The link between durian
and climate change
The growing appetite for durians is
contributing to climate change, with forests in places like Malaysia being
cleared to make way for durian plantations.ST
PHOTO: HEDY KHOO
Environment
Correspondent
SINGAPORE
- Global hunger for staples like rice is fuelling the release of planet-warming
emissions, a new scientific report released on
Thursday(Aug 8) shows.
Closer
to home, the growing appetite for other delicacies is also contributing to
climate change, with forests in places like Malaysia being cleared to make way
for Musang King durian plantations.
The
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) special report on climate
change and land shines the spotlight on how the way humans have been using land
is affecting the planet.
Agriculture
is a major focus of the report authored by 103 scientists from 52 countries.
AGRICULTURE
AND CLIMATE CHANGE
Growing
food to feed the world contributes to climate change in two main ways:
Emissions of methane and nitrous oxide from livestock and plantations, and land
conversion.
The
IPCC report said that ruminants - a group of mammals including cows - and the
expansion of rice cultivation have been major contributors to the rising concentration of methane in
the atmosphere.
Methane,
one of the most potent of planet-warming gases, is released by flatulence from
the animals and from microbes in flooded paddy fields.
But
agriculture also contributes to climate change when forests are cleared to make
way for plantations and pastures.
Natural
ecosystems such as forests function like carbon "banks". They take in
carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere in a process known as photosynthesis,
converting the heat-trapping CO2 into organic carbon that is then stored in
their roots, vegetation and leaves.
But
when these natural ecosystems are cleared for plantations or pastures, the land
loses its ability to capture and store carbon.
In
Malaysia, for example, forests have been cleared to make way for durian
plantations, The Star newspaper reported in October 2018. Demand from
China for the king of fruits has resulted in forests on a hilltop in the
Hulu Sempam area being cleared, the article said.
Professor
William Chen, the Michael Fam Chair Professor and director of the Nanyang
Technological University's (NTU) Food Science and Technology Programme, said:
"In addition to farming of staple crops like rice, farmers tend to shift
to more economically lucrative plantations including the recently reported
durian monoculture in Malaysia. The competition with traditional crop farming
will drive deforestation, thus contributing to higher greenhouse gas emissions."
THE
DURIAN DILEMMA
Ironically,
the destruction of forests for durian plantations could impact yields of the
crop. This is because durians cannot self-pollinate and require animal
pollinators to help them do so.
But
when the forests disappear, so do forest-dwelling animals like the fruit bats -
important pollinators of the durian, research by Malaysian conservation group
Rimba has shown.
Durian
flowers have both male and female parts. However, pollination only occurs when
the female part of the flower receives pollen from a male part of a different
flower, said Rimba president Sheema Abdul Aziz.
Rimba's
research indicated that fruit bats from the Pteropodidae family are one of the
most efficient natural pollinators of durian trees.
However,
these animals face many threats. The fruit bats known as flying foxes (Pteropus
hypomelanus and Pteropus vampyrus), for example, are already threatened by
hunting, said Rimba. Further loss of their forest habitats would affect their
numbers even more - and reduce their effectiveness in durian tree pollination.
Said
Dr Sheema: "Deforestation for durian plantations not only causes the
destruction of critical habitat for wide-ranging animals such as tigers,
elephants, primates and hornbills, it also reduces the numbers of the very
pollinators that are necessary for durian fruit production."
Rimba
is proposing that durian trees be grown in a way that would ensure the survival
of pollinator communities. This includes avoiding deforestation by growing
durian trees on previously tended agricultural land instead of forests, and by
practising low-impact, organic farming.
"This
will also help to guarantee the long-term longevity and viability of our local
durian industry," said the conservation group in a press statement.
The
durian case study exemplifies one of the findings of the IPCC report, which
pointed out that sustainable land management could help reduce the negative
impact of climate change and other stressors on ecosystems and human societies.
Durian
lover Lindsay Gasik, who runs the Year of the Durian blog, said: "Without
bat pollination, the farmers will need to hand pollinate, which with
Malaysian-style agriculture is almost impossible or very, very labour intense.
So it's in the farmer's best interest to take care of wildlife habitat."
She
added that durian lovers who care about the environment should support small,
boutique farms which keep their old trees and practise pesticide-free farming.
THU
AM News: Researchers testing new personalized cell therapy for transplant
recipients; Foxconn’s scaled-back plans could increase cost per job, report
shows
August 7, 2019
Researchers with the UW Program
for Advanced Cell Therapy are testing a personalized therapy for a viral
infection that affects up to 40 percent of kidney and pancreas transplant
recipients.
The study is being performed at
the UW Program for Advanced Cell Therapy. Scientists will use specialized white
blood cells to treat severe cytomegalovirus after kidney procedures. About
one-third of children are infected with this virus by age 5, according to the
CDC, though it usually doesn’t cause symptoms in those with healthy immune
systems.
But in patients who’ve recently
had a transplant procedure, the immune system is suppressed, giving the CMV
virus a chance to advance through the body. In those cases, infections can be
deadly, and some existing treatments have serious negative side effects.
Dr. Jacques Galipeau, director of
PACT, says the new approach provides a safer alternative for patients. The
study team is taking white blood cells from a healthy relative of the patient,
and changing them so they attack and kill the CMV virus when introduced to the
patient’s system.
“The use of living cells
collected from relatives with intact immunity to cure viral complications of
transplantation is an entirely new therapy for a vexing problem,” Galipeau said
in a release.
— A new independent report
created for the state Department of Administration estimates Foxconn’s
scaled-back plans for its manufacturing facility in Mount Pleasant could cost
taxpayers more per job than the original proposal.
The report shows if subsidy
levels in the current contract are maintained, each Foxconn job would cost
state taxpayers $290,000, compared to $172,000 under the original $10 billion,
13,000-job planned facility.
By comparison, the report shows
the average U.S. incentives per job are $24,000 per job, while that number is
about $28,000 in Wisconsin.
Tim Bartik, a researcher for the
Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, says he created his report in
response to a request from the state DOA. He says it’s an independent report that
wasn’t reviewed by the agency, and doesn’t reflect the views of the agency or
the Upjohn Institute.
As reported by The Verge, a U.S.
online news network, Bartik says he shared the report with Mark Hogan,
secretary and CEO of the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation. But he
says Hogan objected to his conclusions.
“The most important conclusion of
this analysis is that it is difficult to come up with plausible assumptions
under which a revised Foxconn incentive contract, which offers similar credit
rates to the original contract, has benefits exceeding costs,” he wrote in the
report. “The incentives are so costly per job that it is hard to see how likely
benefits will offset these costs.”
See more in Foxconn Reports
below.
— With clean drinking water a hot
topic in the state Capitol, four GOP lawmakers are circulating legislation to
address lead-tainted water in schools, day care centers, group homes and summer
camps.
The lawmakers have dubbed the
package the Supporting Children’s Health by Ousting Outdated Lead Acts, or
SCHOOL Acts.
One bill would require all schools
that receive public funding to test for lead contamination in their drinking
water. If the presence of lead was above allowable levels, the source of the
water would have to be taken offline and an alternative source would have to be
provided.
If remediation was necessary and
schools couldn’t afford it in the current budget, districts could go to a
referendum outside of a regularly scheduled election. The bill also would
encourage loans from the Board of Commissioners of Public Lands by using money from
a largely federally funded program to buy down interest rates.
The second bill would require
testing drinking water for lead as a condition to renew or continue licenses
for daycares, group homes and summer camps. If unacceptable levels of lead are
detected, the contaminated source would have to be taken offline, clean water
provided and a remediation plan developed.
— Marshfield Clinic Health System
and Security Health Plan are giving out $19,000 to organizations across the
state, supporting youth prevention programs for e-cigarettes.
“Our Health System and Security
Health Plan have grown increasingly concerned about the health implications of
e-cigarette use among our youth,” said Jay Shrader, MCHS vice president of
community health and wellness. “Discussions with our community and state agency
partners motivated us to mobilize and extend these resources to address this
concern now.”
This comes after the state
Department of Health Services recently issued a safety warning about vaping,
following eight cases of serious lung disease being identified in adolescents
who reported using e-cigarettes.
Each recipient is getting a
stipend of $500. These include public health departments, academic
institutions, school districts, tribal groups and others.
