20th December,2018 daily global regional local rice e-newsletter

Rice millers ‘try’ to enter sealed premises, booked

Our Correspondent

Ferozepur, December 19

Posted at: Dec 20, 2018, 1:40 AM; last updated: Dec 20, 2018, 1:40 AM (IST)

The Ferozepur Police have registered a case against the rice mill owners for allegedly disrupting the police officials from performing their duty on the rice mill premises at Guruharsahai subdivision.

The police had sealed this rice mill last month following a complaint by the Punjab State Civil Supplies Corporation (Punsup).

The accused identified as Rinku Bhatia, a resident of Sri Muktsar Sahib, and his partner Gurwinder Singh forcibly tried to enter the rice mill on Tuesday.

However, when the police officials and the PUNSUP employees, who were performing their duty, tried to stop them, the erring mill owners started arguing with the officials.

Later, on the basis of the complaint filed by Deepak Sarvan, District Manager, PUNSUP, a case under Sections 353, 186 and 506 of the IPC was registered against the accused at the Guruharsahai police station.

When contacted, the accused mill owners denied the charges and claimed that the case was politically motivated to settle scores with them.

Earlier during the special inspection drive, the Ferozepur DM had detected abnormal purchase at Jiwan Arain village and Panje ke Uthar grain markets by local commission agents few days ago.

Later, following an inquiry, it came to fore that a few local firms had allegedly made bogus purchases of 86,939 bags of paddy in connivance with another rice mill in Jiwan Arain against which payments to the tune of Rs 5.6 crore had been taken.

It was also revealed that the erring rice millers were planning to buy paddy from other states like UP and Bihar where the same is much cheaper than the MSP in Punjab and then deliver the same during milling.

https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/punjab/rice-millers-try-to-enter-sealed-premises-booked/701279.html

MRC to install solar rooftop in two rice mills

posted December 18, 2018 at 08:15 pm by Alena Mae S. Flores

MRC Allied Inc. will construct  a 550-kilowatt-peak grid-tied solar rooftop project for two rice mills in Northern Luzon.“We are breaking ground in an area which would encourage agriculture production as a result of lower energy prices available to user,” MRC president Augusto Cosio Jr. said.

MRC earlier signed a memorandum of agreement with Edward Marcs Philippines Inc. for the design, supply, delivery, construction, installation, testing and commissioning of the solar rooftop project of the two rice milling plants which they did not identify.

EMPI is expected to complete the design, supply, construction, installation, testing and commissioning of the agreed target capacity of solar rooftop system for the said project within 180 days.

“What we are setting up is a long term growth of cash flows in order to generate better shareholder value…When rice millers proportionally lower milling cost, they could lower the price of agricultural products,” Cosio said.

MRC will be the project developer and owner of the solar facility while the private entity which operats the two milling plants will be the power off-taker.

The P34-million solar rooftop project is expected to be completed  by May 2019. 

Cosio said MRC aimed to gain a foothold in the growing Philippine solar PV rooftop market by putting up 4 MW of solar rooftop capacity in two years. 

MRC said it planned to develop at least 1,000 MW of power generation capacity by 2022.

MRC also signed a memorandum of agreement to put up a 1.1-MW solar rooftop in a mall in Mindanao.

http://manilastandard.net/business/power-technology/283267/mrc-to-install-solar-rooftop-in-two-rice-mills.html

No millers, paddy procurement comes to a halt in Odisha's Jagatsinghpur

Farmers of Jagatsinghpur are resorting to distress sale as no millers from other districts have been engaged.

Published: 19th December 2018 09:46 AM  |   Last Updated: 19th December 2018 09:46 AM   |  

Paddy stacked near a threshing floor at Rajnagar in Kendrapara district | Express

By Express News Service

JAGATSINGHPUR: Farmers of Jagatsinghpur have urged the district administration and the State Government to rope in millers from other districts, Bargarh in particular, to procure paddy from them.Paddy procurement in the district was supposed to begin from December 7 and 105 paddy procurement centres were to be opened. However, as no millers have come forward to lift paddy, not a single procurement centre has been opened till now. This crop season, the Civil Supplies department has fixed the paddy procurement target at 74,41,176 tonne but only one miller has come forward to lift and mill the stock. The department aims at producing  50,600 tonne rice from the procured paddy. As many as 33,443 farmers have registered their names in the paddy procurement automation system to sell paddy in kharif marketing season.

Last year, 31 millers, including 29 from Bargarh district, were engaged to lift paddy. This year, farmers are resorting to distress sale as no millers from other districts have been engaged by the administration to lift paddy so far. They are selling a quintal of paddy at Rs 1,000 to Rs 1,200 instead of the minimum support price (MSP) of Rs 1,750 fixed by the State Government.

Farmers, led by their leaders Bichitrananda Swain, Rabindra Rout and Kelu Sahoo on Tuesday submitted a memorandum to the Commissioner-cum-Secretary of Civil Supplies department and the Jagatsinghpur Collector urging them to engage millers from other districts like last year to procure their paddy. Similarly, board members of many procurement centres of Biridi block have also written to the State Government in this regard.

As per the procurement policy of the State Government, there is a provision to appoint millers from other areas if adequate number of millers are not available in a district. Prior to the procurement, the Civil Supplies department had asked all Collectors, except those of Jagatsinghpur and Kandhamal, to furnish reports on surplus number of millers in any district.

