19th May 2020 Daily Global Regional Local Rice E-Newsletter

Punjab farmers’ to go for direct seeding of rice

Vikas Vasudeva

CHANDIGARH, MAY 17, 2020 23:39 IST

UPDATED: MAY 18, 2020 16:20 IST

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The DSR technique will save irrigation water, labour and power in contrast to the traditional method.  

They are shifting from traditional sowing method because of labour shortage

As the labour shortage is imminent owing to exodus of migrant labourers amid the ongoing lockdown, farmers in Punjab seem all set to go for direct seeding of rice (DSR) this khairf season, moving away from the traditional practice — of sowing nursery and then transplanting it.

Farmers and agri-experts told The Hindu that they are hopeful that this technology, which had been recommended in Punjab as an alternative method of rice (paddy) planting, will save irrigation water, labour and energy (power) in contrast to conventional method of raising rice nursery and then transplanting rice seedlings in a puddled field.

“The DSR technique is less time consuming and labour intensive than the conventional practice. The DSR technique called ‘tar-wattar DSR’ has been developed and successfully tested on a good scale at farmers’ fields. It helps in saving irrigation water, there’s lesser weed problem, besides there is reduced incidence of nutrient deficiency, especially iron, owing to lesser leaching of nutrients and deeper root development,” said Makhan Singh Bhullar, principal agronomist at the Ludhiana-based Punjab Agricultural University.

Mr. Bhullar said that the technology has a wider adaptability as it is suitable for medium to heavy textured soils including sandy loam, loam, clay loam and silt loam, which account for 87% area of the State.

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Groundwater recharge

“Not only this, the DSR offers avenue for groundwater recharge as well as it prevents the development of hard pan just beneath the plough layer. It matures 7-10 days earlier than puddle transplanted rice, hence it gives more time for the management of paddy straw, for the timely sowing of next wheat crop. Results from research trials and farmers’ field survey have also indicated that wheat grain yield, after DSR, is 1.0-1.2 quintal per acre higher than puddle transplanted rice,” said Mr. Bhullar.

“As the DSR involves more precision in timing and greater accuracy in operations compared to conventional transplanted rice. It gives best yield and quality when sowing is done in the month of June,” said Mr. Bhullar.

Bhartiya Kisan Union (Lakhowal) general secretary Harinder Singh’, said there’s absolutely no doubt that sowing with DSR will increase this year. “I am myself all set to sow paddy with the new technique. It’s cheap, less time consuming and save water as well. Besides, this year we are facing labour shortage as many migrant labourers have gone back to their native places. So, at such a time the DSR is a viable option for me,” he said.

https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/other-states/punjab-farmers-to-go-for-direct-seeding-of-rice/article31610222.ece

Pakistan gets big share in rice markets

By APP

Published: May 17, 2020

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PHOTO: REUTERS

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has attained a huge space in the global rice market for exporting local rice in potential markets of Middle East, North America and African regions to achieve the target of increasing the agricultural exports, said Adviser to Prime Minister on Commerce Abdul Razak Dawood.

Talking to APP on Saturday, he said that the government intended to uplift exports to their highest level ever and for that purpose, it was taking different measures to reclaim traditional markets besides accessing new ones.

He added that a rice delegation from Mexico would hopefully arrive in Pakistan in June to appraise various rice exporters to attain permission for exporting rice to Mexico.

The adviser said the all members of the Rice Exports Association Pakistan (REAP) should prepare themselves for this opportunity so that maximum exporters could receive approvals for orders in the Mexican market.

Dawood said that rice was the largest agri-export commodity in the country’s export basket with a total value of over $2 billion, which would be increased to $5 billion in the next five years.

He urged the local rice exporters to introduce new varieties by investing in research and development to enhance production and quality.

Replying to a question, he said that even in the current critical situation, the country’s food exports to the Middle Eastern market, especially meat and poultry, have increased compared to the same period of previous year.

Replying to another question, he stressed the need for making preparations to exploit the economic and trade opportunities expected to emerge post Covid-19 pandemic.

“We expect more opportunities to promote bilateral trade and strengthen linkages with potential markets including European Union, China, Middle East and African region besides promoting regional trade in post pandemic environment,” he said.

He underlined that the pandemic would bring a paradigm shift and will create great opportunities, adding that the coronavirus had changed the world and now the business processes would be completely different.

Dawood said that the government was focusing equally on all sectors of the economy including textile, non-textile and agriculture and engineering sectors to build export potential of the country in coming months.

Talking about the external trade situation during the past three months, he said exports had declined in April 2020 by around 54% compared to the same month of last year and the reason behind the decline was obviously the spread of coronavirus across the world.

Dawood said that the government was prioritising ‘Made in Pakistan’ policy to boost local production and reduce dependence on import and enhance exports.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 17^th, 2020.

https://tribune.com.pk/story/2223039/2-pakistan-gets-big-share-rice-markets/

"Voice of the Farmer" Garden Includes Conversation About Rice 

By Lesley Dixon

WASHINGTON, DC -- It's true that the vast majority of rice in the U.S. is grown in the south and in California.  But rice is a resourceful plant that can surprise you and show up where you least expect it-even in our nation's capital.

In early May, the Farm Journal Foundation and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) planted rice in its "Voice of the Farmer" garden, a small plot of land adjacent to the National Mall exhibiting a variety of plants and crops with a focus on sustainability and conservation.  Featuring pollinator gardens, mini-wetlands, row crops, and a large vegetable garden that provides fresh produce to local food assistance charities, the garden showcases growing and harvesting techniques used by farmers across the country.

Dr. Steve Linscombe, director of The Rice Foundation, is providing his expertise on planting and flooding techniques to help get this small-scale rice crop up and running.  Although Washington, DC, may seem like an unlikely place to grow rice, Linscombe has no doubts about the crop's viability.

"The latitude of Washington is about 39 degrees north, which is very similar to the latitude of Colusa, California, where, of course, rice is grown," said Linscombe.  "So, I think it will be easy for them to complete the crop."

Linscombe advised Farm Journal Foundation and USDA staff to plant the rice in containers set into the ground rather than directly into the garden's soil, as a simple mechanism for maintaining a flood when the time comes.  The seeds are a Clearfield long grain variety called CL153 and were provided by the Louisiana State University Rice Research Station near Crowley.

The Capital's new rice crop will be in good company:  Ducks Unlimited has provided the garden with a duck box and a small pond to entice cavity-nesting ducks to the area.

While the garden produces real food, its primary purpose is educational.  Many of the visitors to the National Mall live in urban areas and may not have much knowledge about farming.  The "Voice of the Farmer" garden will connect visitors to the food on their table and educate them about the agriculture.
 

Ducks and rice in DC

"I believe having rice grown near the National Mall will facilitate communication of our sustainability efforts," said Linscombe.  "It's a way for visitors and tourists to connect with where their food comes from and how it's produced."

"We're honored to add rice to the menu this year at our "Voice of the Farmer" garden," said Jay Vroom, senior advisor at the Farm Journal Foundation.  "The National Mall has an overall estimated 20 million visitors in a normal year, so the garden is the perfect showcase to tell the story of modern agriculture to consumers."

Vroom does hope to harvest the rice at the end of the growing season but recognizes that it is only a tiny fraction of the size of an actual rice field.  Whatever rice is produced will be donated to local food non-profits.  But the garden's main goal is outreach.

"Last year our outreach connected with so many inquisitive and energetic visitors who want to know about their food and the farmers who grow it," said Vroom.  "The uniqueness of rice- alongside the DU wood duck box and pond-can help explain how farmers and nature need and coexist with each other."

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S1 E9: Raining Rice in the Sacramento Valley

Season 1 / By Jim Morris

It’s an annual occurrence throughout the Sacramento Valley; something countless motorists have seen while heading north of Sacramento – skilled pilots flying high-speed, GPS-guided airplanes, planting rice over a half-million acres of fields.
Rick Richter of Richter Aviation in Maxwell, Colusa County, has been seeding rice fields since 1979. It’s not only his profession, it’s also a great passion for him.
“It’s so rewarding to see that rice come up,” Richter remarked. “It’s a beautiful green within a week or two after you plant it, and the whole area turns into just a magic carpet. You watch it all summer long, and then it comes to a golden yellow/brown at harvest, and you just get that feeling that I did this. I provided part of this 500,000-acres in this valley for people around the world to use. It just hits home, I’ll tell you.”
May is a spectacularly busy month for rice seeding in California. Pilots frequently work before sunup and after sundown to keep up with the workload.
One of the biggest advancements in this effort is Global Positioning System (GPS) technology, which provides tremendous accuracy for the pilots, who often exceed 100-mph while seeding fields.
Safety is a crucial element for ag pilots, who operate under strict state and federal regulations.  Richter said an extremely helpful program is the Professional Aerial Applicator Support System (PASSS Program), which has been running for more than 20 years, and has proven to lower accident rates.
The role agricultural pilots play in farming is huge. Rice grower Kurt Richter relies on the pinpoint work of his cousin Rick and Rick’s son, Nick, to seed his rice fields.
“The pilot plays a huge role in the quality of the product that you’re going to put out at the end of the season,” Kurt said.  “The seed application just in and of itself is one of the most important applications of the year…. A good quality pilot can definitely make or break any particular crop.”
Here are more comments from Kurt on the important role agricultural pilots play:
For more information on agricultural pilots, here’s a link to the California Agricultural Aircraft Association.

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Episode Transcript

Jim Morris: California rice holds many surprises. Whether it’s the vital wildlife connection, the scale and efficiency of growing and milling rice, or the billions of dollars this industry generates for our economy, the impacts are huge. One of the most surprising facets of California rice is happening here in mid spring, planting the crop via airplane, and it is an amazing process.
Jim Morris: Welcome to Ingrained, the California Rice Podcast. I’m your host, Jim Morris, and I’ve been helping farmers and ranchers tell their story for 30 years. I’m in the Sacramento Valley today covering an important part of the rice growing season.
Jim Morris: I’m in Colusa County speaking with Rick Richter of Richter Aviation, and you’ve been an ag pilot for more than 40 years. Let’s start with the early days. What was your background and what interested you in this profession?
Rick Richter: Well Jim, I started out with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Agriculture from Chico State College. It was just so hard back then to try to get into farming, which was what I wanted to do. I had a passion for aviation, so I learned to fly while going to Chico State. When I got to Maxwell, I was looking for opportunities to work and my cousin had just started this business here east of Maxwell, crop dusting business, in 1976. It was perfect timing for me. I talked with him, Paul Richter, and he made a spot for me and we started loading airplanes, and from then it grew to flying their planes, and, three years later, in 1979 was my first a year as an ag pilot.
Jim Morris: And so 41 years in, that’s an amazing run. How many flights or hours would that be in the air?
Rick Richter: Jim, that’s about 22,000 hours to date, counting all my flying, which isn’t much in the general aviation side. It’s mostly ag flying.
Jim Morris: Do you ever have dreams about flying when you’re resting or can you leave the 9:00 to 5:00 at the office?
Rick Richter: It’s tough. It’s tough. This is our life this time of year. We do five months out here from May to August in the rice business. It’s a every day, 4:00 in the morning until dark. Sometimes in the summer, usually around the 4th of July, we’ll get a break and start getting Sundays off, so it’s kind of a treat for us.
Jim Morris: It is a busy time right now in the spring. Tell me what an average day looks like in terms of seeding the rice fields.
Rick Richter: Well we’re up at 4:00 in the morning, we’re here at 5:00 to 6:00, the crews roll in, we’re out on the jobs by 6:30 and from then until dark sometimes we’re out, depending on the workload.
Jim Morris: What happens when they’re seeding? You have a pre-germinated seed. I mean, just walk me through some of the major steps in it. It’s fascinating to see that seed being loaded. They’re working like an Indy pit crew, I think.
Rick Richter: Oh yeah, we pride ourselves on the speed that it takes, that we can get the load out. The seed is soaked for at least 24 hours prior to our applications. It’s brought to us in bulk trailers, bulk semi-truck trailers, to the airstrips, usually the closest strip within two miles of the field so we can make our turnarounds quicker and get more done.
Jim Morris: What speed can you travel? What’s the highest speed and what’s the lowest altitude you might be traveling depending on the circumstances of each rice farm?
Rick Richter: Well, we’re probably seeding rice about 30 feet in the air, depending on the wind. The windier conditions require a lower altitude, but spraying, we’re within 10 feet of the crop and going about 120 to 130 miles per hour on some of the more modern turbine aircraft. Some of the faster ones will go up to 150, and that’s moving fast compared to the old days when it was just 100 miles an hour in an old Ag Cat. The professional ag pilots that we have nowadays don’t leave anything for granted. We take pride in what we do and we want to be there for our children and our families at the end of the day.
Jim Morris: Talk about the change in technology since when you started and the importance of global positioning system, GPS.
Rick Richter: GPS is the biggest breakthrough that’s ever come to this industry, and it just changed it forever. It’s amazing we can get within three feet of our swath and multiple swaths at a time, the fields all laid out for us, hardly any problems. It’s just amazing what it did. It took away the job from the flaggers and the crews that we had to position on each field, and it allowed it for much more efficiency in the operation.
Jim Morris: The term crop duster comes up a lot, much more than the term ag pilot. What’s the name that you think is most fitting?
Rick Richter: Crop duster is just an old moniker from the back of the old days when they dusted crops. But nowadays they’re professional pilots. We are required to have training, continuing education every year, licensed by the state, licensed by the Federal Aviation Regulations as commercial pilots. And the operators are actually licensed as commercial ag operators. So there’s plenty of regulation in our business. We take it in stride. We understand that we need to have that to keep our skills honed and to protect the crop protection materials.
Jim Morris: You have the good fortune of working with your son. When did that start and how does that make you feel, because you’re getting closer to retirement?
Rick Richter: It just makes me feel great. He’s such a major link in this operation. We’re getting in the process of turning it over to him. It’s kind of hard for me to let go of the reins. The good thing about it, he understands that, and he’s taking that in stride. He knows that someday it’ll be all his to worry about.
Jim Morris: This is Nick, and you have a traditional looking yellow airplane and he has a white one that looks a little different. Now I’m no aviation expert. Tell me the difference of what you fly and what Nick flies.
Rick Richter: Well I’m flying a 1979 biplane, and he’s flying a 2011 Thrush S2R with a Pratt Whitney engine on it. It goes faster. It carries the same amount of speed, but it’s a sleeker, modern-looking airplane, probably the wave of the future. The old biplanes are kind of being in a thing of the past, but they’re good, strong, sturdy airplanes and they’re more suited to our country where the fields are maybe smaller. You can get a tighter turn out of it. But he enjoys that speed and the wider swath that he gets with the larger wing on that airplane.
Jim Morris: With the COVID-19 crisis, agriculture has rightly been deemed an essential industry. And, of course, it’s easy here in Maxwell to see that with farms and farm-related industries. But what’s your comment about the value of agriculture to California?
Rick Richter: It’s worth so much to our economy here in California. I’m not sure of the numbers, but just the rice business alone contribute so much to the local economy. Everybody’s job in this area depends on rice.
Jim Morris: How do you feel when people are eating a rice bowl or risotto, paella, sushi, et cetera, you had a hand in that?
Rick Richter: Well, I sure did. I’ve been to restaurants in the South that have used California medium grain rice in their sushi. I tell them all about it. I say, “Hey, I know where that came from.”
Jim Morris: Rick, tell me a little bit about your level of pride. You’re coming to the end of your career. You’ve done a lot. You and other ag pilots have done a lot to keep rice on tables.
Rick Richter: It’s so rewarding to see that rice come up and, it’s beautiful green after you plant it within a week or two, and the whole area turns into just a magic carpet. You watch it all summer long, and then it comes to golden yellow-brown at harvest. And you just get that feeling that I did this. I provided part of this 500,000-acres in this valley for the people around the world to use. And it’s just, it hits home, I’ll tell you.
Jim Morris: Farming in California is all about family and there are connections even between growers and pilots. I’m visiting with Kurt Richter, rice grower. Tell me your connection with Rick Richter.
Kurt Richter: Well, Rick is a cousin of ours. We share a common ancestor that was actually our original immigrant to California from the area that’s now known as Germany. Rick and my father, Paul Richter, were connected from childhood all the way up. Rick has always done all the applications for our family’s farming operation.
Jim Morris: How important are the pilots to what you do?
Kurt Richter: A pilot plays a huge role in the quality of the product that you’re going to put out at the end of the season. The seed application just in and of itself is one of the most important applications of the year. For the application to be done in a nice, even way where it’s spread out, no skips, no overlaps, no bunching coming out of the bottom of the airplane, so a good quality pilot can definitely make or break any particular crop.
Jim Morris: Planting season’s never easy. There’s always hurdles to clear, but how are things going?
Kurt Richter: It has definitely been a year of hurdles. We faced water cuts early and made it past that hurdle. Then we faced aqua shortages and we’ve now passed that hurdle. And now we’ve got rain, so it’s just, any given week, any number of issues that can crop up, but we’re used to this in California rice. We’ve battled out the weather many times in the last few years and all these other problems are things that come up from time to time. And so you just have to have contingency plans and a strategy for how to work around those issues. And, for our operation at least, I feel like we’ve done pretty well. We’re on track to be wrapped up here very soon.
Jim Morris: After planting, it does not take long for the rice plants to emerge. So, throughout the summer, when you’re heading north of Sacramento, keep an eye out for those beautiful green rice fields. That wraps up this episode. Thanks so much to Rick Richter of Richter Aviation and Kurt Richter of Richter Ag for their insight. A reminder that there’s much more at podcast.calrice.org, including photos and video of rice seeding. Please subscribe to our podcast and send us your questions and comments. Thanks for listening.