See the full list of
recipients: http://www.wisbusiness.com/2019/marshfield-clinic-health-system-stipends-awarded-to-wisconsin-organizations/
— Attorney General Josh Kaul has
signed on to a series of letters from a bipartisan coalition of state attorneys
general urging streaming video providers to reduce the display of tobacco use
to combat the rise in teen smoking.
In letters to Netflix, Disney,
Amazon, AT&T, Comcast and others, the AGs highlighted reports that found
top-rated shows on streaming platforms contained significantly more tobacco
imagery than their broadcast counterparts. The letter also pointed to research
from the U.S. surgeon general’s office that found watching movies showing
smoking increased the likelihood that a young person would try tobacco for the
first time.
In response, the AGS are calling
for streaming platforms to adopt a series of policies “to protect young viewers
from the ill effects of tobacco content.” Those include the elimination of
tobacco imagery from content for young viewers, improved parental controls and
the addition of “strong” anti-smoking public service announcements before
content that features tobacco use.
See the letter to Amazon:
http://www.wispolitics.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/190806-NAAG-Letter-to-Amazon.pdf
— Madison-based Redox and the
Wisconsin Women’s Health Foundation have partnered, the company recently
announced.
According to a release, WWHF went
live with electronic referrals at OB/GYN clinics at a local integrated health
system through “Redox Gives,” a program to ensure that nonprofits and public
health teams have the necessary access to data to fully empower their
initiatives.
“Redox Gives exists to support
organizations that traditionally wouldn’t have the resources to purchase Redox
but would benefit from our integration platform and services,” Redox President
Niko Skievaski said in a statement. “We are thrilled that our partnership with
WWHF gives people the help they need to be healthy and pass that down for
generations.”
WWHF will use the Redox platform
to streamline the way providers refer patients to the program, helping increase
usage and eliminate unnecessary clerical work.
Redox, which helps providers and
vendors exchange health care data, launched Redox Gives in October 2018.
See more at Madison
Startups: http://www.madisonstartups.com/redox-wwhf-collaborate/
See an earlier story on
Redox: http://www.wisbusiness.com/2016/redox-realizes-at-sxsw-its-grown-up/
The Trump administration is suppressing climate
science
By Jon Allsop, CJR
AUGUST 7, 2019
ON FRIDAY, LEWIS ZISKA, a climate scientist who
specializes in plant physiology, left his job at the US Department of
Agriculture after more than 20 years. On Monday, Helena Bottemiller Evich, a
food and agriculture reporter at Politico, explained why. Ziska had
worked on a groundbreaking study that found rising atmospheric levels of carbon
dioxide are causing rice to lose nutrients—a potential disaster for the 600
million people worldwide who rely on rice as a staple. Science
Advances, the journal that published the study, expected that it
would attract widespread interest, and advised its authors to prepare resources
for the media.
The Department of Agriculture refused.
Officials spiked a press release promoting Ziska’s work, and asked the
University of Washington, a collaborator on the paper, not to promote it
either. CNN requested an interview with Ziska. Agriculture’s press office said
no. That was a first, Ziska said.
Frustrated, Ziska decided to quit. Speaking with Politico, he
“painted a picture of a department in constant fear of the president and
Secretary Sonny Perdue’s open skepticism about broadly accepted climate
science, leading officials to go to extremes to obscure their work to avoid political
blowback,” Evich writes. “You get the sense,” Ziska told her, “that things have
changed, that this is not a place for you to be exploring things that don’t
agree with someone’s political views.” The situation “feels like something out
of a bad sci-fi movie.”
The Department of Agriculture
denied Ziska’s account; it declined to promote his findings due to scientific
concerns raised by career staffers, it said. But the department previously
cleared the study, and it was externally peer reviewed, too. And Ziska’s case
fits a worrying broader trend. As Evich previously reported, Agriculture has declined to
publicize dozens of climate-related studies since 2017; a
sweeping climate-change response plan was never published at all.
It’s not just Agriculture. Across the administration, departments and agencies
have strived to keep climate science out of the public eye since Donald Trump
took office.
In some quarters, even the words
“climate change” have been banned. In 2017, officials at the Natural Resources
Conservation Service, a unit of the Department of Agriculture, told staff that
they should instead say “weather extremes” in their work; according to emails obtained
by The
Guardian, the phrase “reduce greenhouse gases” was also
blacklisted. The same year, references to the dangers of climate change were
scrubbed from the websites of the White House and the Interior Department. The
Environmental Protection Agency removed a whole section of its website
containing climate-change information, citing a need to “update” its language;
more than two years later, the page does not appear to have been reinstated.
As I reported for CJR last year, the EPA also moved to cut its funding of the Bay
Journal, a newspaper established under the Clean Water
Act to report on environmental issues in the Chesapeake Bay. (The Bay
Journal sued under the First Amendment; the EPA backed down.)
In November, the White House tried to bury a dire climate report—that
drew on the work of 13 federal agencies—by releasing it over Thanksgiving. (The attempt backfired.) According to E&E News,
the US Geological Survey, too, has removed climate references from press releases.
Nor is Ziska the only government
official to lose his job over this administration’s climate stance. In 2017,
Joel Clement, who was studying the impact of climate change on Alaska at the
Interior Department, was reassigned to an accounting job collecting royalties
from oil and gas companies; he spoke out, then resigned.
In February, Maria Caffrey, who was modelling sea level and storm surge
projections for the National Park Service, was effectively forced out after
refusing to let officials excise references to man-made climate
change from her report. Just last week, Rod Schoonover wrote, in a New York
Times op-ed, that he decided to quit his job at the
State Department after his bosses blocked written testimony from his office to
the House Intelligence Committee on the national-security implications of the
climate crisis. “I believe such acts weaken our nation,” Schoonover said.
The Trump White House is an
informational water cannon; the endless noise of the president’s tweets and
rallies disorients reporters, leads our coverage, and—all too often—distracts
attention from the stories officials don’t want us to cover. As Evich notes, agency
intransigence “means research from scores of government scientists receives
less public attention” than it should; “Climate-related studies are still being
published without fanfare in scientific journals, but they can be very
difficult to find.” We need to work harder to find them, and to noisily promote
them where the government will not. Let’s not be complicit in the state’s
suppression of science.
Below, more on climate science:
·
The big picture: In
May, the Times’s Coral Davenport and Mark
Landler outlined the Trump administration’s
latest assaults on climate science. “Parts of the federal government
will no longer fulfill what scientists say is one of the most urgent jobs of
climate science studies: reporting on the future effects of a rapidly warming
planet.”
·
The bigger picture: Somini
Sengupta and Weiyi Cai reported yesterday, also for the Times,
that a quarter of humanity could run out
of water in the near future. According to newly published data,
“From India to Iran to Botswana, 17 countries around the world are currently
under extremely high water stress… Climate change heightens the risk.”
·
Improving coverage: CJR
and The
Nation are partnering on Covering Climate Now, a new project that aims
to improve the visibility and quality of the media’s treatment of the climate
story. So far, more than 60 news organizations have agreed to dedicate a week
of coverage to climate change in September. Your newsroom can get
involved here.
Other notable stories:
·
Yesterday, The New
York Times continued to attract criticism over a print
headline—“Trump urges unity vs. racism”—that was desperately lacking in skepticism; at
one point, #CancelNYT trended on Twitter. Gabriel Snyder, CJR’s public editor for the Times, checked in with Dean Baquet, the paper’s
executive editor. The headline, which Baquet pointed out he did not write, was
“bad,” Baquet said. “The masthead and senior leadership get the front page at
night, and I think we’ve gotten casual about when we look at it.” The headline,
of course, points to a broader criticism: that the Times’s
coverage of the present moment is insufficiently urgent. But Baquet “doesn’t
see this moment in American history as particularly aberrant,” Snyder writes.
·
In
April, The Markup, a much-hyped investigative startup focused on the tech
world, imploded following an extraordinary public spat between
Julia Angwin, its founding editor, and Sue Gardner, its CEO; Angwin was
fired—she said Gardner had an anti-tech agenda; Gardner disputed this—and six
of the site’s seven editorial staffers quit in solidarity. Now The Markup is
back on track—without Gardner, but with Angwin, the six staffers who quit, and
two new leaders, Nabiha Syed, formerly an executive at BuzzFeed, and Evelyn
Larrubia, formerly the editor of Marketplace. (Angwin and the
editorial staff continued to be paid during the hiatus.) The Times’s
Marc Tracy has more.
