4th November,2019 Daily Global Regional Local Rice E-Newsletter

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4^th November ,2019

Daily Global Regional Global Regional Local Rice E-Newsletter

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Awareness programme over millets held in Adilabad

The event was organised by Raithu Nestham Foundation, a Hyderabad-based voluntary organisation in collaboration with the district administration.

By AuthorTelanganaToday  |  Published: 3rd Nov 2019  8:25 pm

Dr Khadar Vali in an awareness programme over millets held in Adilabad

Adilabad: Independent scientist, food and health expert Dr Khadar Vali participated in an awareness programme over cultivation of millets and consumption of millets to stay fit in Adilabad on Sunday. The event was organised by Raithu Nestham Foundation, a Hyderabad-based voluntary organisation in collaboration with the district administration.

Speaking on the occasion, Vali opined that many modern diseases could be kept at a bay by consuming millets and grains cultivated in ancient times. People were healthy in yesteryears as they used to have dishes prepared with millets. They are now diagnosed with a wide-range of ailments for eating dishes cooked mostly with rice and wheat, which were developed by scientists to improve yield and to meet growing needs of food, he informed, adding, the traditional habits of dining were vanished over a period of time.

The fitness expert informed that both Telangana and Andhra Pradesh account for a major proportion of diabetics, caused due to unprecedented consumption of both rice and wheat in the country. The outlay of business of drugs for curing the disease is assessed to be US dollars, 8,270 crore of which 30 percent is done in India alone. We can lead a healthy life and avoid medical expenses, only by altering food habits and by shifting to millets, he added.

Collector Divya Devarajan said district authorities were encouraging farmers to grow millet crops and an exclusive store was opened in Adilabad headquarters for selling organic products including the millets. She thanked Vali for sharing his insights on farming of the grains.

The diet scientist later interacted with growers and clarified their doubts and offered suggestions to excel in growing the millets at the store. Several ryots across the district attended the event and said that the programme helped them understanding intricacies of the producing millets.

Raithu Neshtam chairman Dr Y Venkateshwar, Ramesh, in-charge JDA and S Sumanaspathi Reddy, All India Radio-Adilabad programme head were also present.

https://telanganatoday.com/awareness-programme-over-millets-held-adilabad

The value of basic grains ordered through the Port of Mombasa increased by Sh175.51 billion in the year ended June. FILE PHOTO | NMG 

 

The value of basic grains ordered through the Port of Mombasa increased by Sh175.51 billion in the year ended June, government statistics show, highlighting Kenya’s reliance on foreign suppliers to feed its citizens.

The value of rice, maize, wheat, beans and soya beans shipped in by traders through the port increased to nearly Sh371.04 billion from Sh195.53 billion the year before, data captured by Kenya Trade Network Agency (KenTrade) indicate.

The steep 89.76 percent rise in the staple food imports into Kenya and other land-locked countries such as Uganda, Rwanda, South Sudan, Burundi and DRC — which largely rely on the seaport for imports — is a pointer of food deficits as a result of relying on rain-fed farming.

Kenya imports two thirds of national rice consumption, about the same proportion of domestic wheat uptake and at least two-thirds of its soya beans needs. Delayed onset of long rains season earlier in the year threatened to plunge the region into a food crisis.

Food Security and Nutrition Working Group warned that the delayed rains had resulted in below-average crop production in some agro-pastoral and marginal mixed farming areas in the region.

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This nutrition platform championed by UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and IGAD’s Climate Prediction and Applications (ICPAC), had predicted a crisis if the drought persisted to June.

The rains, however, kicked in from May, helping to boost food production.

KenTrade, the State agency managing imports, show traders splashed Sh218.74 billion on rice imports over the 12-month period, a growth of 82.68 percent.Some 1.63 million tonnes of rice came in, 23 percent more than 1.33 million tonnes a year earlier. Maize registered a 61.15 percent a drop in import stocks to 245.08 million tonnes worth Sh9.86 billion that was 72.62 percent less than Sh36.01 billion spent the year before.

https://www.businessdailyafrica.com/economy/Grains-coming-in-via-Mombasa/3946234-5335916-jyp6qg/index.html

‘Liberalizing imports to kill sugar industry’

ByEireene Jairee Gomez

November 4, 2019

(First of 2 parts)
BACOLOD CITY: “If the liberalization will go on, then the sugar industry will die.”

Raymond Montinola, spokesman for the Confederation of Sugar Producers Associations Inc., made this declaration in connection with the government’s plan to liberalize sugar imports.

For years, the country’s sugar industry has been threatened by high cost of production, low yield, low farm income and climate change.

Local sugar planters believe the worst is yet to come.

In January this year, Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno announced the plan to liberalize sugar importation after moves to remove the import restrictions on rice.

He said local sugar was “very expensive” compared to those in other sugar-producing countries.

While the proposed sugar import liberalization would negatively affect local producers, Diokno said opening up the market to cheap imported sugar would benefit a greater number of consumers.

Sugar leaders, however, said cheaper imports would hurt farmers and eventually kill their livelihood.

Last January 30, the Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA) Board, headed by former Agriculture secretary Emmanuel Piñol, signed a resolution reiterating the policy of the state that it should be the SRA that would “regulate the release of imported sugar in the domestic market.”

Since then, opposition to the proposal has snowballed.

The controversy on the liberalization of sugar imports continued when the Department of Finance (DoF) formally proposed in its Economic Bulletin dated Sept. 27, 2019 the deregulation of local sugar importation, citing challenges to the competitiveness of the food processing industry.

The food processing exporters have been lobbying for open importation because of the high cost of retail sugar in the market.

The outcry, however, just grew bigger as House Resolution 412, which formalized the opposition of legislators to the plan, was passed in early October.

At least 24 lawmakers signed the resolution.

In an unprecedented move, food processors and exporters recently announced that they have decided not to push through with their lobbying for liberalizing importation in support of the local sugar industry.

Instead, they asked for a sugar import allocation of an estimated 105,000 metric tons annually to stabilize their manufacturing input and increase their global competitiveness with lower cost.

Inquiry

Negros Occidental First District Rep. Gerardo Valmayor said several congressmen were pushing for a congressional hearing to address the major issues faced by the sugar industry.

He explained that the inquiry would help determine the current situation of the local sugar industry and answer questions such as why the Sugar Industry Development Act fund had not been fully utilized for the past years, and the mechanisms to be put in place to protect and empower local sugar planters and agrarian reform beneficiaries (ARBs).

The probe, Valmayor said, might be conducted next month and would be attended by officials of the DoF, SRA, Department of Agriculture and Department of Trade and Industry.
It will be led by the House Committee on Food and Agriculture and the Visayan Development Committee.

“We intend to invite… the Department of Finance kasi galing sa kanila ‘yung
liberalization. So, we will have to hear from them. So, bakit? Ano ba ‘yung mga reason? Ano ba ang effect nito? Talaga bang kaya natin? O baka lalong mawala inclusive growth natin (We intend to invite the DoF because the liberalization plan came from them. So, we will have to hear from them. So, why? What are the reasons? What are the effects? Are we really capable? Or the more our inclusive growth gets lost)?” Valmayor said.

“With these resolutions that we could pass, especially kung galing sa plenary (if they came from the plenary) and if we have a counterpart in the Senate, then we hope for the President to respond and hopefully hindi na matutuloy ito (the plan will not proceed),” he added.

Negros Occidental Third District Rep. Jose Francisco Benitez expressed fears that liberalization could result in insurgency among smallholder farmers and farm workers, particularly the ARBs, who were granted lands under the government’s Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program.

“With what is happening now, ARBs will be most affected. They have the most to lose. You promised them land, and then you don’t give them the support, they will end up selling their lands again,” Benitez said.

“The State didn’t give them the necessary support. And now they are liberalizing,” he added.

Under Republic Act 6657, or the “Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law,” the Philippine government must redistribute private and public agricultural lands to “landless farmers and farm workers” and encourage them to operate as small independent farmers.

Benitez said the House would also look into the issue of profiteering in the sugar sector, adding that it wants to “make sure that the SRA is functioning properly” in providing necessary assistance to millions of sugar farmers across the 28 sugar-producing provinces in the country.

https://www.manilatimes.net/2019/11/04/news/top-stories/liberalizing-imports-to-kill-sugar-industry/653469/

Taking a longer look back on rice imports, palay and rice prices

November 3, 2019 | 8:58 pm

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Introspective

By Ramon L. Clarete

Most of the analysis done on the impact of the rice tariffication law make use of fairly recent data, as in what happened to rice imports, palay and rice prices in 2019. It may be useful to look slightly farther back, say in the last 10 to 15 years. Had the changes observed this year been unprecedented? If they had occurred before, the chances of our rice farmers, millers, and traders surviving what would seem now to be extremely adverse situation for the industry are high.

As of August 2019, about 2.4 million tons of rice had been imported. With still few more months to go, the expected import volume this year would break the 10-year record high of 2.439 million tons (see Table).

The National Food Authority (NFA) imported the country’s largest volume in 2008, when world rice prices were at their peak. Vietnam and India, two of the world’s top exporters, restricted their rice exports. Fearing then that it might not be able to buy rice abroad, the NFA accelerated its rice purchases in the first five months of the year, which only aggravated the increase of prices in the world market.

The influence of imports on the retail price depends upon the amount of rice injected into the market. Rice prices in 2008 went up instead, and that may be attributed to the NFA keeping instead of releasing the rice in its warehouses. It imported more in 2008 to build up its stocks in anticipation of much thinner world rice market.

The increase of rice prices in that year had nothing to do with high world prices or local rice scarcity. The NFA increased its buying prices of palay in order to attract farmers to sell rice to it. Farmgate prices of palay did go up from P11.21 a kilogram to about P14.13. With the increase, the NFA’s release price rice went up as well by factor of two. Retail prices then moved up from P24.72 pesos per kilo in 2007 to P32.71 pesos

In contrast, the average price of well-milled rice in the first nine months of the year declined by 4% from its level in 2018. The rate is lower than expected considering the volume of imported rice. Still, rice prices did go down unlike in 2008.

The comparison between 2019 and 2008 involves two different policy regimes. In 2008, the NFA was the only gate of rice imports into the country. Some rice imports came in undocumented, but still the bulk of foreign rice in the local market was controlled by the NFA.

In 2019, private sector traders, not the NFA, are the dominant players in the rice market. Rice prices go up or down with the decisions of the private sector in keeping or injecting rice into the market.

Why have traders not injected more to further lower rice prices? What may be keeping traders from releasing more is policy uncertainty. Through their lengthy discussions, policy advocates and makers hold the key to lower rice prices. There is uncertainty in the rice market spawned by widespread discussion on the appropriateness of the rice tariffication law, or on what the government can do to mitigate the adverse effect of it on rice farmers.

Some say that Congress should reverse the reform, or at least to temporarily halt or slow down rice imports, if the law cannot be undone for now. Advocates talk about invoking the ordinary safeguards measure, which if adopted would increase the import tariff to over 100% from 35% for at least 200 days. Others would vote for controlling the flow of imported rice with sanitary and photo-sanitary (SPS) permits, which would violate our treaty obligation under the Sanitary and Photo-Sanitary agreement.

Such talk is keeping rice prices up. Traders may be speculating even as I write, that if any of these proposals materialise, i.e. a reversal, safeguard, or some other measure that can effectively reduce imports, the value of the stocks in their warehouses can go up.

The uncertainty was lifted partially, with Congress settling, before they went to recess, for a joint resolution urging the government to enact effective measures to help rice farmers, instead of reversing the rice tariffication law. The short-term measures include increasing the procurement budget of the NFA to buy more rice from farmers, and accelerating the programs intended to increase rice yields, and/or providing cash assistance to rice farmers. Moreover, the Secretary of Agriculture decided it is not time and appropriate to invoke the ordinary safeguards.

These developments may be contributing partly to these latest results. Rice prices continue their slide down, says the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA). In yesterday’s issue of the Philippine Star (see Louise Maureen Simeon’s article in the business section), the PSA reported that the average wholesale price of well-milled rice was P37.85 per kilogram in the second week of October, or a year-on-year drop of 16%. Retail prices went down by 14.3% to P41.89 per kilogram.

The rice policy reform, so far as the rice market, is concerned seems to be working for rice consumers. But the observed decline may also reflect the seasonal fall of rice prices in the last four months of the year.

The PSA further reported that farmgate prices continued their decline. Year to year, farm prices went down by 26.9%, from P21.23 per kilogram to P15.33.

This is unprecedented! We still have two months to go before the end of the year so the worst for farmers may not be over yet. The second deepest dive of prices happened in 2015, at 14.6%. Since the 1970s, farmers saw their incomes fall year-on-year in only eight years. They had seen farm prices go up by nearly 48%, and that was in 1984. It is understandable that policy advocates and makers raise concern about the plight of rice farmers.

There are short term measures that the government has been urged to pursue such as:

• Targeted procurement of palay by the NFA to the major rice producing areas. The NFA has limited funds, although it has been rightly argued by many that for now it be given a bigger budget for procurement while private traders and millers are figuring how to adjust their business models in light of the new rules.

• Cash assistance to rice farmers.

If these measures help farmers through the main harvest, farmgate prices are expected to improve in the first two to three months of the following year. Hopefully by then, traders resume their purchases of local rice.

The more important measures for helping rice farmers are those which would make the rice reform of 2019 succeed for farmers. These are the programs that would deliver the result, which is that even a family with a one-hectare rice farm increases its income because of the reform. Ironic, considering the farmers are suffering now because of lower prices. But lower prices would mean something different to farmers with a higher rice yield.

The rice tariffication law generates money that the government can use to increase rice yields. But the government should deliver the assistance differently than what other administrations in the past had done, to raise rice farm productivity.

https://www.bworldonline.com/taking-a-longer-look-back-on-rice-imports-palay-and-rice-prices/

Nigerians should endure pains of border closure – Customs boss, Hameed Ali

By

 Fakoyejo Olalekan

 -

November 3, 2019

0

Nigerians have been told to endure the temporary pains of the border closure by President Muhammadu Buhari. The decision has led to an increase in the price of farm produce, but the Comptroller General of Customs, Col. Hameed Ali (Rtd.) said the pains will be for the short-term. 

Ali said Nigerians need to bear the initial pain, stating that the situation will stabilise eventually. According to him, there was no better time than now to make the border closure, adding that infrastructure doesn’t have to be perfect before such move is made. 

The decision to shut the land border has been heavily criticised. The government was condemned for not giving manufacturers adequate time to adjust to the ripple effect of the border closure. The impact has gone beyond Nigeria, with other countries that are not sharing border with Nigeria also affected. Already, the Ghanaian and Vietnam governments have both visited Nigeria since the closure. 