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https://podcast.calrice.org/s1-e9-raining-rice-in-the-sacramento-valley/

Weed protection for rice seedlings

Mohammad ZayauddinUpdated May 18, 2020

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TODAY Pakistan is facing two major disasters: one is the coronavirus and the other is the desert locust. To fight coronavirus, a lot of awareness has been created along with standard operating procedures (SOP) using print and electronic media. Unfortunately, to protect agriculture from the ravages of locusts neither awareness nor any SOPs have so far been issued for the growers, particularly in Sindh and Balochistan, both at the federal and provincial level.
Our television is, almost daily, showing swarms of locusts invading crops in different parts of Sindh and Punjab. Sindh is demanding aerial spray and aircraft to contain invading locust swarms in the green belt (cropped area) whereas the federal government seems to be reluctant to control locust swarms other than in the deserts of Sindh, Punjab and Balochistan. The reason behind this reluctance is probably the 18th Amendment under which agriculture, and therefore its protection, comes under the jurisdiction of the provinces.
A survey of cotton growers in Nara desert cotton belt of district Sukkur, Khairpur and Sanghar and rice growers of district Shikarpur, Jacobabad and Larkana has indicated that indirect damage of the locust threat may be more than the actual damage which is caused by the locust attack to the kharif crops. The reason is the hovering locust swarms over almost entire of Sindh and their sporadic landing on standing vegetables, lucerne, maize, jowar bajra, sesbania, green vegetation and trees.
Locally known as kandero, the Alhagi weed becomes so thorny after its leaves dry that it is difficult for locust to penetrate through
Instead of ground support from the provincial and federal governments, the growers have to resort to beating drums to keeping the locusts at bay. Apprehensive about the damage to crops that are grown with costly seeds, cotton and rice growers are considering delaying the sowing of these crops. Cotton is sown in Upper Sindh in May and rice seedlings (rice nursery) are sown after May 15 and transplanted up to July 15. If the cotton crop is sown late, it is at risk from the pink bollworm and rice crop can be damaged by white back plant hoppers, leaf folders and stem borers.

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However, the late transplantation of the rice crop in upper Sindh and Balochistan can be avoided through the protection of seedlings. Saving one acre of rice seedlings from locust attack means saving 35 to 45 acres of rice crop that is grown from the transplanted seedlings.
A way of protecting rice seedlings from the locust attack is by covering the seedbed with a thorny weed Alhagi maurorum (camelthorn) Family-Fabaceae, locally known as kandero. After its leaves dry, the weed plant becomes so thorny that is difficult for an insect the size of a locust to penetrate through thus giving full protection to the seedlings till they are transplanted. This is a common weed that grows among gram and wheat crops in the riverine belt but is also found in abundance in rice-growing areas on bunds of fields, watercourses, irrigation canals and desert areas.
When the matter of using the thorny kandero weed as a weapon against swarming locusts was discussed with a progressive grower of Shikarpur, Mr Jameel Ahmad Siddiqui, he apprised this scribe that in years of dry summer spells, he uses it to cover the rice seedling bed to provide them shade and air against the scorching heatwave.
Accordingly, to avoid a delay in transplanting of the rice crop in the apprehension of the locust invasion, it is suggested that rice growers cover the seedling beds with the thorny kandero weed after sowing or germination. To persuade growers for this method of nonchemical protection of seedlings, the Provincial Agriculture (extension) Department of Sindh and Balochistan should use print and electronic media besides using its field force.
Review of literature has indicated that Alhagi maurorum (camel thorn) is a shrub native to Western Europe and Central Asia that has become an agricultural weed in other parts of the world. Its medicinal value can be gauged from the fact that studies have shown 66 per cent of patients treated with Alhagi extracts for four weeks expulsed urinary tract stone because it aqueous extract reduces the calcium oxalate in the kidney stone.
The writer is an ex-entomologist of Department of Plant Protection, Karachi, and President of Agriwatch Society of Pakistan
Published in Dawn, The Business and Finance Weekly, May 18th , 2020

https://www.dawn.com/news/1557967

Pakistan readies for second battle against…

By Brinkwire on May 18, 2020

By Zofeen T. Ebrahim
KARACHI, Pakistan, May 14 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – To many farmers in southeast Pakistan, an impending locust attack when summer crops of cotton, sugarcane and rice are being sown, and fruit and vegetables are ready to be picked is a much bigger problem than the coronavirus pandemic.
“If the crops are eaten up by the locusts, we will have a dire food security issue on our hands,” said Zahid Bhurgri, a farmer from Mirpur Khas district in Sindh province.
“The price of flour and vegetables will sky-rocket,” making staple foods hard for some to afford, added Bhurgri, who is also general secretary of the Sindh Chamber of Agriculture.
The United Nations´ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates losses to agriculture from locusts this year could be as high as PKR 353 billion ($2.2 billion) for winter crops like wheat and potatoes and about PKR 464 billion for summer crops.
A May update from the FAO warned it would be “imperative” to contain and control the desert locust infestation in the midst of the additional impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on health, livelihoods, food security and nutrition for Pakistan´s most poor and vulnerable communities.
Last year, Pakistan suffered its worst attack of locusts since 1993, for which the country was largely unprepared.
Farmers now have little confidence the government will help them fight a new wave of voracious insects threatening their harvests – though officials said extensive measures were being taken.
“Neither the central, nor the provincial government is doing anything about it,” said Bhurgri, who grows vegetables, red chillies, cotton and sugarcane on about 600 acres of land.
‘PERFECT SETTING’
The locusts arrived in Pakistan from Iran in June 2019, devouring cotton, wheat and maize, among other crops.
The invasion was initially expected to subside by mid-November. But it has persisted due to favourable weather conditions for continued locust breeding, linked to global warming, according to FAO’s Pakistan office.
“Good vegetation due to plentiful rain and a sandy soil provided a perfect setting for the insects to multiply,” said Muhammad Tariq Khan, technical director at the Department of Plant Protection in the Ministry of National Food Security and Research.
In a recent letter to Prime Minister Imran Khan, Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah warned of a “massive locust attack” expected on local farmland when swarms from Iran reach his province in mid-May, which could “prove more harmful” than last year´s invasion.
With little time to waste, farmer Bhurgri decided to take matters into his own hands and “fight the locusts myself”.
Using a power sprayer fixed on a tractor, he plans to douse them with pesticides while they rest on trees at night, and get his farmhands to clang pots and pans during the day to drive the pests from his land.
But there are many small-scale farmers who lack the means to deal with the locusts on their own, he added.
Some do not feel confident enough to invest in their crop this year or are cutting costs by not using the required amount of fertiliser, he noted.
CLIMATE CONNECTION
Mubarik Ahmed, national coordinator for locust control at FAO’s office in Karachi, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation that Pakistan had been taken by surprise last year when locusts wreaked havoc in all its four provinces.
Unprecedented rains that led to vegetation cover in Sindh´s Tharparkar desert had enabled the locusts to breed and then attack crop areas, he said.
The country was “relatively better prepared” to meet the challenge this year, he added. But the situation could get worse with huge swarms expected to arrive in the coming two to three months from Iran, Oman and the Horn of Africa.
Locust swarms are not new in East Africa, the Middle East and South Asia. But climate scientists say erratic weather linked to climate change has created ideal conditions for the insects to surge in numbers not seen in a quarter of a century.
Warmer seas have led to more cyclones in the Indian Ocean, causing heavy rainfall along the Arabian Peninsula and in the Horn of Africa, producing the perfect environment for breeding.
Experts say insect populations have found new homes across Pakistan and are now laying eggs in nearly 40% of its territory, including Sindh but mainly in the southwest province of Balochistan.
FAO locust forecaster Keith Cressman said locusts that had unusually stayed in parts of Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the Indus Valley during the winter would now move southeast to their summer breeding areas in the Cholistan and Tharparkar deserts from May to July.
Swarms breeding in Pakistan´s deserts will likely be joined by others from southern Iran in a few weeks, with more likely to arrive from the Horn of Africa around July, experts predict.
The swarms are expected to be much larger than in 2019, because their numbers increase on average 20-fold with each generation. They travel in swarms of between 30 million to 50 million insects, covering a distance of 150 km (93 miles) and devouring 200 tonnes of crops per day.
NATIONAL PLAN
Khan of the Department of Plant Protection, who is the state’s focal point for locust control, said the government had been preparing for the next wave of locusts since last year.
In January, the ministry shared a national action plan for surveillance and control of the desert locusts with the prime minister, who declared the locust attacks a national emergency in February.
That helped drive things forward with funding, surveillance and control operations, coordinated with provincial agriculture departments, the National Disaster Management Authority, the FAO and the army, said Khan.
In addition, officials from the FAO, Afghanistan, India, Iran and Pakistan meet each week to discuss and plan for the regional situation, he added.
Khan said Pakistan now had “a fairly foolproof plan”, including aircraft and ground vehicles to spray the insects, pesticides and more than 1,000 trained teams of four people that can be deployed at short notice across the country.
Timely action since February in the remote desert of Balochistan, with support from the army, had so far helped tame the threat, he added.
Surveys detected the locusts´ breeding ground and the hoppers – or young locusts – have been sprayed regularly to kill them before they become adults, he said.
If control operations go according to plan, he remains hopeful Pakistan will not suffer the high levels of infestation now being experienced in the Horn of Africa.
“One of the reasons I say this with such confidence is that I know what their level of preparation is and what is ours right now,” he added. ($1 = 160.8000 Pakistani rupees) (Reporting by Zofeen T. Ebrahim; editing by Megan Rowling. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers the lives of people around the world who struggle to live freely or fairly. Visit http://news.trust.org/climate)

https://en.brinkwire.com/news/pakistan-readies-for-second-battle-against/

60,000 Caraga farmers to benefit from DA’s rice resiliency project

By DA Caraga Published on May 17, 2020

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BUTUAN CITY, May 17 -- The Department of Agriculture (DA) accelerates its support to boost rice productivity in the Caraga region under the  Rice Resiliency Project (RRP).

As part of the DA's Plant, Plant, Plant Program (Agri-4Ps), also known as the Ahon Lahat, Pagkaing Sapat kontra COVID-19, the RRP targets to increase the local rice production amid global trade uncertainties brought about by the pandemic.

For the year 2020, Caraga region is expected to increase its yield by at least 0.58 metric tons per hectare or an equivalent of 55,295 metric tons yield increment with the ₱207 million allocations under the RRP.

Around 60,000 local rice farmers in the region will benefit the intervention. Three subprojects of the project will be implemented including the Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund (RCEF) Enhanced, the Expanded Inbred Rice Production, and the Expanded Hybrid Rice Production.

Rice farmers registered in the Registry System for Basic Sectors in Agriculture (RSBSA) will be able to avail of the farm input subsidies under RRP.

"COVID-19 is a major threat to our food security, but DA took the challenge to continue to implement resiliency programs and projects. The distribution of high-yielding seeds and fertilizers is strategically distributed by the five provinces in the region in coordination with the local government units," said DA-Caraga Regional Executive Director Abel James I. Monteagudo.

Under RCEF Enhanced, areas in the provinces of Agusan del Norte, Agusan del Sur, and Surigao del Sur will receive inbred certified seeds. A total of 96,116 bags of fertilizers will be distributed to complement the distribution of inbred seeds covering the Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice) targeted 48,058 hectares of rice areas.

The Expanded Inbred Rice Production subproject is intended for the farmers not included in the RCEF program. Certified seeds for 6,030 hectares will be distributed to farmers alongside with 12,060 bags of fertilizer.

Provision of fertilizers to farmers who use good seeds or home-saved seeds is included about 3,824 bags will be distributed for 1,912 hectares rice area for this wet planting season.

Including in the intervention is the distribution of hybrid seeds under the Expanded Hybrid Rice Production subproject for 7,976 hectares with 23,928. This will be distributed strategically in suitable areas.

Further, the National Seed Industry Council (NSIC) registered hybrid and inbred rice varieties recommended for the season and locality will be procured by the DA while the fertilizers will be obtained by the national office.

Achieving higher productivity in rice would entail the use of high-quality seeds and sufficient fertilization based on scientific soil study.

"Aside from the RRP intervention, the Department will also work to improve the support infrastructures for the rice farmers such as the small-scale irrigation systems, machinery, and post-harvest facilities and access to credit and financing to ensure the increased rice production in the region," said Director Monteagudo. (DA Caraga/PIA Caraga)

https://pia.gov.ph/press-releases/releases/1042058

Meeting agriculturists’ requirements

From the NewspaperMay 18, 2020

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THE fate of Pakistan’s agriculture this year hinges chiefly on how successful it becomes in the ongoing fight against locusts. The breeding and spread of locusts across agricultural fields have emerged as a serious challenge.
Sindh has “reservations” about the extent of federal cooperation it has so far received. But generally, the fight against locusts is being fought in high spirit with full support from global organisations and friendly countries like China and Turkey, according to a recent Dawn report.
Amidst the ongoing war against Covid-19, food security is utmost important. And, food security cannot be ensured without keeping the agriculture sector in order and meeting all requirements of agriculturists.
One aspect of this requirement is of the availability of inputs. The local output and the marketing of some inputs like fertilisers remain almost unaffected amidst Covid-19. But imports of certified seeds, pesticides/insecticides and even agricultural machinery have reportedly been hit owing to the disruption in international trade.