·
Toni
Morrison, the Nobel and Pulitzer prize-winning writer and editor, died this
week. She was 88. Tributes poured forth: Morrison “not only made me confront my
blackness, she made me love it,” CNN’s Lisa Respers France wrote;
“Even as we celebrate her as a novelist, we should remember her also as a titan
of criticism and a shepherd of an entire generation of black writers,” Slate’s Ismail Muhammad added.
On Twitter, a video circulated of Morrison
slapping down an ignorant inquiry from a journalist—asked if she
planned to write books “that incorporate white lives into them substantially,”
Morrison replied, “You can’t understand how powerfully racist that question is,
can you?”
·
For
CJR’s series on the world of criticism, Alexandria Neason spoke with Dart
Adams, a longtime music journalist; Naima Cochrane, a music writer and former
industry executive; and David Dennis Jr., a music writer and academic, about past coverage of R. Kelly. “There was a
belief that as objective journalists, we needed to cover the art separate from
the artist,” Dennis says. “But as we’ve come to learn, you cannot separate the
art and the artist. R. Kelly had underage girls in the studio with him.”
·
The
CBS–Viacom merger could be announced as soon as tomorrow—and Vice wants a piece of the
action. Nancy Dubuc, its CEO, “has made a deal with CBS-Viacom a
strategic imperative,” Vanity Fair’s William D. Cohan
reports. “Not only does the deal make a lot of sense to her… but if she could
only get back inside a real corporation, she might have a chance to resurrect
her own once-high-flying career,” Dubuc believes.
·
In
2017, a district court dismissed a libel claim that Sarah Palin brought against
the Times;
at issue was an editorial linking a crosshairs graphic produced by a Palin PAC
to the shooting, in 2011, of Rep. Gabby Giffords and six other people in
Tucson, Arizona. Yesterday, Politico’s Josh Gerstein reports, an appeals court revived the case,
ruling that the prior dismissal violated Palin’s procedural rights. The case
will now likely go to trial.
·
NPR is making layoffs.
Fewer than 10 people will lose their jobs; Nancy Barnes, NPR’s editorial
director, stressed that the move was “not about saving money,” but rather part
of a pivot that will boost the broadcaster’s investigative output and coverage
of climate change, the opioid crisis, and pharmaceuticals, NPR’s David
Folkenflik reports. National security reporter David Welna, a 37-year veteran
of NPR, was among those to see their jobs
cut. He wrote colleagues: “I hope none of you will ever be treated
this way.”
·
On
Monday, the government of India stripped Jammu and Kashmir state of the limited
autonomy it enjoys under the constitution, effectively placing it under federal
control. The region is on lockdown; officials blocked phone and
internet services, curtailing local journalists’ efforts to cover
the crisis. One of them, Qazi Shibli, is in
police custody.
·
And
for The New
York Times Magazine, Matt Flegenheimer explores how Bill de Blasio,
the New York City mayor and 2020 presidential candidate, became a media
punching bag. “Aides say de Blasio has taken much of his coverage personally,”
Flegenheimer writes. “‘You don’t understand,’ he told a staff member once.
‘They hate me.’”
Việt Nam earns $1.73 billion
from rice exports in first seven months of 2019
Update: August,
07/2019 - 17:16
Bags of rice loaded onto a ship for
export at Cửa Lò Port in the central province of Nghệ An. — VNA/VNS Photo Danh
Lam
HÀ NỘI —
Việt Nam exported 4.01 million tonnes of rice worth US$1.73 billion in the
first seven months of 2019, up 2.1 per cent in volume but down 14.3 per cent in
value from the same period last year, according to the Ministry of Agriculture
and Rural Development.In July alone, the country shipped 651,000 tonnes of rice worth $285 million.
Minister Nguyễn Xuân Cường said this year, prices of agricultural products in markets around the world have fallen by between 5 and 15 per cent. Notably, rice prices have fallen sharply in all segments.
He said the El Nino in late 2015 and the first half of 2016 led to a decline in global grain output, forcing countries to re-stock their reserves once supply returned to normal. As a result, 2018 was a very strong year for the rice market in terms of both export volume and value, helping Vietnamese rice prices reach a record of more than $500 per tonne on average.
However, many countries – including big ones that purchase large amounts of Vietnamese rice – had already restocked their reserves by the start of 2019, leading to a year-on-year downturn.
Cường said that in the short term it is necessary to explore new markets, especially in Africa and ASEAN, to make up for the drop in shipments to China – a major importer. Meanwhile, production costs must be reduced by applying scientific advances to ensure farmers profit.
In the long term, the agricultural sector is planning to transform 500,000ha of land currently used to grow rice for use in aquaculture or growing fruit or other cash crops to ease the rice output pressure.
The rice industry will need to promote processing and value chains to make use of not only the grain but also its by-products like the husk, bran and oil and diversify offerings to provide organic and medicinal rice, the minister noted.
The Philippines was the biggest buyer in the first half of the year, purchasing 33.7 percent of Việt Nam’s rice exports.
The markets with strong growth in rice imports from Việt Nam included the Ivory Coast (up 67 per cent), China’s Hong Kong (60 per cent) and Saudi Arabia (38 per cent).
Export prices of rice averaged $431 per tonne in the six month period, down 15 per cent from the first half of 2018.
The ministry forecast that rice prices in the country would increase in the coming months thanks to higher demand. — VNS
Bangladesh floods to slash
400,000 T from rice harvest
Ruma Paul
AUGUST 7, 2019/ 4:17 PM
DHAKA (Reuters) - Floods have washed away crops in Bangladesh that
would have yielded nearly 400,000 tonnes of rice, according to estimates from
the agriculture ministry.
This could be a major blow to the South Asian country, which has
historically relied on imports to cope with shortages caused by natural
disasters such as floods or drought.
The nation’s farmers, though, have recently been struggling to
secure fair prices for their produce amid a surplus of the grain, with no
overseas deals in sight since the country lifted an export ban in May to
support the market.
The flooding triggered by heavy monsoon rains has killed at least
108 people and affected more than 6 million people in Bangladesh and damaged
other crops, mostly in the northern region.
“This is a huge loss for the farmers,” said Mir Nurul Alam,
director general of the Department of Agricultural Extension.
“But I don’t think this will have much impact on the overall rice
stocks,” he said, given the nation’s ample reserves.
Bangladesh’s weather bureau, meanwhile, has forecast another spell
of floods could hit the low-lying country of more than 160 million people this
month.
(Graphic: Bangladesh rice production, consumption, imports &
stocks, tmsnrt.rs/2YueIX6)
The central bank instructed local lenders not to press for
repayment of previous loans and to provide new ones to help farmers hit by the
floods.
Agriculture Minister Abdur Razzaque also said the government has
allocated a total of 638 million taka ($7.5 million) in emergency aid for
farmers in flood-hit areas.
Besides the emergency aid, a farm rehabilitation plan is being
worked out to provide free seed and fertilizer for affected farmers for the
next crop season, he said.
“We have taken a slew of measures to ensure fair prices for the
farmers ... instructions have been given to (district officials) to buy rice
directly from farmers,” Razzaque said.
Market insiders, however, said the move would not benefit most
growers in dire need of cash, since they are often compelled to sell their crop
to millers or middlemen at much cheaper rates to meet loan payments.
In 2017, Bangladesh was forced to massively increase imports to
shore up its reserves after floods destroyed crops and pushed local prices to
records. Domestic stocks have greatly improved since then.
In May, Bangladesh raised its rice import duty to 55% from 28% and
lifted a long-standing ban on exports to support farmers amid widespread
protests by growers over a drastic fall in domestic prices.