READ MORE: CBN clears air on Diaspora Remittances, official inflows $2.6bn not $26bn 

But according to Ali, “There will never be a good time. The decision of closing the border is ripe, we don’t need to have 100 per cent electricity, good roads before we take the step.  Most importantly is that we must be able to bear the initial pains in order to stabilise and have long term successes. 

“We don’t have to eat rice every day. There are other alternative food. I assure you that the price will stabilise and the ordinary farmers will have value for their farming business.” 

READ ALSO:Border closure: Manufacturers lament losses incurred daily 

Expired and re-bagged imported rice: Ali said rice being imported into Nigeria are expired, and in a way of avoiding detection, importers are re-bagging the rice. He said the market is currently saturated by the expired rice which have been cleaned with chemical, “All those things they are bringing into our country are aimed at bringing us to our knees. We must reach out to Nigerians for them to know the deadly effect of what they are consuming. 

“We are consuming expired foreign rice. When it causes cancer, we begin to find who to blame. What they (importers) do is that they polish and rebag the rice after polishing it with chemicals for unsuspecting consumers to eat.” Ali said in a report. 

https://nairametrics.com/2019/11/03/nigerians-should-endure-pains-of-border-closure-customs-boss-hameed-ali/

aking a longer look back on rice imports, palay and rice prices

November 3, 2019 | 8:58 pm

Advertisement

FacebookTwitterLinkedIn

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·       A A A

Introspective

By Ramon L. Clarete

Most of the analysis done on the impact of the rice tariffication law make use of fairly recent data, as in what happened to rice imports, palay and rice prices in 2019. It may be useful to look slightly farther back, say in the last 10 to 15 years. Had the changes observed this year been unprecedented? If they had occurred before, the chances of our rice farmers, millers, and traders surviving what would seem now to be extremely adverse situation for the industry are high.

As of August 2019, about 2.4 million tons of rice had been imported. With still few more months to go, the expected import volume this year would break the 10-year record high of 2.439 million tons (see Table).

The National Food Authority (NFA) imported the country’s largest volume in 2008, when world rice prices were at their peak. Vietnam and India, two of the world’s top exporters, restricted their rice exports. Fearing then that it might not be able to buy rice abroad, the NFA accelerated its rice purchases in the first five months of the year, which only aggravated the increase of prices in the world market.

The influence of imports on the retail price depends upon the amount of rice injected into the market. Rice prices in 2008 went up instead, and that may be attributed to the NFA keeping instead of releasing the rice in its warehouses. It imported more in 2008 to build up its stocks in anticipation of much thinner world rice market.

The increase of rice prices in that year had nothing to do with high world prices or local rice scarcity. The NFA increased its buying prices of palay in order to attract farmers to sell rice to it. Farmgate prices of palay did go up from P11.21 a kilogram to about P14.13. With the increase, the NFA’s release price rice went up as well by factor of two. Retail prices then moved up from P24.72 pesos per kilo in 2007 to P32.71 pesos

In contrast, the average price of well-milled rice in the first nine months of the year declined by 4% from its level in 2018. The rate is lower than expected considering the volume of imported rice. Still, rice prices did go down unlike in 2008.

The comparison between 2019 and 2008 involves two different policy regimes. In 2008, the NFA was the only gate of rice imports into the country. Some rice imports came in undocumented, but still the bulk of foreign rice in the local market was controlled by the NFA.

In 2019, private sector traders, not the NFA, are the dominant players in the rice market. Rice prices go up or down with the decisions of the private sector in keeping or injecting rice into the market.

Why have traders not injected more to further lower rice prices? What may be keeping traders from releasing more is policy uncertainty. Through their lengthy discussions, policy advocates and makers hold the key to lower rice prices. There is uncertainty in the rice market spawned by widespread discussion on the appropriateness of the rice tariffication law, or on what the government can do to mitigate the adverse effect of it on rice farmers.

Some say that Congress should reverse the reform, or at least to temporarily halt or slow down rice imports, if the law cannot be undone for now. Advocates talk about invoking the ordinary safeguards measure, which if adopted would increase the import tariff to over 100% from 35% for at least 200 days. Others would vote for controlling the flow of imported rice with sanitary and photo-sanitary (SPS) permits, which would violate our treaty obligation under the Sanitary and Photo-Sanitary agreement.

Such talk is keeping rice prices up. Traders may be speculating even as I write, that if any of these proposals materialise, i.e. a reversal, safeguard, or some other measure that can effectively reduce imports, the value of the stocks in their warehouses can go up.

The uncertainty was lifted partially, with Congress settling, before they went to recess, for a joint resolution urging the government to enact effective measures to help rice farmers, instead of reversing the rice tariffication law. The short-term measures include increasing the procurement budget of the NFA to buy more rice from farmers, and accelerating the programs intended to increase rice yields, and/or providing cash assistance to rice farmers. Moreover, the Secretary of Agriculture decided it is not time and appropriate to invoke the ordinary safeguards.

These developments may be contributing partly to these latest results. Rice prices continue their slide down, says the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA). In yesterday’s issue of the Philippine Star (see Louise Maureen Simeon’s article in the business section), the PSA reported that the average wholesale price of well-milled rice was P37.85 per kilogram in the second week of October, or a year-on-year drop of 16%. Retail prices went down by 14.3% to P41.89 per kilogram.

The rice policy reform, so far as the rice market, is concerned seems to be working for rice consumers. But the observed decline may also reflect the seasonal fall of rice prices in the last four months of the year.

The PSA further reported that farmgate prices continued their decline. Year to year, farm prices went down by 26.9%, from P21.23 per kilogram to P15.33.

This is unprecedented! We still have two months to go before the end of the year so the worst for farmers may not be over yet. The second deepest dive of prices happened in 2015, at 14.6%. Since the 1970s, farmers saw their incomes fall year-on-year in only eight years. They had seen farm prices go up by nearly 48%, and that was in 1984. It is understandable that policy advocates and makers raise concern about the plight of rice farmers.

There are short term measures that the government has been urged to pursue such as:

• Targeted procurement of palay by the NFA to the major rice producing areas. The NFA has limited funds, although it has been rightly argued by many that for now it be given a bigger budget for procurement while private traders and millers are figuring how to adjust their business models in light of the new rules.

• Cash assistance to rice farmers.

If these measures help farmers through the main harvest, farmgate prices are expected to improve in the first two to three months of the following year. Hopefully by then, traders resume their purchases of local rice.

The more important measures for helping rice farmers are those which would make the rice reform of 2019 succeed for farmers. These are the programs that would deliver the result, which is that even a family with a one-hectare rice farm increases its income because of the reform. Ironic, considering the farmers are suffering now because of lower prices. But lower prices would mean something different to farmers with a higher rice yield.

The rice tariffication law generates money that the government can use to increase rice yields. But the government should deliver the assistance differently than what other administrations in the past had done, to raise rice farm productivity.

https://www.bworldonline.com/taking-a-longer-look-back-on-rice-imports-palay-and-rice-prices/

Taking a longer look back on rice imports, palay and rice prices

November 3, 2019 | 8:58 pm

Advertisement

FacebookTwitterLinkedIn

Font Size 

·       A A A

Introspective

By Ramon L. Clarete

Most of the analysis done on the impact of the rice tariffication law make use of fairly recent data, as in what happened to rice imports, palay and rice prices in 2019. It may be useful to look slightly farther back, say in the last 10 to 15 years. Had the changes observed this year been unprecedented? If they had occurred before, the chances of our rice farmers, millers, and traders surviving what would seem now to be extremely adverse situation for the industry are high.

As of August 2019, about 2.4 million tons of rice had been imported. With still few more months to go, the expected import volume this year would break the 10-year record high of 2.439 million tons (see Table).

The National Food Authority (NFA) imported the country’s largest volume in 2008, when world rice prices were at their peak. Vietnam and India, two of the world’s top exporters, restricted their rice exports. Fearing then that it might not be able to buy rice abroad, the NFA accelerated its rice purchases in the first five months of the year, which only aggravated the increase of prices in the world market.

The influence of imports on the retail price depends upon the amount of rice injected into the market. Rice prices in 2008 went up instead, and that may be attributed to the NFA keeping instead of releasing the rice in its warehouses. It imported more in 2008 to build up its stocks in anticipation of much thinner world rice market.

The increase of rice prices in that year had nothing to do with high world prices or local rice scarcity. The NFA increased its buying prices of palay in order to attract farmers to sell rice to it. Farmgate prices of palay did go up from P11.21 a kilogram to about P14.13. With the increase, the NFA’s release price rice went up as well by factor of two. Retail prices then moved up from P24.72 pesos per kilo in 2007 to P32.71 pesos

In contrast, the average price of well-milled rice in the first nine months of the year declined by 4% from its level in 2018. The rate is lower than expected considering the volume of imported rice. Still, rice prices did go down unlike in 2008.

The comparison between 2019 and 2008 involves two different policy regimes. In 2008, the NFA was the only gate of rice imports into the country. Some rice imports came in undocumented, but still the bulk of foreign rice in the local market was controlled by the NFA.

In 2019, private sector traders, not the NFA, are the dominant players in the rice market. Rice prices go up or down with the decisions of the private sector in keeping or injecting rice into the market.

Why have traders not injected more to further lower rice prices? What may be keeping traders from releasing more is policy uncertainty. Through their lengthy discussions, policy advocates and makers hold the key to lower rice prices. There is uncertainty in the rice market spawned by widespread discussion on the appropriateness of the rice tariffication law, or on what the government can do to mitigate the adverse effect of it on rice farmers.

Some say that Congress should reverse the reform, or at least to temporarily halt or slow down rice imports, if the law cannot be undone for now. Advocates talk about invoking the ordinary safeguards measure, which if adopted would increase the import tariff to over 100% from 35% for at least 200 days. Others would vote for controlling the flow of imported rice with sanitary and photo-sanitary (SPS) permits, which would violate our treaty obligation under the Sanitary and Photo-Sanitary agreement.

Such talk is keeping rice prices up. Traders may be speculating even as I write, that if any of these proposals materialise, i.e. a reversal, safeguard, or some other measure that can effectively reduce imports, the value of the stocks in their warehouses can go up.

The uncertainty was lifted partially, with Congress settling, before they went to recess, for a joint resolution urging the government to enact effective measures to help rice farmers, instead of reversing the rice tariffication law. The short-term measures include increasing the procurement budget of the NFA to buy more rice from farmers, and accelerating the programs intended to increase rice yields, and/or providing cash assistance to rice farmers. Moreover, the Secretary of Agriculture decided it is not time and appropriate to invoke the ordinary safeguards.

These developments may be contributing partly to these latest results. Rice prices continue their slide down, says the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA). In yesterday’s issue of the Philippine Star (see Louise Maureen Simeon’s article in the business section), the PSA reported that the average wholesale price of well-milled rice was P37.85 per kilogram in the second week of October, or a year-on-year drop of 16%. Retail prices went down by 14.3% to P41.89 per kilogram.

The rice policy reform, so far as the rice market, is concerned seems to be working for rice consumers. But the observed decline may also reflect the seasonal fall of rice prices in the last four months of the year.

The PSA further reported that farmgate prices continued their decline. Year to year, farm prices went down by 26.9%, from P21.23 per kilogram to P15.33.

This is unprecedented! We still have two months to go before the end of the year so the worst for farmers may not be over yet. The second deepest dive of prices happened in 2015, at 14.6%. Since the 1970s, farmers saw their incomes fall year-on-year in only eight years. They had seen farm prices go up by nearly 48%, and that was in 1984. It is understandable that policy advocates and makers raise concern about the plight of rice farmers.

There are short term measures that the government has been urged to pursue such as:

• Targeted procurement of palay by the NFA to the major rice producing areas. The NFA has limited funds, although it has been rightly argued by many that for now it be given a bigger budget for procurement while private traders and millers are figuring how to adjust their business models in light of the new rules.

• Cash assistance to rice farmers.

If these measures help farmers through the main harvest, farmgate prices are expected to improve in the first two to three months of the following year. Hopefully by then, traders resume their purchases of local rice.

The more important measures for helping rice farmers are those which would make the rice reform of 2019 succeed for farmers. These are the programs that would deliver the result, which is that even a family with a one-hectare rice farm increases its income because of the reform. Ironic, considering the farmers are suffering now because of lower prices. But lower prices would mean something different to farmers with a higher rice yield.

The rice tariffication law generates money that the government can use to increase rice yields. But the government should deliver the assistance differently than what other administrations in the past had done, to raise rice farm productivity.

https://www.bworldonline.com/taking-a-longer-look-back-on-rice-imports-palay-and-rice-prices/

Weight loss: Is rice fattening? All you should know about this staple food

By - 

TIMESOFINDIA.COM

Updated: Nov 4, 2019, 13:17 IST

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Rice is one of the most popular and widely consumed staple foods across the world. But there are a lot of misconceptions related to rice intake like it makes you fat and increases the blood sugar levels. The first thing that comes to everyone's mind when they decide to lose weight is to cut down rice consumption. High in carbohydrates, rice is considered as one the worst foods to have when trying to shed kilos. But is rice really fattening? Let's bust this myth forever.
Parts of a whole grain
All whole grains are made of three parts: Bran, Germ, and Endosperm.
Bran is a hard outer layer that protects the inner parts and is rich in fiber, minerals, and antioxidants. The germ is a nutrient-rich core, which contains carbs, fat, protein, vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants. The endosperm is the largest part of the grain and is entirely made of carbs with a small amount of protein.

Brown vs white rice nutrition value

Brown rice
Brown rice is intact with whole grain and contains both bran and germ. So it is more nutritious as compared to white rice and is rich in fiber and antioxidants. The nutritional value of rice is:
Calories: 130
Carbs: 29 grams
Fiber: 0 grams
Protein : 2 grams
Fat : 0 grams
Manganese : 19% RDI
Magnesium : 3% RDI
Phosphorus : 4% RDI
Vitamin B6 : 3% RDI
Selenium : 11% RDI

White rice
Both bran and nutritious germ are removed from the white rice to improve the quality of the rice. So, we can say that all the nutritions are stripped away from white rice and it is entirely made of carbs in the form of starch. This factor makes brown rice a healthier choice than white rice.

