to boost food security in member countries of the Coalition of African Rice Development (CARD).

JICA, IRRI, and PhilRice are training researchers and extension workers in Africa from 2016 until 2019 under an ongoing program Extension Capacity Development for Rice Food Security in Africa.

“The participants are extension workers who are expected to boost the rice seed value chain in CARD-member countries,” said IRRI Project Manager Jason Beebout.  CARD, a consultative group of donors, and research organizations work with African producing countries to double rice production in Africa from 14 million tons per year to 28 million tons per year in 2018.

Nineteen participants from Africa were trained in the Philippines in this training program through hands-on experience in land and seedling preparation, harvesting, post-harvesting practices, and quality seed management.

“We have been sharing Japanese know-how with countries like Africa to help boost their rice production and alleviate poverty. Using the South-South cooperation model, Japan encourages countries like the Philippines who also benefited from Japan’s capacity-building support to transfer their knowledge and skills to other regions,” said Yuko Tanaka, JICA Senior Representative.

Tags: CARD, Coalition of African Rice Development, International Rice Research Institute, IRRI, Japan International Cooperation Agency, JICA, JICA IRRI PhilRICE share rice seed production expertise with African farmers, Philippine Rice Research Institute, PhilRice, Rice Food Security in Africa

http://business.mb.com.ph/2017/05/18/jica-irri-philrice-share-rice-seed-production-expertise-with-african-farmers/

 

 

Rice Industry to Remain Vigilant as Trump Administration Makes NAFTA Renegotiation Official

USA Rice Daily, Thursday, May 18, 2017

By Gil Thompson

WASHINGTON, DC -- The Trump Administration today formally notified the U.S. Congress of its intent to enter into negotiations with Mexico and Canada to "modernize" the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA.  A letter from freshly-installed U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to Congressional leadership begins a mandated 90-day consultation with Congress before formal negotiations can begin.  Additionally, U.S. law requires the President to provide detailed negotiating objectives 30 days prior to the start of negotiations.

"Everyone in rice country and across U.S. agriculture knows how important NAFTA is to our sector's economic health," said USA Rice Chairman Brian King.  "NAFTA made Mexico our number one export market and solidified our dominant position in Canada.  Our message is simple - modernize NAFTA if necessary, but do no harm to the rice industry."

King, who just returned from leading a rice trade delegation to Mexico, said USA Rice will aggressively demonstrate to Members of Congress and the Trump Administration the importance of NAFTA, the economic benefits it brings to not just rice, but most of the agriculture industry, and the real perils that could result in a poorly renegotiated deal.

"Mexico is our top market and Canada is our number four market because of NAFTA, not in spite of it," King said.  "We will remind the negotiators of this now and throughout the process."

             

Global Rice Markets are Distorted by Bad Actors, Contributing to U.S. Trade Deficits USA Rice Testifies at Commerce Department

By Gil Thompson

WASHINGTON, DC -- The Department of Commerce hosted a day-long hearing with witnesses from across the U.S. economy to examine reasons for bilateral deficits with 13 U.S. trading partners.  USA Rice, participating in the agriculture panel, explained that while the U.S. rice industry generates a $1.2 billion trade surplus, "a majority of the countries being examined, including China, the European Union, India, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and Viet Nam intervene heavily in the rice market, and the result is restricted access for U.S. rice or unfair competition in foreign markets."

In his testimony, USA Rice Chief Operating Officer Bob Cummings further noted that "globally rice is one of the most heavily protected crops in terms of domestic support, border protection, and export controls," and that, like nearly all of U.S. agriculture, export success hinges on good trade agreements.

"Well-negotiated and enforced trade agreement are the key to helping the U.S. rice industry contribute to reducing bilateral trade deficits.  Where there are good, solid trade agreements, increased rice exports follow.  We need look no further than the Uruguay Round Agreements and establishment of the WTO, NAFTA, and the U.S. Colombia Free Trade Agreement for evidence," he said.

Today's hearing was in response to President Trump's executive order of March 31 to the Secretary of Commerce, the U.S. Trade Representative, and other trade agencies to prepare an Omnibus Report on Significant Trade Barriers.  Canada, China, the European Union, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, and Viet Nam were specifically being examined today. 

Cummings said USA Rice and other agriculture groups have mounted a campaign to highlight the significant contributions agriculture makes to U.S. exports and remind the administration of the importance of a forward-looking trade policy that supports good trade agreements, strives to open new markets, and undertakes aggressive enforcement against trading partners that don't live up to their international obligations. 

"U.S. rice exports in isolation will not resolve the bilateral trade deficits identified by the administration.  However, action by the U.S. government to support exports from America's highly efficient agricultural sector is an important part of the solution. To that end, existing trade agreements that are working well for agriculture should not be undone, and enforcement can and should be stepped up," concluded Cummings