Contacted, District Civil Supplies Officer Dilip Kumar Patra said this year no millers from other districts expressed interest in lifting paddy from Jagatsinghpur.There are not enough millers in Jagatsinghpur district to custom mill paddy and produce rice. Although the department has sought the intervention of the State Government for selection of millers for the district, nothing has been done so far. Farmers are resorting to distress sale due to non-availability of millers.

http://www.newindianexpress.com/states/odisha/2018/dec/19/no-millers-paddy-procurement-comes-to-a-halt-1913626.html

Parties vying to woo farmers

 Updated: December 18th, 2018, 21:57 IST

Bhubaneswar: Adding fuel to the fire over the raging farm loan waiver issue, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Tuesday announced that it would give interest free crop loans to farmers, if voted to power.
Speaking to reporters here, the party’s state unit president Basant Panda said, “We will definitely form a government in the state and waive farm loans. We will also provide interest free loans to farmers.”
The BJP has made this announcement in the wake of its debacle in three Hindi heartland states mainly due to agrarian distress while Congress has already announced that they will waive farm loans after forming government in the state.
Alleging that there have been gross irregularities in paddy procurement centres (mandi) in the state, Panda said his party would launch a ‘mandi chala abhiyan’ (mandi march) from December 18 till January 7 and burn the effigy of the food supply and consumer welfare minister Surya Narayan Patro at all the mandis. Demanding waiver of farm loans and proper functioning of mandis, the farmers’ wing of the party will gherao the state secretariat and Naveen Niwas January 8—the same day when the BJD will demonstrate near Parliament.
Panda alleged farmers are being deprived of actual price (minimum support price) of the paddy due to an unholy nexus of the state government with rice millers.
“This is high time the state government hiked the minimum support price (MSP) of paddy instead of going to New Delhi,” he stated.
Lashing out at the BJD, Panda said the government has done nothing for the farmers over past 18 years. The state government is yet to provide Rs 100 bonus to farmers that the CM had announced in Bargarh. Calling BJD’s proposed protest in Delhi as just eyewash and a political gimmick, he said, if they have any kind of sympathy towards farmers, they should immediately waive crop loans. The farmers wing of the Pradesh Congress Committee said that they will also undertake some political programme for farmers on that day.
Meanwhile, senior Congress leader and former Union minister Srikant Jena urged the state government to waive farm loans with immediate effect. Jena alleged that the BJD’s plan to go to Delhi over paddy MSP is a political gimmick. The government is only hoodwinking farmers with this move, he said. Reacting to BJP’s ‘mandi chala abhiyan’ programme, BJD spokesperson Pratap Deb said the district administration will take appropriate action against officials concerned if there is any irregularity.

http://www.orissapost.com/parties-vying-to-woo-farmers/

Festival honours Vietnamese rice’s position

The logo of Vietnam's national rice brand

NDO – The third Vietnam Rice Festival, aiming to honour and improve the position of Vietnamese rice in the world and promote rice production and export, officially opened in the Mekong River Delta province of Long An, on December 18.

The logo of Vietnam's national rice brand was announced at the opening ceremony of the festival. The festival features numerous activities, including a rice contest, an exhibition on Vietnamese rice exports and several important seminars. Co-organised by the Vietnam Farmers' Union (VNFU) Central Committee, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD), the Long An provincial People's Committee, Ho Chi Minh City Institute of Development Economics Research, Can Tho City Institute for Socio - Economic Development Studies and the Cuu Long Delta Rice Research Institute (CLRRI), the event also aims to honour the contributions of farmers, managers and businesses to Vietnam's agricultural and rice development. The third Vietnam Rice Festival 2018, which gathers the participation of 1,058 businesses from 612 localities in the provinces and cities of the Mekong Delta, Ho Chi Minh City and the Southeast Region, displays many types of products such as rice, machinery, equipment for agricultural development, agricultural supplies, green agricultural products, urban agriculture, high technology agriculture and other fields. The event also is considered as an opportunity for managers, businesses, scientists and farmers to approach and update market information and advanced technologies in rice production and business from around the world.

http://en.nhandan.org.vn/business/item/6974702-festival-honours-vietnamese-rice%E2%80%99s-position.html

GM seeds may face hurdles

12:00 AM, December 20, 2018 / LAST MODIFIED: 12:06 AM, December 20, 2018

US agency says in a report on Bangladesh

Sohel Parvez

A lack of purchasing power in the farming sector dominated by small and marginal people may restrict the wider use of genetically modified (GM) seeds in Bangladesh, said the US Department of Agriculture recently.

Farmers believe GM seeds are higher priced in comparison to non-GM varieties, according to the USDA Foreign Agricultural Service's Bangladesh Agricultural Biotechnology Annual 2018 report.

“GM seeds for planting may also experience difficulty gaining market acceptability unless apprehensions about multinational seed companies are addressed.”

The report was released on December 12.

However, Md Jahangir Hossain, country project director of Feed the Future Biotech Project (potato and Bt brinjal) of USAID, said Bangladesh Agricultural Development Corporation (BADC) sells both GM and non-GM brinjal seeds at the same price at Tk 700 per kilogram.

He said the price of Bt eggplant seeds of Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI) is Tk 5,000 per kilogram. But it will not affect farmers as BARI does not sell directly to growers, he said.

The USDA said there was a general recognition within Bangladesh's scientific and policy community that agricultural biotechnology offered a tool to provide food security to the country's growing population.

Nevertheless, some local advocacy groups publicly question GE technology, it added.