Bangladesh, the world’s fourth-biggest rice producer with nearly 35
million tonnes of output a year, has been unable to clinch overseas deals since
the export ban was lifted because its rice is more expensive than supplies from
India or Thailand, even after the recent fall in local prices. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-bangladesh-floods-rice/bangladesh-floods-to-slash-400000-t-from-rice-harvest-idUSKCN1UX17P
FDA trains agro produce importers and facility operators
Some participants in a group photographThe Food and Drugs
Authority has sensitised agro produce importers and operators of storage
facilities in the country on regulatory requirements for their operations
towards protecting public health and safety.The sensitisation workshop took the
participants through the legal requirements for agro produce import and
storage; requirements for import and clearance of agro produce; and requirements
for agro produce storage operations and facility licensing.In her opening remarks, Mrs Delese Darko, the Chief Executive Officer of the FDA, said the mandate of the Authority was to protect public health and safety.
This, she said, would be achieved through employing the appropriate regulatory measures including licensing of facilities, where food is sold, prepared, packaged, conveyed, stored or displayed to ensure their quality and safety as stipulated in Section 130 of the Public Health Act 2012 (Act 851).
She said the Plant Protection and Regulatory Services Directorate (PPRSD) of Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA) in 2018 reported that, over 60 per cent of plants and plant products imported into Ghana were agro produce for human consumption.
Mrs Darko said the Directorate also reported that fresh fruits and vegetables were the second most imported commodity following rice imports, adding that agro produce by nature were highly perishable.
The CEO said fruits and vegetables were known to be high risk foods due to their high moisture and nutrient contents with little or no application of heat before consumption, hence the need for good food handling practices to maintain their quality and safety.
She said in 2017 and 2018, about 50 per cent of the consumer complaints and 100 per cent referrals from the FDA Port Office received by the Agro Produce and Biosafety Department (APBD) were related to spoilage of imported fresh fruits and vegetables due to poor storage practices.
Mr Darko said there was the need to intensify regulation of importers of agro produce and their respective storage facilities as well as operators of agro produce storage facilities to ensure the safety and quality of agro produce in trade.
She said the workshop offered the opportunity for stakeholders to make inputs with respect to the Guidelines for Licensing of Agro Produce Storage Facilities and Codes of Practice for Storage of Agro Produce Storage Facilities and also agree on timelines for implementation to facilitate compliance.
Mrs Faustina Atupra, the Head of Agro Produce and Biosafety Department at the FDA, taking the participants through the requirements for licensing agro produce storage facilities, said food safety played a critical role in preventing contamination at every stage of the food chain from farm through harvesting, processing, storage, distribution, to consumption.
Mrs Atupra said produce could be contaminated with physical hazard - stones, dead insects, animal droppings; chemical hazard - pesticide residues, mycotoxins, agro chemicals; and biological hazard - salmonella typhi, and E. coli among others.
She said it was therefore prudent to implement good food handling practices because they were the most effective and efficient way of eliminating, reducing or controlling the risk of contamination.
She said a facility meant to store food must be designed to prevent or minimize the entry of pests and sources of contamination such as smoke and dust, adding that it must also prevent leakages of water into the building.
Correcting flaws of rice law’s year 1
BIZLINKS - Rey Gamboa (The
Philippine Star) - August 8, 2019 - 12:00am
The first year of the Rice Tariffication Act, passed last
February, should be regarded as an opportunity to check on loopholes, recommend
remedies, and further strengthen the whole rice import and export
liberalization process to protect our farmers from more worries and losses.More importantly, the Department of Agriculture (DA) should complete on this first year the groundwork to facilitate the disbursement of the Rice Competitive Enhancement Fund (RCEF) that would give rice farmers the much-needed inputs to improve their production.
Despite the statement of Sen. Cynthia Villar that the problem is not in the law itself, but rather in the implementation, Congress still has an oversight responsibility to see to it that the rice import liberalization law will be carried out without fuss.
Definitely, in the first six months of the rice liberalization law coming into effect, a number of problem areas have come to fore.
Missing ‘advance’ support
Just recently, Sen. Villar called for an investigation on an
initial P5 billion released by the government in December to assist farmer in
anticipation of the President’s signing of the rice tariffication bill into
law. Supposedly, only P1 billion had been distributed to farmers through the Agricultural Credit Policy Council, the Land Bank of the Philippines and the Development Bank of the Philippines. The balance of P4 billion, apparently, has not reached rice farmers yet.
The DA is arguing that since the P5 billion was released by the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) in December, it could not yet be covered by the Rice Tariffication Act. The DBM, on the other hand, says that the money was already part of the RCEF.
Whatever the result of the ensuing investigation, what is clear is that rice farmers received only one-fifth of the promised advanced support that would have helped them prepare for the influx of rice imports.
Clearly, the bulk of the P5 billion did not trickle down to the two million rice farmers affected by the flood of rice importations. This should serve as a lesson for the eventual disbursement of the P10 billion coming from tariffs collected from rice importation.
We don’t want to see the DBM releasing P10 billion this year – or even more – only to find out next year that very little of the money actually was able to reach farming communities earmarked for RCEF support.
Technical smuggling
If we are to take seriously the extrapolation of the Federation of
Free Farmers (FFF) on the 1.43 million metric tons of rice importations since
the passage of the Rice Tariffication Law, the P5.9 billion that the Bureau of
Customs (BOC) had reportedly collected is too small, giving rise to the
possibility of an under-declaration of the imported commodity.The FFF argues that the imported rice was valued lower to evade paying higher import taxes. Based on the BOC report, the landed cost of imported rice was only at $227 per metric ton, when it should at least have been $391. This amounted to a tax leak for the government of at least P4.24 billion.
The BOC has declared that it will look into the farmer group’s allegations, but this simple response raises questions of how unprepared the government collecting agency is, as well as the Department of Finance (DOF), to answer a simple speculative question raised by the FFF.
We’d like to hear from the BOC and its supervising agency, the DOF, just where exactly does the FFF’s allegation come from, and to debunk it if falsely construed. On the other hand, if there is indeed some form of technical smuggling happening, let heads roll and cheaters penalized.
Safety nets
The IRR for the Rice Tariffication Law contains a number of
provisions that should provide safety nets in times when there are emergency
cases, like when there is a forecasted shortage or when import averages exceed
a three-year period.With imports surging more than four times compared to the previous year’s period, there should be a cap on importation and a consequent increase in the tariffs slapped on excess imports to protect Filipino farmers from the deluge.
Already, farmgate prices have dropped to levels where farmers say they will be unable to recover for the spent cost of seeds, fertilizers, and pesticides. At this point, the National Food Authority should be actively purchasing local rice to keep farmgate prices up.
Understandably, the government is under pressure to collect at least P10 billion a year from rice importation so that it can support the needs of the six-year funding requirement as stipulated in the Rice Tariffication Law, especially if no technical smuggling had happened.
Herein is the need to keep a tight watch on balancing importation by rice traders, keeping local farmgate prices at reasonable levels that will not let farmers lose their shirts, and still ensuring that there is adequate supply of rice in the market.
Transparency and accountability
The Rice Tariffication Law’s IRR also states that the DA should be
transparent in its management of the RCEF, mainly through its website. We look
forward to seeing this immediately, together with a truly workable rice
industry roadmap.Similarly, the public wants to know how the Philippine Center for Post Harvest Development and Modernization (PhilMech) will spend the P5 billion that is allocated them by the law to provide rice farm machineries and equipment to farmers.
The same goes to how the Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice), which will get P3 billion a year for the development, propagation, and promotion of inbred rice seeds, and the organization of rice farmers into seed growers associations, will spend the money.
The LBP and DBP should also detail how they will manage the P1-billion credit window for farmers, while PhilMech, the Agricultural Training Institute (ATI), and the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) should already announce training for farmers.
The DA, under the helm of new DA Secretary William Dar, must work doubly harder to ensure the future of the country’s rice industry, and to improve rice self-sufficiency to levels that will not make the Philippines a disruptor in global rice supply and demand.
Ogun Customs
intercepts 7,848 bags of foreign rice in one month
•Customs officers with seized rice. File photo
Samuel Awoyinfa
The Ogun State Area Command, Nigeria Customs Service, has said
it intercepted 7,848 bags of foreign rice smuggled into the country through the
Idiroko border within the month of July.
The Controller of the command, Michael Agbara disclosed this on
Wednesday at its Idiroko border office while briefing journalists about its
activities.
He said that the 1,848 bags of foreign rice seizure was the
highest so far made this year.He also said the command also generated total
revenue of N1.28bn in the period under review, while it only targeted monthly
revenue of N643.4m.