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Wheat production for this year has already fallen short of target to a five-year average of 25.38 million tonnes against the target of 27.03m tonnes, according to the latest Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) report.
The Federal Committee on Agriculture (FCA) was scheduled to meet at the end of March. But it has not met so far owing to a delay in data collection on part of the provinces amidst Covid-19 lockdowns. The nation will know about the exact production of wheat as well as carryover stocks — only after the FCA meeting. The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) says milled rice production this year has remained at the last year’s level of 7.2m tonnes. This is enough to feed the local population of 220m people and set aside a part of production for exports.
The expected shortfall in the output may trigger another wheat flour crisis
The expected shortfall in the wheat output may trigger another wheat flour crisis and adequate rice production can help earn precious foreign exchange. Media reports suggest Pakistan already exported more rice to the Gulf countries in April, taking advantage of stricter lockdowns in India that affected Indian rice exports to that region. Pakistan relies almost entirely on local wheat and paddy seeds. So in the future, any disruption in the supplies of imported seeds isn’t going to affect these two staple food crops. (A small quantity of Chinese paddy seeds and Australian wheat seeds are grown locally under bilateral technical cooperation).
The case of maize is different. The country does rely on imported seeds in addition to locally available seeds. Corn seeds of high-yield varieties are imported in sizable quantities from the United States, Mexico, Ukraine and Argentina. Growers say such imports have come to a halt fearing that this may affect the winter maize crop. For the past few years, Pakistan’s maize output has been on the rise owing to the availability of locally developed better seed varieties as well as imported seeds.
In the last cropping year, the maize output was in excess of 6.3m tonnes, up from 5.9m tonnes a year ago. Though maize is mostly used for manufacturing animal and poultry feed, corn flour becomes the most natural alternative of wheat flour particularly in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in case of wheat shortages.
Smaller imports of certified seeds of fodder crops, maize and vegetables are also affecting these crops. But this is not a major problem since the local production of seeds of major food items is adequate. Within the country, about 40-50 leading companies, out of an estimated 400-500, produce certified seeds of food crops. In recent years, their production has been on the rise. Between July 2019 and January 2020, Pakistan spent about $700m on imports of certified seeds of crops (including oil seeds), down from $800m in the same period of 2018-19, SBP statistics reveal.
Equipping farmers with most modern agricultural machinery and technology is a must because pre- and post-harvest losses are very high, particularly in case of vegetables, fruits, pulses and other perishable crops. Crop losses owing to a lack of storage facilities are common in case of major food crops i.e. wheat, rice and maize.
Facilitating machinery and technology imports should, therefore, be part of the second round of the incentive package for farmers under consideration. Pakistan spends very little on imports of agricultural machinery and equipment. In the first nine months of this fiscal year, this spending fell below $75m from a little more than $100m a year ago. A slashing of interest rates on agricultural loans in general and on development agricultural loans in particular is on the cards. That may help increase the purchase of imported and locally assembled agricultural machinery and equipment.
The government is also incentivising the use of tractor through some subsidy on sales tax. But so far no move has been made to facilitate the construction of steel silos on an emergency basis to contain crop losses and increase the shelf life of food grains. Similarly, no specific incentives are being offered for promoting the tunnel farming of vegetables and fruits and not much has been done to improve the conditions of fisheries. Subsidised loans for the manufacturing of modern fishing boats and fish-hauling equipment can promote fish exports.
Amidst a greater concern for ensuring food security, rice, seafood and meat products remain the only three major categories of food exports that the government can now rely on.
Disruptions in shipping services have resulted in the lower supplies of imported fertilisers and insecticides/pesticides in February-April, growers say. Crops have not been affected much owing to the scant supplies of fertilisers though as local supplies have remained adequate.
But the case of insecticides/pesticides is different. Imported raw materials are used even in locally manufactured insecticides/pesticides and their lower imports plus a decline in the volumes of imported finished products are bound to affect crop management. In July-March, Pakistan’s imports of foreign fertilisers fell to 92,000 tonnes from 134,000 tonnes a year ago. And the imports of insecticides/pesticides contracted to just $12m from $16m, data released by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics shows.--MA
Published in Dawn, The Business and Finance Weekly, May 18th , 2020

https://www.dawn.com/news/1557968/meeting-agriculturists-requirements

12:00 AM, May 18, 2020 / LAST MODIFIED: 01:17 AM, May 18, 2020

Harvest all paddy now

Govt advises farmers of coastal region, says 80pc-mature Boro can be harvested

File photo

Pinaki Roy and Sohel Parvez

With the severe cyclonic storm "Amphan" approaching the coast, the agricultural office has advised farmers in coastal districts to harvest all the paddy that have matured up to at least 80 percent matured.
The advisory said there was a possibility of a storm with light to heavy rainfall from May 19 to May 21 in 25 districts, mainly on the coastal belt.
"The stormy weather and heavy rainfall may affect standing crops," said the Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE) in its advice issued yesterday by its Agro-Meteorological Information Systems Development Project.
The cautionary warning comes as farmers have harvested 59 percent of Boro paddy cultivated on 47.54 lakh hectares this season. And the DAE said the coastal divisions -- Chattogram, Khulna and Barishal -- account for 10 percent of the total acreage of Boro, the main crop that has roughly 55 percent share in the annual rice production estimated at 3.64 crore tonnes in 2018-19.
"We are requesting farmers through loudspeakers to harvest crops with 80 percent maturity quickly. We have also asked them to use reapers and combine harvesters to do it as quickly as possible," said DAE Director of Field Services Wing Alhaz Uddin Ahmed.
The DAE said farmers already harvested 86 percent of the Boro crop in the southeast division of Chattogram and southwest division of Khulna. The southern coastal division of Barishal saw a harvest of 62 percent of the Boro paddy grown on 1,25,000 hectares, according to Alhaz.
"We expect that maximum crop would be harvested before the cyclone hits," he said.
Agronomists said it is not clear how much crop might get damaged by the cyclone, which may cross the coastal belt in the early hours of Wednesday (May 20).
Mirza Hasanuzzman, professor of the Department of Agronomy at Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University, said as high yielding varieties of paddy are of lower heights, there was possibility of inundation damaging the crops.
"If the cyclone hits, it may cause a major loss of paddy, which mostly may be 20-30 percent of the standing crop yield," he said.
Md Shahjahan Kabir, director general of Bangladesh Rice Research Institute said the ratio of the immature paddy on the field is insignificant. There may be immature paddy in Rangpur, the northwest division.
The extent of the damage would be high had the crop been half-ripen, he said.
Kabir said if the cyclone hits the southwest coastal district of Sathkhira, the loss would not be too major.
"I hope farmers would be able to harvest their crop anyhow," he said.
Mazharul Aziz, project director of Agro-Meteorological Information Systems Development Project at the DAE, said, until now, the forecast says there might be heavy rainfall and wind.
"But a cyclone is ever-changing. So, what the effects might be is not clear yet. We will update our advisory again tomorrow [today]," he added.
In its advisory, the DAE also suggested farmers harvest mature vegetable and fruits, and refrain from using pesticides. It also recommended using nets surrounding ponds to protect fish from washing away during heavy rainfall.
In the Barishal division, around 62 percent of the paddy on these lands have already been harvested, said Toufiqul Alam, deputy director of Barishal region DAE.
Of the rest, Boro paddies on around 26 percent of lands are scheduled to be harvested within tomorrow (Tuesday), and the rest 12 percent paddies are yet to ripen, he added.
"If the cyclone hits this region, this 12 percent of paddy will be damaged. The amount of these 12 percent can be estimated to 50,000 metric tons of paddy," he added.
"Now we are working hard to quicken the harvesting of the already ripened paddy. We are requesting teachers and students of different educational institutions to help with harvesting," he added.
Humayun Kabir, a farmer of Burikhali village in Pirojpur's Nazirpur upazila said, "Most farmers in our village, including me, have completed harvesting. Some 10 percent of paddy remains to be harvested. We hope that the rest is harvested in a day or two."
Contacted, Divisional Commissioner Muhammad Yamin Chowdhury said, "We have already directed DAE officials to take necessary measures to harvest ripe paddy as soon as possible. But we cannot harvest green paddy. We are trying our best to save the maximum amount of paddy."
In the Khulna division, around 86 percent of Boro paddy has already been harvested, according to DAE officials.
Boro paddy is cultivated in Khulna, Bagerhat, Satkhira and Narail districts in the division. Boro paddy was cultivated on over 2.43 lakh hectares of land. Of these, paddy on some 2 lakh hectares have already been harvested, said Kazi Abdul Mannan, additional director of Khulna region DAE.
"We have asked all the farmers to complete harvesting within the shortest possible time," he added.
Speaking to The Daily Star, some farmers said they were working hard to complete the harvesting.
"I cultivated Boro paddies in 7 Bighas of land. I have already harvested the paddy on around 5.5 Bighas of land. I have been working hard to complete the harvesting on the rest 1.5 Bighas of land," said Alamgir Hossain, a farmer of Noihati village in Khulna's Rupsha upazila.
In the Chattogram region, 86 percent of Boro paddy has been harvested, according to DAE officials.
Boro paddy was cultivated on 2.30 lakhs hectares of land in Chattogram, Cox's Bazar, Noakhali, Feni and Laxmipur districts.
Of these, paddies on some 2 lakhs hectares have already been harvested, said Md Nasir Uddin, deputy director of DAE Chattogram office.
"On loudspeakers, we urged the farmers to harvest the remaining paddy with two or three days," he told The Daily Star.
(Our Correspondents from Barishal, Pirojpur, Patuakhali, Khulna, Bagerhat, Chattogram and Noakhali contributed to this report.)

https://www.thedailystar.net/backpage/news/harvest-all-paddy-now-1903654

60,000 Caraga farmers to benefit from DA’s rice resiliency project

By DA Caraga Published on May 17, 2020

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BUTUAN CITY, May 17 -- The Department of Agriculture (DA) accelerates its support to boost rice productivity in the Caraga region under the  Rice Resiliency Project (RRP).

As part of the DA's Plant, Plant, Plant Program (Agri-4Ps), also known as the Ahon Lahat, Pagkaing Sapat kontra COVID-19, the RRP targets to increase the local rice production amid global trade uncertainties brought about by the pandemic.

For the year 2020, Caraga region is expected to increase its yield by at least 0.58 metric tons per hectare or an equivalent of 55,295 metric tons yield increment with the ₱207 million allocations under the RRP.

Around 60,000 local rice farmers in the region will benefit the intervention. Three subprojects of the project will be implemented including the Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund (RCEF) Enhanced, the Expanded Inbred Rice Production, and the Expanded Hybrid Rice Production.

Rice farmers registered in the Registry System for Basic Sectors in Agriculture (RSBSA) will be able to avail of the farm input subsidies under RRP.

"COVID-19 is a major threat to our food security, but DA took the challenge to continue to implement resiliency programs and projects. The distribution of high-yielding seeds and fertilizers is strategically distributed by the five provinces in the region in coordination with the local government units," said DA-Caraga Regional Executive Director Abel James I. Monteagudo.

Under RCEF Enhanced, areas in the provinces of Agusan del Norte, Agusan del Sur, and Surigao del Sur will receive inbred certified seeds. A total of 96,116 bags of fertilizers will be distributed to complement the distribution of inbred seeds covering the Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice) targeted 48,058 hectares of rice areas.

The Expanded Inbred Rice Production subproject is intended for the farmers not included in the RCEF program. Certified seeds for 6,030 hectares will be distributed to farmers alongside with 12,060 bags of fertilizer.

Provision of fertilizers to farmers who use good seeds or home-saved seeds is included about 3,824 bags will be distributed for 1,912 hectares rice area for this wet planting season.

Including in the intervention is the distribution of hybrid seeds under the Expanded Hybrid Rice Production subproject for 7,976 hectares with 23,928. This will be distributed strategically in suitable areas.

Further, the National Seed Industry Council (NSIC) registered hybrid and inbred rice varieties recommended for the season and locality will be procured by the DA while the fertilizers will be obtained by the national office.

Achieving higher productivity in rice would entail the use of high-quality seeds and sufficient fertilization based on scientific soil study.

"Aside from the RRP intervention, the Department will also work to improve the support infrastructures for the rice farmers such as the small-scale irrigation systems, machinery, and post-harvest facilities and access to credit and financing to ensure the increased rice production in the region," said Director Monteagudo. (DA Caraga/PIA Caraga)

https://pia.gov.ph/press-releases/releases/1042058

Farmers in Punjab are all set to go for direct seeding of rice

Vikas Vasudeva

CHANDIGARH , May 17, 2020 17:25 IST

Updated: May 17, 2020 17:31 IST

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It saves irrigation water, labour expenditure and energy consumption, say experts

As the labour shortage is imminent owing to the exodus of the migrant labourers, the farmers in Punjab are all set to go for direct seeding of rice (DSR) this khairf season, moving away from the traditional practice — of sowing nursery and transplanting it.
The farmers and agri-experts told The Hindu that they are hopeful that this technology — recommended as an alternative method of paddy planting — will save irrigation water, labour and energy in contrast to the conventional method of raising rice nursery and then transplanting the seedlings in a puddled field.
Also read: Punjab revenues fall to ₹396 crore against an estimated ₹3,360 crore
“The DSR technique is less time consuming and labour intensive than the conventional practice. The technique called ‘tar-wattar DSR’ has been developed and successfully tested on a good scale. It also helps in lesser weed problem, besides reduced incidence of nutrient deficiency, especially, iron owing to lesser leaching of nutrients and deeper root development,” said Makhan Singh Bhullar, principal agronomist, at the Ludhiana-based Punjab Agricultural University.
Mr. Bhullar said the technology has a wider adaptability as it is suitable for medium to heavy textured soils including sandy loam, loam, clay loam and silt loam, which account for 87% area of the State.
Also read: More areas likely to come under basmati this year
“Not only this, the DSR offers avenue for groundwater recharge and prevents the development of hard pan just beneath the plough layer. It matures 7-10 days earlier than the puddle transplanted rice, hence it gives more time for the management of paddy straw, for the timely sowing of the next wheat crop. Results from research trials and farmers’ field survey have also indicated that wheat grain yield, after DSR, is 1.0-1.2 quintal per acre higher,” said Mr. Bhullar.
“The DSR involves precision in timing and greater accuracy in the operations compared. It gives the best yield and quality when sowing is done in June. Early sowing in May results in higher use of irrigation water and higher incidence of weeds. Pollination may coincide with high temperature leading to partially filled grains. Added together, these factors may contribute to lower yield and quality.”
Punjab is likely to see paddy cultivation in around 20 lakh hectares this season against nearly 23 lakh hectares in 2019-20. “We are encouraging farmers to adopt the DSR. Last season around 60,000 acres were planted under DSR and this year we are expecting it to go up to 4 lakh hectares,” said Sutantar Airi, Director, Punjab Agriculture department.
Bhartiya Kisan Union (Lakhowal) general secretary Harinder Singh said sowing under DSR will increase this year. “I am myself all set to do so. It’s cheap, less time consuming and saves water. Besides, this year we are facing labour shortage as many migrant labourers have gone back to their native places. So, the DSR is a viable option for me. I, however, demand the government to start uninterrupted supply of electricity for eight to 10 hours immediately so that farm operations can be carried on swiftly,” he said.

https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/other-states/farmers-in-punjab-are-all-set-to-go-for-direct-seeding-of-rice/article31607668.ece

ZF, Belgrave Investment, Odisha mining baron pick up stakes in Suzlon

M Ramesh Chennai | Updated on May 18, 2020 Published on May 18, 2020

Tulsi Tanti, Chairman and Managing Director of Suzlon Energy   -  REUTERS

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German gearbox manufacturer ZF, foreign portfolio investor (FPI) Belgrave Investment Fund and Odisha mining baroness Indrani Patnaik are among those who have picked up small stakes in Suzlon Energy, helping the company bring in fresh equity of ₹363.50 crore, required by the lenders as part of a debt restructuring plan.
The e-voting for the resolutions for allotting shares and compulsorily convertible debentures (CCDs) to investors as well as raising the authorised capital of the company and conversion of lenders’ debt into equity, ended today.
The equity infusion of ₹363.50 crore appears to be practically crowd-funded, with over a hundred associates of Suzlon (customers, vendors, service providers) chipping in with funds.
Promoter Tulsi Tanti, who is also the Chairman and Managing Director of Suzlon Energy, through Tanti Holdings Pvt Ltd, is bringing in ₹100 crore. But the list of investors — including the family and associates of the other promoter, Dilip Shanghvi of Sun Pharma — is 165-entry long. Equity shares are to be allotted to these persons and entities at a price of ₹2.45 a share of face value of ₹2.

