Tuesday, April 03, 2018

3rd April,2018 daily global regional local rice e-newsletter

Iran considering direct import of Pakistani rice: Ex FM

Islamabad, April 2, IRNA - Iran’s head of Strategic Council on Foreign Relations Kamal Kharazi says the Islamic Republic is looking for the ways to import rice from Pakistan directly, local media reported on Monday.


 “Iranians are fond of Pakistani basmati rice which is being imported through Dubai to the disadvantage of both Iranian consumers and Pakistani exporters,” Kharazi told rice exporters at a ceremony in Lahore in which Acting Consul General of Iran in Lahore Majid Sadeghi Dowlatabadi was also present.

Responding to a demand made by Rice Exporters Association of Pakistan President Chaudhry Samiullah Naeem, Kharazi said Tehran was also working on a proposal for opening bank branches in both the countries for direct trade transactions in currencies other than dollar to avoid the US pressures.

He said Iran was interested in bilateral cooperation in various sectors and not just rice and was negotiating with Islamabad for reducing duties on bilateral trade.

Recalling Tehran’s role in lending support to Pakistan when latter needed the most soon after its independence, he said Iran under a bilateral agreement also constructed the gas pipeline up to Pakistani borders while the latter, he regretted, under the US pressure could not yet accomplish the construction work on its side.

Kharazi added that the US sanctions rather helped Iran attain self-sufficiency in each sector from infrastructure development to defense related needs.

President of Rice Exporters Association of Pakistan said a delegation of rice exporters would soon leave for Iran and hoped that the former foreign minister would help the visitors in striking business to business deals during the visit. 

Aromatic rice Tulaipanji gaining popularity among farmers

·       PTI
·       April 3, 2018
·       UPDATED 11:20 IST
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By Tapan Chakraborty
Balurghat (WB), Apr 3 (PTI) An indigenous aromatic rice, grown in a small pocket of north Bengal, has gained so much interest among the farmers due to the state governments encouragement that its area of cultivation has increased by 45 per cent in just three years, district officials said.
Tulaipanji is cultivated in Raiganj, Kaliaganj, Hemtabad and Karandighi blocks of Uttar Dinajpur district and Kushmandi block of Dakshin Dinajpur district.
Earlier, the farmers were not very keen to cultivate Tulaipanji, but following the encouragement by the state government, more and more peasants are now engaged in farming this variety.
"The yield of Tulaipanji was not enough in earlier years. But now the agriculture department helps us in various ways. We also get a better price for this," said Palanu Mohammad, a farmer of Bindol in Raiganj block.
In Uttar Dinajpur, Tulaipanji was cultivated in 6,700 hectare in 2017-18, compared to 5,400 hectare in 2016-17 and 4,600 hectare in 2015-16, regisetering a growth of 45 per cent in three years, district agriculture official Srikanta Sinha said.
The production of Tulaipanji has also been gradually increasing - 10,120 million tonne in 2015-16, 11,880 mt in 2016-17 and 14,740 mt in 2017-18 - in the district, Sinha told PTI.
"If Basmati rice can be marketed countrywide in packets, the same can be done for Tulaipanji. It has an excellent aroma. The government has taken the initiative to market this rice in and outside the country," said Uttar Dinajpur District Magistrate Ayesha Rani.
The DM said the authorities have applied for GI (geographical identification) tag for Tulaipanji.
A GI is primarily an agricultural, natural or a manufactured product (handicrafts and industrial goods) originating from a definite geographical territory. Such a name conveys an assurance of quality and distinctiveness, which is essentially attributable to the place of its origin.
The agricultural department of the district has been directed to help farmers grow Tulaipanji, Rani said.
Though its grain is not so long as Basmati, but the medium-grained Tulaipanji has the excellent aroma because of the presence of three organic chemicals, another agriculture official Mir Farhad Hossain said.
Recently, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had directed the officials to collect Tulaipanji from Uttar and Dakshin Dinajpur districts for packaging and marketing it in all the districts including Kolkata, official sources said.
"The production was around 1.8 tonne per hectare a decade ago but it could be increased four times these days using the science of genetics," said Dr Subhas Chandra Roy, associate professor of the North Bengal University, whose research interest includes rice genetics. PTI COR NN MM
https://www.indiatoday.in/pti-feed/story/aromatic-rice-tulaipanji-gaining-popularity-among-farmers-1203443-2018-04-03
USA Rice Welcomes Rebecca Greenway  

ARLINGTON, VA - USA Rice is beginning a transition today as Rebecca Greenway, CPA, joined the management team as the incoming Chief Financial Officer. She will succeed Linda Sieh who is retiring later this month after more than 15 years at USA Rice. 

Greenway has spent the last 12 years at the National Association of Convenience Stores (NACS), 10 of them as the Controller for NACS and its seven affiliate organizations.  She served as the Financial staff liaison for the Board of Directors of three NACS affiliates, lead Congressional meetings during NACS annual fly-ins, and developed content for the NACS Financial Leadership Program at The Wharton School, in addition to filling other roles for the organization.

During an exhaustive executive search, Greenway stood out in no small part for her successes in helping NACS increase non-dues revenue - something that is a USA Rice priority.

Rebecca lives in Falls Church, Virginia with her son and two daughters and when she's not thinking about finances she is likely enjoying old films, music, reading, or traveling

Usa RICE DAILY

Focus on the Farmer Series Continues  
ARLINGTON, VA -- USA Rice is producing a monthly Facebook feature to bring attention to the folks who help put U.S.-grown rice on America's plates - and to let them tell the real story of food production in their own words.
Last month we got to know Arkansas rice farmer Ryan Sullivan and this month our "Focus on the Farmer" shines the spotlight on Louisiana rice farmer Paul Johnson.The week-long series starts today -- look, like, and share the posts every day this week! 

USA RICE DAILY


Smuggling, biggest challenge to local rice production —FG

 April 3, 2018
Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed
’Femi Asu
 The Federal Government has identified smuggling of rice mainly from Thailand and India as the biggest challenge facing rice production in the country.
According to the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, smuggled rice from the two countries comes into Nigeria through the country’s borders with Benin, Niger and Cameroon.
He said at a press conference in Lagos that over two million metric tonnes of parboiled rice were smuggled into Nigeria in 2017, according to the Rice Millers Importers and Distributors Association of Nigeria.
The minister said, “Let’s look at rice smuggling through Benin. The total demand for white rice (white rice is consumed in Benin, against parboiled rice in Nigeria) is 400,000 MT. Yet the country, with a population of about 11 million, imports between 1million and 1.2 million MT of rice annually. Who are they importing for? Nigerians, of course.
“In fact, as Nigeria’s rice import falls, Benin’s rice import increases. Most of the parboiled rice imported by Benin eventually lands in Nigeria through smuggling. Both Cameroon and Benin Republics have lowered tariff payable on rice to zero and five per cent respectively to encourage importation and subsequent smuggling of the product into Nigeria.”
According to Mohammed, smuggled rice currently costs between N11,000 and N13,000 per 50kg bag, while Nigerian processed rice sells for between N14,500 and N15,000 per 50kg bag.
He said, “Smuggled rice is sourced mainly from Thailand and India, which gives a high level of subsidies to rice farmers and rice processors. Local rice producers have made some representation to the government on how Nigerian rice can compete favourably, in terms of pricing, with the heavily subsidised imported rice.
“The country has never been closer to self-sufficiency in rice, a national staple, than now. Our target is to achieve self-sufficiency in our paddy production in two years, by 2020.
“This has been made possible by the purposeful leadership of President Muhammadu Buhari, who has consistently said that this nation must produce what it consumes.”
Buhari launched in November 2015 the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme, which aims to provide farm inputs, in cash and kind, to small-holder farmers to boost local production of commodities, including rice, stabilise inputs supply to agro-processors and address the country’s negative balance of payments on food.
The minister said the exponential growth in local rice production had moved the country closer to ending rice importation.
He said, “Within two years, rice importation from Thailand fell from 644,131 MT (in September 2015) to 20,000 MT (in September 2017). That’s over 90 per cent drop. So far, less than N100bn has been spent on the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme that has achieved so much.
 “Meanwhile, in April 2008, the Federal Government had to quickly release N80bn from the Natural Resources Development Fund to import 500,000 MT of rice in order to cushion what it said was the effect of a global disaster. Imagine that we have ploughed that money into rice production in 2008. We would have been exporting rice by now.
He said according to the Rice Processors Association of Nigeria, the number of rice farmers had increased from five million in 2015 to over 11 million, with a total investment in excess of N300bn.
Mohammed said, “Nigeria’s rice paddy production has seen significant growth in the past three years, from four million MT to seven million MT.  The country’s rice import bill, hitherto at $1.65bn annually, has dropped by over 90 per cent, with current consumption of approximately six million MT of milled rice.
“In 2015, Nigeria produced 2.5 million MT of milled rice. By 2017, it rose to four million MT, leaving a gap of two million MT. Our target is to fill that gap by 2020. In 2015, there were only 13 integrated mills. By 2017, the number rose to 21, after eight more were added.”
The minister described fertiliser production in the country as a success story, noting that President Buhari set up the Presidential Fertiliser Initiative in December 2016 to deliver commercially significant quantities of affordable and high-quality fertiliser at the right time to the Nigerian farmer.
He noted that the agricultural sector and the country’s food production were negatively impacted in 2016, saying farmers became exposed to high and rising prices for key agric inputs.
Mohammed said, “In 2017, PFI delivered 10 million 50kg bags (500,000MT) of NPK 20:10:10 fertiliser at a price of N5,500 in time for the wet season. That’s down from the price of N9,000 per 50kg bag in 2016 — a 40 per cent reduction in price. In 2018, PFI targets the delivery of 20 million 50kg bags (1 million MT), double the figure for 2017.
“Before PFI, each imported fertiliser bag was subsidised to the tune of N6,000 per bag. In 2017, PFI saved the government N60bn in would-be subsidies.”