Agbara said the command overshot its monthly targeted by the
total sum of N637.5m.
He also explained that in the area of anti-smuggling, it made
102 seizures, comprising other items such as 23 units of used vehicles
popularly known as ‘Tokunbo’, 320 bags of sugar, 201 used tyres, 200 kegs of
Premium Motor Spirit popularly known as petrol among others.
In the area of arrest and conviction made by the command, Agbara
said while it arrested a notorious smuggler based in Owode, it had three other
suspects convicted at the Federal High Court, Abeokuta for vandalising the
official patrol vehicle of its anti-smuggling team.
He said, “We will continue to hunt all those economic saboteurs
who smuggled contraband into the country. The rice revolution is already
yielding fruits, so we will stop any smuggler who might want to derail this
achievement to have Nigeria feed its own people with its own rice.”
Econ prof-turned-solon seeks probe of ‘abusive’
rice traders
Last
updated Aug 7, 2019
University of the Philippines economics professor and Marikina
Rep. Stella Luz Quimbo on Wednesday urged the Philippine Competition Commission
(PCC) to investigate rice millers and traders violating the antitrust law and
“abusing farmers by taking advantage of their dominant market position.”
The assistant minority leader noted that the inflation rate was
down to 2.4 percent in large part to the drop in rice prices, which dropped by
2.9 percent.
But Quimbo observed that “while the price of rice we buy in the
public market dropped by 2.9 percent, the price of palay (unmilled rice) sold
by farmers to rice traders and middlemen plunged significantly more, by 17.48
percent.”
“In short, the farmers are shouldering the substantial portion
of the reduction in rice prices. That’s just not fair,” she said.
“This unfair situation points to a conclusion that rice millers
and traders are abusing their dominant market power to the detriment of our
rice farmers. It is a clear violation of section 15(g) of the Philippine
Competition Act; rice millers and traders cannot abuse their dominance and
severely undercut the price of palay paid to farmers,” the lawmaker explained.
“We urge the Philippine
Competition Commission to resolve soonest its investigation of rice cartels and
open cases where necessary,” Quimbo said.
Section 15(g) of the PCA states that it shall be prohibited “for
one or more entities to abuse their dominant position by engaging in conduct
that would substantially prevent, restrict or lessen competition” by “directly
or indirectly imposing unfairly low purchase prices for the goods or services
of, among others, marginalized agricultural producers”.
Quimbo said the economic managers led by Finance Secretary Sonny
Dominguez should be commended for their efforts to ease inflation, while the
17th Congress should be credited for passing the Rice Tariffication Act, which
has helped reduce rice prices.
“The administration’s economic team correctly diagnosed the
inflation problem – it was a food problem. Congress, on the other hand, came up
with the right medicine – The Rice Tariffication Act,” she said.
But while consumers benefited from this measure, said Quimbo,
efforts must be made to study if the drop in rice prices caused the halting of
food production of thousands of farmers.
She likewise called for an urgent review of the Rice
Competitiveness Enhancement Fund and to determine if it was properly utilized
for the benefit of small farmers.
Three
injured as rival Ebonyi rice mill groups clash
At least three persons were injured on Wednesday at the
Abakaliki Rice Mill Industry when two warring groups in the mill clashed over
sale of the commodity.The two groups known as Rice Millers and Blanders have
been at war over size of bushel used in selling the commodity to the buyers.
The millers and their supporters had accused the blanders, who
buy from them in large quantity and sell to the consumers, of using incomplete
bushels to sell the commodity.
This, according to the millers, has adversely
affected the sells as customers no longer come to the mill to buy the commodity.
affected the sells as customers no longer come to the mill to buy the commodity.
The millers resolved not to sell to the blanders. But the
blanders confronted them on Wednesday and destroyed milled rice packaged by the
millers.
Three persons were injured in the clash while many millers
hurriedly shut their shops to prevent destruction of their commodity and other
properties.
Innocent Achi, one of the millers, said “the rice millers are
tired of fraud and want to be selling the rice themselves.
He said: “They millers said they don’t want the blanders .
Chinedu Eshi my brother became angry and started scattering any rice they see
because the millers said they will not sell rice to the blanders.
”If the normal bushel use in selling rice is 40 cups, their own
will be 36. They will minus four cups. It is what the rice millers want that we
are supporting”.
Another miller, Friday Okpoto said: “The problem is that they
are people that are making use of incomplete tin to sell rice. They make use of
fraudulent bushels.
“They are known as blanders. The bladders operate this way. When
they buy rice from us , they will use incomplete bushel to sell it, therefore
after buying rice, the rice would be incomplete. They millers do not want those
people.
“Because we say we do not want them, the bladders went to the
former Chairman because he is the one that constituted them.
Customs raises alarm over involvement of
cement company trucks in smuggling
John Adams, Minna
The Nigerian Custom Service,
Niger/Kogi Command, has raised concerns over the involvement of cement company
trucks in smuggling activities within the Command.
The Custom Area Command said that
in the last three months no fewer than three trucks belonging to two cement
companies have been intercepted carrying a total of 1,946 bags of foreign
parboiled rice of 50kg with a pay duty value of N32.9 million.
Speaking in Minna, Niger State,
on Wednesday after intercepting and seizing a truck with registration number
KRD 425 XM, marked T 425 LAFARGE, loaded with 720 Bags of foreign
paroiled rice of 50kg, the Deputy Comptroller (Enforcement) Niger/Kogi Command,
Mallam Jalo Musa Ibrahim described as worrisome the involvement of trucks belonging
to high profile companies in smuggling activities, especially within the
Command.
The Deputy Comptroller who stood
in for the area Comptroller, Alhaji Abba Kasim Yusuf, put the pay duty value of
the rice which was misconstrued to be cement, at N12,240,000.
He pointed out that the latest seizure is
coming barely one week after a truck belonging to Dangote Cement company was
intercepted along Minna-Lambata-Suleja road in the state with 700 bags of 50kg
parboiled foreign rice with duty pay value of N11,900,000.
Mallam Jalo further disclosed that about three
months ago, another Dangote truck conveying 520 bags of 50kg parboiled foreign
rice neatly concealed in 50 sugar bags, and with a pay duty value of N8,840,000
was intercepted by the Command along Mokwa axis of the Command.
Mallam Jalo expressed concern over the attitude
of these companies’ trucks which, he said, rather than concentrating on their
primary assignments are now abetting smuggling of rice into the country, adding
that the Command is not loosing sleep over this development.
According to him, “we are more determined than
ever to make the Command uncomfortable for the economic saboteurs.
“The Command will henceforth beam it search
lights on trucks plying the terrains of the Command. We are keen on
implementing the federal government policy of encouraging home-grown rice
farmers.”
This, he maintained “will not only create jobs
for our teeming unemployed youths but will improve the Nation’s economy.”
He warned that with the Eid el-Kabir Sallah
celebration around the corner, those who want to take advantage of the period
to bring smuggled rice and other prohibited goods should have a rethink as
there will be no hiding place for them.
“The Command will continue to frustrate smuggling activities
through its territory and other unapproved routes in the country,” he
submitted.
Promotion Has an
"Influence" in Central America
By Sarah Moran
SAN SALVADOR, EL SALVADOR -- Last week, USA Rice
hosted an event for over a dozen social media influencers here with Chef Juan
Salomón and Nutritionist Rodrigo Valdivieso. Chef Salomón, who hosts his
own cooking program "The Chef's Recipe," conducted a cooking class
and prepared three rice recipes for kitchen, health, and lifestyle bloggers;
the nutritionist discussed rice's nutritional profile and its importance in the
daily diet.
"The idea behind this new public relations campaign is to communicate the idea that U.S. rice is a powerful and delicious nutrient-rich grain that the invited influencers can then share with their networks," said Asiha Grigsby, USA Rice manager for Western Hemisphere promotions. "During the event, the attendees tweeted and posted photos on Instagram which helps share our message with more consumers throughout Central America."
USA
Rice will host additional social media influencer events this month:
August 8 in Honduras, August 13 in Costa Rica, and August 23 in Guatemala.
"Over the course of this campaign, we'll track how many people we've been able to influence," continued Grigsby. "This, coupled with our other promotional activities, will help increase awareness and hence the consumption of U.S. rice in Central America, our second largest export market."