Notable investors

The notable investors include ZF, which sells gearboxes to Suzlon (and had bought Suzlon-owned gearbox manufacturing company Hansen, in 2011). It has now put in ₹12 crore.
Belgrave Investment Fund, which has stakes in Electrosteel Castings, its group company Srikalahasthi Pipes, and Lakshmi Vilas Bank, has put ₹13.5 crore into Suzlon. A company called Amrik Singh & Sons Crane Services Pvt Ltd, which offers cranes on hire for erecting wind turbines, has invested ₹25 crore.
Several customers of Suzlon have chipped in, too. Indrani Patnaik, whose Patnaik Minerals Pvt Ltd is an owner of wind power, has pumped in ₹20 crore, guar gum producer Rajasthan Gum Pvt Ltd ₹10 crore, Giriraj Enterprises, which sells air coolers ₹15 crore. Among listed companies, basmati rice exporter KRBL Ltd and power transmission infrastructure builder Techno Electric, both of whom own wind power assets, have put in ₹5 crore each.
Shanghvi’s son-in-law and companies owned by him and his entities are picking up equity shares for ₹15 crore and CCDs for another ₹15 crore.
The ₹363.50 crore of equity infusion and another ₹50 crore of funds through the issue of CCDs were among the conditions set by the lenders before they agreed to restructure the company’s debt. As on December 31, 2019, Suzlon Energy had ₹11,463 crore of rupee debt on its books.
Promoters’ (Tanti and ‘bodies corporate’ owned by him) holdings are set to fall from 19.79 per cent to 17.17 per cent after the allotment of shares, though the promoters would own 147 crore shares, 40 more than before the allotment. Shanghvi and his associates, however, come under ‘non-promoters’.

‘Suzlon will be back’

Speaking to BusinessLine on Saturday, Tanti said Suzlon will be “back in the market” with an order book that will keep it busy for the next 18 months. A corporate presentation of the company dated February 2020 said Suzlon has orders for 857 MW worth ₹4,399 crore.
Tanti said Suzlon had begun working with both customers and vendors and would get active as soon as the lockdown ends.
Tanti, who is also the Chairman of the Indian Wind Turbine Manufacturers Association, noted that a number of favourable developments put the industry on a solid foundation. He pointed out that the cap on tariffs has been removed, easing the pressure on prices to turbine manufacturers. The proposed ₹90,000-crore liquidity injection into electricity distribution companies would enable them to pay their dues to energy companies, which in turn would give room to the energy companies to pay the turbine manufacturers and place more orders, he observed.
He was also confident that the government would waive inter-State transmission charges (₹1.5 a kWhr), paving the way for energy companies to sell to customers directly. (Such ‘open access’ sales have always been more remunerative.) Furthermore, the government has approved viability gap funding for Central public sector companies to install up to 12 GW of wind power plants.
However, due to the pandemic, Tanti expects wind installations of only 2 GW in FY 21, against 1,580 MW in FY20. The market would improve to 3-4 GW next year, but will soar to bigger numbers from the year after next, he said.

https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/companies/investors-small-and-big-chip-in-as-suzlon-seeks-to-restructure-debt/article31614914.ece

Daawat joins hands with Feed My City to feed families affected during Covid-19 lockdown

Posted On: 2020-05-18 15:37:08

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In support of continuous relief efforts to combat the Covid-19 pandemic, Daawat Sehat, a fortified range of Daawat basmati rice and a product of LT Foods Limited, a global food company has partnered with, Feed My City, an initiative which is providing meals to distressed families of daily wagers, migrant workers homeless and needy. The initiative has been rolled out in Bangalore from 28th March and then phase wise across Hyderabad, Mumbai, Chennai and Noida. As part of the programme, nutritious meals are being provided across designated locations in these cities to underprivileged members of the society. Feed My City has been serving nutritious meals to 1 lakh plus people daily. Commenting on the noble initiative, Mr. Ashwani Arora, Managing Director and CEO, LT Foods said, "The COVID-19 pandemic has had a far-reaching impact on humanity and brought millions of people under severe financial stress. In these difficult times, it is important that organizations and people come together to mitigate the crisis. Daawat as a brand has been built on values of nurturing communities and improving the quality of life all around. Our current initiative along with Feed My City is our small contribution in ensuring that having access to basic necessities such as food should not be the primary concern for those that are already distressed and displaced because of this pandemic." To give scale and to foster the spirit of community engagement around the initiative Daawat has also initiated a campaign to encourage its consumers to participate in their efforts of feeding the hungry. To participate, consumers need to reshare the post from Daawat's social media platform and for each share of the post by the consumer, Daawat Sehat will provide an additional meal, via Feed My City. Mr. Nitin Goel, on behalf of Feed My City campaign in Mumbai said, "The capacity of the social sector has been severely challenged due to the sheer magnitude of the problem people are facing due to the lockdown. About 30 of us professionals are working for the cause with clear intent and corporate expertise to guide us. We reached out to our circle of corporate and individual well-wishers to support this endeavor and it is thanks to their generosity that we have served more than 3.5 million meals since lockdown. While we are exceedingly grateful to Daawat for all the support, we urge everyone to come forward and share these posts so that more and more needy families can receive meals and survive the lockdown. One click on the screen for us could be a matter of survival for someone else." Additionally, taking the initiative further and supporting the idea of feeding people in need, Daawat has also associated with world-renowned chef Vikas Khanna to help distribute dry ration to orphanages, old-age homes and other needy individuals across several cities in India. Shares of LT FOODS LTD. was last trading in BSE at Rs.21.2 as compared to the previous close of Rs. 21. The total number of shares traded during the day was 27235 in over 113 trades. The stock hit an intraday high of Rs. 21.9 and intraday low of 20.85. The net turnover during the day was Rs. 576125.

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Mediterranean Grill restaurant review

May 17, 2020 Luisa Loi Arts & Features 0

Luisa Loi/ The Watchdog

See this as an incentive to help the foodservice industry: in times like these, we deserve to treat ourselves, and I believe that south-east Mediterranean food is a great choice to lift our spirits up. I had been craving some, and unfortunately my go-to place is currently closed. I felt desperate for a taste bud serenade, so I decided to sit down and do some online searching, faithful that I would find something as worthy. (Most eateries keep operating with take-out and delivery systems, so it was only a matter of choosing from a vast selection.) While scrolling for interesting Mediterranean eateries online, I found a little gem: Mediterranean Grill.
Located off Bel-Red, by Hyde Square’s apartments in Bellevue, it has been maintaining a good reputation since its opening in 2015, with a following of devoted customers that online reviews can testify. I was already hooked at the sight of the homepage, which exploded to my eyes with colors and a glorious PowerPoint-like transition announcing free (don’t we all love that word?) delivery for $20 and up orders within five miles which would have rocked, if only I didn’t live farther than that. I really miss eating out, but takeout and delivery remain great options to eat restaurant food, with the plus of a meal in the comfort of some ugly pajamas and Netflix in your own home.
The menu has a variety of choices, all served with pita bread. There’s chicken shawarma, lamb shawarma, kofta kebab, baba ghanoush, but also vegetarian options, like the falafel sandwich, the vegetarian mezze, and the Greek salad. Prices for plates, salads, and sandwiches range from $8.50 to $14.30. Sides include gyro fries (beef & lamb gyro over French fries), hummus with pita, Cauliflower Fries topped with tahini, and more.
After a long time inspecting the menu, I ordered the beef and lamb gyro plate, which costs $12.25, and a pistachio baklava for $3.95. My order was delivered by GrubHub, and though I live fifteen minutes away in Kirkland, it arrived perfectly warm.
The gyro plate consisted of beef and lamb gyro (as the name makes obvious), cooked with tomato and onion. The gyro, placed on a bed of basmati rice, was soft and wonderfully seasoned, topped with garlic sauce, which balanced well with the spices in the meat. The pita bread was warm and soft, certainly a game changer when combined with the other flavors in the plate. The little bowl contained freshly made tzatziki sauce (usually made with yogurt, garlic, cucumber, and various spices), where I dipped the rest of my food. I’m not sure if that’s how it’s done in South East Europe and the Middle East, but I think the “experimentation” was a pretty successful choice. I was already full before even getting to the Greek salad, but the smaller size made it easy to eat. The salad had lettuce, tomato, cucumber, cheese, onion, and vinegar. The baklava was my dessert, also my first baklava ever (surely the first of a long series). The phyllo dough was soft and moist with a slight crisp, while the filling was creamy and had the typical mildness of pistachio nuts. Overall sweet, but the layers balanced each other, which made me really appreciate it.
Fresh ingredients, perfect amount of seasoning (the gyro was exceptional), delicious taste, filling portions, and reasonable prices. These are the qualities that we look for in a restaurant, and I believe Mediterranean Grill satisfied these expectations.
I plan to order again, having my eyes already set on the hummus plate.

http://thewatchdogonline.com/mediterranean-grill-restaurant-review-28720

Rice mill resumes operation after taking direct hit by tornado

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Rice mill resumes operations after taking direct hit by tornado

By Aaron Castleberry | May 17, 2020 at 7:10 PM CDT - Updated May 18 at 6:27 AM

JONESBORO, Ark. (KAIT) - The March 28 tornado left a scar on the Jonesboro community, damaging homes and businesses.

One of those businesses, Busch Agricultural Recources, LLC Rice Mill on Highway 49, took a direct hit from the storm.

“We’ve been through a lot lately, but we are making it,” General Manager John Heffernan said.

Even though it was a Saturday, the mill was up and running.

“We were running the mill,” Heffernan said. “We were running shipping."

With the plant running, that meant that there were employees on-site with the storm bearing down.

“We had seven guys in total on sight.”

One of the first things on Heffernan’s mind after the storm hit was the safety of his employees.

“I’m happy to say that all seven of them made it to their tornado safe spot, and were just fine,” Heffernan said. “Had it not been for it being a Saturday, it would have, would have been a lot tougher to get everybody to where they needed to be.”

He said he was watching the Region 8 News coverage as the tornado formed and started moving through the city.

He grabbed his family and took cover.

“You know, we huddled up in the hallway, and no sooner did it pass us, it went directly to the mill and it took a direct hit.”

The storm destroyed five buildings, totaling 16,000 square feet.

“We lost the admin building, the lab, two maintenance structures, and then a tractor shed.”

After the storm, the community stepped up to help clear the debris.

“So we had a lot of contractors come in. Local contractors come in to help us.”

Along with all the employees who work at the mill, who volunteered their time to help.

“All of our guys helped with the clean up as well.”

Now, there are temporary buildings in place.

With all the help, it took the plant a little over two weeks to get back up and operational.

“We were lucky the heart of the mill suffered relatively minimal damage,” Heffernan said.

https://www.kait8.com/2020/05/17/rice-mill-resumes-operation-after-taking-direct-hit-by-tornado/

Assam scientists develop high-protein, climate-smart rice varieties

Scientists of Assam have developed a number of high-protein, climate smart, high-yielding and aromatic

By : Sentinel Digital Desk

  |  18 May 2020 8:29 AM

STAFF REPORTER

GUWAHATI: Scientists of Assam have developed a number of high-protein, climate smart, high-yielding and aromatic high-yielding varieties of rice that have shorter duration and that remain erect even after ripening.

The credit goes to the scientists of Gerua (Hajo)-based RRL-RRS (Regional Rainfed Lowland Rice Research Station) under ICAR-NRRL (Indian Council of Agricultural Research-National Rice Research Institute).

Also Read - Former Assam CM Tarun Gogoi urges CM to arrange trains for stranded people

Talking to The Sentinel, RRL-RRS, Gerua officer in-charge and Principal Scientist Dr. Rupankar Bhagawati said, "Among the high-protein rice variety, CR Dhan 310 is the world's first bio-fortified rice with 10.3 per cent protein and around 20 ppm (parts per million) zinc. While CR Dhan 309 has 10.2% protein, CR Dhan 311 has 10.1 per cent protein and zinc 21 ppm. All these varieties of kharif rice have duration of 115-125 days and their yield is five tonnes to six tonnes per hectare.

Also Read - AAMSU, Guwahati demands restrictions on Eid shopping

"The climate-smart varieties of kharif rice CR Dhan 801 and CR Dhan 802 can survive under drought. They also can survive under water when submerged for two weeks. Their duration is 140-145 days and the yield varies from 5-6.5 tonnes per hectare.

"High-yielding varieties, CR Dhan 307, CR Dhan 500, CR Dhan 501, CR Dhan 505, CR Dhan 506 and CR Dhan 508 rice are lodging resistant, besides being suitable for semi-deep and low-lying land cultivation. Their duration ranges from 145-160 days. The yield is 3.4-8 tonnes per hectare.

Also Read - A tribute to DN Barua

"We've also developed an aromatic high-yielding variety of kharif rice – CR Dhan 909. It has been developed and released from Assam. It is semi-dwarf rice with strong aroma, good cooking quality, without lodging problem and is suitable for rice flakes and confectionary products. Its duration is 140-145 days and yield is 4.5-5.5 tonnes per hectare.

"We've also developed four more high-yielding varieties for all the three seasons – Ahu, Sali and Boro. They are CR Dhan 601, BIRRI 75, BINA 17 and Chandrama. Their duration is 115-145 days, and the yield is 3.5-5.6 tonnes per hectare.

"We request the farmers to book for the seeds of all these varieties of rice till May 25, 2020 for the next year's delivery. The price tag is Rs 72.50 per kg."

https://www.sentinelassam.com/guwahati-city/assam-scientists-develop-high-protein-climate-smart-rice-varieties-477392

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Business News of Monday, 18 May 2020

Source: GNA

Concerned Farmers Association commends government interventions in the rice industry

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The concerned Farmers Association of Ghana have commended the government and the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MOFA) for the swift interventions in the rice industry, which has brought the industry to an appreciable level.

The commendation in a press statement signed by Nana Opambour Boateng Bonsu II, President of the association and copied to the GNA, indicated that before President Akufo-Addo called on Ghanaians to patronize made in Ghana rice, the rice industry was neglected and faced many challenges including, post-harvest loses and lack of ready market.

The Association was happy that the government through MOFA had taken delivery of thousands of slashers and thresher machines to be distributed to rice farmers across the country.

The move, the Association noted would help local rice farmers to produce more rice for local consumption to reduce the amount of money spent on the importation of rice annually.

"We express our gratitude to the President and the Agriculture Ministry for revamping the local rice industry since farmers will no longer use traditional methods of farming and harvesting of rice."

The statement encouraged rice farmers nationwide to form associations since that was the only way for them to benefit from the government’s interventions.