Our rice, fertiliser revolutions

By Lai Mohammed
03 April 2018   |   4:21 am
Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed
Today, we want to share with you, the giant strides that the Buhari Administration has made in two key areas: The Rice Revolution and the Fertilizer Revolution!
But before I go into details, let me say this: The country has never been closer to self-sufficiency in rice, a national staple, than now. Our target is to achieve self-sufficiency in our paddy production in two years, by 2020.
This has been made possible by the purposeful leadership of President Muhammadu Buhari, who has consistently said that this nation must produce what it consumes. Recall that President Buhari launched the
Anchor Borrowers’ Programme on Nov. 17th 2015. The programme aims to provide farm inputs, in cash and kind, to smallholder farmers to boost local production of commodities, including rice, stabilize inputs supply to agro-processors and address the country’s negative balance of payments on food.
The result is the exponential growth in local rice production that has now moved us closer to ending rice importation. Within two years, rice importation from Thailand fell from 644,131 Metric Tons (in Sept 2015) to 20,000 MT (in Sept. 2017). That’s over 90% drop! Let me put things in perspective. So far, less than 100 billion Naira has been spent on the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme that has achieved so much. Meanwhile, in April 2008, the federal government had to quickly release 80 billion Naira from the Natural Resources Development Fund to import 500,000 MT of rice in order to cushion what it said was the effect of a global disaster. Imagine that we have ploughed that money into rice production in 2008! We would have been exporting rice by now.
Where we stand in rice farming, rice milling and distribution today
–  According to the Rice Processors Association of Nigeria (RIPAN), there are more than 11 million rice farmers in Nigeria today, up from
5 million in 2015.
–  RIPAN’s total investment in the Nigerian economy is in excess of N300b. Upcoming investments will amount to N250b.
–  The new investments will add 5,000 jobs and additional 1,775,000MT of integrated rice milling capacity.
–  It will save $300m FOREX from import substitution through local processing.
–  Nigeria’s rice paddy production has seen significant growth in the past 3 years, from 4m MT to 7m MT.
–  Nigeria’s rice import bill, hitherto at $1.65 billion annually, has dropped by over 90%
Self-sufficiency in rice production
– As I said earlier, our target is to achieve self-sufficiency in our paddy rice production by 2020
– Nigeria’s current rice consumption is approximately 6m MT of milled rice.
– In 2015, Nigeria produced 2.5m MT of milled rice. By 2017, it rose to 4m MT, leaving a gap of 2m MT. Our target is to fill that gap by 2020.
– In 2015, there were only 13 Integrated mills. By 2017, the number rose to 21, after 8 more were added (please note that the new investments were made when Nigeria was in recession, indicating investors’ confidence in Mr. President and the Nigerian economy)
– The investments have not stopped. 15 more mills are about to take off, including the Dangote Rice Mills to be established in six states with a total capacity of about 1m MT.
Job creation from increased rice production
– RIPAN members presently employ 5,000 skilled Nigerians (Direct Employment)
– 5Five million farmers (Indirect Employment)
– Over 500,000 input suppliers (Indirect Employment)
– Hundres of thousands of unskilled workers, including labourers (Indirect Employment)
– You can then do the maths yourself to see the total number of jobs that have been created by RIPAN alone. Remember that there are small scale rice millers all over the country who are not RIPAN members.
The challenge of rice smuggling
– Rice smuggling is the biggest challenge facing rice production in Nigeria. According to the Rice Millers Importers and Distributors Association of Nigeria (RIMIDAN), over 2m MT of parboiled rice were smuggled into Nigeria in 2017
– Smuggled rice is primarily sourced from Thailand and India and comes
into Nigeria through the country’s borders with Benin, Niger and Cameroon.
– Let’s look at rice smuggling through Benin. The total demand for white rice (white rice is consumed in Benin, against parboiled rice in Nigeria) is 400,000 MT. Yet the country, with a population of about 11 million, imports between 1m and 1.2m MT of rice annually. Who are they importing for? Nigerians of course. In fact, as Nigeria’s rice import falls, Benin’s rice import increases. Most of the parboiled rice imported by Benin eventually lands in Nigeria through smuggling.
– Both Cameroon and Benin Republics have lowered tariff payable on rice to zero and five per cent respectively to encourage importation and subsequent smuggling of the product into Nigeria.
Why imported rice is cheaper than local rice and what can be done to reverse this?
– Presently, smuggled rice costs between N11,000 and N13,000 per 50kg
bag. Nigerian processed rice sells for between N14,500 and N15,000 per
50kg bag. Smuggled rice is sourced mainly from Thailand and India, which gives a high level of subsidies to rice farmers and rice processors. In fact, rice receives the largest amount of agricultural subsidy in the world.
– Local rice producers have made some representation to the government
on how Nigerian rice can compete favourably, in terms of pricing, with the
heavily-subsidized imported rice.
The role of fertilizer in the rice/agric revolution
Fertilizer production in Nigeria today is a success story. Recall that President Buhari set up the Presidential Fertilizer Initiative (PFI) in December 2016 to deliver commercially-significant quantities of affordable and high-quality fertilizer at the right time to the Nigerian farmer. The PFI has turned out to be a magic wand in fertilizer production.
– Recall that the agricultural sector and the country’s food production were negatively impacted in 2016, as farmers became exposed to high and rising prices for key agric inputs
– In 2017, PFI delivered 10 million 50kg bags (500,000MT) of NPK
20:10:10 fertilizer at a price of N5,500 in time for the wet season. That’s down from the price of N9,000 per 50kg bag in 2016 – a 40% reduction in price.
– In 2018, PFI targets the delivery of 20 million 50kg bags (1 million MT), double the figure for 2017
What PFI has achieved
– Before PFI, each imported fertilizer bag was subsidized to the tune of N6,000 per bag. In 2017, PFI saved the government N60b in would-be subsidies.
– The FOREX savings in 2017 was $150m, thanks to the substitution of imported inputs of NPK with locally-sourced inputs. Limestone is sourced locally. Urea is sourced locally. Phosphate is imported on from Morocco, with which we have negotiated a long-term bulk purchase agreement. Mr President personally led the negotiations with the King of Morocco and his team on the long-term bulk phosphate supply agreement.
Potash is imported from Europe.
– 11 moribund fertilizer blending plants with a combined capacity of over 2m MT have been revived. 12 more are to be revived to bring to 23 the total number of plants that will partake in 2018 PFI.
– Over 6m bags of fertilizer have been sold to farmers at N5,500 per bag.
– There is now a higher patronage for the country’s rail network due to movement of raw materials and finished goods.
– Also, the bag-making sector of the economy boosted, with over 10mpackaging bags produced exclusively for PFI
– 60,000 direct jobs and even higher number of indirect jobs have been created.
Conclusion
The agricultural revolution in general and the rice revolution, in particular, have taken millions of Nigerians out of poverty. As a matter of fact, today, 60% of rice eaten in Nigeria is produced in Nigeria. In the words of the rice processors, the rice revolution alone is enough to guarantee re-election for President Buhari, if he decides to run again!
We want to use this opportunity to appeal to Nigerians to complement the efforts of the government by consuming only locally-grown and processed rice. It is fresher. It is tastier. It is healthier. It has not spent months on the high seas and warehouses. We don’t know where or how imported rice is made or how old it is? It is reported that most of the rice dumped on us are old and probably rejects. The citizens of those countries do not eat this rice. The citizens of Benin also do not eat it. But they send it to us. Unhealthy foods are dangerous to health. So let’s eat what we can vouch for.
But Nigerians should remember that every time they eat imported rice, they are eating the jobs that would have been created for Nigerians and instead funding the creation of jobs in the source countries. Just imagine that less than three years into the rice revolution, millions of jobs have been created in the whole value chain.
It is important for Nigerians to know that when they consume imported rice, they are creating jobs in India and Thailand and destroying jobs across our country. Today we have rice farmers in all states and all geopolitical zones. In fact, most of us have friends and relatives who are farming rice. So if we don’t patronize their product, we are destroying their livelihoods.
In this regard, we are embarking on a massive nationwide campaign to sensitize our compatriots to the need to support the rice revolution by consuming local rice. Nigerians are patriots. They want more jobs. They will support the rice revolution and Nigeria will become self-sufficient in rice sooner than we have stated.
*Alhaji Mohammed is Nigeria’s Minister of Information and Culture

New rice variety launched

April 01, 2018
NSW Department of Primary Industries plant systems group director, Alison Bowman, has launched a new rice variety, Viand, which combines water-saving attributes with the ability to fit high-value markets.
Speaking at the recent rice industry field day at the Yanco Agricultural Institute, Dr Bowman said Viand offers growers up to 10 per cent water-use efficiency gains on existing varieties.
“NSW DPI, in partnership with SunRice and AgriFutures Australia, has bred a high-yielding, fast maturing, medium grain rice, which delivers water saving advantages through its shorter growing season.
‘‘In late sown on-farm trials Viand outperformed medium grain Reiziq rice by 107 per cent per megalitre of water.
‘‘Shorter season varieties add flexibility to farming systems, giving growers options to manage risk and extend the sowing window for rice.’’
Yanco rice growers, Chris and Sue Hardy, grew Viand in commercial trials when it was known as YRM70 and were able to double crop with irrigated winter crops and extend the rice sowing window to utilise late irrigation water allocations.
‘‘We grew five Viand crops in two and a half years in a 25-hectare paddock, alternating Viand with winter cereals on an irrigation layout of beds in bays.
‘‘Double cropping improved our returns, allowing us to take advantage of available water to deliver a system which arguably gives us the best return on our available asset base,” Mr Hardy said.
AgriFutures Australia General Manager Research and Innovation, Michael Beer, said the new variety addresses the key industry challenge of growing more rice with less water.
Aimed at maximising grower returns, Viand meets the requirements of high value domestic and export markets and should prove popular with growers and consumers.
http://www.denipt.com.au/2018/04/01/8745/new-rice-variety-launched

Real-time tabs on trucks helped in preventing theft of PDS rice’

SUSHIL RAO| TNN | Apr 3, 2018, 10:36 IST
Civil supplies commissioner CV Anand monitors godowns and transport vehicles
HYDERABAD: A tech initiative has saved Rs 19,000 crore for civil supplies department in Telangana. A nexus that existed between rice millers, fair price shop dealers and also government staff, to an extent, was busted and pilferage of food grains curtailed.The way civil suppliesdepartment went about busting the racket, and, in the process, shattering a myth that nothing could be done to change to system that allowed for pilferage of rice, is interesting. TOI checked out the mechanism put in place by CV Anand, commissioner of civil supplies and ex-officio principal secretary, civil supplies department. The IPS officer, who had previously serviced as Cyberabad police commissioner, used his exposure to technology to introduce it even in the civil supplies department.
“The revolution that has been brought about to check pilferage of food grains is mainly due to the technology that makes it possible,” Anand said. In the civil supplies bhavan at Somajiguda, a huge screen gives out real-time specific detail about movement of stocks. Every identified route on which the trucks are transporting food grains has been geofenced. That is to say if a truck were to move on any other road and even stopped, the buzzer in the civil supplies bhavan will ring, prompting the monitoring personnel to call up the driver.