"The idea behind this new public relations campaign is to communicate the idea that U.S. rice is a powerful and delicious nutrient-rich grain that the invited influencers can then share with their networks," said Asiha Grigsby, USA Rice manager for Western Hemisphere promotions. "During the event, the attendees tweeted and posted photos on Instagram which helps share our message with more consumers throughout Central America."
USA
Rice will host additional social media influencer events this month:
August 8 in Honduras, August 13 in Costa Rica, and August 23 in Guatemala."Over the course of this campaign, we'll track how many people we've been able to influence," continued Grigsby. "This, coupled with our other promotional activities, will help increase awareness and hence the consumption of U.S. rice in Central America, our second largest export market."
Is this a turning
point?
By: Peter Wallace - @inquirerdotnet
Philippine Daily Inquirer / 05:08 AM August 08,
2019
I wrote in April about the disaster that is agriculture.
I said then that one of the most important ingredients missing was the right
leadership. Seems President Duterte listened, with the recent appointment of
William Dar as acting secretary. If he performs well (and looking at his
background, I think he will), his appointment will become permanent. But Mr.
Duterte needs to come onboard, too. Until now, no president has given
agriculture the priority attention it must have. I gather that in his remaining
three years in office, Mr. Duterte will give farmers and fishermen the
attention they need to become productive and competitive.
He has to, because we can’t have less and less food
produced for our people every year (which is what a growth slower than the number
of new babies every year means). With the Philippine population increasing by
about 1.7 percent per annum, it is important that the country’s agricultural
output rises by at least 2 percent annually. In 2018, the sector grew by a mere
0.9 percent.
Dar is well-known in the agricultural research community,
having served as director general of the International Crops Research Institute
for the Semi-Arid Tropics from 1999 to 2014. He previously held the agriculture
post for 11 months during the Estrada administration.
His job is a daunting one. The country’s agriculture
sector is in poor shape, with lack of irrigation and roads, insufficient
research and development (R&D) spending, lack of productive seeds,
excessive intrusion by middlemen, antiquated machinery, etc.—the list is almost
endless. The sector has suffered from misprioritization over so many years.
I’ll come back to my old hobby horse, the Comprehensive
Agrarian Reform Program. Its all-or-nothing approach was just plain wrong. Some
agricultural crops have to be grown on large plantations. I venture that many
poor farmers would welcome working for a responsible plantation owner who
provides them with full-time, well-paid jobs (not the one-third of Manila’s
minimum wage they now earn), as well as housing and medical facilities and free
schooling for their families. If these were done, the Philippines may even
become a net exporter of agricultural products, eventually expanding the
country’s export base.
I’d add to that allowing long-term agricultural leasing
to foreigners. Let global manufacturers produce in the Philippines the raw
materials they need for their worldwide markets. The benefits in the form of
jobs created, civic works and community support would more than justify this.
In the immediate term, Dar needs to oversee the full
implementation of the rice tarrification law, a sensible measure that can
reduce rice prices further if properly managed. Reducing rice prices plays a
crucial role in lifting Filipinos out of poverty. According to latest data from
the World Bank, about 21.6 percent of the Philippine population is poor, way
higher than Indonesia’s 10.6 percent, Thailand’s 8.6 percent and Vietnam’s 9.8
percent.
Vietnamese rice prices fall on Philippines to curb imports
Export
prices for Vietnamese rice fell this week on fears major buyer Philippines
could curb imports, while a drought in Thailand and widespread floods in
Bangladesh hit supply in the Asian hubs. In Vietnam, 5% broken rice rates fell
to $340-$350 a tonne on Thursday from $350 last week. "We've heard the
Philippines will likely ban imports during its harvest in September to support
local farmers," a trader in Ho Chi Minh City said. Buyers in the
Philippines, one of Vietnam's top buyers, had bought a lot of rice recently to
build inventories, another trader said. Thailand's 5-percent broken rice prices
rose to $395-$405 a tonne, free-on-board Bangkok (FOB), from $390-$395 last
week mainly due to a widespread drought while overseas demand remained flat,
traders said.
"The
drought is raising concern about a possible supply shortage," a
Bangkok-based trader said. High prices for Thai rice and a strong baht could
deter buyers, traders said. "There are no major deals in sight,"
another trader said. "All we've had so far this year are small deals with
regular customers and that's not really affected prices as much as the currency
exchange and supply situation." The world's second-largest rice exporter
has seen a 19.6 percent decline in exports between January and June versus the
same period last year, according to the Thai Rice Exporters Association.
Adverse weather hit markets in Bangladesh as well, with flooding submerging
more than 100,000 hectares of paddy, according to a preliminary assessment by
the agriculture ministry. This comes at a time when farmers are struggling to
secure fair prices for produce, with no overseas deals in sight since the
country lifted an export ban in May, traders said.
Agriculture
minister Abdur Razzaque said the government would reduce fertilizer prices and
provide modern equipment to growers to reduce costs. Bangladesh's central bank
instructed authorities not to reclaim previous loans and provide fresh ones to
help flood-affected farmers. In India, prices of 5 percent broken parboiled rice
were unchanged around $381-$384 per tonne. "Demand from buyers in Africa
is not improving. They have bought enough old stocks from China at lower
prices," said an exporter based at Kakinada in the southern state of
Andhra Pradesh. India's exports could fall to a seven-year low, officials said.
Meanwhile, farmers planted paddy on 18.5 million hectares as on July 26, versus
19.8 million hectares during the same time last year, while forecasts for an
improvement in monsoon rains assuaged drought fears and lifted expectations for
a robust yield of summer crops such as rice.
Ministry releases crops report
A
ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries report said the Kingdom
cultivated over 2.3 million hectares of rice during this year’s rainy season,
but Minister Veng Sakhon expressed concern over the abnormal weather. The
ministry’s report on crop cultivation and agricultural exports was posted on
Sakhon’s Facebook page on Monday.
It
said rice was grown on 2,326,910ha of land, of which 2,137,758ha had been
successfully harvested. More than 600,000ha was planted with short-term rice
while medium-term rice was grown on approximately one million hectares and some
400,000ha cultivated with long-term rice. Long-term, unmilled rice is a crop
grown in deep water or lowland rice fields and can be grown year-round.
Medium-term rice is grown in medium-depth water and is grown for six months of
the year.
Short-term
rice, mostly cultivated in small fields which require little water, is grown
because it can be harvested usually after just about three months. In the
report, the minister said the figures for agricultural exports were calculated
from the beginning of the year, whereas rice cultivation was calculated from
the beginning of the rainy season. As well as the rice crops, corn, sweet
potatoes, all kinds of vegetables, sugar cane and green beans were grown on
44,003ha while short-term industrialised crop cultivation took place on more
than 700,000ha. Some 2,449,945.19 tonnes of milled rice, sweet potatoes, cashew
nuts, corn, soya beans, bananas, mangoes, pepper, vegetables and various other
crops were exported this year, the report said.
Cambodia
exported agricultural produce to 20 countries, including China, Thailand,
Vietnam, France, South Korea, the UK and India. Sakhon said on Monday that the
weather this year had been highly abnormal. A Battambang provincial Department
of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries report released on Monday said that
despite seeing scattered showers in Battambang town and some districts, several
communes in Moung Russey district had experienced insufficient rainfall and low
humidity, causing problems for rice farmers. The Post could not reach ministry
spokesman Srey Vuthy for comment on Tuesday.
Tong Chan Theang, the executive director of
the Cambodian Centre for Study and Development in Agriculture, said rice
cultivation was at a normal level but farmers faced challenges such as drought
in some areas and flooding in others. “I haven’t studied the statistics in the
report but generally, in my observation, in rural areas, there has been
considerable rainfall and farmers are beginning to grow crops such as sweet
potatoes. “There is a lot of cultivation in areas with enough water and some
farmers were able to harvest early in the rainy season. However, some areas
suffered drought while others were flooded,” she said.
Chan Theang requested the government,
especially the ministry, to do whatever it could to solve the challenges facing
farmers and not just put out statistics. She expressed concern that when the
harvest season arrives, prices of agricultural produce would be too low because
market prices were declining. She feared that farmers could lose their
livelihoods. A ministry report on agricultural production last year said rice had
been grown on 3.34 million hectares, with successful cultivation on some 2.75
million hectares. About 4.23 million tonnes of agricultural produce was
exported last year.