Nutrition value
Calories: 112
Carbs: 24 grams
Fiber: 2 grams
Protein: 2 grams
Fat: 1 gram
Manganese: 55% RDI
Magnesium: 11% RDI
Phosphorus: 8% RDI
Vitamin B6: 7% RDI
Selenium: 14% RDI

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Rice and weight loss
By comparing the nutritional value of both the types of rice it becomes clear that brown rice is healthier than white rice. The fiber, nutrients and plant compound found in brown rice may increase the feeling of fullness and as a result, people eat fewer calories. It has been observed that eating brown rice is helpful in weight loss.

As far as white rice is concerned, the research conducted to study the link between the consumption of white rice and weight gain is quite confusing. Some studies show that a dietary pattern high in refined grains like white rice can lead to weight gain and obesity, while a few other studies have found no connection between the consumption of white rice and obesity. In fact, white rice was linked with weight loss. This indicates that both kinds of rice can be included in your weight loss plan.

Serving of rice
Weight gain actually depends on the portion of food you consume. All the foods we consume is nutrition-rich and benefits us in some or the other way. But it is the quantity of food you consume that actually harms you.

There is enough evidence to prove that rice is not fattening at all. It all depends on the quantity of rice you consume in a day.

Numerous studies have shown that serving food in a larger quantities or big container increases the intake, regardless of the type of food being served.

In order to decrease the intake of rice, serve it in a small bowl. Rice can be both fattening and weight loss friendly, it all depends on the serving size

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life-style/health-fitness/weight-loss/weight-loss-is-rice-fattening-all-you-should-know-about-this-staple-food/articleshow/71867127.cms

Chinese researchers develop database for rice molecular breeding

Source: Xinhua| 2019-11-02 18:19:21|Editor: Lu Hui

BEIJING, Nov. 2 (Xinhua) -- Chinese researchers have developed a knowledge base for molecular breeding of rice to facilitate the breeding of different rice varieties.

With the development of genome sequencing technology, large amounts of genomic and phenotypic data have been accumulated in the fields of crop genomic research. The integration and deep mining of these data are key for crop breeding.

Researchers from the Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology under the Chinese Academy of Sciences developed a database which integrates more than 7,000 sets of global rice re-sequencing data, large amount of rice germplasm resources information, as well as annotations of more than 13,000 rice genes, many of which are related to improved rice quality, disease-resistance and high yield.

The database also provides advanced online tools for germplasm screening, individual comparison and variation analysis.

The research also offers a reference for the database on the molecular breeding of other crops such as soybeans, wheat and corn.

The research was published in the journal Nucleic Acids Research.

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http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2019-11/02/c_138523366.htm

Envoy For Improved Contacts Among Pakistan, Maldives Businessmen

 1 day ago  Sat 02nd November 2019 | 11:12 PM

Ambassador of Maldives to Pakistan Ahmed Saleem on Saturday urged upon the Pakistani business community to focus on improvement of contacts with their counterparts in Maldives which would be proved favorable for the two countries

LAHORE, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 2nd Nov, 2019 ):Ambassador of Maldives to Pakistan Ahmed Saleem on Saturday urged upon the Pakistani business community to focus on improvement of contacts with their counterparts in Maldives which would be proved favorable for the two countries.

Talking to business community here at Lahore Chamber of Commerce & Industry (LCCI), the Ambassador said that Maldivian businessmen were very much interested in enhancing economic cooperation and bilateral trade with Pakistan.

Ahmed Saleem said that there was a huge potential in tourism sectors of the two countries and this sector offered not only huge opportunities to Pakistan and Maldives but would also bring both the countries closer to each other. He said Maldives has a huge potential of tourism and 1.5 million tourists visit Maldives annually.

On this occasion, LCCI Senior Vice President LCCI Ali Hussam Asgher said that there was also a huge scope of export of pharmaceutical products, rice, Halal food industry from Pakistan to Maldives, besides, some perishable items like fruit and vegetables could also be exported.

The Chamber had already declared Export Emergency in an effort to give a quantum jump to national exports, he said and added that Maldives and Pakistan enjoyed close bilateral relations and were also members of international organizations such as SAARC and OIC but both the countries yet to improve trade and investment relations.

For instance, in 2018, the size of two-way trade was just US $ 6 million out of which Pakistan's exports to Maldives were to the tune of US $ 5.7 million.

Major exports of Pakistan to Maldives were rice, pharmaceutical products, fresh fruits and nuts etc. While its major imports from Maldives consisted of petroleum gas only.

"It is a matter of concern that trade between Pakistan and Maldives remains very limited despite the fact the two countries are members of SAFTA," Ali Hussam Asghar said and asserted that shipping cost between Karachi and Male was considerably higher as compared to shipping cost between Karachi and Colombo and this was one of the factors behind low trade volume between the two countries, hence there was a need of reducing shipping costs.

LCCI Vice President Mian Zahid Jawaid Ahmad said that both countries could do a lot to enhance two way trade relations through B2B meetings. He said that a Maldives catalogue show can also be organized at LCCI to bring both sides businessmen closer and make them aware of both sides hidden potential.

https://www.urdupoint.com/en/pakistan/envoy-for-improved-contacts-among-pakistan-m-752130.html

Up to 35 Pakistani companies to attend China Import Expo in Shanghai

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BEIJING: Over 35 Pakistani companies will participate and showcase their products including top textile, leather, sports goods, surgical equipment, home furnishing and other products at the 2nd China International Import Expo (CIIE) scheduled to be held in Shanghai from November 5 to 10.

Advisor on Commerce, Textile, Industry and Production and Investment, Abdul Razak Dawood, will lead the Pakistani delegation. Pakistan’s top business executives are also expected to attend.

“As many as 35 top export-oriented Pakistani companies will display textile, leather and sports goods, surgical equipment, home furnishing and other products at their stalls set up at the expo in an effort to enhance exports to China,” Badar uz Zaman, Commercial Counsellor, Embassy of Pakistan, Beijing confirmed on Sunday.

The companies included from Karachi are M/s Garib Sons, Marhaba Laboratories, Sarmco International, Continental Traders, Al-Hamra Handicrafts, Indus Marbles, Pak Products, Chadyala Art, Ansari Brothers, Hamdan Traders, FB Enterprises among others.

The said companies export rice, textile, garments, leather products, carpet, handicrafts, wood furniture, sports and natural herbal products, and are set to look at opportunities in the Chinese market to enhance exports from Pakistan, Zaman added.

The Trade Development Authority of Pakistan (TDAP) will also set up a stall to show Pakistani products, he said.

The advisor will also talk to media on trade and investment opportunities in Pakistan during the expo.

It may be mentioned that Pakistan had also participated in last year’s expo in Shanghai where many Pakistani companies showcased their products.

According to a senior official of China’s Ministry of Commerce, so far 63 countries have registered for the exhibition and over 3,000 businesses from more than 150 countries and regions will be attending the business exhibition, exceeding the number at the first CIIE.

This year’s expo will involve two key exhibition categories: country exhibitions and business exhibitions.

As for business exhibitions, they will cover more than 300,000 square meters of floor space, and over 3,000 enterprises from about 150 countries and regions will participate in the exhibitions.

A total of 172 countries, regions and international organizations and more than 3,600 enterprises participated in the first CIIE, held from Nov 5 to 10 in Shanghai last year.

It was the world's first import-themed national-level expo.

https://www.thenews.com.pk/latest/550277-upto-35-pakistani-companies-to-attend-china-import-expo-in-shanghai

Early married days..!

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November 3, 2019

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Attended a wedding the other day and as I looked at the young newlyweds, I whispered to my wife that the couple looked a tad too young to marry. The wife reminded me of our days and I suddenly realized we all have our ‘early married days stories,’ don’t we? So, let’s peek into the diary of a young wife, also recording her early experiences:
Monday: Home from honeymoon and settled in our new home. It’s fun to cook for Samuel. Today I made a cake for my dearest and the recipe said, “Beat 12 eggs separately.” Well, I didn’t have enough bowls to do that, so I had to borrow 12 bowls from the neighbour’s houses to beat the eggs in. The cake turned out fine though I could not understand why Samuel was grinning when he came to see what I was doing. Tuesday: Sam insisted when he left for work, of a fruit salad after dinner. The recipe said, “Serve without dressing.” So, I didn’t dress. Sam happened to bring a friend home for dinner and they both looked so startled when I served them, I think it was the salad.
Wednesday: I decided to serve rice and found a recipe, which said, “Wash thoroughly before steaming. “So, I heated some water, took a bath and washed myself really thoroughly, but it does sound kind of silly doesn’t it? Must be a very fussy kind of rice. I can’t say it improved the taste in any way.
Thursday: Today Sam asked for salad again. I tried a new recipe. It said, prepare ingredients, then toss on a bed of lettuce one hour before serving.” I hunted all over the place for a garden and when I got one, I tossed my salad into the bed of lettuce and stood over there for over one hour so the dog would not eat it. Sam came over and asked if I felt all right. I wonder why? He must be stressed at work. I’ll try to be more supportive.
Friday: Today I found an easy recipe for PAV- Bhaji. It said, “Put all the vegetables in a bowl and beat it.” Beat it I did, to my mum’s place. There must have been something wrong with the recipe, because when I came back again, it looked the same as when I left it.
Saturday: Samuel went shopping today and brought home a chicken. He asked me to dress it for Sunday. I don’t know how hens dress for Sunday so I found an old doll’s dress and little cute shoes. When Sam saw it, he started counting to ten. Either he was really stressed because of his work, or he wanted the chicken to dance. Sunday: Samuel sent me home to my mother’s today. I can’t figure out what’s wrong, when I left him, he was crying “Why me? Why me?” Maybe he’s already missing me, so I’ll run back as soon as possible and help him through the next week..!”

https://pakobserver.net/early-married-days/

95% of tested baby foods in the US contain toxic metals, report says

By Sandee LaMotte, CNN

Updated 1721 GMT (0121 HKT) November 1, 2019

Photos: Expert advice for dealing with your picky eater

Michigan pediatrician and researcher Dr. Julie Lumeng suggests pairing your picky child with one that is eating a variety of foods. "Children are more likely to be willing to taste a new food if they see another human being tasting that new food," she said. "And it's even more powerful if it's a peer."

Hide Caption

6 of 10

Photos: Expert advice for dealing with your picky eater

Parents should model healthy eating behavior, said Ellyn Satter, author of "Child of Mine: Feeding with Love and Good Sense."
"Kids do better with eating when they get their parents' undivided, positive attention," said Satter, adding that rule applies even when serving take-out or going to a restaurant. "However you put together a meal, it's still important to sit down together and pay attention to each other when you eat it."

Hide Caption

7 of 10

Photos: Expert advice for dealing with your picky eater

At age 2 and 3, it's developmentally appropriate for toddlers to have aversions to foods they used to like, said Lumeng. Worried parents often begin coaxing, harassing or even bribing with dessert. Don't do it, said Lumeng. She just completed a study showing that pressure tactics don't work.

Hide Caption

8 of 10

Photos: Expert advice for dealing with your picky eater

Instead of pressuring your child, continue to cook meals that you enjoy and include one or two items the child likes. "But don't cater to them and limit the menu to only things the child readily accepts," warns Satter. "And don't force them to eat. Let your child choose what and how much to eat of what you put on the table."

Hide Caption

9 of 10

Photos: Expert advice for dealing with your picky eater

Following these tips will help parents survive the picky eating era and set their child up for later success, experts said.
"As the child moves through the natural stage of picky eating and emerges out the other side," said Potock, "they've been exposed and are friends with a lot of different foods and are ready to try them again."

Hide Caption

10 of 10

Photos: Expert advice for dealing with your picky eater

Coping with a picky eater – Do you have a picky eater in your house? As babies grow, they can develop aversions to foods they once liked. Pediatricians, nutritionists and feeding specialists give their top tips for handling picky eaters.

Hide Caption

1 of 10

Photos: Expert advice for dealing with your picky eater

You can begin "picky-proofing" when baby begins eating solid foods. "Babies learn taste preferences from a very early age, so offer a variety of tastes, textures, and even temperatures of food," said pediatric feeding specialist Melanie Potock, author of "Adventures in Veggieland."

Hide Caption

2 of 10

Photos: Expert advice for dealing with your picky eater

Pediatrician Dr. Tanya Altmann, author of "What to Feed Your Baby" has a list of "11 foundation foods" she believes will help children learn to love healthy food. "Let your infant lean in and open his mouth when he wants to eat," said Altmann. "Don't force feed or play airplane games -- that doesn't help."

Hide Caption

3 of 10

Photos: Expert advice for dealing with your picky eater

Encourage your child to make friends with food at a young age by involving them with cooking, said Potock. She also suggests playing with food, such as using beans in a tic-tac-toe game.

Hide Caption

4 of 10

Photos: Expert advice for dealing with your picky eater

Potock also suggests talking about how food is grown, such as with green beans and "Jack and the Beanstalk." Better yet, she said, grow your own veggies if possible, and have your child harvest and cook them. Take your child regularly to the farmers' market to see and touch new temptations.

Hide Caption

5 of 10

Photos: Expert advice for dealing with your picky eater

Michigan pediatrician and researcher Dr. Julie Lumeng suggests pairing your picky child with one that is eating a variety of foods. "Children are more likely to be willing to taste a new food if they see another human being tasting that new food," she said. "And it's even more powerful if it's a peer."

Hide Caption

6 of 10

Photos: Expert advice for dealing with your picky eater

Parents should model healthy eating behavior, said Ellyn Satter, author of "Child of Mine: Feeding with Love and Good Sense."
"Kids do better with eating when they get their parents' undivided, positive attention," said Satter, adding that rule applies even when serving take-out or going to a restaurant. "However you put together a meal, it's still important to sit down together and pay attention to each other when you eat it."

Hide Caption

7 of 10

Photos: Expert advice for dealing with your picky eater

At age 2 and 3, it's developmentally appropriate for toddlers to have aversions to foods they used to like, said Lumeng. Worried parents often begin coaxing, harassing or even bribing with dessert. Don't do it, said Lumeng. She just completed a study showing that pressure tactics don't work.

Hide Caption

8 of 10

Photos: Expert advice for dealing with your picky eater

Instead of pressuring your child, continue to cook meals that you enjoy and include one or two items the child likes. "But don't cater to them and limit the menu to only things the child readily accepts," warns Satter. "And don't force them to eat. Let your child choose what and how much to eat of what you put on the table."

Hide Caption

9 of 10

Photos: Expert advice for dealing with your picky eater

Following these tips will help parents survive the picky eating era and set their child up for later success, experts said.
"As the child moves through the natural stage of picky eating and emerges out the other side," said Potock, "they've been exposed and are friends with a lot of different foods and are ready to try them again."