In the earlier system when no tabs were kept on vehicles, it gave enough scope for pilferage of food grains. Similarly, cameras have been fixed at all godowns. Live CCTV footage is monitored so that there no pilferage. Anand also demonstrated the mechanism at fair price shops that prevents any pilferage. A real-time stock availability and sale is monitored. Beneficiaries also get the right quantity as technology connects both the weighing scales and the e-pos machine handled by the FPS dealer.

The e-pos machine gets activated only with the thumb impression of the FPS dealer and the beneficiary. Technology also exposed the fact that rice millers had not returned the rice that had been handed over to them for milling. Another racket of keeping the gunny bags was also busted. “The best thing that has happened is that farmers get their minimum support price within just a couple of days and directly into their bank,” Anand said.

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/hyderabad/real-time-tabs-on-trucks-helped-in-preventing-theft-of-pds-rice/articleshow/63591585.cms

 

FG Targets Self-sufficiency in Paddy Rice Production by 2020

Says rice revolution is enough to guarantee Buhari’s re-election
Tobi Soniyi and Eromosele Abiodun
The federal government has announced its plans to achieve self-sufficiency in paddy production in two years by 2020.
The Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, who disclosed this at a press conference in Lagos yesterday, said the agricultural revolution in general and the rice revolution in particular have taken millions of Nigerians out of poverty.He said 60 per cent of rice eaten in Nigeria is produced locally, adding that the rice revolution alone is enough to guarantee the re-election of President Muhammadu Buhari if he decides to run again!
Nigeria, the minister added, had never been closer to self-sufficiency in rice, a national staple food, than now.
He stressed that this has been made possible by the purposeful leadership of President Buhari, “who has consistently said this country must produce what it consumes. Recall that President Buhari launched the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme on November 17, 2015. The programme aims to provide farm inputs in cash and kind to smallholder farmers in order to boost local production of commodities, including rice, stabilise inputs supply to agro-processors and address the country’s negative balance of payments on food.
“The result is the exponential growth in local rice production that has now moved us closer to ending rice importation. Within two years, rice importation from Thailand fell from 644,131 metric tons in September 2015 to 20,000 MT in September 2017. That’s over 90 per cent drop.
“Let me put things in perspective. So far, less than N100 billion has been spent on the anchor borrowers’ programme that has achieved so much. Meanwhile, in April 2008, the federal government had to quickly release N80 billion from the Natural Resources Development Fund to import 500,000 MT of rice in order to cushion what it said was the effect of a global disaster. Imagine that we had ploughed that money into rice production in 2008! We would have been exporting rice by now.”
On where Nigeria stands today in rice farming, milling and distribution, the minister said: “According to the Rice Processors Association of Nigeria (RIPAN), there are more than 11 million rice farmers in Nigeria today, up from five million in 2015. RIPAN’s total investment in the Nigerian economy is in excess of N300 billion. Upcoming investments will amount to N250 billion. The new investments will add 5,000 jobs and additional 1,775,000MT of integrated rice milling capacity. It will save $300 million foreign exchange from import substitution through local processing. Nigeria’s rice paddy production has seen significant growth in the past three years from four million MT to seven million MT. Nigeria’s rice import bill, hitherto was at $1.65 billion annually, has dropped by over 90 per cent.”
Speaking on the challenge of rice smuggling, he said smuggling is the biggest obstacle facing rice production in Nigeria.
He said: “According to the Rice Millers Importers and Distributors Association of Nigeria (RIMIDAN), over two million MT of parboiled rice were smuggled into Nigeria in 2017-smuggled rice is primarily sourced from Thailand and India and comes into Nigeria through the country’s borders with Benin Republic, Niger and Cameroon.
Let’s look at rice smuggling through Benin Republic. The total demand for white rice (white rice is consumed in Benin Republic against parboiled rice in Nigeria) is 400,000 MT. Yet the country, with a population of about 11million, imports between one million and 1.2 million MT of rice annually.”While stressing that the federal government has achieve giant strides in fertilizer, he said fertilizer production in Nigeria today is a success story.
“Buhari set up the Presidential Fertilizer Initiative (PFI) in December 2016 to deliver commercially-significant quantities of affordable and high-quality fertilizer at the right time to the Nigerian farmers. The PFI has turned out to be a magic wand in fertilizer production. Recall that the agriculture sector and the country’s food production were negatively impacted in 2016, as farmers became exposed to high and rising prices for key agricultural inputs. In 2017, PFI delivered 10 million 50-kilogramme bags (500,000MT) of NPK20:10:10 fertilizer at a price of N5,500 in time for the wet season. That’s down from the price of N9, 000 per 50kg bag in 2016-a 40 per cent reduction in price. In 2018, PFI targets the delivery of 20 million 50kg bags (one million MT), double the figure for 2017,” he explained.

Vietnam exports more rice in 3 months

Source: Xinhua   2018-04-02 16:26:03
HANOI, April 2 (Xinhua) -- Vietnam exported nearly 1.4 million tons of rice worth 668 million U.S. dollars in the first three months of this year, up 9.1 percent in volume, and up 23.8 percent in value against the same period last year, according to the Vietnam Food Association on Monday.
The country, which exported roughly 5.9 million tons of rice worth nearly 2.7 billion U.S. dollars last year, mainly to China and the Philippines, plans to ship abroad 6.5 million tons of rice, including higher volumes of such high-grade rice as Japonica, fragrant rice and sticky rice, this year.
In recent years, Vietnam has increased export of high-grade rice, with Japonica accounting for 4.4 percent of its total rice export in 2017, said the association.
The country is focusing on using better rice growing, harvesting, postharvest, storage and transport practices and types so that rice will have uniform moisture contents, high weight, no foreign material, low percentage of discolored, broken and damaged kernels, no presence of insects and molds, and high protein and vitamin content.
Vietnam's paddy rice-growing area was over 7.7 million hectares in 2017, and its paddy rice output last year dropped for the first time over the past 20 years to 42.8 million tons, said its agriculture ministry.

http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2018-04/02/c_137082993.htmNigerian Govt Assures Of Achieving Self-Sufficiency In Rice By 2020

Alhaji Lai Mohammed, Minister of Information and Culture
The Federal Government says Nigeria will achieve self-sufficiency in rice production by 2020 with sustained implementation of the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme launched on Nov. 17, 2015.The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, who gave the assurance at a media briefing in Lagos on Monday, said “the country has never been closer to self-sufficiency in rice, a national staple, than now.“This has been made possible by the purposeful leadership of President Muhammadu Buhari, who has consistently said that this nation must produce what it consumes.’’
The minister recalled that the President launched the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme to provide farm inputs in cash and kind to smallholder farmers to boost local production of commodities, including rice.He said the programme also aimed at stabilising inputs supply to agro processors and address the country’s negative balance of payments on food.
“The result is the exponential growth in local rice production that has now moved us closer to ending rice importation.
“Within two years, rice importation from Thailand fell from 644,131 Metric Tons (in Sept 2015) to 20,000 MT (in Sept. 2017). That’s over 90 per cent drop.
“So far, less than 100 billion Naira has been spent on the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme that has achieved so much.’’
He recalled that in April 2008, the Federal Government had to quickly release N80 billion from the Natural Resources Development Fund to import 500,000 MT of rice in order to cushion what it said was the effect of
a global disaster.
“Imagine that we have ploughed that money into rice production in 2008, we would have been exporting rice by now,’’ he said.
Quoting the Rice Processors Association of Nigeria (RIPAN), the minister said there were more than 11 million rice farmers in Nigeria, up from five million in 2015.
He said RIPAN’s total investment in the Nigerian economy was in excess of N300 billion while upcoming investments would amount to N250 billion.
According to him, the new investments will add 5,000 jobs and additional 1,775,000MT of integrated rice milling capacity.
Mohammed said the new investments would save 300 million dollar FOREX from import substitution through local processing.
He said with the significant increased production in rice paddy, Nigeria’s rice import bill, hitherto at 1.65 billion dollars annually, had dropped by over 90 per cent.The minister said that the nation’s current rice consumption is approximately six million MT of milled rice.
“In 2015, Nigeria produced 2.5m MT of milled rice. By 2017, it rose to 4m MT, leaving a gap of 2m MT.
“Our target is to fill that gap by 2020,’’ he said.The minister added that in 2015, there were only 13 integrated rice mills and by 2017, the number rose to 21.
“It is important to note that the new investments were made when Nigeria was in recession, indicating investors’ confidence in Mr President and the Nigerian economy.
“The investments have not stopped as15 more mills are about to take off, including the Dangote Rice Mills to be established in six states with a total capacity of about one million MT,’’ he said.
Mohammed said that with increased rice production, “RIPAN members presently employ 5,000 skilled Nigerians through direct employment.
He said five million farmers were recruited through indirect employment, more than 500,000 input suppliers were engaged and hundreds of thousands of unskilled workers, including labourers got jobs.