Ghana, South Korea sign agreement on rice production
Dr Owusu Afriyie Akoto (left) and Ms Jeongyi Choi displaying the
signed documents
The Governments of Ghana and South Korea have signed a
memorandum of understanding to improve rice production and rice value chain
activities in four districts in the Central Region.
The agreement is geared towards enhancing rice production and productivity through the selection of good plant varieties, seed distribution, training, improved cultivation techniques and agricultural machinery support.
Signing
The Minister of Food and Agriculture, Dr Owusu Afriyie Akoto, and the Deputy Country Director of the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA), Ms Jeongyi Choi, signed for their respective governments.
By the agreement, South Korea will support rice production in the Assin North Municipality and the Assin South, Twifo-Atti-Morkwa and Gomoa East districts with a grant of $8 million (GH¢43.2 million).
The deliverables under the project include improving capacity and rice seed development, providing agricultural machinery and equipment and the construction of a rice milling plant and agricultural equipment storage facility all within the period from 2019 to 2023.
Giving the background to the project, the Director of Legal Affairs at the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, Mr Seth Dumoga, said the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA)?submitted a proposal to the KOICA in 2017 requesting the Korean government’s support to improve the rice value chain in the country.
“Today's signing of the MoU is giving legitimacy to the request and to initiate projects towards implementing the outcomes of the agreement,” he said.
KOICA
In a brief statement before the signing, Ms Choi explained that KOICA's support was to complement efforts the government was making to improve rice production, particularly its value chain processes.
“Interventions will be designed to focus on ex-farm activities to improve production, harvesting, branding and marketing of rice,” she said.
Association
For his part, the South Korea Ambassador to Ghana, Mr Sungsoo Kim, said South Korea was pleased to draw on its centuries-old experience and expertise in producing rice to assist Ghana modernise and improve its rice production capability.
“This gesture of the Korean government is another testament to the deepening bilateral and diplomatic relations between our two countries,” Mr Kim said.
Response
Dr Akoto said the signing of the MoU marked a significant moment in the working relationship between the two countries.
He said the agreement had come at an opportune time when Ghana was desirous of becoming self sufficient in rice production because rice had become a staple in the country.
He said it was the plan of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture to reduce the 600 tonnes of imported rice consumed in the country annually by improving and enhancing the production of locally produced rice.
The agreement is geared towards enhancing rice production and productivity through the selection of good plant varieties, seed distribution, training, improved cultivation techniques and agricultural machinery support.
Signing
The Minister of Food and Agriculture, Dr Owusu Afriyie Akoto, and the Deputy Country Director of the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA), Ms Jeongyi Choi, signed for their respective governments.
By the agreement, South Korea will support rice production in the Assin North Municipality and the Assin South, Twifo-Atti-Morkwa and Gomoa East districts with a grant of $8 million (GH¢43.2 million).
The deliverables under the project include improving capacity and rice seed development, providing agricultural machinery and equipment and the construction of a rice milling plant and agricultural equipment storage facility all within the period from 2019 to 2023.
Giving the background to the project, the Director of Legal Affairs at the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, Mr Seth Dumoga, said the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA)?submitted a proposal to the KOICA in 2017 requesting the Korean government’s support to improve the rice value chain in the country.
“Today's signing of the MoU is giving legitimacy to the request and to initiate projects towards implementing the outcomes of the agreement,” he said.
KOICA
In a brief statement before the signing, Ms Choi explained that KOICA's support was to complement efforts the government was making to improve rice production, particularly its value chain processes.
“Interventions will be designed to focus on ex-farm activities to improve production, harvesting, branding and marketing of rice,” she said.
Association
For his part, the South Korea Ambassador to Ghana, Mr Sungsoo Kim, said South Korea was pleased to draw on its centuries-old experience and expertise in producing rice to assist Ghana modernise and improve its rice production capability.
“This gesture of the Korean government is another testament to the deepening bilateral and diplomatic relations between our two countries,” Mr Kim said.
Response
Dr Akoto said the signing of the MoU marked a significant moment in the working relationship between the two countries.
He said the agreement had come at an opportune time when Ghana was desirous of becoming self sufficient in rice production because rice had become a staple in the country.
He said it was the plan of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture to reduce the 600 tonnes of imported rice consumed in the country annually by improving and enhancing the production of locally produced rice.
Smuggling
cuts local rice production by N127.3bn
By
Plans by the Federal Government to achieve self-sufficiency in
rice production by 2020 have been frustrated by activities of smugglers.
Already, milled rice production has fallen by 800,000 metric
tonnes from 5.7million tonnes to 4.9million tonnes this year despite the
Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN)’s N55billion investment to boost grain production
through the Anchor Borrowers programme in the last two years.
The shortfall is valued at N127.3billion ($348.3million).
Price of imported parboiled rice has reached $436 per tonne as at
July 31, 2019 in Thailand market.
Statistics by index mundi, a global portal on rice production and
consumption, revealed that the country would still depend on 2.4million tonnes
of foreign rice to meet local consumption of 7.3million tonnes this year.
The demand is 9.09 per cent higher than the 2.2million tonnes
imported into the country last year.
The portal explained that 4.7 million tonnes of milled rice was
produced last year, while 4.9 million tonnes would be realised in 2019 instead
of 8.5 million tonnes.
Findings revealed that most of the rice needed in the country to
meet local consumption is being smuggled from neighbouring countries following
the ban of the grain by the government.
In 2017, Benin Republic reduced its rice import duty from 35 per
cent 7 per cent to attract Nigerian rice merchants to patronise Cotonou Port.
According to the Rice Processors Association of Nigeria (RIPAN),
over one million metric tonnes were smuggled into Nigeria between January and
March, 2019, indicating that additional 1.4 would be smuggled before December,
2019.
The association’s Chairman, Mohammed Abubakar, noted that the
country’s international borders had been converted to smugglers’ route, adding
that Nigerian markets were already filled with smuggled foreign rice.
Last year, Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) seized 320,709 bags of
imported rice from smugglers.
It also noted that 497,279 bags of imported rice were confiscated
from smugglers between 2015 and August, 2017 with a Duty Paid Value (DPV) of
N3.8 billion.
The service explained that some tonnes of rice valued at N597.7
billion were seized between January and August, 2016.
Similarly, between February and April 2019, a total of 43,000 bags
of rice had been seized from smugglers by Nigeria Customs Service (NCS).
In June this year, 2,494 bags of rice were seized in Oyo axis by
customs while another 13,000 bags of foreign rice were intercepted in Owerri
axis by the service.
To further boost domestic production of the grain, the Federal
Government, last year, made moves to attract N250 billion investment in grain
production and establishment of 14 rice mills in the country.
According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development,
the activities of smugglers make the country lose $5billion yearly.
The immediate past Minister of the ministry, Chief Audu Ogbeh, had
said that most of the investment would come from Thailand, following reduction
in rice importation from the country.
Already, 21 large integrated rice mills have started running in
the country with a total annual processing capacity of 1.22 million metric tons
yearly.
It was learnt that some of the mills are owned by Dangote,
Stallion Group, Olam, Milan, Golden Penny Rice, the Wicklow Group among others.
1st organic rice harvested in Iran
Sari, Aug 7, IRNA - For the first
time ever in Iran, organic rice has been harvested in northern Iran as part of
the country’s moves towards improved harvests to gain a foothold in new
markets.
The organic rice was harvested at
a 10-hectare supervised farm in Bayekala Village in eastern Mazandaran Province
in northern Iran.
The harvested rice is of Tarom
and Hashemi varieties that were cultivated after eight years of studies.
More than 40 percent of the
internal rice market is supported by rice farmers in northern Mazandaran
Province.
The organic rice cultivation is
to preserve the environment and food security.
In organic farming, grains are
local and without any damages, the fertilizer is totally of the animals as well
as green and biologic fertilizer. Farms also use trichogramma wasps and
pheromone traps to kill the Asiatic rice borer.