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Pakistan Market Monitor Report - May 2020

Source

• WFP

Posted

18 May 2020

Originally published

18 May 2020

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·         Download report(PDF | 811.87 KB)

HIGHLIGHTS

• In April 2020, the average retail prices of wheat and wheat flour decreased by 3.8% and 0.04%, respectively, from March 2020; the price of rice Irri-6 slightly increased by 3.9% while rice Basmati negligibly increased by 0.1% in April 2020 when compared to the previous month;

• Headline inflation based on the Consumer Price Index (CPI) decreased in April 2020 by 0.84% over March 2020 and increased by 8.53% over April 2019;

• The prices of staple cereals and non-cereal food commodities in April 2020 experienced negligible to slight fluctuations, except for pulses (Masoor, Moong, and Mash) which experienced significant price increases, when compared to the previous month’s prices;

• In April 2020, the average ToT negligibly increased by 0.04% from the previous month;

• In May 2020, the total global wheat production for 2020/21 is projected at 768.49 million MT, indicating an increase of 4.03 million MT compared to the projection made in April 2020.

https://reliefweb.int/report/pakistan/pakistan-market-monitor-report-may-2020

ice Prices

as on : 19-05-2020 11:27:11 AM

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

	Arrivals			Price
	Current	% change	Season cumulative	Modal	Prev. Modal	Prev.Yr %change
Rice
Shahjahanpur(UP)	600.00	3.45	4420.00	2600	2605	5.69
Barhaj(UP)	60.00	-25	7856.00	2500	2500	7.30
Bareilly(UP)	56.00	12	1577.50	2560	2580	3.64
Shamli(UP)	50.00	8.7	691.90	2675	2660	-3.08
Kalipur(WB)	42.00	23.53	1991.00	2400	2550	-2.04
Fatehpur(UP)	33.70	-12.92	1925.10	2425	2430	5.43
Puranpur(UP)	31.00	63.16	1945.00	2600	2600	5.26
Naugarh(UP)	30.00	-33.33	3272.00	2525	2525	5.21
Bijnaur(UP)	26.00	333.33	167.00	2600	2635	16.59
Sirsaganj(UP)	14.50	-3.33	671.00	2650	2640	-3.64
Champadanga(WB)	14.00	16.67	475.00	3450	3600	9.52
Soharatgarh(UP)	9.00	5.88	1379.20	2535	2535	4.75
Milak(UP)	6.50	-23.53	95.80	2560	2570	-
K.R.Nagar(Kar)	5.00	-50	33.00	2500	1900	-
Haridwar Union(Utr)	5.00	NC	135.00	4625	4625	-
Jahangirabad(UP)	4.00	NC	166.00	2650	2650	1.92
Mawana(UP)	3.50	16.67	114.70	2650	2647	-
Lalganj(UP)	1.80	80	232.50	2300	2300	-
Melaghar(Tri)	1.50	87.5	40.80	2700	2700	NC
Anandnagar(UP)	1.20	20	182.70	2510	2515	6.81
Alibagh(Mah)	1.00	NC	64.00	4200	4200	NC
Murud(Mah)	1.00	NC	63.00	4200	4200	NC

Published on May 19, 2020

https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/economy/agri-business/rice-prices/article31620827.ece

Focusing On Trade

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On the world trade front, the end of the coronavirus epidemic will have losers and winners. Some countries’ leverage on the global stage will diminish drastically, while others will rise to take their place. Some of it will depend upon which countries employ the smartest trade policies.

Pakistan can be one of those countries who could see a boost if we play our cards right. Already, our trade in certain sectors seems to be looking up – a huge space has opened up in the global rice market for Pakistan for exporting local rice in potential markets of Middle East, North America and African regions. Rice is the largest agri-export commodity in Pakistan’s export basket with a total value of over $2 billion, and according to Adviser to Prime Minister on Commerce Abdul Razak Dawood, this number could rise to $5 billion in the next five years. Pakistan’s rice exports to the Middle East region has increased by about 59 percent to $420 million in April. One of the reasons for this sudden boost is the decline in the Indian market of basmati rice. Due to India’s lockdown, Pakistan has attempted to take over India’s hegemony over rice exports, in the Middle East.

Govt to contribute Rs4 to every rupee donated in COVID Relief Fund: PM

However, the upturn in rice exports otherwise, it has still been a bad time for exports – according to Pakistan’s Bureau of Statistics (PBS), Pakistan’s exports on month-on-month basis have witnessed a massive decline of 47.24 per cent, from $1.814 billion to $957 million, during April 2020 against March 2020. The government thus then needs to keep prioritising promoting exports in our strong sectors. One such step would be assisting local rice importers in investing in research and development to enhance production and quality of new varieties of rice. Better exports will certainly help Pakistan overcome its balance of payment crisis and provide resources to carry out debt servicing.

https://nation.com.pk/18-May-2020/focusing-on-trade

N. Korean paper highlights provincial efforts to increase rice production

By Yonhap

Published : May 18, 2020 - 21:07       Updated : May 19, 2020 - 09:03

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(Yonhap)

North Korea's official newspaper on Monday highlighted intensifying efforts in a provincial area to increase rice production as the country is striving to achieve "food self-reliance" amid worries about chronic food shortages cause by extreme weather and global sanctions.

The Rodong Sinmun, the organ of the North’s ruling party, carried comments made by local party officials in South Hwanghae Province, known as one of the country's breadbaskets, featuring their strong will and ongoing efforts to expand farming production.

"If you see any fields and paddies and sit down with farmers, you can find a very high level of spirit," the paper quoted a party official of the province as saying. He also vowed to turn the province into a place where the party's agricultural development plans can be perfectly realized.

The paper also quoted another party official in the region as saying that all-out efforts are being made to achieve a good harvest this year.

He added that objectives have not been able to be attained frequently due to the "wrong" practices among managers only focusing on targets without paying attention to farmers‘ real challenges.

He emphasized that it is necessary to tackle such issues as providing sufficient water and high-quality training and paving roads for better outcomes.

North Korea has claimed that it recorded a bumper harvest last year, but outside observers say the North has been suffering from chronic food shortages caused by droughts, flooding and other unfavorable weather conditions.

The North has called for increased food production, saying self-reliance in food supply is instrumental in ensuring the communist state's existence and dignity in the face of "murderous" global sanctions.

Leader Kim Jong-un urged a drastic increase in agricultural production in his speech in December, saying there is no expectation of the United States lifting sanctions against Pyongyang amid a lack of progress in denuclearization talks. (Yonhap)

http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20200518000927

ASIA

MAY 18, 2020 / 12:02 PM / A DAY AGO

Indonesia doubles volume of rice released to market to blunt price spike

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JAKARTA, May 18 (Reuters) - Indonesian food procurement agency Bulog has doubled the amount of rice released from stocks this year in a bid to stabilise prices that have spiked as other agencies snapped up supplies to be distributed to people affected by the coronavirus outbreak.

Bulog director Tri Wahyudi Saleh said on Monday that the trend was so pronounced that prices have remained high even though Indonesia is currently in the middle of its rice harvest, a season when supply is abundant and prices should drop.

As of May 17, Bulog had distributed 596,305 tonnes of rice in its market intervention, Saleh said, speaking during a seminar streamed online. In comparison, in January-May last year, Bulog distributed 225,685 tonnes rice for market intervention, according to agency data.

Saleh said rice prices remain elevated, despite the harvest period that started around April, because of high demand for social assistance programmes amid the coronavirus outbreak and restrictions that have been imposed to counter it. The virus has infected more than 17,500 people in Indonesia, killing more than 1,100.

“This is harvest season where supply is abundant and prices should drop, but in this harvest season, demand is so high it keeps prices above the maximum retail price limit,” Saleh said.

“We were earmarked to distribute 2,000 tonnes of rice per day during harvest season, but in reality we can sell up to 4,000 to 5,000 tonnes a day,” he added.

Government data showed that on Monday the average retail price of rice was 12,050 rupiah ($0.81) per kilogramme, up from 11,800 rupiah at the start of the year. Average rice prices were at 11,700 in mid-May last year.

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The government has an indicated maximum retail price for medium-grade rice that ranges between 9,450 and 10,250 rupiah per kilogramme depending on the region.

Meanwhile, Bulog has procured 326,678 tonnes rice equivalent from domestic production this year, out of its 1 million tonnes procurement target for 2020, Saleh said.

Bulog also currently has 1.33 million tonnes of rice for government stock, and 107,079 tonnes of rice for its commercial stock. ($1 = 14,885 rupiah) (Reporting by Bernadette Christina Munthe; Additional reporting and writing by Fransiska Nangoy; Editing by Kenneth Maxwell)

Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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https://www.reuters.com/article/indonesia-rice/indonesia-doubles-volume-of-rice-released-to-market-to-blunt-price-spike-idUSL4N2D01G1

Malaysia signs record rice import deal with India

ReutersMay 16, 2020Facebook Count

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MUMBAI: Malaysia has contracted to import a record 100,000 tonnes of rice from India for shipment this month and next, four industry officials told Reuters, in a further sign of improving trade relations between the countries after a diplomatic spat.

The first such purchase this year is already nearly twice the average annual volume of rice Malaysia has imported from India in the last five years, as rival suppliers such as Myanmar, Vietnam and Cambodia placed temporary curbs on exports to save the grain for themselves during the coronavirus crisis.

Malaysia’s purchases would help trim rice stockpiles in India, the world’s biggest exporter of the commodity.

“After a long time, Malaysia is making substantial purchases from India,” B.V. Krishna Rao, president of India’s Rice Exporters Association, told Reuters.

ARTICLE CONTINUES AFTER AD

The Southeast Asian country’s imports from India could rise to 200,000 tonnes this year after the latest deals, Rao and officials from three other firms said.

Malaysia’s Ministry of Agriculture and Food Industry did not respond to a request for comment.

Malaysia bought around 53,000 tonnes per year on average from India in the past five years, according to data from the Indian commerce ministry. Total sales to Malaysia was a record 86,292 tonnes last year.

India is now offering white rice for around $390-$400 per tonne compared with more than $450 for other countries, exporters said. “That is making buying lucrative from India,” said Nitin Gupta, vice president of trading company Olam India’s rice business.

Restriction imposed on exports by Myanmar, Vietnam and Cambodia could have prompted Malaysia’s state-linked rice importer Bernas to source supplies from India, said Himanshu Agarwal, executive director at Satyam Balajee, India’s biggest rice exporter.

Vietnam, the third-largest rice supplier, fully resumed exports this month, after halting sales from late March and limiting supply in April to make sure it has sufficient food during the pandemic.

The rice deals come against the backdrop of a massive jump in recent imports by Malaysia of other commodities such as sugar from India, the biggest buyer of Malaysian palm oil. India early this year restricted imports of Malaysian palm oil as a retaliation for then Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad’s repeated criticism of New Delhi’s domestic policies affecting the country’s Muslim minority.

Published in Dawn, May 16th, 2020

https://www.dawn.com/news/1557456/malaysia-signs-record-rice-import-deal-with-india

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Rice crops are being destroyed by blast disease in Nilphamari and Feni

 Taiyeb Ali Sarkar, Nilphamari; Rafiqul Islam, Feni

·       Published at 10:15 pm May 17th, 2020

Photo of a paddy field Dhaka Tribune

The severity of the disease causes reduction in grain yield

Farmers who cultivated the BRRI-28 rice variety in Nilphamari and Feni are worried about their output this Boro season, as blast disease has been detected on their crops.

The blast disease is one of the most severe rice plant diseases caused by fungus and it develops fast, especially on the neck of BRRI-28 rice plants in inclement weather, according to sources at the Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE) office in Domar upazila, Nilphamari.

The severity of the disease causes reduction in grain yield. A number of farmers, who will have to sustain losses due to the disease this season, said pesticides suggested by the agriculture office were not useful, and the disease developed further in increasing numbers of farmlands.

Motiur Rahman Bullet, a farmer of Khamar Bamunia village in Domar upazila, said: "I have cultivated Boro paddy on six bighas of land this season and 80% of my grain was affected by the disease. I estimate a loss of Tk39,000."

Shahinur Rahman, another farmer in the upazila, said he planted BRRI-28 on two bighas of land. But the blast disease infected most of it within a short time and left him in despair, despite a bumper harvest. Other rice farmers in the upazila are experiencing the same.

Farmers Habibur Rahman and Nazimuddin had similar sentiments saying that pesticides recommended by the upazila agriculture office were not useful.

This season Boro was planted on 13,100 hectares of land in Domar upazila of Nilphamari, with BRRI-28 being cultivated on 1,600 hectares of that. 

DAE targeted a production of 85,150 tons of Boro paddy this season and around 20% of the crops have been harvested until now, according to Domar upazila agriculture office statistics.

Anisuzzaman, an agriculture officer at the upazila, said they have been providing the necessary advice to farmers to deal with the blast disease, as well as ways to maintain precautionary measures during the coronavirus pandemic. "Neck blast disease only attacks the BRRI-28 variety of rice. We have suggested farmers grow rice varieties other than BRRI-28 in the future,” Anisuzzaman added.

Farmers in Parshuram upazila of Feni have begun harvesting their paddy and blast disease has affected some of them so far.

According to sources at the upazila agriculture office, the blast disease has infected only a little over 10 hectares of the 2,450 hectares of land where Boro is cultivated in the upazila.

Md Belal Hossain, a farmer from Shatyanagar village of the upazila, said: " I have cultivated boro on 0.4 acres of land. I was about to begin harvest within a few days but most of my crops were damaged due to the blast disease."

Farmers Abul Khayer, Lutful Haque and a few other farmers, said they have experienced the same.

Md Kamruzzaman, an agriculture officer of the upazila said: “We have been providing the necessary advice to farmers affected by the disease.Inclement weather is mainly responsible for the outbreak of the disease.”

https://www.dhakatribune.com/bangladesh/nation/2020/05/17/rice-crops-are-being-destroyed-by-blast-disease-in-nilphamari-and-feni?__cf_chl_jschl_tk__=be509fb53d269e2c0ec5b93af4ac4534e2d1a753-1589876009-0-AZQYZRmtNT1r7fJBbhh0M6iWcD4Et6eyj6AOUj0ehx9Yj2nxEFcFQKpkUZ0E3Ya_7eH_Hc9d7jaQAN-T2PGDkyQ_MalRht4nuIvMExKhiIISi-62Zp0E0jVYV1BC79nGJEQ2di4Sttn0Z3mbiUKqR7_fgScWuT2GZPiAwSPPrX2TgbD0psni3DHH1OYGNHvPgLTgWit6mBLIOYqcOdksnlPZbxM1DWjbeR7iuYGnnF-LHEuDl_lo_TmOEFALApD64avqVRodsMp4PO_X2gtMQ11-Mk-gcgxO84V-GzNATowe9bm0x8rKxBBXr58i9E75ddgoir_WPvCjR2ImQVpVnRANSB3LydCo7xBVKj9eKIGLMo7Q8ZdRdSHNpnFM8egcptek3lZYMQVwpExlTPOZsgQ

Punjab farmers’ to go for direct seeding of rice

Vikas Vasudeva

CHANDIGARH, MAY 17, 2020 23:39 IST

UPDATED: MAY 18, 2020 16:20 IST

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The DSR technique will save irrigation water, labour and power in contrast to the traditional method.  

They are shifting from traditional sowing method because of labour shortage

As the labour shortage is imminent owing to exodus of migrant labourers amid the ongoing lockdown, farmers in Punjab seem all set to go for direct seeding of rice (DSR) this khairf season, moving away from the traditional practice — of sowing nursery and then transplanting it.

Farmers and agri-experts told The Hindu that they are hopeful that this technology, which had been recommended in Punjab as an alternative method of rice (paddy) planting, will save irrigation water, labour and energy (power) in contrast to conventional method of raising rice nursery and then transplanting rice seedlings in a puddled field.

“The DSR technique is less time consuming and labour intensive than the conventional practice. The DSR technique called ‘tar-wattar DSR’ has been developed and successfully tested on a good scale at farmers’ fields. It helps in saving irrigation water, there’s lesser weed problem, besides there is reduced incidence of nutrient deficiency, especially iron, owing to lesser leaching of nutrients and deeper root development,” said Makhan Singh Bhullar, principal agronomist at the Ludhiana-based Punjab Agricultural University.