Slippery Rough Surface Inspired by Pitcher Plant and Rice Leaves for Harvesting Water

Published on April 2, 2018 at 11:02 AM
A research team from Penn State and the University of Texas at Dallas has designed a slippery rough surface (SRS) based on pitcher plants as well as rice leaves. The surface performs better than ultramodern liquid-repellent surfaces used in water harvesting applications.
In the image, the left panel is a directional slippery rough surface (SRS, this study), the middle panel is a slippery liquid-infused porous surface (SLIPS), and the right panel is a superhydrophobic surface. This image shows a comparison of water harvesting performance of SRS vs other state-of-the-art liquid repellent surfaces. (Image credit: Xianming Dai/Nan Sun/Jing Wang/Tak-Sing Wong/Penn State)
The researchers have published their study online in Science Advances, an open-access journal, on March 30, 2018.
With an estimated 4 billion people living in a situation of water scarcity during at least some part of the year, an inexpensive method for harvesting water from water vapor or from fog droplets in air could have enormous practical applications, and will help alleviate the water scarcity issues in many regions of the world.
Tak-Sing Wong - Project Leader, Wormley Family Early Career Professor in Engineering & Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Penn State.
Various water-harvesting applications are not very efficient due to the fact that water attracted toward a hydrophilic surface has the propensity to form a sheet and sticks to the surface, rendering it difficult to remove. However, Wong’s post-doctoral scholar Simon Dai, who is an assistant professor at UT Dallas at present, was considering a blend of several biological approaches to developing a slippery solution for water harvesting.
With SRS, we combined the slippery interface of a pitcher plant with the surface architecture of a rice leaf, which has micro/nanoscale directional grooves on its surface that allows water to be removed very easily in one direction but not the other.
Dai created a pitcher plant-based slippery surface with hydrophilic chemistry. Simultaneously, directional grooves were added to give the new surface a microscale roughness that would increase the surface area. The rate of fog and water harvesting were seen to increase with an increase in the amount of surface area on which droplets were formed. The rice leaf-based grooves whisked the water droplets away through gravity or capillary action.
By conducting experiments at Penn State, the researchers demonstrated that these surfaces had the ability to collect tiny droplets of water from air at a rate faster than many ultramodern surfaces. Molecular dynamics simulations performed by Steven Nielson, Dai’s colleague, at UT Dallas elucidated the reason for the hydrophilic surface to be specifically good at water harvesting.
If the SRS material is produced at scale, we estimate that we can collect over 120 liters of water per square meter of the surface per day, and we can further increase the water harvesting rate by optimizing the SRS,” stated Nan Sun, graduate student in Wong’s group and coauthor of the paper titled “Hydrophilic Directional Rough Surfaces for Water Harvesting.”
At present, Wong and his team are striving to optimize and scale up the SRS with the aim of developing highly efficient water harvesting systems that can provide clean water in regions affected by water scarcity.
Other Penn State researchers who were part of the study are graduate students Birgitt Boschitsch Stogin and Jing Wang; and Shikuan Yang, former post-doctoral scholar in Wong’s lab who is a professor at Zhejiang University at present. The team has filed a U.S. provisional patent for this study.
This study was supported by the Materials Research Institute at Penn State, Covestro LLC, the Office of Naval Research, Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, and the National Science Foundation

Millets and wheat over rice and meat

APRIL 03, 2018 00:15 IST
UPDATED: APRIL 02, 2018 22:05 IST

A solution for India’s micronutrient deficiencies

A shift to wheat, millets and maize from polished rice, to chicken and legumes from beef and eggs, along with leafy vegetables and coconut could reduce India’s micronutrient deficiencies and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, a study titled ‘Healthy, affordable and climate-friendly diets in India’ suggests. It was published recently in the journal Global Environmental Change.A team of researchers from Austria, the U.S. and India, headed by Narasimha D. Rao from the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Austria, used the National Sample Survey of Consumption Expenditure in India (2011-12) and the National Nutrition Monitoring Bureau to examine Indian diets. They found that while nearly three-quarters of Indians consume less than the ideal number of calories a day, and more than half have protein deficiency, the deficiencies of micronutrients were more prevalent: nearly nine in 10 Indians are iron-deficient, 85% do not meet the required intake of vitamin A, and two-thirds have zinc deficiency.
Cost was clearly a concern as deficiencies were found to decrease as household incomes increased. Surprisingly though, urban households had increased deficiencies compared to their rural counterparts (apart from Vitamin A), which the researchers attribute to greater diversity of cereals in rural areas. Having identified 32 representational diets each for north, south, east and west India, the researchers found that the rice-based diets of south and east India make the people in these areas more vulnerable to micronutrient deficiencies than people elsewhere.
The researchers found that while those above the poverty line can make up for this nutritional inadequacy without their food budgets being affected much, nearly 160 million people below the poverty line cannot without exceeding their food budgets. The researchers try to address these concerns while proposing solutions.
They suggest that the required micronutrients can be met by reducing the intake of rice (from 61% to around 40% of calorie share) and meat (expensive and with high greenhouse gas emissions) and replacing them with coarse cereals such as bajra and ragi, along with legumes, dark, leafy vegetables, and coconut. These dietary changes could also reduce agricultural greenhouse gas emissions in India by up to 25%, the study shows.

Chinese researchers find evidence of the beginning rice cultivation

Source: Xinhua| 2018-04-02 20:32:07|Editor: Xiang Bo

BEIJING, April 2 (Xinhua) -- Chinese researchers have found evidence of the shift from wild rice to rice cultivation.
Researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) collected the samples of phytoliths, a microscopic structure of silicon dioxide, from an archaeological profile at the Hehuashan site, located in the upper Qiantang River region in east China's Zhejiang Province.
They found and analyzed the fan-shaped phytoliths which were contained in rice leaves.
A change in the amount and forms of the fan-shaped phytoliths found at the Early Neolithic site indicated a change from wild rice to cultivated rice at the time of human occupation, which provides evidence of possible manipulation of wild rice during Shangshan Culture period about 10,000 years ago.
Rice cultivation has a long evolutionary process. "Ancient humans recognized wild rice could satisfy their hunger," said Wu Yan, associate professor from CAS Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology. "Then they learnt to collect and preserve wild rice and began rice cultivation."
The phytoliths were resistant to corrosion and well preserved. They are expected to be a key finding for the research into the origins of rice, said Wu.
Pak-Iran rice trade via Dubai continues despite PTA



Our Staff Reporter

April 03, 2018

LAHORE - The Pakistan and Iran bilateral trade can reach the level of $10 billion mark within very short period from the present volume of less than $800 million, as both the countries have been doing their most of trade including rice via Dubai despite inking Preferential Trade Agreement (PTA) since 2006.
The Rice Exporters Association of Pakistan chairman Ch Samee Ullah Naeem said that Iran is a nation of rice eaters where the average per capita consumption of rice is 46kg. "The Iranian brothers are very fond of Pakistani super basmati rice due to its taste, aroma, length, and cooking ability. We request the Iranian government that the access of super basmati rice be facilitated through rational trade measures and technical barriers must be removed," he said.Addressing a ceremony, the REAP chairman requested Iran to impose lower duty regime on imports of Pakistani rice in Iran under PTA.
The ceremony was also attended by acting Consul-General of Iran in Lahore Majid Sadeghi Dowlatabadi and former Iranian foreign minister Syed Kamal Kharazi.
He called for going forward from PTA to a FTA with preferably a zero import duty regime on both sides.
Ch Samee said that Pakistan and Iran have implemented PTA in 2006; however, the current volume of bilateral trade between the two countries is not reflective of the true potentials, both countries owe. "We must formulate appropriate trade policy for ensuring sustained trade between the countries."
He said that agriculturally enriched Pakistan likes to have bilateral trade relationship with Petroleum enriched Iran. We both have the right products for each other to trade and mutually co-exist but it is unfortunate that most of trade is being done through other countries.
"We both have the potential to increase our bilateral trade volume to $5billion if the problem in transferring money through banking channel is addressed.
He proposed to open Iranian bank in Pakistan which will, by far, the most conducive step forward for ensuring sustainable trade between both Islamic nations. This presence of Iranian bank in Pakistan will facilitate private business in Pakistan to interact with Iranian counterparts on long term basis.
"The Bank Melli Iran is interested to open branch in Lahore. For that matter, whatever support is required, we are here to commit that, I ensure that all rice exporters will come up with opening of accounts and routing of all trade documents through your this branch only. We need to transform all our energy for immediate opening of Bank Melli Iran branch in Lahore on war footings."
He also called for moving forward in the right direction and convolving to a much needed 'Currency Swap Agreement.'
He said that the currency swap agreement ensures participation and involvement of private sector across the borders and hence crafting a much deep rooted ties which are beyond International pressure.
He also announced that REAP is leading a 17-member delegation to Tehran, Mashhad from April 29. The visit would ensure vibrant businessmen interactions from both sides resulting in enhanced trade within regional block.
Former Iranian foreign minister Syed Kamal Kharazi, addressing the ceremony, stated that Tehran was working on a proposal for opening bank branches in both the countries for direct trade transactions in currencies other than dollar.
He said Tehran was interested in bilateral cooperation in various sectors and was negotiating with Pakistan for reducing duties on bilateral trade.


Wheat imports to dip slightly in South Africa

April 2, 2018 - by Arvin Donley


CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA — Wheat imports in South Africa for 2018-19 are forecast to decline marginally to 1.8 million tonnes after doubling in 2017-18 to 2 million tonnes, due to a drought in the Western Cap Province, according to a March 30 Global Agricultural Information Network report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.For 2016-17, South Africa’s wheat and wheat products imports decreased by 50% to 1 million tonnes due to a five-year high local wheat crop of 1.9 million tonnes.
In the first five months of 2017-18, South Africa already imported 1.1 million tonnes of wheat, mainly from Russia, Lithuania, and Germany.
Meanwhile, corn exports are expected to drop to 1 million tonnes in 2018-19, due to a decrease in commercial production. The report estimates that South Africa will export about 2 million tonnes of corn in 2017-18, drawing from an expected commercial crop of above 12 million tonnes and a relatively large carryover stock from 2016-17.
South Africa’s corn crop for 2018-19 could reach 11 million tonnes, which is 15% less than the expected corn crop of 13 million tonnes in 2017-18.Rice imports in South Africa are expected to be around 1 million tonnes in 2018-19. LOCAL NEWS

FG Warns Nigerians To Beware Of Imported Rice

The federal government on Monday, April 2, cautioned Nigerians over the unhealthy status of imported rice smuggled into the country.
Speaking during a media briefing in Lagos, the Minister of Information, Lai Mohammed, said the government could not guarantee the healthy status of the rice having spent months on the high seas and warehouses.
The minister further pleaded with Nigerians to complement the efforts of the government by consuming only locally-grown and processed rice which he said “is fresher, tastier and healthier’’.
He said: “We don’t know where or how imported rice is made or how old it is. It is reported that most of the rice dumped on us are old and probably rejected. The citizens of those countries do not eat this rice. The citizens of Benin Republic also do not eat it. But they send it to us.”
“Unhealthy foods are dangerous to our health. So, let’s eat what we can vouch for.’’
He, however, noted that rice smuggling was the biggest challenge facing rice production in Nigeria.
Quoting the Rice Millers Importers and Distributors Association of Nigeria (RIMIDAN), he said more than two million metric tonnes (MT) of parboiled rice were smuggled into Nigeria in 2017.
Mohammed said smuggled rice was primarily sourced from Thailand and India and came into Nigeria through the country’s borders with Benin, Niger and Cameroon.
“In Benin Republic, the total demand for white rice (white rice is consumed in Benin, against parboiled rice in Nigeria) is 400,000 MT. Yet, the country with a population of about 11 million imports between one million and 1.2m MT of rice annually,: he said.
“Who are they importing for? Nigerians, of course. In fact, as Nigeria’s rice import falls, Benin’s rice imports increase. Most of the parboiled rice imported by Benin eventually land in Nigeria through smuggling.’’