Hide Caption

10 of 10

Photos: Expert advice for dealing with your picky eater

Coping with a picky eater – Do you have a picky eater in your house? As babies grow, they can develop aversions to foods they once liked. Pediatricians, nutritionists and feeding specialists give their top tips for handling picky eaters.

Hide Caption

1 of 10

Photos: Expert advice for dealing with your picky eater

You can begin "picky-proofing" when baby begins eating solid foods. "Babies learn taste preferences from a very early age, so offer a variety of tastes, textures, and even temperatures of food," said pediatric feeding specialist Melanie Potock, author of "Adventures in Veggieland."

Hide Caption

2 of 10

Photos: Expert advice for dealing with your picky eater

Pediatrician Dr. Tanya Altmann, author of "What to Feed Your Baby" has a list of "11 foundation foods" she believes will help children learn to love healthy food. "Let your infant lean in and open his mouth when he wants to eat," said Altmann. "Don't force feed or play airplane games -- that doesn't help."

Hide Caption

3 of 10

Photos: Expert advice for dealing with your picky eater

Encourage your child to make friends with food at a young age by involving them with cooking, said Potock. She also suggests playing with food, such as using beans in a tic-tac-toe game.

Hide Caption

4 of 10

Photos: Expert advice for dealing with your picky eater

Potock also suggests talking about how food is grown, such as with green beans and "Jack and the Beanstalk." Better yet, she said, grow your own veggies if possible, and have your child harvest and cook them. Take your child regularly to the farmers' market to see and touch new temptations.

Hide Caption

5 of 10

(CNN)Toxic heavy metals damaging to your baby's brain development are likely in the baby food you are feeding your infant, according to a new investigation published Thursday.

Tests of 168 baby foods from major manufacturers in the US found 95% contained lead, 73% contained arsenic, 75% contained cadmium and 32% contained mercury. One fourth of the foods contained all four heavy metals.

Lead screening guidelines for children, pregnant women changed by task force

One in five baby foods tested had over 10 times the 1-ppb limit of lead endorsed by public health advocates, although experts agree that no level of lead is safe.

The results mimicked a previous study by the Food and Drug Administration that found one or more of the same metals in 33 of 39 types of baby food tested.

Foods with the highest risk for neurotoxic harm were rice-based products, sweet potatoes and fruit juices, the analysis found.

"Even in the trace amounts found in food, these contaminants can alter the developing brain and erode a child's IQ. The impacts add up with each meal or snack a baby eats," the report said.

Healthy diet improves depression in young adults, study says

The tests were commissioned by Healthy Babies Bright Futures, which calls itself an alliance of scientists, nonprofit organizations and donors trying to reduce exposures to neurotoxic chemicals during the first months of life.

Rice-based foods

Infant rice cereal, rice dishes and rice-based snacks topped the list of most toxic foods for babies.

"These popular baby foods are not only high in inorganic arsenic, the most toxic form of arsenic, but also are nearly always contaminated with all four toxic metals," the report said.

Arsenic in drinking water damages hearts of young adults, study says

Prior research has shown that even low levels of arsenic exposure can impact a baby's neurodevelopment. A 2004 study looked at children in Bangladesh who were exposed to arsenic in drinking water, and it found that they scored significantly lower on intellectual tests. A meta-analysis of studies on the topic found that a 50% increase in arsenic levels in urine would be associated with a 0.4-point decrease in the IQ of children between the ages of 5 and 15.

Arsenic is a natural element found in soil, water and air, with the inorganic form being the most toxic. ("Inorganic" is a chemical term and has nothing to do with the method of farming.)

Because rice is grown in water, it is especially good at absorbing inorganic arsenic and, according to the Food and Drug Administration, has the highest concentration of any food.

And in this case, brown and wild rice are the worst offenders, because the milling process used to create white rice removes the outer layers, where much of the arsenic concentrates.

The germiest place in your home and the best way to combat those microbes

And you can't rely on organic either. A 2012 study found that brown rice syrup, a frequent sweetener in organic foods, was also a source of significant levels of arsenic. One "organic" milk formula marketed to toddlers had levels of inorganic arsenic that were six times the levels currently considered safe by the US Environmental Protection Agency.

In the Healthy Babies analysis, four of seven rice cereals contained the most toxic form of arsenic in levels higher than the FDA's proposed action level of 100 parts per billion (ppb).

Action needed

Urgent action is needed by major baby food companies and the FDA, the report said. While the FDA has been investigating how to reduce exposure and some levels of arsenic in rice and juice are lower than a decade ago, exposure is still too high.

"When FDA acts, companies respond. We need the FDA to use their authority more effectively, and much more quickly, to reduce toxic heavy metals in baby foods," said study author Jane Houlihan, research director for Healthy Babies Better Futures, in a statement.

What can parents do

The analysis looked at which baby foods are highest risk, and offered safer alternatives.

Puff rice snacks and cereals

Rice cereal is the top source of arsenic in a baby's diet because it is often used as a first food; rice puffs and other rice flour snacks also contain high levels. Healthy Babies suggested cereals low in arsenic, such as oatmeal and multigrain cereals, and rice-free packaged snacks.

Pediatrician Tanya Altmann, author of "What to Feed Your Baby" echoes the advice of the American Academy of Pediatrics, which advises parents to offer a wide variety of first foods including grains such as oats, barley, wheat and quinoa.

"Best first foods for infants are avocado, pureed veggies, peanut-butter oatmeal and salmon," Altmann told CNN in a prior interview. "They all provide important nutrients that babies need, help develop their taste buds to prefer healthy food and may decrease food allergies."

She believes meats are a better source of iron and zinc for babies than rice cereal, "so I haven't been recommending rice cereal as a first food for several years."

If you do choose to cook rice for your toddler, Healthy Babies recommends cooking rice in extra water and pouring it off before eating. That will cut arsenic levels by 60%, they say, based on FDA studies.

"For the lowest levels, buy basmati rice grown in California, India, and Pakistan. White rice has less arsenic than brown rice," the report said.

Teething foods

Teething biscuits can contain arsenic, lead and cadmium, the report said. Instead, soothe your baby's pain with frozen bananas, a peeled and chilled cucumber or a clean, wet washcloth -- but be sure to watch for choking.

Drinks

Juice is often the go-to drink for parents, but it's not a good option, says the American Academy of Pediatrics. Juices are high in sugar, lack fiber, and can contribute to tooth decay and later obesity. Apple, pear, grape and other fruit juices can also contain some lead and arsenic, so frequent use is a top source of these heavy metals.

Top 34 bestselling 'fruit' drinks for kids deemed unhealthy

Instead, experts say water and milk are best choices, depending on the age of the child. Babies under six months only need breast milk and formula. The drinks of choice for a child's second year of life should be water and whole milk. Between age 2 and 5 parents should move to skim or low-fat milk and keep pushing water to hydrate their children.

At all ages, juice should be kept to a minimum. One tip: add water to make the juice last longer and always be sure the drink is 100% juice.

Fruits and veggies

While sweet potatoes and carrots are great sources of vitamin A and other key nutrients, the report found they are also high in lead and cadmium. Go ahead and feed your child these veggies, but be sure to add many other colorful fruits and vegetables to add variety.

·       Paid Content

https://edition.cnn.com/2019/10/17/health/baby-foods-arsenic-lead-toxic-metals-wellness/index.html

Envoy for improving contacts with counterparts in Maldives

By RECORDER REPORT on November 3, 2019

Ambassador of Maldives to Pakistan Ahmed Saleem has urged the Pakistani business community to focus on improvement of contacts with their counterparts in Maldives which would be proved favourable for the two countries. He was speaking at the Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry here on Saturday. He said that unfortunately, bilateral trade volume between the two countries is squeezing. Maldivian businessmen are very much interested in enhancing economic cooperation and bilateral trade with Pakistan, he said. There is a huge potential in tourism sectors of the two countries, he added.

He said that tourism offers not only huge opportunities to Pakistan and Maldives but would also bring both the countries more close to each other. He said that Maldives has a huge potential of tourism and 1.5 million tourists usually visit Maldives annually. LCCI Senior Vice President LCCI Ali Hussam Asgher said there is also a huge scope of export of pharmaceutical products, rice, and Halal food industry from Pakistan to Maldives. Besides, some perishable items like fruits and vegetables can also be exported from Pakistan, he said. The Lahore Chamber has already declared export emergency to give a quantum jump to the national exports, he added.

Maldives and Pakistan have very low trade and investment relations. For instance, in 2018, the size of two way trade was just 6 million dollars out of which Pakistan's exports to Maldives were to the tune of $5.7 million. He said that from the last few years, the values of bilateral trade are also dipping. For example, in 2016, the size of two way trade was $12.7 million which remained on squeezing till last year to reach $6 million.

Major exports of Pakistan to Maldives are rice, pharmaceutical products, fresh fruits & nuts etc. While its major imports from Maldives consist of petroleum gas only. “It is a matter of concern that trade between Pakistan and Maldives remained very limited despite the fact the two countries are members of SAFTA agreement", he said and added that shipping cost between Karachi and Male is considerably higher as compared to shipping cost between Karachi and Colombo. This relatively high shipping cost is one of the factors behind low trade volume between the two countries. This is hence an imperative need of reducing the shipping costs, he said.

https://www.brecorder.com/2019/11/03/540943/envoy-for-improving-contacts-with-counterparts-in-maldives/

Awareness programme over millets held in Adilabad

The event was organised by Raithu Nestham Foundation, a Hyderabad-based voluntary organisation in collaboration with the district administration.

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By AuthorTelanganaToday  |  Published: 3rd Nov 2019  8:25 pm

Dr Khadar Vali in an awareness programme over millets held in Adilabad

Adilabad: Independent scientist, food and health expert Dr Khadar Vali participated in an awareness programme over cultivation of millets and consumption of millets to stay fit in Adilabad on Sunday. The event was organised by Raithu Nestham Foundation, a Hyderabad-based voluntary organisation in collaboration with the district administration.

Speaking on the occasion, Vali opined that many modern diseases could be kept at a bay by consuming millets and grains cultivated in ancient times. People were healthy in yesteryears as they used to have dishes prepared with millets. They are now diagnosed with a wide-range of ailments for eating dishes cooked mostly with rice and wheat, which were developed by scientists to improve yield and to meet growing needs of food, he informed, adding, the traditional habits of dining were vanished over a period of time.

The fitness expert informed that both Telangana and Andhra Pradesh account for a major proportion of diabetics, caused due to unprecedented consumption of both rice and wheat in the country. The outlay of business of drugs for curing the disease is assessed to be US dollars, 8,270 crore of which 30 percent is done in India alone. We can lead a healthy life and avoid medical expenses, only by altering food habits and by shifting to millets, he added.

Collector Divya Devarajan said district authorities were encouraging farmers to grow millet crops and an exclusive store was opened in Adilabad headquarters for selling organic products including the millets. She thanked Vali for sharing his insights on farming of the grains.

The diet scientist later interacted with growers and clarified their doubts and offered suggestions to excel in growing the millets at the store. Several ryots across the district attended the event and said that the programme helped them understanding intricacies of the producing millets.

Raithu Neshtam chairman Dr Y Venkateshwar, Ramesh, in-charge JDA and S Sumanaspathi Reddy, All India Radio-Adilabad programme head were also present.

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https://telanganatoday.com/awareness-programme-over-millets-held-adilabad

Nigeria: Border Closure and War Against Smuggling

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Photo: Premium Times

Seme Border used to illustrate the story.

3 NOVEMBER 2019

This Day (Lagos)

By Obinna Chima

Smuggling of goods, which was the major reasons for the recent closure of Nigeria's land borders, poses serious threat to the economy, discourages investments and destroys innovation.

The impact of the decision by the federal government to close all its land borders two months ago to tackle smuggling is one of the most-talked-about issues in the sub-region today. Reports show that those in the business of smuggling have continued to suffer huge losses.

Even though commentators have continued to weigh the merits and demerits of the government's action, both the fiscal and monetary policy authorities strongly believe that it would positively impact the Nigerian economy.

This is just as it has been disclosed that since the borders were closed, the government has seized over N2.3 trillion worth of contraband.

The exercise, code-named Exercise Swift Response, is being coordinated by the Office of the National Security Adviser, the Nigeria Customs Service, the Nigeria Immigration Service, the Nigeria Police Force and the Army.

Clearly, monetary policy transmission mechanism in Nigeria is inhibited due to numerous factors, especially the menace of smugglers. For instance, despite efforts by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), through its development finance activities to raise domestic production, especially in rice production, the menace of smuggling has continued to affect local production.

On the other hand, the activities of smugglers have negative implication on Nigeria's quest to raise the badly-needed non-oil revenue to finance its budget.

According to a recent BBC report, the action of the federal government is affecting trade across the sub-region. The report further disclosed that that the bustling borders have come to a standstill, with goods rotting and queues of lorries waiting at checkpoints in the hope the crossings will reopen.

It pointed out that Nigeria's neighbours are angry, saying the smuggling of rice mainly prompted the federal government's action.

"It seems Nigeria was fed up about the flouting of its ban on the importation of rice over its land borders. Smugglers bringing in rice from Benin appeared to be making a killing. The biggest contraband route was between Cotonou, Benin's biggest city, and Nigeria's commercial hub Lagos, which is just a few hours' drive away," the BBC report added.

According to the World Bank, Benin's economy is heavily reliant on the informal re-export and transit trade with Nigeria, which accounts for about 20 per cent of its GDP, or national income.

And about 80 per cent of imports into Benin are destined for Nigeria, the bank had stated.

"Nigeria is only allowing in foreign rice through its ports - where since 2013 it has imposed a tax of 70 per cent. The move is intended not only to raise revenue, but also to encourage the local production of rice. But smugglers have been taking advantage of the fact that it is cheaper to import rice to Nigeria's neighbours.

"And Nigerians' appetite for rice is almost insatiable in a country where the grain is a staple. There was a time was when it was considered an elitist meal consumed only on Sundays. But now its affordability - plus the love for jollof rice - has made it a national dish," it added.

Furthermore, the BBC report pointed out that the Nigerian government's action was not just about rice, saying, "Benin is also a major corridor for second-hand cars to Nigeria, where there is a ban on importing cars that are more than 15 years old."

Official figures are difficult to come by, but Luxembourg-based shipping company BIM e-solutions says an average of 10,000 cars arrive at the Cotonou port from Europe monthly, it stated.

Ghana's Foreign Minister, Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey, said the country's traders had incurred huge losses because their goods had been detained for weeks at the Nigeria-Benin border.