Mr. Bhullar said that the technology has a wider adaptability as it is suitable for medium to heavy textured soils including sandy loam, loam, clay loam and silt loam, which account for 87% area of the State.

Watch | Agricultural reforms through Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan

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Groundwater recharge

“Not only this, the DSR offers avenue for groundwater recharge as well as it prevents the development of hard pan just beneath the plough layer. It matures 7-10 days earlier than puddle transplanted rice, hence it gives more time for the management of paddy straw, for the timely sowing of next wheat crop. Results from research trials and farmers’ field survey have also indicated that wheat grain yield, after DSR, is 1.0-1.2 quintal per acre higher than puddle transplanted rice,” said Mr. Bhullar.

“As the DSR involves more precision in timing and greater accuracy in operations compared to conventional transplanted rice. It gives best yield and quality when sowing is done in the month of June,” said Mr. Bhullar.

Bhartiya Kisan Union (Lakhowal) general secretary Harinder Singh’, said there’s absolutely no doubt that sowing with DSR will increase this year. “I am myself all set to sow paddy with the new technique. It’s cheap, less time consuming and save water as well. Besides, this year we are facing labour shortage as many migrant labourers have gone back to their native places. So, at such a time the DSR is a viable option for me,” he said.

https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/other-states/punjab-farmers-to-go-for-direct-seeding-of-rice/article31610222.ece

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Home  Business  Cambodia to remove ban on fish, white rice, paddy rice exports

Cambodian rice farmers (Source: khmertimeskh.com)

Cambodia to remove ban on fish, white rice, paddy rice exports

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 VNA

 -

May 18, 2020

Cambodia will lift a ban on the exports of fish, white rice and paddy rice to ensure local food security during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a recent government’s statement released.

The Cambodian government has decided to allow the exports of paddy rice, white rice and fish starting from May 20 onward, the statement said, adding that the decision was made during a weekly cabinet meeting which was presided over by Prime Minister Samdech Techo Hun Sen.

The lifting of the ban, which has been imposed since April 5, came after the Southeast Asian country had detected no new COVID-19 cases for more than a month, and all of the 122 COVID-19 patients in the nation had been successfully treated.

In full: https://en.vietnamplus.vn/cambodia-to-remove-ban-on-fish-white-rice-paddy-rice-exports/173443.vnp

https://english.cambodiadaily.com/business/cambodia-to-remove-ban-on-fish-white-rice-paddy-rice-exports-164232/

Exports of paddy, white rice and fish are back on the table

Hin Pisei | Publication date 17 May 2020 | 21:28 ICT

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The Cambodian government has decided to lift the ban on the export of paddy, white rice and fish to international markets starting on May 20. Hong Menea

The Cambodian government has decided to lift the ban on the export of paddy, white rice and fish to international markets starting on May 20.

The decision was made at a Cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Hun Sen on Friday, on the heels of an announcement made last week to allow for the export of white rice.

It overturns a ban imposed early last month which aimed to ensure food security and price stability in the Kingdom during the Covid-19 pandemic.

On March 30, Hun Sen ordered the suspension of white rice and paddy exports from Cambodia from 11:59pm on April 5 to ensure a stable domestic stockpile to meet domestic consumption needs.

Cambodia Chamber of Commerce vice-president Lim Heng said: “The government is constantly monitoring the situation of farmers’ cultivation, stockpiles and global markets, so deciding to resume exports means that Cambodia has sufficient capacity for domestic consumption and exports.

“While some countries continue to restrict exports of agricultural products and fisheries, reopening at this time not only demonstrates Cambodia’s ability, but also its opportunity to expand to markets in many countries around the world,” he said.

He added that the export of paddy, white rice, and fish would help partially offset the economic slowdown in the services sector, especially in the tourism sector.

Earlier this month, Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Veng Sakhon told The Post that the ministry is striving to strengthen and expand agricultural cultivation and aquaculture to increase their potential to supply domestic demand and to export to international markets.

He said he and his team make regular field visits and encourage farmers and companies to increase their investment in agriculture and aquaculture. This will not only create jobs for locals but will also increase the potential for local products to be exported.

Royal Academy of Cambodia economics researcher Hong Vanak told The Post on Sunday that the government’s decision to resume paddy, white rice and fish exports will be a positive for the Cambodian economy.

The export restrictions led to ample local stockpiles of food supplies, he said. But, keeping excessive storage may reduce the value of the crops produced by farmers.

“After the temporary restrictions on exports to stabilise the quantity and value of food, the reopening of the exports will help the economy recover to some degree,” said Vanak.

He said the Covid-19 experience has been a wake-up call for farmers and investors to strive for higher-quality and safer agricultural investments to achieve domestic supply independence and boost exports.

Cambodia exported 300,252 tonnes of rice – worth $210 million – to international markets in the first four months of this year, up 40.46 per cent year-on-year from last year’s 213,763 tonnes, data from the ministry shows.

Meanwhile, the Kingdom exported 3,475 tonnes of fishery products in the first three months of this year, an increase of 0.72 per cent compared to the 3,450 tonnes in the same period last year.

Cambodia exported 14,100 tonnes of fishery products to international markets last year, down 2.25 per cent from 14,500 tonnes in 2018.

https://www.phnompenhpost.com/business/exports-paddy-white-rice-and-fish-are-back-table?__cf_chl_jschl_tk__=196813d22b176a3e349eaf9bbce77bb03d697a30-1589876022-0-AcuRNWpMUSVE5UBLlsFPEvkaWe_7pCTwxtl1QE_ubDAvg-twOsfwN_bkg0euuWn4s5Ttj8QZaQvDekbmxPfvo9Fx9M1CjUA3wA_Dxhh2z2d_7yVHLVckefkFumXmq8etc8B3s1Z5g4c3ybIedA2KdFoHJAzzV2-o4Ty2_snTWYwDQ6B11io4Bis3ivaBswIiahSt8h65RCEpk6dpR39NuLpDAQRzogrofpGj-3l5Eorcefpt-ml-zesxZoqT40Qnc3xcAMeYD9dy31rXLfiOcxpk4SH1G4XtYZte9bwSh9Xm5RZTXhs2xQUqPEj-adQbuhud9TvfFWQo2vS9cIb-YgPL2LK2lnS9DkkFEQPUnGqN

Exporters: Malaysia signs record rice import deal with India

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·         ASEANPLUS NEWS 

·         Sunday, 17 May 2020

4:36 PM MYT

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MUMBAI: Malaysia has contracted to import a record 100,000 tonnes of rice from India for shipment this month and next, four industry officials told Reuters, in a further sign of improving trade relations between the countries after a diplomatic spat.

The first such purchase this year is already nearly twice the average annual volume of rice Malaysia has imported from India in the last five years, as rival suppliers such as Myanmar, Vietnam and Cambodia placed temporary curbs on exports to save the grain for themselves during the Covid-19 (coronavirus) crisis.

Malaysia's purchases would help trim rice stockpiles in India, the world's biggest exporter of the commodity.

"After a long time, Malaysia is making substantial purchases from India," B.V. Krishna Rao, president of India's Rice Exporters Association, told Reuters.

The South-East Asian country's imports from India could rise to 200,000 tonnes this year after the latest deals, Rao and officials from three other firms said.

Malaysia's Ministry of Agriculture and Food Industry did not respond to a request for comment.

Malaysia bought around 53,000 tonnes per year on average from India in the past five years, according to data from the Indian commerce ministry. Total sales to Malaysia was a record 86,292 tonnes last year.

India is now offering white rice for around $390-$400 per tonne compared with more than $450 for other countries, exporters said.

"That is making buying lucrative from India," said Nitin Gupta, vice president of trading company Olam India's rice business.

Restriction imposed on exports by Myanmar, Vietnam and Cambodia could have prompted Malaysia's state-linked rice importer Bernas to source supplies from India, said Himanshu Agarwal, executive director at Satyam Balajee, India's biggest rice exporter.

Vietnam, the third-largest rice supplier, fully resumed exports this month, after halting sales from late March and limiting supply in April to make sure it has sufficient food during the pandemic.

The rice deals come against the backdrop of a massive jump in recent imports by Malaysia of other commodities such as sugar from India, the biggest buyer of Malaysian palm oil.

India early this year restricted imports of Malaysian palm oil as a retaliation for then Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad's repeated criticism of New Delhi's domestic policies affecting the country's Muslim minority.

Mahathir resigned in February as his coalition collapsed, and since then the countries have worked to rebuild their ties.

"Both economics and diplomacy have played out here," an Indian official with knowledge of Malaysia-India ties said on the condition of anonymity, referring to the recent uptick in deals.

"And when this palm oil thing came in, things sort of fell in place for India," the official said, referring to how India's tightening of palm import restrictions led to Malaysia signing other deals with the South Asian country.

Malaysia is the world's second-biggest producer and exporter of the vegetable oil after Indonesia, and India's restrictions had badly affected its sales. - Reuters

https://www.thestar.com.my/news/regional/2020/05/17/exporters-malaysia-signs-record-rice-import-deal-with-india

Govt allocates 23,497 tons of rice for fishermen

 Tribune Desk

·       Published at 03:34 pm May 18th, 2020

Photo: BIGSTOCK

Fishermen refraining from fishing during the 65-day fishing ban will receive the rice

The government has allocated 23,497 tons of rice under the Vulnerable Group Feeding (VGF) program for fishermen refraining from fishing within the maritime boundary of the country during the 65-day fishing ban.

The matter was disclosed by a press release issued by the Ministry of Fisheries and Livestock.

The government imposed a 65-day ban starting from May 20 to July 23 on fishing in the Bay of Bengal in the interest of the national economy.

Fisheries and Livestock Minister SM Rezaul Karim imparted this information while speaking at an online meeting on enforcing the ban, held at the Secretariat, reports UNB.

“Catching all types of saltwater fish has been prohibited during the period. All commercial trawlers have been asked to abide by the ban,” he said.

“During this [ban] period, fishermen refraining from fishing will get 40 kilograms of rice per month,” he informed.

“We want to ensure that more fish is produced, and to make that happen, we need to implement the government’s order strictly,” the minister added.

Saying that no negligence will be allowed in this regard, he urged the officials concerned to steer clear of any misdeed.

“If there is any negligence in discharging duty, it will be dealt with sternly and no one will be spared,” he warned.

https://www.dhakatribune.com/bangladesh/government-affairs/2020/05/18/govt-allocates-23-497-tons-of-rice-for-fishermen?__cf_chl_jschl_tk__=07820eb75c49b8e6b8db45deffaabca4ed533086-1589876011-0-AT0bg7-IvSubNMkK3gLcr3SsLfrd-gQNkPyIuHrEoeKq0U-BJN_nU48Ehw6S4HL1Ccr2lzLaGqfjqgAKwhwASN3kBtnkPlm-5azVLVfqHoDcr51hSBD1Ep47oKaQvFRJOTZKyRrz8WUpDh3dxdadSa9CqSAc-b8ZvVw-xM8KjGQPmRLlsDFeQJvWqXUQia5YwIoN0PGwNsupzYgh14Z0FUy0I1zy3PQhB8CqHIdW1dvVUjA_bPjtBMDwsYLws7y3gMnX1Sv-S2bESWO8wJsY3tybZ6FpPv-jGmR5ZiKjytgNRgce39rHOo52UE7kACy5XwOl4Q0QRodTXqDTrHAOJyCcGrYDVlnV5x6E5aeiiSEessNTTwu7YllS8ftfnLyb2OqOKJqj3RhEU35UyxddJts

Rice mill resumes operation after taking direct hit by tornado

Rice mill resumes operation after taking direct hit by tornado

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Rice mill resumes operations after taking direct hit by tornado

By Aaron Castleberry | May 17, 2020 at 7:10 PM CDT - Updated May 18 at 6:27 AM

JONESBORO, Ark. (KAIT) - The March 28 tornado left a scar on the Jonesboro community, damaging homes and businesses.

One of those businesses, Busch Agricultural Recources, LLC Rice Mill on Highway 49, took a direct hit from the storm.

“We’ve been through a lot lately, but we are making it,” General Manager John Heffernan said.

Even though it was a Saturday, the mill was up and running.

“We were running the mill,” Heffernan said. “We were running shipping."

With the plant running, that meant that there were employees on-site with the storm bearing down.

“We had seven guys in total on sight.”

One of the first things on Heffernan’s mind after the storm hit was the safety of his employees.

“I’m happy to say that all seven of them made it to their tornado safe spot, and were just fine,” Heffernan said. “Had it not been for it being a Saturday, it would have, would have been a lot tougher to get everybody to where they needed to be.”

He said he was watching the Region 8 News coverage as the tornado formed and started moving through the city.

He grabbed his family and took cover.

“You know, we huddled up in the hallway, and no sooner did it pass us, it went directly to the mill and it took a direct hit.”

The storm destroyed five buildings, totaling 16,000 square feet.

“We lost the admin building, the lab, two maintenance structures, and then a tractor shed.”

After the storm, the community stepped up to help clear the debris.

“So we had a lot of contractors come in. Local contractors come in to help us.”

Along with all the employees who work at the mill, who volunteered their time to help.

“All of our guys helped with the clean up as well.”

Now, there are temporary buildings in place.

With all the help, it took the plant a little over two weeks to get back up and operational.

“We were lucky the heart of the mill suffered relatively minimal damage,” Heffernan said.

Some of the minimal damage to the heart of the facility was the roof and exterior damage.

“But the main components were intact, which is what allowed us to get back up and going in those 16 days.”

Heffernan said he couldn’t be happier to see how things are turning out.

“We are really proud of how far we’ve come in such a short time.”

https://www.kait8.com/2020/05/17/rice-mill-resumes-operation-after-taking-direct-hit-by-tornado/

Global Eco Watch: A cooling event caused rice to spread across Asia 4,200 years ago

Down To Earth brings you the top happenings in the world of global ecology

 

NEXT NEWS ❯

By DTE Staff

Last Updated: Monday 18 May 2020

A major global cooling event some 4,200 years ago led to the dispersal of rice from China to all parts of Asia, a new study has found.
The study, conducted by an international team of researchers, reconstructed the historical movement of rice across Asia using whole-genome sequences of more than 1,400 varieties of rice, coupled with geography, archaeology, and historical climate data.
The event, known as the ‘4.2k event’ caused the japonica variety of rice to disperse from China to tropical southeast Asia as well as temperate northern Asia such northern China, Korea and Japan.
The other major variety of Asian rice, namely indica, originated in the lower Ganges valley 4,000 years ago and spread to China.
The researchers also found that temperature, rather than water availability and rainfall, was the key determinant in rice diversity.
New study shows how farmlands affect the spread of bee diseases
A new study in upstate New York has found that landscapes play a major role in determining the spread of bee diseases.
The study makes use of empirical data and mathematical modelling. It shows how surrounding landscapes might affect the ways that bees and flowers interact, and how interconnected networks of plants and pollinators influence disease spread in bees.
The findings are important because bee diseases have contributed to pollinator declines worldwide.
For the study, the researchers, from Cornell University, visited 11 sites surrounded by farmland. They gathered data on the bees and the plant species found in the locations.
Hyena injured by snare trap near Gurugram operated upon
A five-year-old male striped hyena underwent surgery after being severely injured due to being caught in a snare trap in a village near Gurugram recently.
The animal was found by locals in Mandawar village on May 12, and rescued by members of a wildlife non-profit and the district wildlife department.
It had lacerations and had bled profusely from the tongue and the mouth. It is currently under observation and being administered painkillers and antibiotics.
The spot where the hyena was found is part of a major wildlife corridor that stretches from Gurugram to Sariska in the Aravalli hill range.

https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/wildlife-biodiversity/global-eco-watch-a-cooling-event-caused-rice-to-spread-across-asia-4-200-years-ago-71211

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Fact Check

David Littleproud claims Australia has the most secure food security in the world. Is he correct?