GIEWS Country Brief: Nigeria 02-April-2018

RT
Published on 02 Apr 2018 
FOOD SECURITY SNAPSHOT
·       Above-average cereal harvest gathered in 2017
·       Prices of coarse grains remained at high levels driven mostly by weak local currency
·       Food security situation improved but over 3 million in need of assistance
Above-average cereal harvest gathered in 2017
Harvesting of the 2017 cereal crops was completed in January 2018. The 2017 national production is estimated at above average levels owing to the timely onset and good distribution of the rains in most states. However, the rainy season ceased early in September 2017 in the northeast reducing local production prospects. In these areas, despite localized improvements in security, effects of the Boko Haram conflict and the threat of new attacks continue to affect agricultural activities and other livelihoods.Despite some floods in September 2017, which affected 22 out of 36 states and substantial outbreaks of pests (including Fall Armyworm), the country’s aggregate cereal output in 2017 is tentatively estimated at about 24.4 million tonnes, well above the last five-year average. The 2017 harvest included 11.1 million tonnes of maize (15 percent above average), 6.3 million tonnes of sorghum (equivalent to the average) and 5.4 million tonnes of rice (13 percent above average).
Near-average rainfall amounts also provided generally favourable conditions for pastoralists with sufficient pasture and water availability. However, limited access to pastures in conflict-affected areas resulted in early movements of pastoralists and consequent increased competition for pasture.
Slightly above average imports forecast
Despite the increases in local production, the country remains a net cereal importer and cereal imports (mostly rice and wheat for human consumption) are forecast to reach 7.8 million tonnes in 2017/18, about 6 percent above the five-year average. The country is still the largest rice importer in Africa, importing on average about 2.6 million tonnes per year. Reports indicate there might not be sufficient foreign exchange availability to meet demand for imported cereals.
Prices of food remain high in the northeast
Wholesale prices of maize generally strengthened in January 2018, while those of millet and sorghum remained relatively stable or weakened in some markets. The price of white gari (made from cassava) and rice showed mixed trends. Prices were generally below their year-earlier values, but still relatively high, particularly in the northeastern parts of the country, where the ongoing conflict continues to hinder food production activities and disrupt the markets. The high level of food prices reflects the reduced value of the local currency against the US dollar throughout 2017, high transport costs and strong demand from traders and institutional bodies to replenish their stocks. The high prices of food are reflected in the annual food inflation, which remained high at 18.9 percent in January 2018.
Some improvements in food security but over 3 million still in need of food assistance
According to the latest “Cadre Harmonisé” (Harmonized Framework) analysis, the estimated number of people facing acute food insecurity and requiring urgent life-saving response and livelihood protection has declined from 8.9 million in June-August 2017 to about 3.2 million in October-December 2017 across the 16 states and Federal Capital Territory that were analysed. Moreover, approximately 1.7 million people have been internally displaced due to the insurgency in the northeastern region of the country as of February 2018, most of them entering being displaced for more than two years. Insecurity and damaged infrastructure, particularly in the Borno State, put additional strain on the delivery of humanitarian aid.
Disclaimer: The designations employed and the presentation of material in this information product do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of FAO concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries.

FG warns Nigerians over imported rice


 

The Federal Government has warned Nigerians against consumption of imported rice smuggled into the country.Minister of Information, Lai Mohammed, issued this caution during a media briefing in Lagos on Monday.Mohammed said the government could not guarantee the healthy status of the rice, having spent months on the high seas and warehouses.He appealed to Nigerians to complement the efforts of the government by consuming only locally-grown and processed rice which he said “is fresher, tastier and healthier’’.“We don’t know where or how imported rice is made or how old it is. It is reported that most of the rice dumped on us are old and probably rejected. The citizens of those countries do not eat this rice. The citizens of Benin Republic also do not eat it. But they send it to us.“Unhealthy foods are dangerous to our health. So, let’s eat what we can vouch for,” Mohammed said.
Mohammed said smuggled rice was primarily sourced from Thailand and India and came into Nigeria through the country’s borders with Benin, Niger and Cameroon.
“In Benin Republic, the total demand for white rice (white rice is consumed in Benin, against parboiled rice in Nigeria) is 400,000 MT. Yet, the country with a population of about 11 million imports between one million and 1.2m MT of rice annually,” he said.
“Who are they importing for? Nigerians, of course. In fact, as Nigeria’s rice import falls, Benin’s rice imports increase. Most of the parboiled rice imported by Benin eventually land in Nigeria through smuggling,” he added.
The Minister added that smuggled rice costs between N11,000 and N13,000 per 50kg bag, while Nigerian-processed rice sells for between N14,500 and N15,000 per 50kg bag.

 ‘Beware of imported rice’ — FG warns Nigerians

April 02
21:362018
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The federal government has cautioned Nigerians over the unhealthy status of imported rice smuggled into the country.
At a media briefing in Lagos on Monday, Lai Mohammed, minister of information, said the government could not guarantee the healthy status of the rice having spent months on the high seas and warehouses.
He appealed to Nigerians to complement the efforts of the government by consuming only locally-grown and processed rice which he said “is fresher, tastier and healthier’’.
“We don’t know where or how imported rice is made or how old it is. It is reported that most of the rice dumped on us are old and probably rejected. The citizens of those countries do not eat this rice. The citizens of Benin Republic also do not eat it. But they send it to us,” he said.
“Unhealthy foods are dangerous to our health. So, let’s eat what we can vouch for.’’
He, however, noted that rice smuggling was the biggest challenge facing rice production in Nigeria.
Quoting the Rice Millers Importers and Distributors Association of Nigeria (RIMIDAN), he said more than two million metric tonnes (MT) of parboiled rice were smuggled into Nigeria in 2017.
Mohammed said smuggled rice was primarily sourced from Thailand and India and came into Nigeria through the country’s borders with Benin, Niger and Cameroon.
“In Benin Republic, the total demand for white rice (white rice is consumed in Benin, against parboiled rice in Nigeria) is 400,000 MT. Yet, the country with a population of about 11 million imports between one million and 1.2m MT of rice annually,: he said.
“Who are they importing for? Nigerians, of course. In fact, as Nigeria’s rice import falls, Benin’s rice imports increase. Most of the parboiled rice imported by Benin eventually land in Nigeria through smuggling.’’
The minister said smuggled rice costs between N11,000 and N13,000 per 50kg bag, while Nigerian-processed rice sells for between N14,500 and N15,000 per 50kg bag.”
Explaining why the price of local rice was higher, he said Cameroon and Benin Republics had lowered tariff payable on rice to five percent to encourage importation and subsequent smuggling into Nigeria.
He added that Thailand and India where the smuggled rice were sourced also gave a high level of subsidies to rice farmers and rice processors.
The minister disclosed that the local rice producers had made some representations to the government on how Nigerian rice could compete favourably, in terms of pricing, with the heavily subsidised imported rice.
He assured that the government would work on the presentations to formulate policies and take steps that will bring down the price of local rice.
“Nigerians should remember that every time they eat imported rice, they are eating the jobs that would have been created for Nigerians,” he said.
“It is important for Nigerians to know that when they consume imported rice, they are creating jobs in India and Thailand and destroying jobs across our country.
“Today, we have rice farmers in all states and all geopolitical zones. In fact, most of us have friends and relatives who are farming rice. So if we don’t patronise their products, we are destroying their livelihoods.”
He concluded that the government would embark on a massive nationwide campaign to sensitise compatriots on the need to support the rice revolution by consuming local rice.
https://www.thecable.ng/beware-imported-rice-fg-warns-nigerians



Vietnam exports more rice in 3 months
HANOI, April 2 (Xinhua) -- Vietnam exported nearly 1.4 million tons of rice worth 668 million U.S. dollars in the first three months of this year, up 9.1 percent in volume, and up 23.8 percent in value against the same period last year, according to the Vietnam Food Association on Monday. The country, which exported roughly 5.9 million tons of rice worth nearly 2.7 billion U.S. dollars last year, mainly to China and the Philippines, plans to ship abroad 6.5 million tons of rice, including higher volumes of such high-grade rice as Japonica, fragrant rice and sticky rice, this year. In recent years, Vietnam has increased export of high-grade rice, with Japonica accounting for 4.4 percent of its total rice export in 2017, said the association. The country is focusing on using better rice growing, harvesting, postharvest, storage and transport practices and types so that rice will have uniform moisture contents, high weight, no foreign material, low percentage of discolored, broken and damaged kernels, no presence of insects and molds, and high protein and vitamin content. Vietnam's paddy rice-growing area was over 7.7 million hectares in 2017, and its paddy rice output last year dropped for the first time over the past 20 years to 42.8 million tons, said its agriculture ministry.