Also, Benin's Agriculture Minister Gaston Dossouhoui, described the situation as "a distressing sight" when he visited markets in the town of Grand Popo.

"It's very difficult for our producers. It's a disaster," he was quoted by the AFP news agency as saying.

In an effort to mollify its powerful neighbour, Niger has since imposed its own ban on the exportation of rice to Nigeria.

The Comptroller General of the Nigeria Customs Service, Col. Hameed Ali (rtd.), recently said tax revenues had gone up as cargo destined for Benin was now arriving at Nigerian ports.

"One day in September, a record N9.2 billion was collected, which had "never happened before", he said.

"After the closure of the border and since then, we have maintained an average of about N4.7 billion to N5.8 billion on a daily basis, which is far more than we used to collect."

Boost for Domestic Product

To the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor, Mr. Godwin Emefiele, the gains of the border closure include boosting domestic trade, job creation and enhancing Nigeria's economic policies.

Though he said he was not an advocate of permanent border closure, Emefiele added that before the borders would eventually be re-opened, affected countries must be effectively engaged with a view to agreeing on certain terms and conditions.

Answering questions from State House correspondents in Abuja after a meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari before the president's departure to Saudi Arabia recently, Emefiele illustrated how some businesses, which he said had almost collapsed before the border closure, suddenly became productive barely a week after the closure.

He narrated the experiences of rice millers and members of the Poultry Association of Nigeria whom he said had before the closure called him to lament about low sales, only to witness a sharp rise in demand shortly after the closure.

He described smuggling of foreign products into the country as a major impediment to the growth of local industries and businesses, adding that rice and poultry businesses had been booming optimally since the borders were closed.

According to Emefiele, the closure of the borders has not only boosted businesses in the urban areas, rural areas are also bubbling because businesses such as grain production are now productive as farmers have maximised profits since the closure.

He said: "Recently, and this is the absolute truth. About two weeks before the border closure, the chairman of the Rice Processors Association, incidentally, he owns Umza Rice in Kano, called me and said that all the rice millers and processors were carrying in their warehouses nothing less than 25,000 metric tonnes of milled rice in their warehouses; that this rice had been unsold because of smuggling and dumping of rice through the Republic of Benin and other border posts that we have in the country and that he would want us to do something about it.

"Secondly, we also have members of the Poultry Association of Nigeria, who also complained that they have thousands of crates of eggs that they could not sell together with even some of the processed chickens that they could not sell, also arising from the problem of smuggling and dumping of poultry products into Nigeria."

He said he was told that after some meetings that were held in addition to those engagements that the CBN also held with the president, the border was closed subsequently.

A week after the borders were closed, he narrated, the same Rice Millers' Association called to tell the bank that all the rice that they had in their warehouses had all been sold.

"Indeed, a lot of people have been depositing money in their accounts and they have even been telling them 'please hold on don't even pay money yet until we finish processing your rice," he said.

Emefiele said the poultry association had told him that they had sold all their eggs. "They have sold all their processed chickens and that demand is rising. So, when you asked: what is the benefit, the benefit of the border closure on the economy of Nigeria? (I just used two products - poultry and rice) that it has helped to create jobs for our people. It has helped to bring our integrated rice milling that we have in the country back to business again and they are making money," he said.

The CBN governor said the rural communities were bubbling because there were activities and rice farmers were able to sell their paddy, adding that the poultry business was also doing well even as maize farmers, who produced maize from which feeds were produced were also doing business.

"These are the benefits," he emphasised.

Emefiele urged the federal government to list out terms and conditions to be met by Nigerian neighbours before the borders are re-opened.

According to him, such terms and conditions must include the kinds of commodities that can be shipped to their countries, pointing out that such commodities must be meant only for their local consumption.

He added that situations where certain commodities, after being shipped to such countries, head for Nigeria would not be acceptable as they undermine the country's economic policies, threaten the productivity of domestic industries and the desire for job creation.

According to him: "We are not saying that the borders should be closed in perpetuity, but before the borders are re-opened, there must be concrete engagements with countries that are involved in using their ports and countries as landing ports for bringing in goods that are smuggled into Nigeria.

"That engagement must be held so that we agree on the basis under which: what are the kinds of products that they can land in their countries because if they land those products in their countries, and it is meant for their own local consumption, it is understandable.

"But the fact that those products are landed in their countries and then trans-shipment of smuggled items into Nigeria is something that I am sure you all agree as Nigerians we should not allow to happen because it undermines our economic policy. It undermines our own desire to make sure that industries are alive and jobs are created in Nigeria."

FG's Position

However, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Geoffrey Onyeama, recently explained that the border was closed because of the frequency of rice smuggling into the country, pointing out that the president saw the unwholesome development as a threat to Nigeria's pursuit of food sufficiency.

According to the minister, the decision to close the borders was the fallout of a concrete search for a permanent solution to smuggling across the Nigerian borders.

Onyema added that the president believed that smuggling must be decisively dealt with particularly at this moment when Nigeria is no longer depleting its foreign reserves to secure foreign exchange for rice importation.

"The fact that our citizens can now work in rural areas, farming, it is a threat to our country to allow this smuggling to persist on that scale," he said, adding: "The president talked about the amount of money we now save by no longer having to spend our foreign reserves to buy foreign rice."

He explained that the measures were to allow the security forces to develop a strategy, to know exactly how the smugglers operate and where they operate from.

Also, the NCS said the joint security exercise at the borders would continue indefinitely until the security agencies develop the capacity to man the borders effectively.

The National Public Relations Officer of the NCS, Mr. Joseph Attah, while commenting on the matter, recently told THISDAY that, "I don't know why people think that we should be a country of all comers; anybody can just come into our country through anywhere both approved and unapproved. We are facing increased security challenges; shouldn't the security services come together and build their capacity to police these routs?"

He said the exercise would continue until the security services were satisfied they had fully developed the capacity to effectively man the borders.

On what informed the exercise, he said, "In the face of increase in security challenges in the country such as terrorism, arms smuggling, dangerous drugs and proliferation of light weapons, the Office of the National Security Adviser (NSA) put all the security agencies together to conduct an intensive patrol along our borders. The necessity for this is to ensure that our national economy and security interest are not compromised."

National Assembly's Backing

Also, the Deputy Senate President, Senator Ovie Omo-Agege, said the action of the federal government had the backing of the National Assembly.

Omo-Agege, said the initiative was in national interest and enjoys the backing of federal lawmakers.

He emphasised that there was no rationale for breaching ECOWAS' protocol, attacking Nigerians or allowing unjustified risks against Nigeria's security and economic well-being.

He stressed the need for government to be pro-active to ensure citizens' safety, adding that it focused on integration of the 15-member states' citizens through measures that include policy harmonisation, peace and security, infrastructure development, and good governance in member states.

He added: "There are however areas the parliament needs to take a closer and firmer look at; paramount is the issue of intra-regional, as well as intra-national security of member states.

"For example, there needs to a harmony between the central economic integration tenet of free movement of persons as guaranteed by Protocol A/P.1/5/79, and the rights of individual member nations to protect their interests where internal security is threatened as guaranteed in Article 10 of the ECOWAS Protocol on movement of persons which frowns at the presence of persons from another/other member country(ies) prejudicing the rules and regulations of host countries. Together with other relevant Articles of the Protocol, it guarantees the right of such host countries to take measures to redress such anomalies.

"A good example is the current conversation on Nigeria's action, consistent with the provisions of Article 10 and its sovereign right, of temporarily closing her land borders in response to serious irregularities attending the movement of goods and persons across our borders.

"We can recall that the ECOWAS Parliament in a recent resolution called on Nigeria to reopen these borders.

"Whilst we prefer to build bridges of regional integration, we agree with the government of His Excellency, President Muhammadu Buhari, that all member states have a bounden duty to comply fully with the letters and spirit of the Revised Protocol.

"That way, national and regional economies and the high aim of regional integration would be safe rather than unduly threatened by the action of Member States who breach the Protocol," Ovie Omo-Agege added

His views on the need to curb threats posed by influx of small arms, illegal activities of veterans of various armed conflicts and flagrant breach of ECOWAS Protocols prohibiting the trans-shipment of imported goods through other ECOWAS countries' borders was supported by Chairman, Senate Committee on Diaspora, NGO and Civil Societies, Senator Ajibola Bashiru.

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Discordant Tunes

But, the Director-General, Lagos Chamber of Commerce, (LCCI), Muda Yusuf, has called on the government to address the root cause of rice smuggling, rather than the border closure policy of the government. He argued that the action of the government would not be a sustainable solution.

"A lot of imports that come to the sub region come first to Nigeria and from here the imports are distributed to other countries and all that have stopped. We have people trading their products on the ETLS (products registered to be traded in the sub region), the closure of the border has stopped trading activities in the ETLS. Of course there are some benefits, but we need to count the costs.

"The gap analysis between domestic production and domestic consumption for rice is between 2.5 to three million metric tonnes annually, so how do you feed those persons? The price of local rice is expensive and the quality is not good and we have not sufficiently supported those capacities," he argued.

Also, in his reaction, the National President of the National Council of Managing Director of Licensed Customs Agents (NCMDLCA), Mr. Lucky Amiwero, had argued that borders should not be closed, saying Nigeria was not at war.

He said: "We signed an ECOWAS protocol for free movement of people. Has Nigeria complied with the procedures of ECOWAS protocol? You don't just close borders like that because the borders are actually entry point. It is just like you are closing your airports or closing your seaports.

"Nigeria has three entry points, which are airport, seaport and border stations and all these are legal stations in line with the provisions of the law and we have ECOWAS protocol and the protocol is talking about free movement of persons and goods and you have signed this protocol. If you want to do any closure, it must be a country-to-country negotiations and the issue should be done according to information, which is contained in World Trade Organisation (WTO) agreements."

But the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which noted that action has been having adverse effects on the economies of some countries in the sub-region, called for a timely resolution of the matter.

Director, African Department, IMF, Mr. Abebe Selassie, explained, "So we're very hopeful that discussions will resolve the challenges that this illegal trade is fostering. To be sure, if the border closure was to be sustained for a long time, it's going to definitely have an impact on Benin and Niger, which, of course, rely quite extensively on their big brother next door. So, we hope that there will be a resolution to that closure issue."

Indeed, the problem of smuggling and its impacts are far reaching, affecting national revenue, businesses and households.

The menace has assumed an alarming proportion and turned out to be a parallel economy, which is depriving the country of its rightful levies including excise and customs duty worth hundreds of billions of naira.

As a result of smugglers' activities, thousands of industrial units have been rendered sick as smuggled goods flood open markets. Nigeria is facing the challenge of enormous revenue leakages and black money -- its size estimated to be three time the regular economy.

The way out is for the federal government to engage the countries affected and set the rules as well as penalty for offenders, before re-opening the borders

https://allafrica.com/stories/201911040041.html

Chinese researchers develop database for rice molecular breeding

Source: Xinhua| 2019-11-02 18:19:21|Editor: Lu Hui

BEIJING, Nov. 2 (Xinhua) -- Chinese researchers have developed a knowledge base for molecular breeding of rice to facilitate the breeding of different rice varieties.

With the development of genome sequencing technology, large amounts of genomic and phenotypic data have been accumulated in the fields of crop genomic research. The integration and deep mining of these data are key for crop breeding.

Researchers from the Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology under the Chinese Academy of Sciences developed a database which integrates more than 7,000 sets of global rice re-sequencing data, large amount of rice germplasm resources information, as well as annotations of more than 13,000 rice genes, many of which are related to improved rice quality, disease-resistance and high yield.

The database also provides advanced online tools for germplasm screening, individual comparison and variation analysis.

The research also offers a reference for the database on the molecular breeding of other crops such as soybeans, wheat and corn.

The research was published in the journal Nucleic Acids Research.

http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2019-11/02/c_138523366.htm

Controversial Pesticides Are Suspected Of Starving Fish

By Dan Charles | NPR
Saturday, November 2, 2019

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3:16

Lake Shinji, near Japan's coast, is known for its beauty. Until about a decade ago, the lake was also home to thriving fisheries. New research suggests runoff of the controversial pesticides known as neonicotinoids, used on nearby rice paddies, may be responsible for declining fish populations.

Gyro Photography/amanaimagesRF / Getty Images

There's new evidence that a widely used family of pesticides called neonicotinoids, already controversial because they can be harmful to pollinators, could be risky for insects and fish that live in water, too.

The evidence comes from Lake Shinji, which lies near Japan's coast, next to the Sea of Japan.

Masumi Yamamuro, a scientist with the Geological Survey of Japan, says the lake is famous for its views of the setting sun. "It's amazingly beautiful," she says.

Lake Shinji was also the site of thriving fisheries. People harvested clams, and eels, and small fish called smelts. But, Yamamuro says, about a decade ago, people noticed that fish populations had declined drastically. "I was asked to investigate the cause of this decrease," she says.

It was a puzzle. Yamamuro says the decline in fish populations did not seem to coincide with anything that people were keeping track of, like the lake's salinity, or levels of pollution.

But she noticed something curious. One kind of fish in the lake was doing fine. This one had a more diverse diet; it could eat algae, as well as tiny insects in the water. The eels and the smelts that were dying off relied on insects and crustaceans for food. And that food source was vanishing.

"So we concluded [that] something killed the food of the eels and the smelt," Yamamuro says.

She and her colleagues now believe that they've identified the culprit: pesticides called neonicotinoids.

The evidence is circumstantial. Right around the time the fish started having problems, early in the 1990s, farmers near the lake started using these pesticides on their rice paddies to control insect pests. Yamamuro also found traces of these chemicals in some parts of the lake. Those levels, she thinks, are high enough to cause problems for tiny aquatic animals. Also, neonicotinoids kill insects, but not the algae that the thriving fish were eating.

She and her colleagues just published their findings in the journal Science.

Jason Hoverman, an ecologist at Purdue University, in Indiana, says this study doesn't really prove that neonicotinoids are guilty. There's no historical data showing levels of neonicotinoids in the lake back when the fish started to die off.

But he says that it is logical to suspect them, and the new report is a good reminder that chemicals can have really complicated effects on an ecosystem.

"When we think about chemicals, we often just go right to direct toxicity, not thinking about the food web implications; the food of the fish, and the impact of the chemicals on that food," he says.

Neonicotinoids have become really controversial in recent years. That's partly because of how widely they're used. Corn and soybean and other seeds that are coated with these pesticides are planted on close to 200 million acres of land every year. Also, neonicotinoids are extremely toxic to bees and other pollinators.