RMIT ABC Fact Check

Posted Yesterday, updated Yesterday

Agriculture Minister David Littleproud says that Australia has "the most secure food security in the world".(ABC News: Andrew Kennedy)

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The claim

With Australians bunkering down amid the COVID-19 pandemic, panic buying and hoarding of everyday groceries led to severe shortages of some products.

Rice, pasta and some canned foods sold out in the weeks after state and federal governments imposed restrictions and urged Australians to stay at home, with a sudden rush to stock up severely straining supply chains.

State and federal government ministers have said repeatedly that buying huge volumes of food and groceries is unnecessary, with Prime Minister Scott Morrison labelling panic buying "ridiculous" and "not sensible".

The National Farmers' Federation also sought to quell concerns about food shortages, telling consumers not to "panic" as there was "plenty of food to go around".

The Minister for Agriculture, Drought and Emergency Management, David Littleproud, went so far as to declare that Australia "[has] the most secure food security in the world".

"We're a nation of 25 million people," Mr Littleproud told ABC Radio National's Afternoon Briefing program on May 11. "We produce enough food for 75 million."

Is that correct? Does Australia have "the most secure food security in the world"? RMIT ABC Fact Check investigates.

The verdict

Mr Littleproud's claim is in the ballpark.

According to many studies and experts, Australia enjoys a very high level of food security. The nation produces an abundance of food, exports far more than it needs, and has ample alternative sources of certain foods should they become scarce.

While Australia is not the top-ranked or "most" food-secure nation in the world, according to some comparisons, it nevertheless has plenty of flexibility in terms of food sources and could switch production priorities to alleviate shortfalls. One international comparison places Australia 12th among 113 nations in terms of food security.

Australia is a very secure nation in terms of food, according to experts.(ABC Landline: Tim Lee)

Richard Heath, of the Australian Farm Institute, typified the response of the experts.

"By the most basic definition — which is, 'Are we at risk of starving because we cannot feed ourselves?' — we are so far from that, it's ridiculous," he said.

"When you consider the availability of irrigated-water area, the amount of arable land … we are a very secure nation in terms of food."

What does it mean for a nation to be 'food secure'?

Food security is a complex notion that incorporates two fundamental concepts: quantity and quality.

The first is whether a nation has sufficient sources of food — whether locally produced or imported — to sustain its people. The second is whether the people have reliable access to food that is safe to eat, nutritious and affordable.

A nation, for example, may have bountiful supplies of a particular type of food, but insufficiently diverse food sources to provide a consistently nutritious diet.

Similarly, it may have physical access to food, but its people cannot afford to buy it. Or it may be overly dependent for its needs on imported products, or vulnerable to severe fluctuations in commodity prices.

All nations commonly have segments of their population that suffer from limited access to safe, affordable and nutritious food. These include the homeless, low-income households, isolated communities or households that struggle to manage daily life challenges.

Having a high "food security" rating (as determined by various theoretical models) implies a nation is able to provide the overwhelming majority of its people, most of the time, with affordable food sources that will nourish them and provide a healthy diet.

Images of empty shelves in Australian supermarkets sparked public fears of food insecurity.(Supplied)

What is 'food sovereignty'?

This is a wider concept that takes into account issues about who controls the primary sources of food and its associated distribution systems: ownership structures, economic power bases and the policies that underpin a nation's food supply chain.

Food sovereignty incorporates cultural preferences about what kinds of food are produced, how they are farmed and what goes into their production.

Mr Heath, the executive director of the Australian Farm Institute, a policy research group focused on the agriculture sector, said some organisations and individuals commonly misappropriated the term "security" when they were really arguing about "food sovereignty".

He described the latter as "where what you eat is all produced in the nation", and said references to "food security" sometimes took on political overtones in Australia.

On assessing the claim

Fact Check has examined the concept of "food security" by applying a broad interpretation, assessing "food security" based on globally-used definitions for nutrition and affordable access to food, while also taking into account vulnerability to food shortfalls or supply-chain disruption.

An abiding duty of governments is to ensure that their citizens are protected and safe, a concept that includes having sufficient food to sustain the population's daily needs. A nation that cannot feed its people is potentially vulnerable to political instability.

Conversely, political instability and regional hostilities can lead to food shortages if daily production is disrupted or crops are destroyed.

Occasionally, local shortages may arise due to drought, floods or pestilence that curb production and disrupt the usual supply of one or more types of vegetables, fruits, grains or meats to consumer markets.

Market forces or government intervention can assist to ensure alternative foods or alternative sources of supplies are made available.

In a globalised trading world, many elements of Australia's food production and packaging depend on imported goods, such as machinery, certain types of fertilisers and some types of packaging.

A break in this supply chain could disrupt the ability of local producers ultimately to meet demand. But experts say this would not be catastrophic to Australia's food sustainability.

Experts say a break in the global supply chain could disrupt Australia's food production, but this would not be a huge problem for food supply.(ABC South West: Zoe Keenan)

Putting food security in a historical context

Global concerns about food security were heightened in the early 1970s after drought, storms and floods ravaged developing nations in eastern Africa and heavily-populated Bangladesh.

At the same time, political upheaval and the trend towards collectivised agriculture deterred large-scale food production in India, Chile, Peru and some other nations.

Rapid population growth, inflation, black market profiteering and mismanagement of government-owned stockpiles resulted in extreme food shortages.

The crisis led to a global summit in Rome in 1974 where delegates to the World Food Conference set a highly ambitious goal of eradicating hunger everywhere.

The World Food Summit of 1996 confirmed the failure of that goal, but set new commitments and an action plan focusing on the concept of "undernourishment".

As part of these deliberations, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) defined food security as:

"[A situation] when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life."

The FAO noted four dimensions to food security:

• Availability — food is actually available through food production, stock levels and trade;
• Access — people have economic and physical access to food (aspects that centre on prices, market forces and income levels);
• Utilisation — there is good biological utilisation of food through preparation and feeding practices, diversity of diet and intra-household distribution;
• Stability — there is long-term stability of the above three factors.

How does Australia rate?

Fact Check examined three key sources to determine the extent of Australia's food security.

1. The Economist Intelligence Unit

The Economist Intelligence Unit compiles extensive country-based research and statistics on a broad range of economic and policy areas.

As well as nourishment, availability and affordability aspects of food security, its Global Food Security Index takes account of the natural resources and resilience of a country.

The index also considers structural changes that may affect a nation's ability to feed its people.

The EIU's Global Food Security Index ranked Australia 12th out of 113 countries in December 2019, based on an overall score of 81.4 out of 100. Australia sat below Singapore (87.4), Ireland (84) and the US (83.7), as well as seven other European nations and Canada.

Although Singapore is the top-ranking nation for "food security", it imports most of its food and has little access to arable land. The Singapore Food Agency concedes the nation's food supply chain "remains vulnerable to external shocks".

Put another way, should Singapore have to close its borders to all civilian and cargo movements, it would soon run out of food.

This highlights the confusion over "food security", which is measured in terms of the food that is available to a nation, and "food sovereignty", which includes concepts about control of the food chain.

The EIU ranked Australia seventh for affordability of food and 10th in terms of availability of food.

On the quality and safety of its food, Australia came in at number 20, behind the Scandinavian countries and most western European nations.

2. The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation

The FAO's latest statistical reports indicate that Australia, like countries in North America and Europe, ranks highly in terms of food security.

The FAO considers food security — or rather, insecurity — in terms of the proportion of a nation's population that does not have access to safe, nutritious and affordable food.

The organisation's assessment is that a relatively low percentage of Australia's population experiences severe or moderate-to-severe food insecurity, placing it among the most food secure nations in the world.

Nevertheless, the FAO found that an increasing number of people in Australia struggled to obtain reliable, safe, nutritious and affordable food.

Indeed, the number of Australians said to be suffering from severe "food insecurity" has risen from about 600,000 in 2014-16 (calculated as a three-year average) to about 900,000 in 2016-2018, while as much as 13 per cent of the population has a moderate degree of food insecurity.

A review published in early 2019 by Deakin University researchers also found significant variation in the way food insecurity was measured (or determined) within Australia — an outcome that, in their view, suggested the prevalence and severity of food insecurity was under-reported inside Australia.

A separate study by Max Roser of Oxford University and Hannah Ritchie of the University of Edinburgh, which examined data on food security rates worldwide, suggested Australia's undernourishment rate may be closer to 3.5 per cent of the population, and that as many as 3 million Australians experience moderate to severe food insecurity at some stage.

3. Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences (ABARES)

ABARES is the science and research division of the Department of Agriculture, Research and the Environment.

It provides detailed analysis and production forecasts for various industries, including agriculture, fishing, forestry, climate and drought biosecurity and food demand.

On April 17, ABARES published an analysis of Australia's food security in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. It concluded that concerns about food security in Australia were "understandable, but misplaced".

ABARES found the nation produces substantially more food than it consumes.

Australia exports about 70 per cent of its agricultural production (by volume), including 71 per cent of its wheat crop, 75 per cent of beef and veal production, and 40 per cent of its dairy products.

Local supply chain issues, not food insecurity, cleared the shelves earlier this year at the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis.(ABC: Dan Harrison)

In turn, about 11 per cent by value (not volume) of food and beverages consumed in Australia comes from overseas.

ABARES said it was "unlikely, but possible" that COVID-19 restrictions could temporarily disrupt supply chains of imported foodstuffs.

That may cause "inconvenience" to some consumers, but ABARES said it would not jeopardise the nation's overall food security.

ABARES researchers noted, however, that shortages or disruptions to supply chains for products used by Australian agricultural producers (such as fertilisers, seed variants, machinery and so forth) could affect the volume of output and profits for local food producers.

In a subsequent, more detailed report, ABARES said that although disruptions in international markets "may affect the choice and cost of some items, it will not have a material impact on overall food availability".

"There may be disruptions to some industries, but the sheer volume of Australia's food production relative to the needs of the domestic population mean domestic food supplies will not fall short," the researchers concluded.

"Despite temporary shortages of some food items in supermarkets caused by an unexpected surge in demand, Australia does not have a food security problem."

What about rice? A case study

The volume and availability of rice in Australia has garnered particular attention in recent weeks amid concerns about potentially lower world production and constraints on the rice trade due to pandemic restrictions imposed by some rice-producing nations.

Severe drought in South-East Asia especially affected Thailand and Vietnam, two of the top three rice exporting nations by volume.

Yet the world's biggest exporter, India, enjoyed favourable rice-growing conditions and has increased the area of land under plantation. It is expected to produce a record crop of more than 117 million tonnes in 2019-20 and one similarly large next year, although COVID-19 civilian movement restrictions may crimp production outcomes.

Labour shortages in some countries due to restrictions on civilian movement, has led the US Department of Agriculture to clip its forecast for 2019-20 global rice production to 496.1 million tonnes, about 0.5 per cent below last year's record high.

As well, trade restrictions imposed by some South-East Asian nations that export significant quantities of rice could curb the volume of rice traded internationally.

The USDA's April 2020 forecast suggests traded rice volumes in 2020 are likely to be about 5 per cent below last year.

Vietnam, for example, temporarily banned most exports of rice in March as part of concerns about its population's food security during the pandemic.

On April 28, it began to ease pandemic-related export restrictions and planned to recommence rice exports fully this month.

Also, the USDA noted in its April 9 bulletin that global supplies of rice (and wheat) are "at record levels and are large enough to meet global demand".

Australia is a relatively minor player in the world rice market, representing about 2 per cent by volume of internationally-traded rice.

The Ricegrowers' Association of Australia says that in a non-drought year, about 80 per cent of the local crop is exported.

About 80 per cent of Australia's rice crop is exported.(ABC Landline: Sean Murphy)

In the 13 years to 2017-18, including several drought-affected years, local rice-growers produced an average of 575,000 tonnes, and exported about half that amount. ABARES' figures on the rice industry indicate Australian consumers demand (on average) 297,000 tonnes a year, a mix of imported varieties and locally-produced rice. Local demand has been increasing steadily for more than a decade.

Several years of drought in eastern Australia's prime rice-growing regions have severely affected domestic production, due to a lack of water and high prices for traded water.

Production for 2019 was estimated to be 54,000 tonnes, or less than 10 per cent of the long-term average.

The Ricegrowers' Association of Australia, which lobbies on behalf of domestic producers, criticised the ABARES food security report as "misleading" in terms of the rice sector.

It said the security of Australia's rice supplies remained in question due to the combined effects of drought and constraints on exports by some countries.

It argued that another "extremely small" Australian rice crop was likely unless more water was "made available at cheaper prices between now and the 2020 rice-planting window in October".

Local rice producers and growers of irrigated crops have called on the state and federal governments to make more water available to them from the Murray-Darling Basin.

ABARES researchers, though, say locally-grown rice is only a "modest" contributor to the notion of food security in Australia.

In its April 23 report, ABARES rejected the call to divert water to rice and other irrigated crops.

"Calls to divert water or other inputs to the production of crops such as rice would only create additional costs for other agricultural producers or to the environment, while doing nothing to increase the supply in the short run since the growing season for rice has past [sic]," ABARES researchers said.

What do other experts say?

Bill Bellotti, the food systems program director for the Global Change Institute at the University of Queensland, said the recent panic buying in grocery stores is a consumer-demand issue. It did not stem from problems with the production of food or Australia's capacity to produce food.

"Food security, for most people, depends on the familiar food supply chain — producing, processing, distributing and consuming food," Professor Bellotti said.

He suggested the real bottleneck during the COVID-19 crisis had been in the retail chain.

"The big retailers had food in their distribution centres but could not re-stock fast enough to meet panic demand," he said.

"The pandemic is forcing a rethink on the resilience of these global connections and the 'just-in-time' food supply chains.

"A take-home message is that this shock to the food system provides a time for all food actors [the people along the supply chain] to reflect on the impact of the coronavirus on their role."

Professor Bellotti said this opportunity for reflecting was available to everyone, including consumers.

"For example, consumers might consider buying local fresh produce over imported or highly-processed food. Consumers might reduce food waste.

"I think there will be lasting changes in consumer behaviour in response to the coronavirus."

Richard Heath, of the Australian Farm Institute, said Australia did not have a problem with food security.

"By the most basic definition — which is, 'Are we at risk of starving because we cannot feed ourselves?' — we are so far from that, it's ridiculous," he said.

"When you consider the availability of irrigated-water area, the amount of arable land … we are a very secure nation in terms of food.

"But the language of food security has become politicised in Australia. It has come to mean that, due to a particular set of policy settings and market mechanisms, we do not have certain industries [thriving] — think about rice and dairy.

"That is not because we do not have the production capacity to do it. Our production capacity of food is very high, but we are using water that is available and producing almonds for export, for example, rather than milk for consumption or rice.

"We are food secure, but policy and market settings mean that from time to time, we are not secure [in certain products] … [although] we can very easily substitute it for something else."