Pak-Iran rice trade via Dubai continues despite PTA
 LAHORE - The Pakistan and Iran bilateral trade can reach the level of $10 billion mark within very short period from the present volume of less than $800 million, as both the countries have been doing their most of trade including rice via Dubai despite inking Preferential Trade Agreement (PTA) since 2006. The Rice Exporters Association of Pakistan chairman Ch Samee Ullah Naeem said that Iran is a nation of rice eaters where the average per capita consumption of rice is 46kg. "The Iranian brothers are very fond of Pakistani super basmati rice due to its taste, aroma, length, and cooking ability. We request the Iranian government that the access of super basmati rice be facilitated through rational trade measures and technical barriers must be removed," he said. Addressing a ceremony, the REAP chairman requested Iran to impose lower duty regime on imports of Pakistani rice in Iran under PTA. The ceremony was also attended by acting Consul-General of Iran in Lahore Majid Sadeghi Dowlatabadi and former Iranian foreign minister Syed Kamal Kharazi. He called for going forward from PTA to a FTA with preferably a zero import duty regime on both sides. Ch Samee said that Pakistan and Iran have implemented PTA in 2006; however, the current volume of bilateral trade between the two countries is not reflective of the true potentials, both countries owe. "We must formulate appropriate trade policy for ensuring sustained trade between the countries." He said that agriculturally enriched Pakistan likes to have bilateral trade relationship with Petroleum enriched Iran. We both have the right products for each other to trade and mutually co-exist but it is unfortunate that most of trade is being done through other countries. "We both have the potential to increase our bilateral trade volume to $5billion if the problem in transferring money through banking channel is addressed. He proposed to open Iranian bank in Pakistan which will, by far, the most conducive step forward for ensuring sustainable trade between both Islamic nations. This presence of Iranian bank in Pakistan will facilitate private business in Pakistan to interact with Iranian counterparts on long term basis. "The Bank Melli Iran is interested to open branch in Lahore. For that matter, whatever support is required, we are here to commit that, I ensure that all rice exporters will come up with opening of accounts and routing of all trade documents through your this branch only. We need to transform all our energy for immediate opening of Bank Melli Iran branch in Lahore on war footings." He also called for moving forward in the right direction and convolving to a much needed 'Currency Swap Agreement.' He said that the currency swap agreement ensures participation and involvement of private sector across the borders and hence crafting a much deep rooted ties which are beyond International pressure. He also announced that REAP is leading a 17-member delegation to Tehran, Mashhad from April 29. The visit would ensure vibrant businessmen interactions from both sides resulting in enhanced trade within regional block. Former Iranian foreign minister Syed Kamal Kharazi, addressing the ceremony, stated that Tehran was working on a proposal for opening bank branches in both the countries for direct trade transactions in currencies other than dollar. He said Tehran was interested in bilateral cooperation in various sectors and was negotiating with Pakistan for reducing duties on bilateral trade.  
Date: 03-Apr-2018

03 April,2018
Iran Interested in Importing Rice Directly From Pakistan
According to the former Foreign Minister of Iran Syed Kamal Kharazi, Iran is looking for the ways of importing Rice Directly from Pakistan.

The ceremony held on Sunday was attended by Syed Kamal Kharazi and Acting Counsel-general Majid Sadeghi Dowlatabadi. Speaking on the occasion and addressing Pakistani Rice exporters Mr. Kharazi said Iranian people are rice-eaters and they are fond of Pakistani basmati rice, but unfortunately Pakistan basmati rice is being imported from Dubai into Tehran which is not good for both countries as far as bilateral trade is concerned. Pakistan and Tehran both losing opportunities in this trade, said Kharazi. Responding to the demand made by Rice Export Association of Pakistan (REAP) president Samiullah Naeem, Mr. Kharazi said we are also working on the project to open bank branches in both countries for direct trade transactions in a currency other than U.S. dollar in order to avoid U.S. sanctions and concerns. Indian companies rebranding Pakistani rice fraudulently Iran is also interested in bilateral trade with Pakistan other than rice, and in talks with Islamabad to reduce duties on imports in order to enhance trade size between both countries. He highlighted the support Iran provided when Pakistan was created and also constructing the Iranian gas pipeline closer to Pakistan’s border, however, he regretted the latter was unable to complete the work on gas pipeline due to immense pressure by the United States. He said US sanctions put Iran in self-development mode and Iran was able to attain self-sufficiency in development and defense needs. Earlier Mr. Naeem said the bilateral trade between Pakistan and Iran accounted for less than $800 million which could go easily up to $10 billion if we continued bilateral relations without any external pressure. Mr. Naeem demanded the removal of duties from Pakistan exports into Iran prelude to free trade agreement between two countries. The delegation of rice exporters should leave for Iran soon and Mr. Kharazi would help the delegation in closing B2B deals there in Iran—he hoped.
Date: 03-Apr-2018
The new Basmati? Tulaipanji, this aromatic variety of rice from Bengal gaining popularity

An indigenous aromatic rice, grown in a small pocket of north Bengal, has gained so much interest among the farmers due to the state government's encouragement that its area of cultivation has increased by 45 per cent in just three years, district officials said.

Though its grain is not so long as Basmati, but the medium-grained Tulaipanji has the excellent aroma because of the presence of three organic chemicals, another agriculture official Mir Farhad Hossain said. (Representational Image: Reuters)

An indigenous aromatic rice, grown in a small pocket of north Bengal, has gained so much interest among the farmers due to the state government’s encouragement that its area of cultivation has increased by 45 per cent in just three years, district officials said. Tulaipanji is cultivated in Raiganj, Kaliaganj, Hemtabad and Karandighi blocks of Uttar Dinajpur district and Kushmandi block of Dakshin Dinajpur district. Earlier, the farmers were not very keen to cultivate Tulaipanji, but following the encouragement by the state government, more and more peasants are now engaged in farming this variety. “The yield of Tulaipanji was not enough in earlier years. But now the agriculture department helps us in various ways. We also get a better price for this,” said Palanu Mohammad, a farmer of Bindol in Raiganj block. In Uttar Dinajpur, Tulaipanji was cultivated in 6,700 hectare in 2017-18, compared to 5,400 hectare in 2016-17 and 4,600 hectare in 2015-16, regisetering a growth of 45 per cent in three years, district agriculture official Srikanta Sinha said. The production of Tulaipanji has also been gradually increasing – 10,120 million tonne in 2015-16, 11,880 mt in 2016-17 and 14,740 mt in 2017-18 – in the district, Sinha told PTI. “If Basmati rice can be marketed countrywide in packets, the same can be done for Tulaipanji. It has an excellent aroma. The government has taken the initiative to market this rice in and outside the country,” said Uttar Dinajpur District Magistrate Ayesha Rani. The DM said the authorities have applied for GI (geographical identification) tag for Tulaipanji. A GI is primarily an agricultural, natural or a manufactured product (handicrafts and industrial goods) originating from a definite geographical territory. Such a name conveys an assurance of quality and distinctiveness, which is essentially attributable to the place of its origin. The agricultural department of the district has been directed to help farmers grow Tulaipanji, Rani said. Though its grain is not so long as Basmati, but the medium-grained Tulaipanji has the excellent aroma because of the presence of three organic chemicals, another agriculture official Mir Farhad Hossain said. Recently, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had directed the officials to collect Tulaipanji from Uttar and Dakshin Dinajpur districts for packaging and marketing it in all the districts including Kolkata, official sources said. “The production was around 1.8 tonne per hectare a decade ago but it could be increased four times these days using the science of genetics,” said Dr Subhas Chandra Roy, associate professor of the North Bengal University, whose research interest includes rice genetics.
The new Basmati? Tulaipanji, this aromatic variety of rice from Bengal gaining popularity

An indigenous aromatic rice, grown in a small pocket of north Bengal, has gained so much interest among the farmers due to the state government's encouragement that its area of cultivation has increased by 45 per cent in just three years, district officials said.

Though its grain is not so long as Basmati, but the medium-grained Tulaipanji has the excellent aroma because of the presence of three organic chemicals, another agriculture official Mir Farhad Hossain said. (Representational Image: Reuters)
                                                                                                  An indigenous aromatic rice, grown in a small pocket of north Bengal, has gained so much interest among the farmers due to the state government’s encouragement that its area of cultivation has increased by 45 per cent in just three years, district officials said. Tulaipanji is cultivated in Raiganj, Kaliaganj, Hemtabad and Karandighi blocks of Uttar Dinajpur district and Kushmandi block of Dakshin Dinajpur district. Earlier, the farmers were not very keen to cultivate Tulaipanji, but following the encouragement by the state government, more and more peasants are now engaged in farming this variety. “The yield of Tulaipanji was not enough in earlier years. But now the agriculture department helps us in various ways. We also get a better price for this,” said Palanu Mohammad, a farmer of Bindol in Raiganj block. In Uttar Dinajpur, Tulaipanji was cultivated in 6,700 hectare in 2017-18, compared to 5,400 hectare in 2016-17 and 4,600 hectare in 2015-16, regisetering a growth of 45 per cent in three years, district agriculture official Srikanta Sinha said. The production of Tulaipanji has also been gradually increasing – 10,120 million tonne in 2015-16, 11,880 mt in 2016-17 and 14,740 mt in 2017-18 – in the district, Sinha told PTI. “If Basmati rice can be marketed countrywide in packets, the same can be done for Tulaipanji. It has an excellent aroma. The government has taken the initiative to market this rice in and outside the country,” said Uttar Dinajpur District Magistrate Ayesha Rani. The DM said the authorities have applied for GI (geographical identification) tag for Tulaipanji. A GI is primarily an agricultural, natural or a manufactured product (handicrafts and industrial goods) originating from a definite geographical territory. Such a name conveys an assurance of quality and distinctiveness, which is essentially attributable to the place of its origin. The agricultural department of the district has been directed to help farmers grow Tulaipanji, Rani said. Though its grain is not so long as Basmati, but the medium-grained Tulaipanji has the excellent aroma because of the presence of three organic chemicals, another agriculture official Mir Farhad Hossain said. Recently, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had directed the officials to collect Tulaipanji from Uttar and Dakshin Dinajpur districts for packaging and marketing it in all the districts including Kolkata, official sources said. “The production was around 1.8 tonne per hectare a decade ago but it could be increased four times these days using the science of genetics,” said Dr Subhas Chandra Roy, associate professor of the North Bengal University, whose research interest includes rice genetics.

Rice export surges 22.14pc in 8 months

ISLAMABAD – The export of rice from the country surged by 22.14 percent during first eight months (July-February) of current fiscal year as compared to same period of last year.
According to details, the rice export jumped to $1.262 billion in July-February (2017-18) as against the export worth $1.003 billion in same period of the preceding year.
In terms of quantity, the rice export increased to 2.67 million metric ton from 2.334 million MT in July-February (2016-17), showing an increase of 11.48 percent, according to a latest data released by Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS). On yearly basis, the rice export also increased by 24.24 percent as it rose to $194.342 million in February 2018 from $156.43 million in same month of the year 2017.On month-on-month basis, the exports however witnessed a decrease of 10.8 percent as the exports during January, 2018 were recorded at $217.9 million. The overall food group export also witnessed an increase of 21.7 percent during July-February (2017-18) as compared to same period of last year.
During the period under review, the food exports jumped to $2.84 billion as compared to the exports of $2.334 billion in same period of last year.