Scientists like Hoverman now are starting to pay much closer attention to the effects on insects that live in streams and rivers. "These chemicals can definitely end up in water. We apply them on land, but they don't stay on land. The question becomes, are they at levels that are high enough to cause a problem?" he says.

Hoverman says that in some cases, it looks like they may actually be causing problems. But much of the time, scientists still are searching for the answer.

http://www.capradio.org/news/npr/story?storyid=775129512

Experience Rice Creek

·       Nov 1, 2019

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OSWEGO - Experience Rice Creek on Saturday, Nov. 2, at the field station, 193 Thompson Road. Come and hear research presentations by emerging student scientists supported by Rice Creek Associates’ small grants program. Hors d’oeuvres served at 2 p.m. Presentations begin at 3 p.m. Call 315-312-6677 or visit www.oswego.edu/ricecreek for more information.

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https://www.nny360.com/news/oswegocounty/experience-rice-creek/article_d5b42db4-8e97-5dd5-895f-cfc070bf86d3.html

apanese Fisheries Collapsed Due to Pesticides, New Research Says

 Jordan Davidson

Nov. 01, 2019 03:13PM ESTANIMALS

Spraying chemicals on rice crop in Japan. Stockbyte / Getty Images

Scientists announced today that pesticide use on rice fields led to the collapse of a nearby fishery in Lake Shinji, Japan, according to a new study published in the journal Science.

The long-term study seems to have borne out the prophecy of Rachel Carson's seminal 1962 book Silent Spring, in which the author describes the nefarious trickle down effects of chemical pesticides that could "still the leaping of fish." While it is impossible to say that the use of pesticides caused the collapse of the fishery, the correlation is extremely strong.

The researchers looked at the degradation of the food chain around rice paddies after the introduction of the pesticide neonicotinoids in 1993 in Japan. The study showed an immediate decline in insect and plankton populations in Lake Shinji after the pesticide was sprayed in nearby rice fields, as The Guardian reported.

The decline in insects and plankton then led to the collapse of eel and smelt populations, which rely on the tiny insects for food. The scientists looked at other possible causes for the collapse of the smelt and eel fisheries, but those were all ruled out. The scientists say there is "compelling evidence" that neonicotinoids are the culprit, as The Guardian reported.

The pesticide has previously been linked to declines in pollinator populations. Researchers have found that it lowers the sperm count of bees and shortens their lifespan, as EcoWatch reported. Its role in colony collapse disorder and in declining butterfly populations caused the European Union to ban the world's most popular insecticide for all outdoor use in 2018, as Reuters reported.

Previous studies have also linked ripple effects of the pesticide's application to cause collapses of mayflies, dragonflies and snails. A Dutch study found that bird populations declined where the insecticide was sprayed. In that case, the absence of swallows, starlings and tree sparrows does not mean they were dying, but possibly moved to riper feeding grounds.

By contrast, the study is the first time a potential link has been shown between the insecticide and its effect on other animals, including vertebrates, according to a press release from the American Association for The Advancement of Science.

The year that the insecticide was first applied, 1993, coincided with an 83 percent decrease in the average amount of springtime plankton. A year later, the smelt harvest collapsed from 240 tons per year to just 22 tons in a single year, according to the study. Additionally, the midge, Chironomus plumosus, which smelt also feed on, was one of the worst affected bugs. It vanished completely from all 39 locations sampled in 2016, despite being abundant in 1982.

The researchers noted that Rachel Carson's book was prophetic. In their paper, The Guardian reported, the Japanese researchers said how "she wrote: 'These sprays, dusts and aerosols are now applied almost universally to farms, gardens, forests and homes – nonselective chemicals that have the power to kill every insect, the 'good' and the 'bad', to still the song of birds and the leaping of fish in the streams.' The ecological and economic impact of neonicotinoids on the inland waters of Japan confirms Carson's prophecy."

"This disruption likely also occurs elsewhere, as neonicotinoids are currently the most widely used class of insecticides globally," worth more than $3 billion per year, they said, as The Guardian reported.

The German company Bayer is the world's largest producer of neonicotinoids.

"The annihilation of humble flies and the knock on effects on fish serve as further testament to the dreadful folly of neonicotinoids," said Matt Shardlow, from the charity Buglife, to The Guardian. "Let's hope this is a wake-up call for Asian countries and they move to quickly ban the chemicals from paddyfields."

https://www.ecowatch.com/japan-fisheries-pesticides-2641188391.html?rebelltitem=1#rebelltitem1

Rice yields plummet and arsenic rises in future climate-soil scenarios

Date:

November 1, 2019

Source:

Stanford's School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences

Summary:

Research combining future climate conditions and arsenic-induced soil stresses predicts rice yields could decline about 40 percent by 2100, a loss that would impact about 2 billion people dependent on the global crop.

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Rice is the largest global staple crop, consumed by more than half the world's population -- but new experiments from Stanford University suggest that with climate change, production in major rice-growing regions with endemic soil arsenic will undergo a dramatic decline and jeopardize critical food supplies.

These experiments exploring rice production in future climate conditions show rice yields could drop about 40 percent by 2100 -- with potentially devastating consequences in parts of the world that rely on the crop as a basic food source. What's more, changes to soil processes due to increased temperatures will cause rice to contain twice as much toxic arsenic than the rice consumed today. The research was published Nov. 1 in Nature Communications.

"By the time we get to 2100, we're estimated to have approximately 10 billion people, so that would mean we have 5 billion people dependent on rice, and 2 billion who would not have access to the calories they would normally need," said co-author Scott Fendorf, the Terry Huffington Professor in Earth system science at Stanford University's School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences (Stanford Earth). "We have to be aware of these challenges that are coming so we can be ready to adapt."

The researchers specifically looked at rice because it is grown in flooded paddies that help loosen the arsenic from the soil and make it especially sensitive to arsenic uptake. While many food crops today contain small amounts of arsenic, some growing regions are more susceptible than others. Future changes in soil due to higher temperatures combined with flooded conditions cause arsenic to be taken up by rice plants at higher levels -- and using irrigation water with naturally occurring high arsenic exacerbates the problem. While these factors will not affect all global commodities in the same way, they do extend to other flood-grown crops, like taro and lotus.

"I just didn't expect the magnitude of impact on rice yield we observed," said Fendorf, who is also a senior fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment. "What I missed was how much the soil biogeochemistry would respond to increased temperature, how that would amplify plant-available arsenic, and then -- coupled with the temperature stress -- how that would really impact the plant."

A naturally occurring, semi-metallic chemical, arsenic is found in most soils and sediments, but is generally in a form that doesn't get taken up by plants. Chronic exposure to arsenic leads to skin lesions, cancers, aggravation of lung disease and, ultimately, death. It is especially concerning in rice not only because of its global significance, but also because the low-allergen food is often introduced early to infants.

"I think this problem is also crucial for people that have young kids in our society," said lead author E. Marie Muehe, a former postdoctoral scholar at Stanford and now at the University of Tübingen, Germany. "Because infants are a lot smaller than we are, if they eat rice, that means that they take up more arsenic relative to their body weight."

Climate simulations

The researchers created future climate conditions in greenhouses based on estimates of a possible 5 degree Celsius temperature increase and twice as much atmospheric carbon dioxide by 2100, as projected by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

While previous research examined the impacts of increasing temperature in the context of the global food crisis, this study was the first to account for soil conditions in combination with shifts in climate.

For the experiments, the group grew a medium-grain rice variety in soil from the rice-growing region of California. The greenhouses were controlled for temperature, carbon dioxide concentrations and soil arsenic levels, which will be higher in the future due to its buildup in soils from irrigating crops with arsenic-contaminated water, a problem that is worsened by over-pumping groundwater.

"We don't often think about this, but soil is alive -- it's teeming with bacteria and a lot of different microorganisms," Fendorf said. "It turns out those microorganisms determine whether the arsenic stays partitioned onto the minerals and away from the plants or comes off the minerals into the water phase."

The researchers found that with increased temperatures, microorganisms destabilized more of the soil's inherent arsenic, leading to greater amounts of the toxin in the soil water that is available for uptake by the rice. Once taken up, arsenic inhibits nutrient absorption and decreases plant growth and development, factors that contributed to the 40 percent decrease in yield the scientists observed.

Early warning, future planning

While the dramatic loss in production is a major cause for concern, the scientists are hopeful that this research will help producers find potential solutions for feeding the world.

"The good news is that given past advances in terms of the global community's ability to breed varieties that can adapt to new conditions, along with revisions to soil management, I'm optimistic we can get around the problems observed in our study," Fendorf said. "I'm also optimistic that as we continue to shine a light on the threats resulting from a 5 degree Celsius change, society will adopt practices to ensure we never reach that degree of warming."

As next steps, Fendorf, co-author Tianmei Wang and Muehe hope to asses rice yields on a global scale by using remote sensing to pinpoint contaminated rice paddies in order to model future yields and arsenic contamination.

"This is most likely to be a problem where most rice is consumed, so we think about South and East Asia," said Wang, a PhD candidate in Earth system science. "Especially for people like my dad -- he consumes rice three times a day and he just cannot live without it."

Fendorf is also a member of the Maternal & Child Health Research Institute (MCHRI). Researchers from the Bayreuth Center for Ecology and Environmental Research at the University of Bayreuth, Germany, are co-authors on the study.

The research was funded by the Marie Sklodowska Curie Action Fellowship of the European Commission, the U.S. Department of Energy, the National Institutes of Health, National Institute of General Medical Sciences.

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Story Source:

Materials provided by Stanford's School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences. Original written by Danielle T. Tucker. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

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Journal Reference:

1.     E. Marie Muehe, Tianmei Wang, Carolin F. Kerl, Britta Planer-Friedrich & Scott Fendorf. Rice production threatened by coupled stresses of climate and soil arsenic. Nature Communications, 2019 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-12946-4

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Stanford's School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences. "Rice yields plummet and arsenic rises in future climate-soil scenarios." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 1 November 2019. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/11/191101081958.htm>.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/11/191101081958.htm

Daily Trust Agric Conference begins November 26 By Hussein Yahaya | Published Date Nov 3, 2019 3:03 AM TwitterFacebookWhatsAppTelegram The third edition of the Daily Trust Agric Conference and Exhibition will hold between November 26 and 27 at the Federal Palace Hotel, Victoria Island, Lagos. The conference, titled Repositioning Rice, Sugar and Dairy Production for Optimal Yield, is expected to tackle critical issues affecting rice, sugar and dairy production in the country, with the view of increasing output. ADVERTISEMENT Mr Emmanuel Ijewere, the co-chairman, Nigeria Agribusiness Group, is expected to chair the event, while the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Alhaji Muhammadu Sabo Nanono will be the special guest of honour. ADVERTISEMENT OVER 5,000 NIGERIAN MEN HAVE  OVERCOME POOR BEDROOM PERFORMANCE SYNDROME DUE TO THIS BRILLIANT DISCOVERY Stakeholders in the agricultural sector, including federal and state ministries; Agric development programmes/projects; the Raw Material Research and Development Council (RMRDC); the National Quarantine Service; Agric Research Council; Agric Research Institutes and the National Sugar Development Council, are expected to participate in the event. Others expected at the event include agro-allied industries, agrochemical industries, commercial banks, development partners, development banks, rice millers association, paddy rice dealers, and other interested parties. The event will begin at 9:30am daily. Related Daily Trust’s 2nd Agric conference begins Dec 14 Abdulsalami, Ogbeh, Otudeko, Adamu for Daily Trust Agric confab Daily Trust agric confab begins tomorrow Dear Readers, Kindly take one minute (1) of your time to fill out this short question. This questionnaire is designed to sample readers' opinions regarding what the feel about Daily Trust newspaper advertisement; it is not intended to used for any purpose other than to improve the quality of our newspapers. Any information provided will therefore be treated as confidential.

Read more: https://www.dailytrust.com.ng/daily-trust-agric-conference-begins-november-26.html

Exposed: How Customs Paraded 2016 Seized Rice Containers as 2019 Seizures, Alleges Masters Energy

November 3, 2019 4:30 am

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A recent claim by the Nigeria Customs Service that it seized 33 containers of rice from Masters Energy, whereas the seizure was made in 2016 shows that several other claims of seizures made by the service over the years leave much to be desired, writes Eromosele Abiodun

As customary to Nigeria’s security services, the Nigeria Customs Service paraded containers of rice it claimed to have seized last October. Customs’ Comptroller-General, Col. Hameed Ali (retd), while parading 54 containers of spoilt rice and other commodities, including fake pharmaceutical products and vegetable oil worth about N2.7 billion in Lagos, said: “One significant finding about this seizure is that all the rice have expired or about to expire.”

The retired army colonel claimed the rice was re-bagged as local products, though they were from China and Thailand.
A closer look at the bags shows that they bore Masters Energy with GRA Ikeja, Lagos and another, Dr. Chang by Yunfei International Trading Co Limited in Jabi, Abuja as companies and addresses, respectively.

However, as the dust had yet to settle over the claim by the customs that 33 of the 54 containers were rotten rice, the issue drew the ire of industry stakeholders and observers, who maintained that the rice was seized in 2016 and had rotten in custody.
Ali had while addressing journalists in Lagos on Tuesday stated that 33 containers of expired and spoilt rice, alongside 11 containers of unregistered pharmaceutical products, two containers of used tires, four containers of refined vegetable oil in retail packs, were seized at the Tin-Can Island ports by the Tin-Can Customs Command.

Masters Energy Commodities Trading Limited and others would be investigated over connections to the seized expired bags of rice, he had threatened.

Ali stated that in all, 54 containers comprising of 15 by 40ft and 39 by 20ft containers with a duty paid value of N2,713,865,051.00 were seized in line with the provisions of the Customs & Excise Management Act (CEMA) Cap C45 LFN 2004 section 46 and 161.

“One significant finding of this seizure is that all the rice are expired or about to expire. Also remarkable is the seizures of Tramadol variants and unregistered performance-enhancing drugs among the pharmaceutical.
“You will recall that in the past, the service has raised the alarm and drew the attention of the general public to the fact that most of the imported rice is expired.

“Some of the rice allegedly imported from overseas had Nigerian addresses, and the service will be going after these addresses to investigate their connections to the importation of these expired rice. Some of the addresses include Masters Energy Commodities Trading Limited located at 31A, Remi Fani-Kayode Street, GRA, Ikeja, Lagos and 103, Ebitu Ukiwe Street, Jabi, Abuja. We will be going after these addresses and investigating their connections with these expired bags of rice in 33 containers.