“Because there is a dearth of reliable information, many Bangladeshi citizens are not well-informed. The quality of publicly disseminated information is not always accurate or supported with sound science. Gaining future market acceptance will greatly depend on education efforts,” said the report.

Since 2013 Bangladesh has released four GE eggplant varieties infused with genes that are resistant to fruit and shoot borer (FSB) disease, the most devastating pest in South and Southeast Asia.

BARI released the GM vegetable and is seeking approval from the government to release three more varieties of eggplants.

Farmers apply heavy doses of pesticide to protect eggplants from pest infestation.

Bangladesh Rice Research Institute and Cotton Development Board are working to release GE rice and cotton which bear the names Golden Rice and Bt Cotton respectively.

The USDA terms Bangladesh a role model in case of accepting and advancing modern biotechnologies in daily life.

It said with innovative biotech support from the world scientific community, Bangladesh was progressing gradually to initiate research and trials of new GE varieties.

The government is also supporting scientists in this advancement, but regulatory policies are not fully developed to cover all aspects of production and marketing, it added.

“Although, government funding for research is limited, Bangladesh became a leader in GE vegetables, such as Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) brinjal production, for commercial use and consumption,” said the report.

Since the release, the Bari has been producing and distributing Bt brinjal seeds among farmers. The highest amount of seeds of GE eggplant, 1,827 kilogrammes (kg), was produced in fiscal 2016-17.

Production of seeds of Bt brinjal by BADC slumped to 612 kg in 2017-18, according to the USDA report, which says 1,400 kg of seeds are in stock.

The USDA said seed multiplication was continuing through increased interest of farmers. Some 1.50 lakh farmers produce brinjal on their farms and 23 percent of them are producing Bt Brinjal.

It is estimated that 5.95 percent of 80,000 acres of farm land set aside for growing brinjal are cultivated with Bt brinjal, according to the report.

Dilafroza Khanam, chief scientific officer and head of the biotechnology division of the Bari, said farmers got higher production as the fruit and shoot borer disease did not affect the crops for use of GE seeds.

https://www.thedailystar.net/business/news/gm-seeds-may-face-hurdles-1676104

Premium rice entrepreneurs in China harness tech, crowdfunding to grow a safer, tastier grain

• Basmati in India, jasmine rice in Thailand, carnaroli in Italy – China, despite being the world’s biggest grower, has no rice to match these varieties
• Investors aim to change that with boutique organic production and new technology

BY ENID TSUI

2 DEC 2018 / UPDATED ON 4 DEC 2018

Deng Hongzhi harvests rice for the Black Soil Group in Xiangshui, Heilongjiang province. Pictures: Simon Son

2

You would expect China to be the best grower of rice in the world. The Chinese have been cultivating the starchy seed for more than 8,000 years and the grain – the country’s most important staple – is imbued with cultural signi­ficance. But the people of the world’s largest nation of rice eaters – pickier in recent times given their new-found prosperity – are often let down by their own produce.

Ask any foodie to name the world’s great rice varieties and they are likely to answer with Thai jasmine, Indian basmati, Italian carnaroli and Japanese short-grain rice – varieties that instantly evoke images and flavours of the countries they are associated with. How about a grain from the land of fried rice? Most people would struggle to name one.

China produces more rice than any other country, even though its farms lack the scale and tech­nology to yield, per hectare, as much as those in Japan, South Korea, the United States and Australia.

It has many kinds of rice, too, beyond the basic classi­fications of long-grain indica, short-grain japonica and glutinous. The country’s formidable agri­cultural research capacity has made it the world leader in producing hardy, blight-resistant hybrid strains, most notably those that agronomist Yuan Longping pioneered in the aftermath of the Great Famine (1958-61). The celebrated scientist continues to experiment today, at the age of 88. But many varieties of the grass classed as Oryza sativa in China are grown for yield, not flavour.

In any case, little is exported because Beijing maintains the world’s largest stockpile (nearly 70 per cent of global stock), for national security reasons, and domestic farmers are guaranteed generous prices, to remove incen­tives for selling rice abroad. That stance has recently been relaxed because domestic stock­piles are becoming too large. Still, even in Hong Kong or Macau you cannot find much rice from China . Hong Kong has long favoured Thai jasmine, with its distinctive fragrance.

Sun Chang, founder of Black Soil Group. Picture: Black Soil Group

China’s dubious food-safety record has not helped the reputation of its rice. Vast tracts of farmland and waterways are polluted by heavy metals, which bring periodic official warnings about excessive cadmium and arsenic in paddy fields. Add in the reaction to unethical business practices by sellers, such as the disguising of old rice by polishing dull grains with paraffin wax, and the overuse of bleach and other chemicals in processing, and it is now fashionable for Chinese households to install expen­sive, miniature rice mills in their kitchens.

Because its own people do not trust its rice, China has become the world’s largest importer of the grain, despite those massive stockpiles.

China’s per capita gross domestic product is now about 100 times higher than it was during the Great Famine; its people can afford to care about flavour. And more families are demanding safe, tasty rice that echoes their own history and culture. This, after all, is a country where all schoolchildren memorise Li Shen’s eighth-century poem Sympathy for the  Peasants, which contains the line, “Each grain of rice is the result of hard toil.”