Rice basmati edges up on uptick in demand

PTI | Mar 31, 2018, 13:52 IST
New Delhi, Mar 31 () Rice basmati prices edged up by Rs 100 per quintal at the wholesale grains market today on pick up in demand against fall in supplies. A few bold grains also settled higher on increased offtake by consuming industries.
Traders said besides uptick in demand, tight stocks position on fall in arrivals from growing regions mainly pushed up rice basmati prices.
In the national capital, rice basmati common and Pusa-1121 variety moved up by Rs 100 each to Rs 7,700-7,800 and Rs 6,800-6,900 per quintal respectively.
Non-basmati rice sela also edged up to Rs 3000-3100 from previous level of Rs 2,900-3,100 per quintal.
Other bold grains like jowar yellow rose by Rs 50 to Rs 1,500-1,550 per quintal. Maize and barley also rose by Rs 40 and Rs 10 to Rs 1,500-1,505 and Rs 1,490-1,500 per quintal respectively.
Following are today's quotations (in Rs per quintal):
Wheat MP (desi) Rs 2,080-2,280, Wheat dara (for mills) Rs 1,755-1,760 Chakki atta (delivery) Rs 1,765-1,770, Atta Rajdhani (10 kg) Rs 230-260, Shakti Bhog (10 kg) Rs 255-290, Roller flour mill Rs 950-960 (50 kg), Maida Rs 970-980 (50 kg)and Sooji Rs 1,040-1,050 (50 kg).
Basmati rice (Lal Quila) Rs 10,700, Shri Lal Mahal Rs 11,300, Super Basmati Rice Rs 9,800, Basmati common new Rs 7,700-7,800, Rice Pusa (1121) Rs 6,800-6,900, Permal raw Rs 2,325-2375, Permal wand Rs 2,375-2,425, Sela Rs 3,000-3,100 and Rice IR-8 Rs 1,975-2,025, Bajra Rs 1,210-1,215, Jowar yellow Rs 1,500-1,550, white Rs 2,800-2,900, Maize Rs 1,500- 1,505, Barley Rs 1,490-1,500. KPS DPL SDG ABM ABM

Vietnam exports more rice in 3 months

Source: Xinhua   2018-04-02 16:26:03
HANOI, April 2 (Xinhua) -- Vietnam exported nearly 1.4 million tons of rice worth 668 million U.S. dollars in the first three months of this year, up 9.1 percent in volume, and up 23.8 percent in value against the same period last year, according to the Vietnam Food Association on Monday.
The country, which exported roughly 5.9 million tons of rice worth nearly 2.7 billion U.S. dollars last year, mainly to China and the Philippines, plans to ship abroad 6.5 million tons of rice, including higher volumes of such high-grade rice as Japonica, fragrant rice and sticky rice, this year.
In recent years, Vietnam has increased export of high-grade rice, with Japonica accounting for 4.4 percent of its total rice export in 2017, said the association.
The country is focusing on using better rice growing, harvesting, postharvest, storage and transport practices and types so that rice will have uniform moisture contents, high weight, no foreign material, low percentage of discolored, broken and damaged kernels, no presence of insects and molds, and high protein and vitamin content.
Vietnam's paddy rice-growing area was over 7.7 million hectares in 2017, and its paddy rice output last year dropped for the first time over the past 20 years to 42.8 million tons, said its agriculture ministry.
Editor: Zhou Xin

http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2018-04/02/c_137082993.htm

New rice variety launched


NSW Depart­ment of Pri­mary In­dutries plant sytems group di­rec­tor, Ali­son Bow­man, has launched a new rice va­ri­ety, Viand, which com­bines wa­ter-sav­ing at­tributes with the abil­ity to fit high-value mar­kets. NSW Depart­ment of Pri­mary In­dutries plant sytems group di­rec­tor, Ali­son Bow­man, has launched a new rice va­ri­ety, Viand, which com­bines wa­ter-sav­ing at­tributes with the abil­ity to fit high-value mar­kets. Speak­ing at the re­cent rice in­dutry field day at the Yanco Agri­cul­tural In­sti­tute, Dr Bow­man said Viand of­fers grow­ers up to 10 per cent wa­ter-use ef­fi­ciency gains on ex­ist­ing va­ri­eties.
“NSW DPI, in part­ner­ship with SunRice and AgriFu­tures Autralia, has bred a high­yield­ing, fast ma­tur­ing, medium grain rice, which de­liv­ers wa­ter sav­ing ad­van­tages through its shorter grow­ing sea­son.
‘‘In late sown on-farm tri­als Viand out­per­formed medium grain Reiziq rice by 107 per cent per me­gal­itre of wa­ter.
‘‘In late sown on-farm tri­als Viand out­per­formed medium grain Reiziq rice by 107 per cent per me­gal­itre of wa­ter.
‘‘Shorter sea­son va­ri­eties add flex­i­bil­ity to farm­ing sytems, giv­ing grow­ers op­tions to man­age risk and ex­tend the sow­ing win­dow for rice.’’
Yanco rice grow­ers, Chris and Sue Hardy, grew Viand in com­mer­cial tri­als when it was known as YRM70 and were able to dou­ble crop with ir­ri­gated win­ter crops and ex­tend the rice sow­ing win­dow to utilise late ir­ri­ga­tion wa­ter al­lo­ca­tions.
‘‘We grew five Viand crops in two and a half years in a 25-hectare pad­dock, al­ter­nat­ing Viand with win­ter ce­re­als on an ir­ri­ga­tion lay­out of beds in bays.
‘‘Dou­ble crop­ping im­proved our re­turns, al­low­ing us to take ad­van­tage of avail­able wa­ter to de­liver a sytem which ar­guably gives us the best re­turn on our avail­able as­set base,” Mr Hardy said.
AgriFu­tures Autralia Gen­eral Man­ager Re­search and Innovation, Michael Beer, said the new va­ri­ety ad­dresses the key in­dutry chal­lenge of grow­ing more rice with less wa­ter.
AgriFu­tures Autralia Gen­eral Man­ager Re­search and Innovation, Michael Beer, said the new va­ri­ety ad­dresses the key in­dutry chal­lenge of grow­ing more rice with less wa­ter.
Aimed at max­imiing grower re­turns, Viand meets the re­quire­ments of high value do­metic and ex­port mar­kets and should prove pop­u­lar with grow­ers and con­sumers.

Chinese researchers find evidence of the beginning rice cultivation

Source: Xinhua| 2018-04-02 20:32:07|Editor: Xiang Bo
BEIJING, April 2 (Xinhua) -- Chinese researchers have found evidence of the shift from wild rice to rice cultivation.
Researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) collected the samples of phytoliths, a microscopic structure of silicon dioxide, from an archaeological profile at the Hehuashan site, located in the upper Qiantang River region in east China's Zhejiang Province.
They found and analyzed the fan-shaped phytoliths which were contained in rice leaves.
A change in the amount and forms of the fan-shaped phytoliths found at the Early Neolithic site indicated a change from wild rice to cultivated rice at the time of human occupation, which provides evidence of possible manipulation of wild rice during Shangshan Culture period about 10,000 years ago.
Rice cultivation has a long evolutionary process. "Ancient humans recognized wild rice could satisfy their hunger," said Wu Yan, associate professor from CAS Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology. "Then they learnt to collect and preserve wild rice and began rice cultivation."
The phytoliths were resistant to corrosion and well preserved. They are expected to be a key finding for the research into the origins of rice, said Wu.

Global Rice Bran Oil Market Report 2018 by Industry Analysis, Research, Share, Growth, Sales, Trends, Supply, Forecast to 2023

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About rashmi.s


Wanted: successor farmers

Philippine Daily Inquirer / 05:08 AM April 03, 2018
I don’t have the green thumb that my late father Celestino used to have. He was the son of a poor rice farmer, and spent his career educating agriculturists, while being an after-hours farmer himself. In my young growing years, he would spend an hour or so before and after work in our small backyard, filling it with plants and trees, the fruits of which our family enjoyed. Later in life, he saved up enough to acquire small pieces of farmland in his home province of Quezon, to which he extended his love for nurturing life on the earth and bringing forth bounty from it.
Even as an agriculture graduate of the University of the Philippines Los Baños (UPLB), my own direct association with agriculture has been far less practical. It was the context where I had my first formal economics training, having majored in agricultural economics. It was not my original choice as a college course. An unforeseen change in family circumstances in 1970 led me to enroll in the university located right where our family lives, and where my own father pursued his career. Hands-on training on the ground was very much part of my studies, even in grade school. I had to maintain a plot of vegetables in my fifth grade at the Maquiling School (I managed to grow cabbages the size of tennis balls). I had to do the same in my college agronomy course (my string beans did a little better then). I first learned to drive on a four-wheel tractor, again part of the hands-on training in UPLB’s course on the agronomy of field crops.
In my masteral studies, I chose to do my thesis on the choice of technologies in rice harvesting, threshing and drying in Central Luzon, Bicol and Panay, which gave me the chance to stay with poor farmers and witness their life challenges firsthand. It was my late friend Bart Duff, then agricultural economist at the International Rice Research Institute’s Agricultural Engineering Department, who made that possible by allowing me access to their project on rice postharvest systems. Bart eventually retired to Palawan with his Filipino wife, and became a practicing agriculturist and agribusinessman himself.
I tell my own story with combined feelings of embarrassment and frustration. The embarrassment comes from not having become a true agriculturist like my father and my friend Bart, among others (including classmates at UPLB who were scions of wealthy Mindanao farmers, sent by their parents to train to take over their family farms). With all my past exposure to the science and practice of farming, one might have expected that I’d eventually take it up directly. But I didn’t. Still, agriculture has always been close to my heart, but from a policy perspective rather than a get-your-hands-dirty one. This is where the frustration comes in. It’s a frustration not with myself, but with the entire situation where agriculture as a profession has remained unattractive through the decades, despite our supposed excellence in the agricultural sciences in a now bygone era. Of great concern is the lack of a successor generation of farmers to take over from our aging farmers of today. Two years ago, I wrote of how the average age of Filipino farmers was 57 years old (http://opinion.inquirer.net/97884/drawing-the-young-to-farming). With hardly any new young entrants since then, it must be approaching 60 now.
Why aren’t the young being drawn to the farms? It doesn’t take rocket science to answer that. To me, it is clear that we need fundamental paradigm shifts in how our policymakers manage the sector. I’ve pointed out these shifts since at least eight years ago (http://opinion.inquirer.net/
72470/paradigm-shifts-in-agriculture), yet there is little to suggest that any such shifts in approach have since occurred. I have lately been affirmed in these by the Coalition for Agriculture Modernization in the Philippines, a formidable group of aging but venerable agricultural experts—
also frustrated that our government continues to take age-old approaches that never worked.
Now I worry that the way we are going, even young policy analysts will be drawn away from applying their craft on this most important sector of the Philippine economy.
cielito.habito@gmail.com