“I want to commend officers and men of the Tin-Can Island Port Command of the NCS for a job well done. I am also aware of the commands contribution to the Service revenue collection drive. Statistics in my office shows the command has so far collected N286,742,551,443.00 from January 2019 till date. I, therefore, urge the Command to keep up the good work and possibly surpass its target,” explained the Customs boss.

Seizure That Never Was

However, a source in Masters Energy told THISDAY that the product was impounded in 2016, wondering what the Customs hoped to achieve by parading same items as imported spoilt goods three years later.

THISDAY learnt that Masters Energy Commodity Trading Limited had without being compelled to, petitioned the House Committee on Customs Excise and Tariff, that its agent made false declaration in order to cut tariff for the 30 containers of rice. It had also indicated willingness to pay but the NCS curiously turned down their request.

The letter, signed by the then Managing Director, Mr. Chukwudi Otigba, said: “Sometimes in May 2016, we entered into a business transaction with a Thailand company known as Asia Inter Trade Rice Export Co Limited, for the importation of 30 containers of Thai Parboiled Rice to be delivered at the Tin Can Island Port, Apapa, Lagos as contained in the bill of laden.

“We contracted Destiny Impex Limited, a clearing company registered and licensed by customs with registration number…. As our clearing agent to clear the 30 containers of rice in accordance with Customs tariff and classifications.”

During the parade of the seized containers last week, Ali neither mentioned when the consignment was intercepted nor who imported the rice, as all efforts to ascertain the date of interception proved abortive.

This, analysts asserted, was deliberately done to make it look like the closure of the border was yielding positive results.
In a swift response to Customs’ claims, lawyer to Masters Energy, Monday Ubani, said there was no truth in Ali’s claims.

Ubani stated, “I do not know how many of you listened to this piece of news yesterday in various television channels and radio stations where the Comptroller General, Retired Col Ahmed Ali, showed 54 containers of spoilt rice and other commodities including fake pharmaceutical products and vegetable oil allegedly worth 2.7 billion Naira in Lagos. According to him “One significant finding about this seizure is that all the rice have expired or about to expire”. The retired army colonel said that the rice was re-bagged as local ones even they were coming all the way from China and Thailand. There is no single truth in what Col. Ahmed Ali was trying to make the whole world to believe in the said press conference.

“If you Google, you will find out that sometime in 2016 it was widely reported in the news that about 30 containers of rice belonging and imported by Masters Energy Commodity Trading Limited through Nigerian port, Tin Can Island, Apapa were impounded for failure to pay the correct tariff when clearing them by the Customs’ licensed agent. It was even reported that Masters Energy then petitioned the House Committee on Customs, Excise and Tariff that its agent Messrs Destiny Impex Limited, a clearing company registered and licensed by the Customs made a false declaration in order to cut tariffs for the 30 containers of rice.

“The company indicated willingness to pay the correct tariff as the agent was paid full money but decided to cut down the tariffs in order to avoid paying full value of the tariffs. This request was turned down and the company was later informed through anonymous source that the same rice had been shared to the internally displaced persons’ homes in northern Nigeria. It is important we point out here that this parboiled rice was purchased from Thailand from a company known as Asia Inter Trade Rice Export Co, Limited with a disclosed address and there is bill of lading to that effect.”

He disclosed further that the quantity the company imported were 60 containers but 30 containers were seized due to the under declaration by the agent while the remaining 30 containers arrived later at the port by which time the federal government had put rice as one of the famous 41 Items that will not enjoy forex of the Central Bank of Nigeria.
Because of the policy the remaining 30 containers remained uncleared and abandoned.

Ubani added: “We have letter from Customs Authority asking Masters Energy to seek the approval of Central Bank of Nigeria before they could clear the remaining rice. These events took place in 2016.
“The issues begging for questions really with this emergency press briefing by the retired colonel are as follows: Why was it convenient for the Comptroller General to withhold the date of the said interception? These containers belonging to Masters Energy was impounded since 2016.

“What point did the comptroller-ceneral of Customs want to achieve by this emergency press briefing in 2019 over a seizure that was made in 2016 and already in the news? Is it to prove to the gullible Nigerians that Nigerian Customs Service that is under ‘heavy fire’ for its excesses is really working and saving Nigeria’s economy?

“What was also intended to be achieved by saying that the rice has expired or about to expire when it failed to disclose when the seizure was done and whether the life span of rice was supposed to be forever?”
Continuing, he said, “That Nigeria should clap for the comptroller-general, who has wasted such quantity of rice that should have been donated to the internally displaced people in Nigeria, who are dying of hunger every day? Why do we choose to run government by sheer propaganda in this Internet age where lies and falsehood can easily be detected by discernible minds?”

Controversy Galore

The NCS seems to like controversy. This is because before the disputed seizure was announced last week, a directive by the customs management in Abuja had unsettled shipping agents and stakeholders in the maritime sector,

The CG of Customs had recently directed that 100 percent examination should be conducted on cargoes destined for inland ports in the country including the Kaduna Inland Dry Port (KIDP).

He said: “All importation are to be unsealed, opened, examined to ascertain the contents and resealed before exiting the mother port. Such consignment shall be escorted by the FOU Escort Personnel to their various destinations without compromise.”
But shippers and importers in the country, who have benefited from the services of these inland ports, especially KIDP, raised concerns over the order saying it negates international best practices.

The stakeholders, which also include freight forwarders, asserted that the directive would amount to multiple screening or examination of cargoes meant for the inland ports since officials of federal agencies such as the NCS are also at the dry ports to carry out proper examination of the cargoes.

Speaking on the matter, the President of Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents, Tony Uju Nwabunike, cautioned the NCS, saying that such a directive will affect trade facilitation.

He said: “I think we (ANLCA) should look into the principles and guidelines that cover transit cargoes to see if it is proper, but we will send a position to the government through the Customs on the issue.

We think if there is any reason to take that decision, they should go through the principles of import guidelines as they affect dry ports.

“So many of our members that are into exports have said if that is the case, there is no need for a second examination of cargoes. The Customs, from the grapevine, said they just want to open to know what is inside the containers and re-seal them. But whichever way it is, it will be much clearer in a number of days now.”

https://www.thisdaylive.com/index.php/2019/11/03/exposed-how-customs-paraded-2016-seized-rice-containers-as-2019-seizures-alleges-masters-energy/

Customs, importer disagree over seized containers of rice

Published November 3, 2019

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Anna Okon

The Nigeria Customs Service and Masters Energy Commodities Trading Limited, owners of some of the containers of rice recently seized by the former, have disagreed over the dates when the seizures were made.

While the Customs on Friday insisted that the rice containers were recently impounded, the importer, Masters Energy, said they were seized by the NCS in 2016, about three years before the current partial closure of land borders by the Federal Government.

On October 29, the NCS had announced that it impounded 52 containers of banned goods worth N2.7bn smuggled through the Tin Can Island Port in Lagos.

While announcing the seizure, the Comptroller General of the NCS, Col Hameed Ali (retd), disclosed that 34 of the 52 containers had rice in them.

He said the border closure had prompted smugglers to route some banned items through the seaports.

He said since certificate (Form M) had not been issued by the Central Bank of Nigeria for importation of rice since 2015, any rice that came through the seaport must have been smuggled.

Ali also disclosed that some of the rice had expired while others were about to expire.

A day after the story broke, Masters Energy responded through its lawyer, Mr Monday Ubani, that it imported the rice and was seized in 2016 and not 2019 as claimed by the Customs boss.

Reports quoted Ubani as saying that the rice containers were impounded in 2016 due to the inability of the company’s clearing agent to pay the correct tariff on the commodity.

“It was even reported that Masters Energy then petitioned the House Committee on Customs, Excise and Tariff that its agent Messrs Destiny Impex Limited, a clearing company registered and licensed by the Customs made a false declaration in order to cut tariffs for the 30 containers of rice,” the lawyer stated.

Ubani said Masters Energy had offered to pay the correct tariff on the rice since the agent had been paid the full amount but decided to cut down the amount and pay lower tariff.

The firm, according to him, was told that the rice had already been distributed to the Internally Displaced Persons homes.

He said 60 containers of rice were imported and they came in two batches. Thirty containers were seized at first and the remaining 30 arrived later.

However, by the time the remaining 30 containers came in, the CBN had added rice on its list of 41 items not eligible for foreign exchange.

He said due to this policy, the 30 containers were abandoned and not cleared, adding that the Customs had written to them asking them to seek CBN’s permission to have the containers cleared.

But sources at the Customs had said that the rice containers were seized between 2018 and 2019 and that Masters Energy is not the owners of all the impounded containers of rice.

On Friday, the spokesperson for the NCS, Joseph Attah, who had earlier addressed the issue in the report, issued a statement confirming that in 2016/2017, 30 containers of rice declared as yeast by Masters Energy were seized and distributed to the IDPs.

He said out of the 33 containers of rice unveiled by Ali on October 29, only 25 containers belonged to Masters Energy.

He said, “The discovery of these containers stacked in the terminal came as a result of painstaking profiling of unutilised bills of lading and undisclosed manifests which led to the physical discovery of these containers with expired rice.

“It should be noted that when goods are imported but not declared, they are not yet brought to the Customs’ attention, hence cannot exit the port unless the owners succeed in compromising port officials and operatives to smuggle them out. This was not (or could not) be the case here.”

Attah also said, “Containers have distinct identities (numbers); so they cannot be mixed (up) to confuse the public. We have the numbers of those falsely declared as yeast and seized then and these (25 in reference) are containers that were not declared and have been fished out through profiling. They are distinct and clear for any well-meaning individual to understand.”

He added that the lists of the seizures for 2016 and 2019 showing dates of the seizures were available for all to see.

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https://punchng.com/customs-importer-disagree-over-seized-containers-of-rice/

Controversial Pesticides Are Suspected Of Starving Fish

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November 2, 20197:57 AM ET

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DAN CHARLES

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Lake Shinji, near Japan's coast, is known for its beauty. Until about a decade ago, the lake was also home to thriving fisheries. New research suggests runoff of the controversial pesticides known as neonicotinoids, used on nearby rice paddies, may be responsible for declining fish populations.

Gyro Photography/amanaimagesRF/Getty Images

There's new evidence that a widely used family of pesticides called neonicotinoids, already controversial because they can be harmful to pollinators, could be risky for insects and fish that live in water, too.

The evidence comes from Lake Shinji, which lies near Japan's coast, next to the Sea of Japan.

Masumi Yamamuro, a scientist with the Geological Survey of Japan, says the lake is famous for its views of the setting sun. "It's amazingly beautiful," she says.

Lake Shinji was also the site of thriving fisheries. People harvested clams, and eels, and small fish called smelts. But, Yamamuro says, about a decade ago, people noticed that fish populations had declined drastically. "I was asked to investigate the cause of this decrease," she says.

It was a puzzle. Yamamuro says the decline in fish populations did not seem to coincide with anything that people were keeping track of, like the lake's salinity, or levels of pollution.

But she noticed something curious. One kind of fish in the lake was doing fine. This one had a more diverse diet; it could eat algae, as well as tiny insects in the water. The eels and the smelts that were dying off relied on insects and crustaceans for food. And that food source was vanishing.

"So we concluded [that] something killed the food of the eels and the smelt," Yamamuro says.

She and her colleagues now believe that they've identified the culprit: pesticides called neonicotinoids.

The evidence is circumstantial. Right around the time the fish started having problems, early in the 1990s, farmers near the lake started using these pesticides on their rice paddies to control insect pests. Yamamuro also found traces of these chemicals in some parts of the lake. Those levels, she thinks, are high enough to cause problems for tiny aquatic animals. Also, neonicotinoids kill insects, but not the algae that the thriving fish were eating.

She and her colleagues just published their findings in the journal Science.

Jason Hoverman, an ecologist at Purdue University, in Indiana, says this study doesn't really prove that neonicotinoids are guilty. There's no historical data showing levels of neonicotinoids in the lake back when the fish started to die off.

But he says that it is logical to suspect them, and the new report is a good reminder that chemicals can have really complicated effects on an ecosystem.

"When we think about chemicals, we often just go right to direct toxicity, not thinking about the food web implications; the food of the fish, and the impact of the chemicals on that food," he says.

Neonicotinoids have become really controversial in recent years. That's partly because of how widely they're used. Corn and soybean and other seeds that are coated with these pesticides are planted on close to 200 million acres of land every year. Also, neonicotinoids are extremely toxic to bees and other pollinators.

Scientists like Hoverman now are starting to pay much closer attention to the effects on insects that live in streams and rivers. "These chemicals can definitely end up in water. We apply them on land, but they don't stay on land. The question becomes, are they at levels that are high enough to cause a problem?" he says.

Hoverman says that in some cases, it looks like they may actually be causing problems. But much of the time, scientists still are searching for the answer.

https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2019/11/02/775129512/controversial-pesticides-are-suspected-of-starving-fish

Border Closure and War against Smuggling

November 3, 2019 2:41 am

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Smuggling of goods, which was the major reasons for the recent closure of Nigeria’s land borders, poses serious threat to the economy, discourages investments and destroys innovation, writes Obinna Chima

The impact of the decision by the federal government to close all its land borders two months ago to tackle smuggling is one of the most-talked-about issues in the sub-region today. Reports show that those in the business of smuggling have continued to suffer huge losses.

Even though commentators have continued to weigh the merits and demerits of the government’s action, both the fiscal and monetary policy authorities strongly believe that it would positively impact the Nigerian economy.

This is just as it has been disclosed that since the borders were closed, the government has seized over N2.3 trillion worth of contraband.

The exercise, code-named Exercise Swift Response, is being coordinated by the Office of the National Security Adviser, the Nigeria Customs Service, the Nigeria Immigration Service, the Nigeria Police Force and the Army.

Clearly, monetary policy transmission mechanism in Nigeria is inhibited due to numerous factors, especially the menace of smugglers. For instance, despite efforts by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), through its development finance activities to raise domestic production, especially in rice production, the menace of smuggling has continued to affect local production.

On the other hand, the activities of smugglers have negative implication on Nigeria’s quest to raise the badly-needed non-oil revenue to finance its budget.

According to a recent BBC report, the action of the federal government is affecting trade across the sub-region. The report further disclosed that that the bustling borders have come to a standstill, with goods rotting and queues of lorries waiting at checkpoints in the hope the crossings will reopen.

It pointed out that Nigeria’s neighbours are angry, saying the smuggling of rice mainly prompted the federal government’s action.

“It seems Nigeria was fed up about the flouting of its ban on the importation of rice over its land borders. Smugglers bringing in rice from Benin appeared to be making a killing. The biggest contraband route was between Cotonou, Benin’s biggest city, and Nigeria’s commercial hub Lagos, which is just a few hours’ drive away,” the BBC report added.