There are such deep, systemic problems with Chinese farms. Poor soil quality, poor water quality, overuse of chem­icals are just one aspect

Sun Chang, founder of Black Soil Group

Three years ago, Sun Chang joined a growing band of entrepreneurs hoping to fill that gap in the market. He moves in circles of people prepared to pay well for good-quality Chinese rice. Born in China and educated in the United States, Sun is a veteran of Hong Kong’s financial services industry, where he was Asia chairman of Warburg Pincus, the American private equity firm he spent two decades working for. In 2015, he quit his job and set up a rice farm in Xiangshui, in rural Heilongjiang, China’s most north­easterly province.

Sun is no city slicker looking for a temporary rural escape. He spent decades raising billions of US dollars to fund acquisitions, and his agricultural business was to be ambitious in vision and scale. The original idea behind Black Soil Group, which also has a potato subsidiary, was to demonstrate how private investment has a role to play in transforming China’s agricultural sector.

“There are such deep, systemic problems with Chinese farms,” Sun told Post Magazine last year. “Poor soil quality, poor water quality, overuse of chem­icals are just one aspect. Farms tend to be small and owned by individual villages. There simply isn’t enough cash flow for each farmer for investments or sometimes even to buy seeds for the next season. And that explains why there is still so much rural poverty in China.”

Sun planned to consolidate small farms into large, highly automated operations with the latest in crop-monitoring technology to reduce the use of pesticides and other harmful chemi­cals. China could grow non-genetically modified, delicious varieties of rice as efficiently as more developed markets, Sun thought, and other people would be willing to invest in his scheme.

Large-scale private equity investment in arable land tends to be controversial because investors’ financial aggression (private equity firms are not called “barbarians at the gate” for nothing) could drive up the price of increasingly scarce farmland, resulting in more expensive food. But in China, the government keeps so tight a rein on the agricultural sector that there is less sensitivity to such moves.

Black Soil took over farmland through a trans­fer deal involving local government. Farmers who sign up with the company are allotted individual plots, and they grow their japonica rice according to Black Soil guidelines, which follow European Union environ­mental standards. Black Soil buys all their rice and makes a profit by process­ing and selling it as a premium product under its own brand.

Yu Huafeng, founder of online grocer Benlai Life. Picture: Simon Song

All has not gone according to plan, however. Outside investment has been slow in coming. Last September, Sun stepped back from the day-to-day running of Black Soil to take up a full-time position with TPG, another private equity firm. Profes­sional managers and new stake­holders have been brought in to keep his rice dream alive.

Yu Huafeng, young-looking for his 50 years, is a major promoter and reseller of Black Soil rice. Having grown up the son of poor farmers, Yu was jailed in 2004 on corruption charges when he was deputy editor of what was then one of China’s most outspoken newspapers, Southern Metropolis News. Critics say the charges were trumped up by local officials to punish the newspaper for its aggressive report­ing. Yu was released from prison in 2008 and today heads up Benlai Life, a Beijing-based online seller of fresh, safe, ecologically grown produce that he founded in 2012. The business boasts 25 million users across China and 4 billion yuan (US$575.8 million) in annual revenue, making it an ideal platform on which to market new food products.

Yu says he sells the rice using the same farm-to-market model that proved so successful with Chu oranges, a brand from Yunnan province in southwest China that was established in 2002 by Chu Shijian, who Benlai Life helped turn into China’s most famous farmer.

Black Soil-brand rice grown in Xiangshui. Picture: Simon Song

Chu too is a former prisoner who has reinvented him­self with spectacular success. The former general manager of Yunnan tobacco company Hongta Group was sentenced to life imprisonment for corruption in 1999. He was freed early, in 2002, at the age of 74, and with the same energy that he had once applied to modernising China’s state tobacco industry, set about cultivating a fruit variety known as “sugar orange”, in the unpolluted hills of Yunnan. A decade later, Chu teamed up with Benlai Life to sell into the major cities, and the massive publicity campaign turned him into a national celebrity, so helping his fruit sell for more than double the price of similar oranges.

Chu’s company now produces about 200 million yuan worth of oranges a year and its success has demonstrated there is a massive market for smartly branded, safe, domes­tic produce. Chu initiated a trend for so-called dakas (celebrities or heroes of the business world) becoming brand ambassadors for all manner of farm products.

Liu Chuanzhi, founder of technology company Lenovo, set up a fruit business that sells the Liu kiwi, which is grown in Sichuan province in western China. Property tycoon Pan Shiyi is spokesman for Pan apples, which are grown in an impover­ished area of Gansu province in northwest China where the billionaire grew up.

The Xiangshui farm belonging to tycoon Pan Shiyi, a brand ambassador of Black Soil rice, and his wife, Zhang Xin. Picture: Simon Song

Commercial considerations aside, these campaigns seem to be driven by philanthropic impulses and the desire for personal catharsis – a going back to basics after having experienced China’s frenzied development.

Yu says he wants to help alleviate rural poverty because he lived through it. He recalls his parents having to sell their house to pay off debts when their rice crop failed.

“We were hungry all the time,” he says. “We often had no food in the house and had to queue for handouts. We didn’t even have enough rice, so we had to bulk it up with wild vege­tables from the forest.”

But he caught the entrepreneurial bug from his parents after the 1978 economic liberalisation.

“They opened a restaurant and later started selling other people’s produce,” he says. “I guess that’s sort of what I do now. We became among the first families in the area to earn 10,000 yuan, which was considered a lot of money back then.”