Principal researcher: Leonie Wood

Additional research: Natasha Grivas

Sources

• ABC News, Afternoon Briefing with Patricia Karvelas, May 11, 2020
• ABC News, Scott Morrison says panic buying driven by coronavirus lockdown fears is ‘ridiculous’ and ‘unAustralian’, March 18, 2020
• Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Research Economics and Sciences (ABARES), Agricultural commodities and trade data, 2019 – Rural commodities - rice
• ABARES, Analysis of Australia’s food security and the COVID-19 pandemic
• ABARES, Australian crop report, No. 193, February 2020
• ABARES, Food demand in Australia  
• Banger, M. No need to stockpile amid virus: Vic govt, AAP, March 4, 2020
• Gordillo, G. and Jerónimo, O.M., Food Security and Sovereignty – Base Document for Discussion, UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, 2013
• Greenville, J., McGilvray, H., Cao, L.Y. and Fell, J., Impacts of COVID-19 on Australian agriculture, forestry and fisheries trade, ABARES Research Report 20.11, April 2020
• Harvey, G., Water expert predicts rice shortage after door shut on imports, The Sydney Morning Herald, 11/04/2020
• Hasell, J. and Roser, M., Famines, Our World in Data, revised edition, December 7, 2017
• Higgins, E., Coronavirus: We need more water to grow food in this crisis, say Murray-Darling farmers, The Australian, March 30, 2020
• Lindberg, R., Lawrence, M., Gold, L., Friel, S. and Pegram, O., Food Insecurity in Australia: Implications for general practitioners, Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, (2015) vol. 44 (11), 859-862   
• Littleproud, D., Minister for Agriculture, Drought and Emergency Management: Transcript, Interview with Tom Connell Sky News, 30/03/20  
• Mackay, F., Haines, B. and Dunn, M., Measuring and Understanding Food Insecurity in Australia: A Systematic Review, International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 2019 Feb; 16(3), 476
• National Farmers’ Federation, COVID-19 Campaign, 2020
• Pasour, E.C., The World Food Crisis, Foundation for Economic Education, 01/12. 1975
• Reidy, S., India’s wheat, rice production continue to reach record highs, World-Grain.com, April 9, 2020
• Reuters, Vietnam trade ministry proposes fully resuming rice exports from May, April 4, 2020
• Ricegrowers’ Association of Australia, All About Rice – Factsheet
• Ricegrowers’ Association of Australia, ABARES give false comfort on COVID-19 risks to local and international rice supplies, April 17, 2020
• Rosier, K. Food insecurity in Australia: What is it, who experiences it and how can child and family services support families experiencing it?, Australian Institute of Family Studies, August 2011
• Roser, M. and Ritchie, H., Severe Food Insecurity, Our World in Data, 2018
• Singapore Food Agency, Singapore tops 2019 Global Food Security Index, Food for Thought, February 2, 2020
• Srivastava, S., Labor Woes in India Rice-Growing Region May Push Farmers to Cotton, Bloomberg, April 23, 2020
• The Economist Intelligence Unit, Global Food Security Index, December 2019
• UN FAO, An Introduction to the Basic Concepts of Food Security, 2008
• UN FAO, FAOSTAT – Australia
• UN FAO, Rome Declaration on World Food Security, 1996  
• UN FAO, Statistics
• UN FAO, 2019 The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World – Safeguarding Against Economic Slowdowns and Downturns, 2019
• UN FAO, World Food Summit, 13-17 November 1996, Rome, Italy
• US Department of Agriculture, Grain: World Market and Trade – Record Corn, Wheat and Rice Crops Build Stocks in 2020/21, May 2020   
• USDA, Rice Outlook, April 13, 2020
• Zaki, R.H., 1974 famine in Bangladesh: Economic context and myths, BDNews24.com, June 18, 2013

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ocial distancing a boon? Study says absence increases fondness for the each other

By ANI

Focusing on the importance of being together, a new study says that when it comes to forming or lasting bonds, longing for the other may be as important as being together

Photo Credit: Pixabay

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Washington D.C.: Focusing on the importance of being together, a new study says that when it comes to forming or lasting bonds, longing for the other may be as important as being together.
The outcome is based on the results from a new brain imaging study of prairie voles -- which are among only about 5 per cent of mammalian species besides humans who are monogamous.
The results of the study can be a cue to develop new therapies to treat conditions like autism, depression, and other disorders that make such emotional connections hard to come by. The study also sheds light on why it's so hard to social distance.
"In order to maintain relationships over time, there has to be some motivation to be with that person when you are away from them," said lead author Zoe Donaldson, an assistant professor of behavioural neuroscience at the University of Colorado Boulder. "Ours is the first paper to pinpoint the potential neural basis for that motivation to reunite," Donaldson added.
Published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the study is a years-long effort of prairie voles by Donaldson. By observing the behaviour and brain activity of the monogamous rodents, she seeks to better understand what brain regions -- down to the cellular level -- drive the instinct to form lasting bonds.
"We are uniquely hardwired to seek out close relationships as a source of comfort, and that often comes through physical acts of touch," she said.
For the study, Donaldson used tiny cameras and a cutting-edge technology called in-vivo-calcium imaging to spy on the brains of dozens of voles at three-time points.
First when they were just meeting another vole, second - three days after they had mated and third - 20 days after they had essentially moved in together. Researchers also observed the animals interacting with voles who were not their mates.
So, at first, Donaldson's team assumed the voles' brain activity would be markedly different when they were huddling with their mate versus a random vole. "Surprisingly, that is not what we found," she said. Stranger or lover, the voles' brains looked basically the same when they were together.
It was only when the voles were away from their partner and running to meet them, that a unique cluster of cells in the nucleus accumbens consistently fired up.
The longer the animals had been paired, the closer their bond became and the larger the glowing cluster of cells -- dubbed the "partner approach ensemble" -- on image screens.
Notably, a completely different cluster of cells lit up when the vole approached a stranger. "This suggests that maybe the recruitment of these cells for this new purpose is important for forming and maintaining a bond," Donaldson said.
She suspects that brain chemicals like oxytocin, dopamine, and vasopressin, which have been shown in both animal and human studies to play a role in fostering trust and closeness, are involved in the process. But she doesn't know for sure what that cluster of cells does. It's also not clear whether the specific "neuronal code" associated with a desire to reunite in voles inspires the same emotion in people. More research is underway.
What the study does confirm is that monogamous mammals are uniquely hard-wired to be with others. "These negative feelings so many of us are experiencing right now may result from a mismatch: we have a neuronal signal telling us that being with loved ones will make us feel better, while practical restrictions mean this need is going unmet," Donaldson said.
"It's the emotional equivalent of not eating when we are hungry, except now instead of skipping a meal, we are slowly starving," Donaldson concluded.

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Assam scientists develop high-protein, climate-smart rice varieties Scientists of Assam have developed a number of high-protein, climate smart, high-yielding and aromatic climate-smart rice Sentinel Digital DeskBy : Sentinel Digital Desk | 18 May 2020 8:29 AM AddThis Sharing Buttons Share to WhatsApp Share to FacebookShare to TwitterShare to More 4 STAFF REPORTER GUWAHATI: Scientists of Assam have developed a number of high-protein, climate smart, high-yielding and aromatic high-yielding varieties of rice that have shorter duration and that remain erect even after ripening. The credit goes to the scientists of Gerua (Hajo)-based RRL-RRS (Regional Rainfed Lowland Rice Research Station) under ICAR-NRRL (Indian Council of Agricultural Research-National Rice Research Institute). Also Read - Former Assam CM Tarun Gogoi urges CM to arrange trains for stranded people Talking to The Sentinel, RRL-RRS, Gerua officer in-charge and Principal Scientist Dr. Rupankar Bhagawati said, "Among the high-protein rice variety, CR Dhan 310 is the world's first bio-fortified rice with 10.3 per cent protein and around 20 ppm (parts per million) zinc. While CR Dhan 309 has 10.2% protein, CR Dhan 311 has 10.1 per cent protein and zinc 21 ppm. All these varieties of kharif rice have duration of 115-125 days and their yield is five tonnes to six tonnes per hectare. Also Read - AAMSU, Guwahati demands restrictions on Eid shopping "The climate-smart varieties of kharif rice CR Dhan 801 and CR Dhan 802 can survive under drought. They also can survive under water when submerged for two weeks. Their duration is 140-145 days and the yield varies from 5-6.5 tonnes per hectare. "High-yielding varieties, CR Dhan 307, CR Dhan 500, CR Dhan 501, CR Dhan 505, CR Dhan 506 and CR Dhan 508 rice are lodging resistant, besides being suitable for semi-deep and low-lying land cultivation. Their duration ranges from 145-160 days. The yield is 3.4-8 tonnes per hectare. Also Read - A tribute to DN Barua "We've also developed an aromatic high-yielding variety of kharif rice – CR Dhan 909. It has been developed and released from Assam. It is semi-dwarf rice with strong aroma, good cooking quality, without lodging problem and is suitable for rice flakes and confectionary products. Its duration is 140-145 days and yield is 4.5-5.5 tonnes per hectare. "We've also developed four more high-yielding varieties for all the three seasons – Ahu, Sali and Boro. They are CR Dhan 601, BIRRI 75, BINA 17 and Chandrama. Their duration is 115-145 days, and the yield is 3.5-5.6 tonnes per hectare. "We request the farmers to book for the seeds of all these varieties of rice till May 25, 2020 for the next year's delivery. The price tag is Rs 72.50 per kg."

https://www.sentinelassam.com/guwahati-city/assam-scientists-develop-high-protein-climate-smart-rice-varieties-477392

Global Cooling Event 4,200 Years Ago Spurred Rice's Evolution, Spread

Monday, May 18, 2020

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A major global cooling event that occurred 4,200 years ago may have led to the evolution of new rice varieties and the spread of rice into both northern and southern Asia, an international team of researchers has found.
Their study, published in Nature Plants and led by the NYU Center for Genomics and Systems Biology, uses a multidisciplinary approach to reconstruct the history of rice and trace its migration throughout Asia.
Rice is one of the most important crops worldwide, a staple for more than half of the global population. It was first cultivated 9,000 years ago in the Yangtze Valley in China and later spread across East, Southeast, and South Asia, followed by the Middle East, Africa, Europe, and the Americas. In the process, rice evolved and adapted to different environments, but little is known about the routes, timing, and environmental forces involved in this spread.
In their study, the researchers reconstructed the historical movement of rice across Asia using whole-genome sequences of more than 1,400 varieties of rice—including varieties of japonica and indica, two main subspecies of Asian rice—coupled with geography, archaeology, and historical climate data.
For the first 4,000 years of its history, farming rice was largely confined to China, and japonica was the subspecies grown. Then, a global cooling event 4,200 years ago—also known as the 4.2k event, which is thought to have had widespread consequences, including the collapse of civilizations from Mesopotamia to China—coincided with japonica rice diversifying into temperate and tropical varieties. The newly evolved temperate varieties spread in northern China, Korea and Japan, while the tropical varieties and spread to Southeast Asia.
"This abrupt climate change forced plants, including crops, to adapt," said Rafal M. Gutaker, a postdoctoral associate at the NYU Center for Genomics and Systems Biology and the study's lead author. "Our genomic data, as well as paleoclimate modeling by our collaborators, show that the cooling event occurred at the same time as the rise of temperate japonica, which grows in milder regions. This cooling event also may have led to the migration of rice agriculture and farmer communities into Southeast Asia."
"These findings were then backed up by data from archaeological rice remains excavated in Asia, which also showed that after the 4.2k event, tropical rice migrated south while rice also adapted to northern latitudes as temperate varieties," said Michael D. Purugganan, the Silver Professor of Biology at NYU, who led the study.
After the global cooling event, tropical japonica rice continued to diversify. It reached islands in Southeast Asia about 2,500 years ago, likely due to extensive trade networks and the movement of goods and peoples in the region—a finding also supported by archeological data.
The spread of indica rice was more recent and more complicated; after originating in India's lower Ganges Valley roughly 4,000 years ago, the researchers traced its migration from India into China approximately 2,000 years ago.
While the researchers had thought that rainfall and water would be the most limiting environmental factor in rice diversity, they found temperature to be the key factor instead. Their analyses revealed that heat accumulation and temperature were very strongly associated with the genomic differences between tropical and temperate japonica rice varieties.
"This study illustrates the value of multidisciplinary research. Our genomic data gave us a model for where and when rice spread to different parts of Asia, archaeology told us when and where rice showed up at various places, and the environmental and climate modeling gave us the ecological context," said Purugganan. "Together, this approach allows us to write a first draft of the story of how rice dispersed across Asia."
Understanding the spread of rice and the related environmental pressures could also help scientists develop new varieties that meet future environmental challenges, such as climate change and drought--which could help address looming food security issues.
"Armed with knowledge of the pattern of rice dispersal and environmental factors that influenced its migration, we can examine the evolutionary adaptations of rice as it spread to new environments, which could allow us to identify traits and genes to help future breeding efforts," said Gutaker.
Republished courtesy of New York University. 

https://www.laboratoryequipment.com/564348-Global-Cooling-Event-4-200-Years-Ago-Spurred-Rice-s-Evolution-Spread/

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To curb food wastage, Pinoy scientists harness plant proteins for milk production, sports nutrition

Published on May 18, 2020 by Mikael Angelo Francisco

00

Clockwise from left: petfoodindustry.com; indiatvnews.com; Burpee Seed Company; survivalgardener.com

•DOST-funded Pinoy scientists are researching plant proteins to address nutritional deficiencies and food wastage in the country.
•The team will extract protein concentrates from pressed coconut meal (copra meal), rice bran, cowpea (paayap), pigeon pea (kadyos), and other vegetables and agricultural by-products.
•They will begin applying their findings in the fields of sports nutrition, food production, and dietary supplements.

---

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has brought numerous lessons and issues back into the general consciousness of many Filipinos. One of the most significant reminders, of course, is that hunger remains a major problem in our country, especially at a time like this. The long lines of people waiting for food donations and cash assistance from the government (ayuda) emphasizes the fact that everyone goes hungry, without exception—and unfortunately, it is the poor who suffer the most.
Knowing all of this makes it even harder to wrap one’s mind around the reality that we waste so much food. Statistics from the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) show that each year, humans waste approximately 1.3 billion tons of food—about a third of the food we produce for our own consumption—with food losses and waste amounting to about USD 310 billion in developing countries. Filipinos waste about 308,000 tons of rice, our staple food, per year. And in Metro Manila, roughly 2,175 tons of food end up getting thrown away each day. Considering how an estimated 13 million Filipinos are forced to live on less than three meals a day, this isn’t just tragic, it’s unacceptable.
Fortunately, scientists from the Industrial Technology Development Institute of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST-ITDI) is doing something about it. Focusing on agricultural waste, food technologist Lourdes Montevirgen and her team are researching coconut, rice, and vegetable waste in an effort to harness an “untapped wealth” of sorts: plant proteins, or as others call it, “green gold.”

From green garbage to green gold

According to India-based firm Markets and Markets Research Private Ltd., the global functional protein market is projected to reach USD 5.73 billion by the year 2022. Thus, this is an excellent time for Filipino scientists to establish a foothold in this developing industry, while hitting two birds with one stone.
With funding from the DOST Grants-In-Aid program, Montevirgen’s team will extract protein concentrates from pressed coconut meal (copra meal), rice bran, cowpea (paayap), pigeon pea (kadyos), and other vegetables and agricultural by-products. These local sources tend to be underutilized, and end up contributing to the growing food waste problem.
Under the project, the team will develop and modify existing methods of pretreatment, extraction, and recovery of plant proteins. This will maximize the productivity, reliability, and efficiency of the overall process. One of the team’s main areas of focus is tapping into alternative source materials to reduce our dependency on animal proteins and other commonly used resources.

Go, grow, and glow

The project has already started, and the team is looking into applying their findings within the fields of sports nutrition (e.g. high-protein beverages), food production (e.g. animal meat alternatives, liquid food stabilizers and emulsifiers, infant formula), and dietary supplements.
The team is confident that alongside growing consumer awareness and demand worldwide, their research will have a significant impact on the local functional protein market. Hopefully, with this planned utilization of plant proteins and alternative nutritional sources, Filipinos will have affordable options in the near future for avoiding chronic diseases and shifting to a healthier diet, all while addressing the persistent problem of food wastage.

---

References

• DOST-ITDI S&T Media Service
• https://businessmirror.com.ph/2019/11/14/we-can-help-solve-the-food-waste-problem/

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