PH
farm output drops in Q2 amid El Niño
Published Aug 7, 2019 12:12:52 PM
Water
from Angat Dam still not enough for irrigation despite rains
by Marje Pelayo
Wednesday, August 7th,
2019
Angat
Dam
MANILA, Philippines – June marked
the beginning of the wet season in the country and with days of continuous
rains, about 700,000 hectares of rice farms have already been planted.
It includes about 70% or around
18,000 hectares of farmlands that depend on Angat Dam.
However, there is still no
allocation for irrigation yet coming from Angat Dam because it’s water remains
below the minimum operating level of 180 meters.
As of 6:00 a.m. on Wednesday
(August 7), Angat Dam’s reserve remains at 169.63 meters.
“Worse comes to worst meron naman kaming naka standby na mga
maliliit na bomba para ipamigay sa mga farmers na nangangailangan ng tubig, (we have deep wells on standby for distribution
to the farmers in case they need water,) said Pilipina
Bermudez of the National Irrigation Administration (NIA).
Water level in La Mesa Dam,
meanwhile, is also increasing as it has now hit 75.73 meters as of 6:00 am
today.
La Mesa Dam is also one of the
main sources of Manila Water who serves residents in the east zone of Metro Manila.
The water concessionaire said
they have been supplying water to almost all of its customers 24/7.
Maynilad, on the other hand, is yet to complete its operations
because only 91% of its clients are enjoying full service without interruptions
so far. – with details from Rey Pelayo
Ministry releases
crops report
Long
Kimmarita | Publication date 07 August 2019 | 08:35 ICT
Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and
Fisheries Veng Sakhon has expressed concern over the abnormal weather despite
2.3 million hectares of rice being cultivated during this year’s rainy season.
Takeo provincial Department of Agriculture
A ministry of Agriculture,
Forestry and Fisheries report said the Kingdom cultivated over 2.3 million
hectares of rice during this year’s rainy season, but Minister Veng Sakhon
expressed concern over the abnormal weather.
The ministry’s report on crop
cultivation and agricultural exports was posted on Sakhon’s Facebook page on
Monday.
It said rice was grown on
2,326,910ha of land, of which 2,137,758ha had been successfully harvested.
More than 600,000ha was planted
with short-term rice while medium-term rice was grown on approximately one
million hectares and some 400,000ha cultivated with long-term rice.
Long-term, unmilled rice is a
crop grown in deep water or lowland rice fields and can be grown year-round.
Medium-term rice is grown in
medium-depth water and is grown for six months of the year.
Short-term rice, mostly
cultivated in small fields which require little water, is grown because it can
be harvested usually after just about three months.
In the report, the minister said
the figures for agricultural exports were calculated from the beginning of the
year, whereas rice cultivation was calculated from the beginning of the rainy
season.
As well as the rice crops, corn,
sweet potatoes, all kinds of vegetables, sugar cane and green beans were grown
on 44,003ha while short-term industrialised crop cultivation took place on more
than 700,000ha.
Some 2,449,945.19 tonnes of
milled rice, sweet potatoes, cashew nuts, corn, soya beans, bananas, mangoes,
pepper, vegetables and various other crops were exported this year, the report
said.
Cambodia exported agricultural
produce to 20 countries, including China, Thailand, Vietnam, France, South
Korea, the UK and India.
Sakhon said on Monday that the
weather this year had been highly abnormal.
A Battambang provincial Department
of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries report released on Monday said that
despite seeing scattered showers in Battambang town and some districts, several
communes in Moung Russey district had experienced insufficient rainfall and low
humidity, causing problems for rice farmers.
The Post could not reach ministry
spokesman Srey Vuthy for comment on Tuesday.
Tong Chan Theang, the executive
director of the Cambodian Centre for Study and Development in Agriculture, said
rice cultivation was at a normal level but farmers faced challenges such as
drought in some areas and flooding in others.
“I haven’t studied the statistics
in the report but generally, in my observation, in rural areas, there has been
considerable rainfall and farmers are beginning to grow crops such as sweet
potatoes.
“There is a lot of cultivation in
areas with enough water and some farmers were able to harvest early in the
rainy season. However, some areas suffered drought while others were flooded,”
she said.
Chan Theang requested the
government, especially the ministry, to do whatever it could to solve the
challenges facing farmers and not just put out statistics.
She expressed concern that when
the harvest season arrives, prices of agricultural produce would be too low
because market prices were declining. She feared that farmers could lose their
livelihoods.
A ministry report on agricultural
production last year said rice had been grown on 3.34 million hectares, with
successful cultivation on some 2.75 million hectares. About 4.23 million tonnes
of agricultural produce was exported last year.
Rice
Fortification WFP Myanmar - 2019
REPORT
07 Aug 2019 —
Hidden Hunger and its Remedy
Globally, more than two billion
people are affected by micro-nutrient deficiencies, also known as hidden
hunger. In low- and middleincome countries, multiple micro-nutrient
deficiencies tend to co-exist, as they share common causes. One of the most
advanced and effective means to tackle the hidden hunger is fortification of
food with micro nutrients.
Rice fortification is the enrichment of rice with essential vitamins and minerals post-harvest to increase its nutritional value. Current available technology can produce fortified rice that is safe, looks and tastes like normal rice, and can be prepared the same way. The consumption of fortified rice increases micronutrient intake without requiring consumers to change their buying, preparation or cooking practices. Fortified white rice has a significantly higher micronutrient content than nonfortified rice, including brown or parboiled rice which are not widely consumed in Myanmar.
Rice fortification is the enrichment of rice with essential vitamins and minerals post-harvest to increase its nutritional value. Current available technology can produce fortified rice that is safe, looks and tastes like normal rice, and can be prepared the same way. The consumption of fortified rice increases micronutrient intake without requiring consumers to change their buying, preparation or cooking practices. Fortified white rice has a significantly higher micronutrient content than nonfortified rice, including brown or parboiled rice which are not widely consumed in Myanmar.
WFP and Rice Fortification
Committed to efforts that ensure that every man, woman and child
enjoys their right to adequate food both in quantity and in quality,WFP supports rice fortification as one important and effective approach to improving access to additional minerals and vitamins that enrich the diets of large segments of the population. WFP has in-house technical expertise on rice fortification and has been closely involved in introducing and supporting rice fortification in other Asian countries, such as India, Cambodia and Bangladesh.
The positive experience in other countries has contributed to WFP’s commitment to be a key technical partner in the introduction and scaling up of fortified rice in Myanmar.
Myanmar and Rice Fortification
In Myanmar, many people
predominantly eat milled rice and a limited variety of other foods, which leads
to insufficient consumption of nutritious foods needed to sustain a healthy and
active life. Milled rice is a good source of energy, but a poor source of
micro-nutrients.
In addition, consumption of meat, eggs, dairy, vegetables and fruits is generally low and seasonal. Therefore, there is a high need to improve local production and availability of year-round nutritious foods.With the Myanmar population relying on rice as their staple food, rice fortification offers a unique opportunity to substantially improve the nutrition and health status of a large number of people at very low cost.
In addition, consumption of meat, eggs, dairy, vegetables and fruits is generally low and seasonal. Therefore, there is a high need to improve local production and availability of year-round nutritious foods.With the Myanmar population relying on rice as their staple food, rice fortification offers a unique opportunity to substantially improve the nutrition and health status of a large number of people at very low cost.
PHILIPPINES AGRICULTURE OUTPUT CONTRACTS
IN Q2 AS RICE HARVEST DECLINES
8/6/2019
* Philippines agricultural output
contracted at an annual pace of 1.3% in the second quarter, after growing at
the earlier-reported 0.67% rate in the March quarter, the country's statistics
agency said on Wednesday.
* Three sub-sectors — livestock,
poultry, fisheries — posted growth, while crops, which account for nearly half
of agriculture's total output, contracted by 5.7%, the Philippine Statistics
Authority said.
* The country's paddy rice harvest
during the June quarter dropped 5.8% from a year earlier, after a 4.5% decline
in the first quarter, hit by El Nino-induced dry weather.
* Agriculture accounted for less
than a tenth of the domestic economy's overall output in the first quarter.
* The government will release
second-quarter GDP data on Thursday, with growth in the June quarter seen
accelerating to 5.9% from the first quarter's 5.6%, based on a Reuters poll.
(Reporting by Enrico dela Cruz; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta)