Black Soil, a premium brand of Chinese rice. Picture: Simon Song

Yu’s platform is not the exclusive Black Soil seller, but its relationship with the farm is different from that of JD.com, which also stocks the rice. Benlai Life is the biggest among more than 30 “owners”, who do not possess a stake in the business but who essen­tially crowd­fund the farm. Each prepays 50,000 yuan per mu (0.067 hectares) of land a year and owns the right to all the rice that is harvested from that plot, which averages a substantial 500 catties – 250kg – per mu.

All the Black Soil rice sold by Benlai Life comes from the thousands of mu that it “owns” in Xiangshui. Yu’s plots are certified organic, and Black Soil says the whole area is “pollution free”, in line with Chinese food-safety standards. The water flows from sparkling, clean Jingpo Lake, and there is little industry in the vicinity.

Pan is a brand ambassador. “This rice is so tasty, I can eat it on its own,” he eulogises on a magazine cover. He and his wife, Zhang Xin, co-founder of Beijing-based Soho China, one of the country’s largest commercial property companies, have also become “owners” of a piece of land. With an app, the couple, like other owners, can tap into real-time videos and climate reports relating to their farm.

Technology can also deliver hard truths, however. When Black Soil released a fleet of drones to conduct a detailed geological survey it discovered that Sun’s vision of scale and automation was not realisable.

Zong Xiaowei, Black Soil’s general manager. Picture: Simon Song

The company name comes from the area’s soil, which is a rich, dark variety called chernozem – a humus-heavy, fertile type found extensively in northeastern China, Russia and North America. In Heilongjiang, the thin layer of soil has suffered from erosion and overfarming and is growing shallower. Beneath the soil is a layer of uneven slate, which means that all the traditional, back-breaking work asso­ciated with rice growing – and that stirred Li’s sympathy in his Tang-dynasty poem – cannot be under­taken here by machines.

“We had to adjust our plans quickly,” says Zong Xiaowei, the man at the helm in Xiangshui today. “Instead of going for scale, we now operate as a boutique rice grower,” he says, under the warm autumn sun in the middle of the October harvest.

Zong spent many years working for state-owned Cofco Group – China’s biggest agricultural commodities producer and trader – and so is familiar with vast, largely empty Heilongjiang, which is nearly three times the size of Guangdong but with only a third of its population.

A communal farm in China, during the Great Leap Forward. Picture: Alamy

One reason the northeastern province has escaped the worst of China’s industrial pollution is that it is unbear­ably cold for half of the year. This is where those politically per­secuted by the Communist Party were sent in the 1950s and 60s, forced to plough the beidahuang – the big emptiness in the north – as punishment. Now, however, the region is dubbed beidacang – the big silo in the north – because, despite the shortness of its growing season, modern farm­ing methods allow it to produce more grain than any other part of China.

“Not the best grains necessarily,” says Zong. “But grains to fill bellies.”

Black Soil site manager Yu Lei is descended from Korean farmers who settled in Heilongjiang generations ago. The rice expert says one advan­tage of not relying on machines is a better crop. The plant retains more water if it is trans­planted and harvested by hand, Yu says, and machines would cause more damage.

“Our rice is called stone slab rice because of the slate below the black soil, and the area has produced rice for thousands of years. Only emperors and, later, senior party officials were sent the rice,” he boasts. Rice from Xiangshui is identified with its origin in China in much the same way as wines and cheeses in Europe are tied to a specific terroir.

I eat it three times a day and I don’t eat any other kind of rice,” Yu says, over lunch at a restaurant near the farm. “I tried Thai jasmine once. I really can’t stand the taste

Yu Huafeng, founder, Benlai Life

Yu says that having a single annual harvest makes north­ern rice more nutritious than the indica variety, which can yield two or three harvests a year in the warmer south.

“I eat it three times a day and I don’t eat any other kind of rice,” Yu says, over lunch at a restaurant near the farm. “I tried Thai jasmine once. I really can’t stand the taste.”

Yu is not alone in having a cultivated taste. Many people raised on a southern Chinese diet will eat only japonica when they go to a Japanese or Korean restaurant. This writer, being from Hong Kong, cannot say that her visit to the farm has converted her to Xiangshui rice; it is the fragrance of jasmine rice that smells like home. And it is a common mistake to assume rice consumption is a uniform habit. Wheat-based noodles, dumplings and buns are the staples in many regions of China.

A fragmented market is one challenge for growers of boutique rice that sells at 10 times the price of ordinary japonica from the northeast. There are many others.

A close-up of grains of Xiangshui rice. Picture: Simon Song

In the area where Black Soil operates, the local govern­ment is heavily promoting rice tourism and there are many farms advertising “heritage planting” and “eco” methods. And Xiangshui has a major rival in Wuchang, a boutique rice-growing region a four-hour drive away.

Wuchang rice, which has been bred to have a strong scent, has been such a hit that some distributors have been cashing in by selling fake varieties, containing other rice or grown outside the designated geographical indication.

“We don’t have that problem right now and we are building up customer loyalty quickly,” Zong says.

Under the group’s new “adopt a farm” scheme, indivi­duals and companies can pledge smaller amounts in return for freshly harvested rice, and a portion will be sent to Shepherd’s Field, a charity in Tianjin that cares for orphans with special needs.

Even if Black Soil does not change the rice-eating habits of large numbers of Chinese, it is altering the lives of the farmers it works with.

Deng Hongzhi’s farm supplies rice to Benlai Life and appears idyllic in the middle of the October harvest. The sky is blue and the weather still mild enough for people to wear a single layer in Xiangshui. But Deng’s weathered face betrays the extreme conditions that he and the previous two genera­tions of his family have endured.