According to the World Bank, Benin’s economy is heavily reliant on the informal re-export and transit trade with Nigeria, which accounts for about 20 per cent of its GDP, or national income.

And about 80 per cent of imports into Benin are destined for Nigeria, the bank had stated.

“Nigeria is only allowing in foreign rice through its ports – where since 2013 it has imposed a tax of 70 per cent. The move is intended not only to raise revenue, but also to encourage the local production of rice. But smugglers have been taking advantage of the fact that it is cheaper to import rice to Nigeria’s neighbours.

“And Nigerians’ appetite for rice is almost insatiable in a country where the grain is a staple. There was a time was when it was considered an elitist meal consumed only on Sundays. But now its affordability – plus the love for jollof rice – has made it a national dish,” it added.

Furthermore, the BBC report pointed out that the Nigerian government’s action was not just about rice, saying, “Benin is also a major corridor for second-hand cars to Nigeria, where there is a ban on importing cars that are more than 15 years old.”

Official figures are difficult to come by, but Luxembourg-based shipping company BIM e-solutions says an average of 10,000 cars arrive at the Cotonou port from Europe monthly, it stated.

Ghana’s Foreign Minister, Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey, said the country’s traders had incurred huge losses because their goods had been detained for weeks at the Nigeria-Benin border.

Also, Benin’s Agriculture Minister Gaston Dossouhoui, described the situation as “a distressing sight” when he visited markets in the town of Grand Popo.

“It’s very difficult for our producers. It’s a disaster,” he was quoted by the AFP news agency as saying.

In an effort to mollify its powerful neighbour, Niger has since imposed its own ban on the exportation of rice to Nigeria.

The Comptroller General of the Nigeria Customs Service, Col. Hameed Ali (rtd.), recently said tax revenues had gone up as cargo destined for Benin was now arriving at Nigerian ports.

“One day in September, a record N9.2 billion was collected, which had “never happened before”, he said.

“After the closure of the border and since then, we have maintained an average of about N4.7 billion to N5.8 billion on a daily basis, which is far more than we used to collect.”

 Boost for Domestic Product

To the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor, Mr. Godwin Emefiele, the gains of the border closure include boosting domestic trade, job creation and enhancing Nigeria’s economic policies.

Though he said he was not an advocate of permanent border closure, Emefiele added that before the borders would eventually be re-opened, affected countries must be effectively engaged with a view to agreeing on certain terms and conditions.

Answering questions from State House correspondents in Abuja after a meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari before the president’s departure to Saudi Arabia recently, Emefiele illustrated how some businesses, which he said had almost collapsed before the border closure, suddenly became productive barely a week after the closure.

He narrated the experiences of rice millers and members of the Poultry Association of Nigeria whom he said had before the closure called him to lament about low sales, only to witness a sharp rise in demand shortly after the closure.

He described smuggling of foreign products into the country as a major impediment to the growth of local industries and businesses, adding that rice and poultry businesses had been booming optimally since the borders were closed.

According to Emefiele, the closure of the borders has not only boosted businesses in the urban areas, rural areas are also bubbling because businesses such as grain production are now productive as farmers have maximised profits since the closure.

He said: “Recently, and this is the absolute truth. About two weeks before the border closure, the chairman of the Rice Processors Association, incidentally, he owns Umza Rice in Kano, called me and said that all the rice millers and processors were carrying in their warehouses nothing less than 25,000 metric tonnes of milled rice in their warehouses; that this rice had been unsold because of smuggling and dumping of rice through the Republic of Benin and other border posts that we have in the country and that he would want us to do something about it.

“Secondly, we also have members of the Poultry Association of Nigeria, who also complained that they have thousands of crates of eggs that they could not sell together with even some of the processed chickens that they could not sell, also arising from the problem of smuggling and dumping of poultry products into Nigeria.”

He said he was told that after some meetings that were held in addition to those engagements that the CBN also held with the president, the border was closed subsequently.

A week after the borders were closed, he narrated, the same Rice Millers’ Association called to tell the bank that all the rice that they had in their warehouses had all been sold.

“Indeed, a lot of people have been depositing money in their accounts and they have even been telling them ‘please hold on don’t even pay money yet until we finish processing your rice,” he said.

Emefiele said the poultry association had told him that they had sold all their eggs. “They have sold all their processed chickens and that demand is rising. So, when you asked: what is the benefit, the benefit of the border closure on the economy of Nigeria? (I just used two products – poultry and rice) that it has helped to create jobs for our people. It has helped to bring our integrated rice milling that we have in the country back to business again and they are making money,” he said.

The CBN governor said the rural communities were bubbling because there were activities and rice farmers were able to sell their paddy, adding that the poultry business was also doing well even as maize farmers, who produced maize from which feeds were produced were also doing business.

“These are the benefits,” he emphasised.

Emefiele urged the federal government to list out terms and conditions to be met by Nigerian neighbours before the borders are re-opened.

According to him, such terms and conditions must include the kinds of commodities that can be shipped to their countries, pointing out that such commodities must be meant only for their local consumption.

He added that situations where certain commodities, after being shipped to such countries, head for Nigeria would not be acceptable as they undermine the country’s economic policies, threaten the productivity of domestic industries and the desire for job creation.

According to him: “We are not saying that the borders should be closed in perpetuity, but before the borders are re-opened, there must be concrete engagements with countries that are involved in using their ports and countries as landing ports for bringing in goods that are smuggled into Nigeria.

“That engagement must be held so that we agree on the basis under which: what are the kinds of products that they can land in their countries because if they land those products in their countries, and it is meant for their own local consumption, it is understandable.

“But the fact that those products are landed in their countries and then trans-shipment of smuggled items into Nigeria is something that I am sure you all agree as Nigerians we should not allow to happen because it undermines our economic policy. It undermines our own desire to make sure that industries are alive and jobs are created in Nigeria.”

FG’s Position

However, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Geoffrey Onyeama, recently explained that the border was closed because of the frequency of rice smuggling into the country, pointing out that the president saw the unwholesome development as a threat to Nigeria’s pursuit of food sufficiency.

According to the minister, the decision to close the borders was the fallout of a concrete search for a permanent solution to smuggling across the Nigerian borders.

Onyema added that the president believed that smuggling must be decisively dealt with particularly at this moment when Nigeria is no longer depleting its foreign reserves to secure foreign exchange for rice importation.

“The fact that our citizens can now work in rural areas, farming, it is a threat to our country to allow this smuggling to persist on that scale,” he said, adding: “The president talked about the amount of money we now save by no longer having to spend our foreign reserves to buy foreign rice.”

He explained that the measures were to allow the security forces to develop a strategy, to know exactly how the smugglers operate and where they operate from.

Also, the NCS said the joint security exercise at the borders would continue indefinitely until the security agencies develop the capacity to man the borders effectively.

The National Public Relations Officer of the NCS, Mr. Joseph Attah, while commenting on the matter, recently told THISDAY that, “I don’t know why people think that we should be a country of all comers; anybody can just come into our country through anywhere both approved and unapproved. We are facing increased security challenges; shouldn’t the security services come together and build their capacity to police these routs?”

He said the exercise would continue until the security services were satisfied they had fully developed the capacity to effectively man the borders.

On what informed the exercise, he said, “In the face of increase in security challenges in the country such as terrorism, arms smuggling, dangerous drugs and proliferation of light weapons, the Office of the National Security Adviser (NSA) put all the security agencies together to conduct an intensive patrol along our borders. The necessity for this is to ensure that our national economy and security interest are not compromised.”

National Assembly’s Backing

Also, the Deputy Senate President, Senator Ovie Omo-Agege, said the action of the federal government had the backing of the National Assembly.

Omo-Agege, said the initiative was in national interest and enjoys the backing of federal lawmakers.

He emphasised that there was no rationale for breaching ECOWAS’ protocol, attacking Nigerians or allowing unjustified risks against Nigeria’s security and economic well-being.

He stressed the need for government to be pro-active to ensure citizens’ safety, adding that it focused on integration of the 15-member states’ citizens through measures that include policy harmonisation, peace and security, infrastructure development, and good governance in member states.

He added: “There are however areas the parliament needs to take a closer and firmer look at; paramount is the issue of intra-regional, as well as intra-national security of member states.

“For example, there needs to a harmony between the central economic integration tenet of free movement of persons as guaranteed by Protocol A/P.1/5/79, and the rights of individual member nations to protect their interests where internal security is threatened as guaranteed in  Article 10 of the ECOWAS Protocol on movement of persons which frowns at the presence of persons from another/other member country(ies) prejudicing the rules and regulations of host countries. Together with other relevant Articles of the Protocol, it guarantees the right of such host countries to take measures to redress such anomalies.

“A good example is the current conversation on Nigeria’s action, consistent with the provisions of Article 10 and its sovereign right, of temporarily closing her land borders in response to serious irregularities attending the movement of goods and persons across our borders.

“We can recall that the ECOWAS Parliament in a recent resolution called on Nigeria to reopen these borders.

“Whilst we prefer to build bridges of regional integration, we agree with the government of His Excellency, President Muhammadu Buhari,  that all member states have a bounden duty to comply fully with the letters and spirit of the Revised Protocol.

“That way, national and regional economies and the high aim of regional integration would be safe rather than unduly threatened by the action of Member States who breach the Protocol,” Ovie Omo-Agege added

His views on the need to curb threats posed by influx of small arms, illegal activities of veterans of various armed conflicts and flagrant breach of ECOWAS Protocols prohibiting the trans-shipment of imported goods through other ECOWAS countries’ borders was supported by Chairman, Senate Committee on Diaspora, NGO and Civil Societies, Senator Ajibola Bashiru.

 Discordant Tunes

But, the Director-General, Lagos Chamber of Commerce, (LCCI), Muda Yusuf, has called on the government to address the root cause of rice smuggling, rather than the border closure policy of the government. He argued that the action of the government would not be a sustainable solution.

 “A lot of imports that come to the sub region come first to Nigeria and from here the imports are distributed to other countries and all that have stopped. We have people trading their products on the ETLS (products registered to be traded in the sub region), the closure of the border has stopped trading activities in the ETLS. Of course there are some benefits, but we need to count the costs.

“The gap analysis between domestic production and domestic consumption for rice is between 2.5 to three million metric tonnes annually, so how do you feed those persons? The price of local rice is expensive and the quality is not good and we have not sufficiently supported those capacities,” he argued.

Also, in his reaction, the National President of the National Council of Managing Director of Licensed Customs Agents (NCMDLCA), Mr. Lucky Amiwero, had argued that borders should not be closed, saying Nigeria was not at war.

He said: “We signed an ECOWAS protocol for free movement of people. Has Nigeria complied with the procedures of ECOWAS protocol? You don’t just close borders like that because the borders are actually entry point. It is just like you are closing your airports or closing your seaports.

“Nigeria has three entry points, which are airport, seaport and border stations and all these are legal stations in line with the provisions of the law and we have ECOWAS protocol and the protocol is talking about free movement of persons and goods and you have signed this protocol. If you want to do any closure, it must be a country-to-country negotiations and the issue should be done according to information, which is contained in World Trade Organisation (WTO) agreements.”

But the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which noted that action has been having adverse effects on the economies of some countries in the sub-region, called for a timely resolution of the matter.

Director, African Department, IMF, Mr. Abebe Selassie, explained, “So we’re very hopeful that discussions will resolve the challenges that this illegal trade is fostering. To be sure, if the border closure was to be sustained for a long time, it’s going to definitely have an impact on Benin and Niger, which, of course, rely quite extensively on their big brother next door. So, we hope that there will be a resolution to that closure issue.”

Indeed, the problem of smuggling and its impacts are far reaching, affecting national revenue, businesses and households.

The menace has assumed an alarming proportion and turned out to be a parallel economy, which is depriving the country of its rightful levies including excise and customs duty worth hundreds of billions of naira.

As a result of smugglers’ activities, thousands of industrial units have been rendered sick as smuggled goods flood open markets. Nigeria is facing the challenge of enormous revenue leakages and black money — its size estimated to be three time the regular economy.

The way out is for the federal government to engage the countries affected and set the rules as well as penalty for offenders, before re-opening the borders.

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theSun teams win consolation prize at DRB-Hicom media bowling session

CINDI LOO /

03 NOV 2019 / 08:55 H.

Both teams in theSun were all smiles as they bagged the consolation prize of RM200 at the DRB-Hicom media bowling session

PETALING JAYA: Two teams from theSun were all smiles as they bagged the consolation prizes at the DRB-Hicom media bowling competition held at eCurve, Mutiara Damansara today.

Each team received RM200 in cash vouchers, having scored 1090 and 1189 points.

The Strike Force Bernama team were crowned champions, after scoring 1900 points. They walked away with RM2,000 in cash vouchers.

Hero Malaya Bernama’s 1,831 points haul was enough to secure them a runners-up spot, and RM1,600 in cash vouchers.

Several other participants won lucky draw prizes which included basmati rice, luggage, and food hampers.

This is the second time this year that DRB-Hicom has conducted this bowling competition for media companies to participate in.

“It is a chance for us to network with the media and to give them a different experience outside of their regular work routine in the office,“ said DRB-Hicom Group Strategic Communications Head Mahmood Abdul Razak.

A total of 11 teams participated in this bowling competition.

https://www.thesundaily.my/local/thesun-teams-win-consolation-prize-at-drb-hicom-media-bowling-session-DF1564894

Bumper paddy crop raises storage woes in Telangana

Roushan Ali | TNN | Updated: Nov 3, 2019, 9:47 IST

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HYDERABAD: Widespread rains, water supply from irrigation projects, 24x7 power supply, minimum support price, Rythu Bandhu and other farmer welfare schemes have resulted in bumper crop this kharif in Telangana.
As against 42 lakh metric tonnes (MTs) of paddy in kharif season last year, this time 65 lakh MTs of paddy is being expected. However, the bumper crop is also bringing with it its own problems. The state is faced with the huge task of making arrangements for storage of 65 lakh MTs of paddy.

Officials said the storage capacity in government, private and Food Corporation of India godowns in Telangana is 40 lakh MTs. Though the entire paddy won’t be procured and brought to godowns in one go, officials said the existing storage capacity is not sufficient to store so much paddy.

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https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/hyderabad/bumper-paddy-crop-raises-storage-woes/articleshow/71871967.cms

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/economy/agriculture/basmati-paddy-price-slides-in-india-due-to-tepid-global-demand-higher-output/articleshow/71866945.cms