“We get 10,000 yuan of rice from one hectare of organic farm, compared with 6,000 yuan for uncertified rice,” he says. “The company has paid for all the technology that we use to monitor moisture in the soil and so on, so we are definitely better off now.”

Farming rice can be back-breaking work. Picture: Simon Song

Nevertheless, Deng does not want his teenage son to follow in his footsteps.

“I have to take painkillers every day during transplant season because you are bending down all day long. And when it’s harvest time, you go for weeks with hardly any rest or sleep, and live in fear of rain because it would spoil the cut paddy,” says the farmer. “It is intense.”

As he makes his way through the fields, though, Deng reaches out and caresses his golden rice plants with pride, affection even.“On the May 1 holiday, we transplant the paddy,” he says. “On October 1, National Day, we start harvesting. This is the calendar my family has lived by for years. And I cannot imagine doing anything else.”

https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/2175797/premium-rice-entrepreneurs-china-harness-tech

Agriculture department vows to keep suggested rice retail price

ABS-CBN News

Dec 19 2018 12:28 AM

The Department of Agriculture warned the distribution of cheap government-subsidized rice will be affected once the rice tariffication bill is enacted into law. - Business Nightly, ANC, December 18, 2018

https://news.abs-cbn.com/video/business/12/19/18/agriculture-department-vows-to-keep-suggested-rice-retail-price

Rice Partnership LLC Has $3.34 Million Stake in SPDR Gold Shares (GLD)

Rice Partnership LLC grew its holdings in shares of SPDR Gold Shares (NYSEARCA:GLD) by 5.7% during the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The firm owned 29,637 shares of the exchange traded fund’s stock after buying an additional 1,592 shares during the period. SPDR Gold Shares accounts for 2.1% of Rice Partnership LLC’s portfolio, making the stock its 18th biggest position. Rice Partnership LLC’s holdings in SPDR Gold Shares were worth $3,342,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of the stock. Fortis Advisors LLC lifted its holdings in shares of SPDR Gold Shares by 9,910.0% during the second quarter. Fortis Advisors LLC now owns 1,001 shares of the exchange traded fund’s stock valued at $119,000 after purchasing an additional 991 shares in the last quarter. Landaas & Co. WI ADV purchased a new stake in shares of SPDR Gold Shares during the second quarter worth about $122,000. Asset Dedication LLC purchased a new stake in shares of SPDR Gold Shares during the second quarter worth about $122,000. Pacific Center for Financial Services grew its position in shares of SPDR Gold Shares by 75.8% during the second quarter. Pacific Center for Financial Services now owns 1,088 shares of the exchange traded fund’s stock worth $129,000 after purchasing an additional 469 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Honkamp Krueger Financial Services Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of SPDR Gold Shares during the third quarter worth about $130,000.

https://www.fairfieldcurrent.com/news/2018/12/19/rice-partnership-llc-raises-holdings-in-spdr-gold-shares-gld.html

Duterte set to sign Rice Tariffication Bill — Palace

By: Darryl John Esguerra - Reporter / @DJEsguerraINQ

INQUIRER.net / 05:16 PM December 19, 2018

Updated (5:49 p.m.)

MANILA, Philippines — President Rodrigo Duterte is expected to sign the rice tariffication bill into law anytime soon, Malacañang said Wednesday.“It has been submitted to the Office of the President. I suppose it will be signed anytime,” Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo said in a Palace briefing.

In October, Duterte certified as urgent the rice tariffication bill, which seeks to streamline rice importation and allow private traders to import the staple from countries of their choice.

In his letter addressed to Senate President Vicente Sotto III and House Speaker Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, Duterte said there is a need “to address the urgent need to improve availability of rice in the country, to prevent artificial rice shortage, reduce the prices of rice in the market, and curtail the prevalence of corruption and cartel domination in the rice industry.”

The Senate passed Senate Bill No. 1998, which seeks to replace the present quotas on rice importation with rice tariffs instead, last month. Meanwhile, Congress approved their version of the bill last August.

Once the bill is signed by the President, the National Food Authority (NFA) will lose its power to import and distribute cheaper rice, pushing the government-subsidized rice out of the market.

Under the measure, NFA’s role will be limited to keeping the country’s buffer stock for emergency purposes and buying palay (unmilled rice) from local farmers.

Panelo, however, insisted that liberalization in the rice market will foster competition which will result in lower prices of rice.

“Well, ‘pag ni-liberalize mo naman eh magkakaroon ng competition in the market. So magpapababaan sila ng presyo, otherwise hindi sila mabibili, hindi ba? Kaya nga—law of supply and demand iyan eh,” he said.

(Well, when you liberalize, there will be competition in the market. They will compete on price, otherwise they can’t sell, right? It’s law of supply and demand.)

The function of the NFA under the tariff regime remains blurry and it remains to be seen whether it will still be selling rice in the market.

According to Cabinet Secretary Karlo Nograles, Duterte will ensure that even with rice tarrification in effect, “the NFA shall continue to provide the public, particularly the less fortunate, with rice that is affordable and safe.”

“Once the law is passed, the NFA will be directed to buy palay from our local farmers and, together with the Department of Agriculture, to focus on developing cost-efficient systems that will help reduce the production costs of locally produced rice and stabilize prices so that this food staple is accessibly priced,” Nograles said in a statement. /ee

https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1064639/duterte-set-to-sign-rice-tariffication-bill-palace#ixzz5aDi0dHOu 

Duterte set to sign Rice Tariffication Bill — Palace

By: Darryl John Esguerra - Reporter / @DJEsguerraINQ

INQUIRER.net / 05:16 PM December 19, 2018

Updated (5:49 p.m.)

MANILA, Philippines — President Rodrigo Duterte is expected to sign the rice tariffication bill into law anytime soon, Malacañang said Wednesday.

“It has been submitted to the Office of the President. I suppose it will be signed anytime,” Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo said in a Palace briefing.

In October, Duterte certified as urgent the rice tariffication bill, which seeks to streamline rice importation and allow private traders to import the staple from countries of their choice.

In his letter addressed to Senate President Vicente Sotto III and House Speaker Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, Duterte said there is a need “to address the urgent need to improve availability of rice in the country, to prevent artificial rice shortage, reduce the prices of rice in the market, and curtail the prevalence of corruption and cartel domination in the rice industry.”

READ: Duterte certifies rice tariffication bill as urgent

The Senate passed Senate Bill No. 1998, which seeks to replace the present quotas on rice importation with rice tariffs instead, last month. Meanwhile, Congress approved their version of the bill last August.

READ: Bicam panel okays rice tariffication bill

Once the bill is signed by the President, the National Food Authority (NFA) will lose its power to import and distribute cheaper rice, pushing the government-subsidized rice out of the market.

Under the measure, NFA’s role will be limited to keeping the country’s buffer stock for emergency purposes and buying palay (unmilled rice) from local farmers.

Panelo, however, insisted that liberalization in the rice market will foster competition which will result in lower prices of rice.

“Well, ‘pag ni-liberalize mo naman eh magkakaroon ng competition in the market. So magpapababaan sila ng presyo, otherwise hindi sila mabibili, hindi ba? Kaya nga—law of supply and demand iyan eh,” he said.

(Well, when you liberalize, there will be competition in the market. They will compete on price, otherwise they can’t sell, right? It’s law of supply and demand.)

The function of the NFA under the tariff regime remains blurry and it remains to be seen whether it will still be selling rice in the market.

READ: NFA to stop selling cheap rice

According to Cabinet Secretary Karlo Nograles, Duterte will ensure that even with rice tarrification in effect, “the NFA shall continue to provide the public, particularly the less fortunate, with rice that is affordable and safe.”

“Once the law is passed, the NFA will be directed to buy palay from our local farmers and, together with the Department of Agriculture, to focus on developing cost-efficient systems that will help reduce the production costs of locally produced rice and stabilize prices so that this food staple is accessibly priced,” Nograles said in a statement. /ee

https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1064639/duterte-set-to-sign-rice-tariffication-bill-palace#ixzz5aDiGhmae 

Rice Prices

as on : 19-12-2018 11:51:29 AM

Arrivals in tonnes;prices in Rs/quintal in domestic market.

	Arrivals			Price
	Current	% change	Season cumulative	Modal	Prev. Modal	Prev.Yr %change
Rice
Atarra(UP)	14.00	7.69	480.00	2200	2200	10.00
Nautnava(UP)	5.00	66.67	106.50	2260	2250	10.78
Doharighat(UP)	1.50	NC	75.00	1900	1900	-
Khairagarh(UP)	0.90	12.5	137.40	2560	2550	1.59
Achnera(UP)	0.70	16.67	36.80	2560	2560	0.39
Jagnair(UP)	0.70	-22.22	102.60	2560	2550	2.40

https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/economy/agri-business/rice-prices/article25780026.ece

‘NFA to sell rice at low price even after removal of QR’

By BusinessMirror

 December 20, 2018

By Bernadette D. Nicolas & Jasper Emmanuel Y. Arcalas

RICE from the National Food Authority (NFA) will remain available to the public and will be cheaper than the commercial varieties even after a measure that will remove import caps is signed into law by President Duterte.

Quoting Sen. Cynthia A. Villar, Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel F. Piñol said government-subsidized rice will still be available to the public even after the President signs a law that will lift the quantitative restriction (QR) on imports.

Piñol said, however, that selling government-subsidized rice at P27 per kilogram (kg) may no longer be viable, as this could cause the NFA to incur more financial losses.

“Unless [the] government subsidizes NFA rice, it cannot be sold at P27 per kg because it would mean a loss of P9 per kg for the grains agency,” he said in a Facebook post. He said the provision disallowing the NFA to import rice for its buffer stock and local markets was supported by the Department of Agriculture and stakeholders in the rice sector. Presidential Spokesman and Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Salvador S. Panelo said on Wednesday that the proposed Rice Tariffication Act will be signed into law by Duterte “anytime soon.”

‘Unclear’

THE NFA on Wednesday said in a statement that it is looking into its future role with the impending enactment of the proposed Rice Tariffication Act.

Under Senate Bill (SB) 1998, or “An Act Liberalizing the Importation, Exportation and Trading of Rice, Lifting for the Purpose the Quantitative Import Restriction on Rice and for Other Purposes,” rider provisions were inserted that clipped most of the powers and functions of the NFA in implementing its food security and stabilization role.

The NFA was left with the mere function of buffer stocking for a specific purpose: to sustain the disaster- relief programs of the government during natural or man-made calamities.

Under Section 3, buffer stock is defined as “the optimal level of rice inventory that shall be maintained at any given time to be used for emergency situations and to sustain the disaster relief programs of the government during natural or man-made calamities.” It technically removed the function of rice buffer stocking for the purpose of stabilizing
consumer prices.

Other NFA powers and functions repealed under SB 1998 are: The registration, licensing and supervision of persons and entities engaged in the grains business; the regulation of grains importation and exportation; monitoring and enforcement of grains trading rules and regulations; and the power to contract indebtedness and import rice for food security buffer stocking, among others.

“What will happen during the lean months, a period of no harvest, when rice prices traditionally increase? Will it not be treated as an emergency situation requiring government intervention? How do we ensure that those who cannot afford to buy high-priced commercial rice will still have rice on their table?” NFA OIC Administrator Tomas R. Escarez said.

In its 46 years of existence, the NFA said it has been supplying 60 to 80 percent of the rice needs of remote barangays and island provinces. These are the places where selling low-priced rice will not be attractive for profit-oriented businessmen, as add-on costs would not make a feasible business proposition.

The NFA noted that at least 10 million Filipinos, or about 10 percent of the current population of 106 million rely on low-priced government rice for their daily sustenance.

“If NFA’s palay procurement would be limited for what is the ‘optimal volume’ needed for calamities and man-made emergencies, NFA may no longer be able to influence palay farm-gate prices. The country’s rice requirement  for calamities averages at only about 500,000 metric tons annually, or only about 4 percent of the average 12 million MT annual rice production of the country,” Escarez said.

With unhampered rice importation, the NFA said more traders will also resort to buying rice than palay that will entail more expenses for processing, storage, handling, trucking and distribution to retailers.

“Even small rice traders will also be affected under the rice tariffication law, as rice retailing and wholesaling will be completely placed in the hands of the private sector. There are presently 74,875 NFA-licensed grains businessmen nationwide. More than 50,000 of them are into grains retailing,” Escarez said.

“The NFA’s 15,892 accredited retailers that sell NFA rice at P27 and P32/kg will eventually lose their livelihood and consumers will no longer have access to rice at these prices,” he added.

Although the NFA is still awaiting the final approval of the bill and the ensuing implementing rules and regulations of the prospective law, Escarez said the agency is already studying and preparing recommendations on how to ensure rice price and supply stabilization.

Economic managers have been pusing for the passage of the measure, as this was seen to bring down the prices of the staple by P2 to P7 per kg.

Panelo said competition among traders would pull down rice prices. “If you liberalize [the rice sector], there will be competition in the market, so they will be competing with lower prices.”

 ePHL wants to ship more agri goods to Indonesia

https://businessmirror.com.ph/nfa-to-sell-rice-at-low-price-even-after-removal-of-qr/

orecasts down for season

Victorian crop production is expect to more than halve this season, as thousands of hectares of wheat and canola are cut for hay. The grim seasonal outlook was delivered in the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences December crop report. Winter crop production in Victoria is forecast to decrease by 51 per cent in 2018-19 to 3.7million tonnes, the lowest since 2015-16. Planted area is estimated to have fallen by 12 per cent because significant area planted to wheat and canola for grains and oilseed production was cut for hay. Wheat and canola were savaged by the poor season, with productivity plummeting by 51 and 63 per cent respectively to see 2million tonnes of wheat and 275000 tonnes of canola produced. With much canola cut for hay, the figures were the lowest yield since 2008-09 while the area sown for canola fell by a third and 10 per cent less land was used for wheat. The productivity of barley almost halved in 2018-19, yielding 1.1million tonnes, despite only a small four per cent fall in the amount of land used for the crop. Victorian winter crop prospects deteriorated in September due to lower than average September rainfall and significant frost events. Minimum temperatures were the lowest on record in most cropping regions while above-average temperatures and insufficient rainfall in October led to reduced yields in most cropping regions. Summer crop planting has already begun in many regions and is expected to continue until February, but will be adversely affected by the current low levels of soil moisture, which are likely to constrain planting in the absence of further rainfall during the summer crop planting window. Australia-wide the area planted to summer crops is forecast to fall by 18 per cent in 2018-19 to 1.1million hectares driven by forecast falls in area planted to rice and cotton. Area planted to grain sorghum is forecast to increase by eight per cent in response to favourable prices. Summer crop production is forecast to fall by 24 per cent to 3.1million tonnes.

https://www.countrynews.com.au/2018/12/19/366572/news-community1111-forecasts-down-for-season

DA targets 2019 agri growth of up to 3.5%

THE Department of Agriculture (DA) is aiming for Philippine agricultural growth of as high as 3.5 percent in 2019 as it expects subsectors to bounce back.In a press conference on Tuesday, Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñol said he expected the crops subsector to recover from the typhoons that hit the country in the third quarter with help from the Rice Competitive Enhancement Fund (RCEF) of the government’s rice tariffication program. “For crops, especially rice, we are expecting a boost from the RCEF.

 With” a minimum of P10 billion worth of support “every year, we” expect to meet our farmers’ need for “good-quality seeds,” he said. The department is looking to produce 19.17 million metric tons (MT) of palay (unhusked rice) this year, a 1.19-percent decrease from the agency’s previous forecast. “It’s not as bad as we thought it would be, actually, because our forecast was 19.4 million MT,” Piñol said. The DA also expects corn production to grow by 5 percent to 8.18 million MT in 2019. This is higher than the 7.79 million MT—a 1.55-percent increase from the 2017 figure—the department is expecting to record this year.Piñol also expects fisheries to start growing in 2019 after it posted a series of contractions in the first three quarters.

https://www.manilatimes.net/da-targets-2019-agri-growth-of-up-to-3-5/484757/