New Report Provides 2011-2018 Overview of Global Organic Rice Syrup Sales Market

April 2, 2018
4 Min Read
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Questale has just released a comprehensive market research report for Global Organic Rice Syrup Sales Market. This report focuses on top players in global market, with production, price, revenue and market share for each manufacturer, covering Suzanne’s Specialties , Nature’s One and Wuhu Deli Foods .
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The potential of the products has been rigorously tested in conjunction with the key market challenges. The existing condition of the market and future prospects of this segment has also been studied. Furthermore, key market strategies, which include product developments, scope of product, and market strategies are also discussed. It constitutes quantitative and qualitative evaluation by industry experts, assistance from industry analysts, and first-hand data.
This research report for Global Organic Rice Syrup Sales Market explore different topics such as product scope, product market by end users or application, product market by region, market size for the specific product, sales and revenue by region, manufacturing cost analysis, Industrial Chain, Sourcing Strategy and Downstream Buyers, Market Effect Factors Analysis, market size forecast, and more. The research gives a forecast for the Global Organic Rice Syrup Sales   industry till the year 2022.
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This report is vital for any player in the industry, thanks to the comprehensive outlook that is provided. Considering all the vital details that it encloses, it is important for any new player entering the arena so that they can get a good idea and study the market before making any crucial decision. The report will answer queries about the present market developments, opportunity cost, and more.
On product basis, each report shows the revenue (in USD), sales volume (K units), market share, product price (in USD per unit), and rate of growth of each kind. They are primarily divided into Brown Rice , White Rice and On the basis on the end users/applications, this report focuses on the status and outlook for major applications/end users, sales volume, market share and growth rate for each application, including .



Alliance between SP-BSP not natural: UP Agriculture Min

PTI|
Apr 02, 2018, 04.43 PM IST
0Comments
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Highly Competitive Seed Industry in Indonesia is Expected to Grow at CAGR of 8.1% till 2021: Ken Research

   
 
GURUGRAM, IndiaApril 2, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --
·       Indonesia is the largest palm oil producer in the world and the expansion in palm oil plantation area in the country has triggered the growth in revenues.
·       The sale of fruits and vegetables seeds contributed least share to the market revenues during 2016. The segment accounted for less than 15% in the overall revenues during the same year.
·       Non-Hybrid seeds have dominated the overall revenues generated by market players from the sale of various kinds of grain and cereal seeds in Indonesia during 2016.
·       Tempeh and tofu are major by-products of soy and provide lowest cost staple protein to the country's population.


The agriculture sector of Indonesia has witnessed an increased demand for wide varieties of seeds. Having vast and abundant fertile soil has made Indonesia being considered amongst the major agricultural countries in the world. As per the Ministry of Agriculture, Indonesia grows 77 types of carbohydrate-rich produce, 26 types of beans, 389 types of fruits, 228 types of vegetables and 110 types of spices. An increased focus of introducing hybrid seeds by the domestic and global players in the space has significantly supported the market revenues over the recent past. Rising demand for staple food crops including rice and corn has resulted in revenue growth from the increasing sale of seeds in the market.
Major crops which have supported the demand for seeds during 2016 were onions, potatoes, rice, corn, soybean, palm oil, tomatoes, chilies, green beans, cassava, sweet potato, rubber, coconut, coffee and cocoa.
Indonesia is the largest palm oil producer in the world and the expansion in oil palm plantation area in the country has triggered the growth of revenues from sale of plantation crop seeds during 2016. The islands of Indonesia had about 11.3 million hectares of land under palm oil cultivation during the same year.
Rice is the staple food of Indonesia and has dominated the overall revenues generated by consumption of various types of grains and cereal seeds in the country during 2016. Indonesia has the largest per capita rice consumption in the world with Indonesians consuming around 140 kg of rice per person per year. Indonesia is amongst the top five rice producing nations in the world.
Indonesia produced about 3.2 million tons of rubber during 2016 and exported majority of it to the US, ChinaJapanSingaporeand BrazilIndonesia's manufacturing industries; especially the automotive sector has been the major end user for domestically produced rubber.
Indonesia produced more than 880,000 tons of tomatoes during 2016 which significantly raised the demand for seeds. Revenues from sale of tomato seeds contributed significantly to the overall sale of all seeds meant for growing various types of fruits and vegetables in Indonesia during 2016.
Prohibition on the imports of Granola potatoes, which are planted by most local farmers, surged the sales of potato seeds in the country during 2016. Rising exports of Indonesia green beans to customers in Hong Kong further boosted the production of crop in the country, thereby resulting in rising demand for green been seeds.
The seed market in Indonesia is highly competitive due to large number of domestic and global players offering a wide variety of seeds in the country. The market is dominated by the unorganized players which cater to the needs of the farmers to meet the growing demand for various food crops in the country. However, organized domestic and global seed market players operating in Indonesia have a dominating share merely in the sale of vegetable seeds. The major organized seed companies include PT Bisi International Tbk, PT East West Seed Indonesia, PT DuPont Indonesia, and PT Syngenta Indonesia, Monsanto Indonesia and PT Advanta Seeds Indonesia. There are various factors on which the seed providers compete amongst each other. Some of the major factors include price of seeds, the type of seeds offered, distribution network and reach of the market players, and continuous research and development for introduction of new seeds in the country. Major organized players offering grains and cereal seeds in the country are PT Bisi International Tbk, PT DuPont Indonesia, PT Syngenta Indonesia and Monsanto Indonesia. Players which dominated the revenues from plantation crops seeds included PT SMART Tbk, PT Astra Agro Lestari Tbk, PT Eagle High Plantations Tbk and PT Sampoerna Agro Tbk. The revenues from sale of fruits and vegetables seeds were driven by PT East West Seeds Indonesia and PT Bisi International Tbk.
The emphasis on achieving self-sufficiency by increasing the production of corn, soybean, chili, onions and other major food crops during the outlook period is anticipated to boost the revenues of the players offering seeds for producing crops in Indonesia. The continuously growing population of the country is anticipated increase the demand for staple foods including rice and corn, leading to cultivation of more crops. The market is also expected to benefit from the increasing middle class population in Indonesia, which is projected to boost the demand for fruits and other horticulture crops. Indonesia seed market is anticipated to become highly competitive, with organized players gaining significant market share on the back of their strong R&D and financial strength. This is envisioned to boost the revenues of the players offering new and improved seeds in the country.
According to the report by Ken Research titled "Indonesia Seed Market by Types of Seeds (Fruits and Vegetables Seeds, Grains and Cereals Seeds and Plantation Crops Seeds), by Hybrid Seeds and Non-hybrid Seeds, by Organized and Unorganized Players, by Farmer Saved and Commercial Seeds - Outlook to 2021", the rising trade of cassava for producing food items, glucose, solvents, alcohol, animal feed, fertilizers, energy and other by-products within and outside the islands of Indonesia resulted in cassava seeds contributing 12.0% to the overall revenues generated from sales of fruits and vegetables seeds in the country during 2016.
Key Topics Covered in the Report: 
·       Indonesia Seed Market
·       Agricultural Overview
·       Market Segmentation
o   Total Land under Cultivation
o   Land under Cultivation of Major Food Crops in Indonesia
o   Land under Cultivation of Major Plantation Crops in Indonesia
o   Expected Changes in Cropping Pattern of Rice, Cassava and Maize in Indonesia
§  Rice
§  Cassava
§  Maize (Corn)
§  Palm Oil
§  Rubber
§  Sugarcane
o   Number of Farms and Farm Holding Size
o   Nature of Ownership
o   Snapshot on Irrigated and Non-Irrigated Land In Indonesia
o   Existing Problems in Agricultural Development in Indonesia
·       Indonesia Seed Market Size By Revenues
·       Indonesia Seed Market Segmentation
o   By Type of Seeds (Fruits and Vegetables Seeds, Grains and Cereals Seeds and Plantation Crop Seeds)
o   By Type of Grains and Cereals Seeds (Rice/Paddy Seeds, Corn Seeds, Soy Seeds and Others)
§  By Hybrid Seeds and Non-Hybrid Seeds
§  By Organized and Unorganized Players
o   By Type of Plantation Crop Seeds (Palm Oil Seeds, Rubber Seeds, Coconut Seeds, Coffee Seeds, Cocoa Seeds and Others)
§  By Hybrid and Non-Hybrid Seeds
§  By Organized and Unorganized Players
o   By Type of Fruits and Vegetables Seeds (Tomato Seeds, Potato Seeds, Green Beans Seeds, Cassava Seeds, Onion Seeds, Sweet Potato Seeds and Others)
§  By Hybrid and Non-Hybrid Seeds
§  By Organized and Unorganized Players
o   By Farmer Saved and Commercial Seeds
·       Case Study for Determining Cost Benefit Analysis for Using Hybrid Corn Seeds as Compared to Non-Hybrid Corn Seeds by Farmers in Indonesia
o   Profitability Analysis for Using Hybrid Corn Seeds Over Non-Hybrid Corn Seeds
·       Consumer Viewpoints in Indonesia Seed Market
·       SWOT Analysis of Indonesia Seed Market
·       Trends and Developments in Indonesia Seed Market
·       Issues and Challenges in Indonesia Seed Market
·       Government Regulations in Indonesia Seed Market
·       Company Profiles of Major Players in Indonesia Seed Market
o   PT Bisi International Tbk
o   PT East West Seed Indonesia
o   PT DuPont Indonesia
o   PT Syngenta Indonesia    
o   Monsanto Indonesia
o   PT Asian Hybrid Seeds Technologies Indonesia (AHSTI)
o   PT Advanta Seeds Indonesia
o   PT Takii Indonesia
o   PT Java Seed Indonesia
o   PT Koreana Seed Indonesia
o   PT SMART Tbk
o   PT Astra Agro Lestari Tbk
o   PT Eagle High Plantations Tbk
o   PT Sampoerna Agro Tbk

·       Indonesia Seed Market Future Outlook and Projections
o   By Type of Seeds (Fruits and Vegetables Seeds, Grains and Cereals Seeds and Plantation Crops Seeds
§  By Type of Grains and Cereals Seeds (Rice/Paddy Seeds, Corn Seeds, Soy Seeds and Others
§  By Type of Fruits and Vegetables Seeds (Tomato Seeds, Potato Seeds, Green Beans Seeds, Cassava Seeds, Onion Seeds, Sweet Potato Seeds and Others
o   By Organized and Unorganized Sector
o   Future Opportunities and Trends in Indonesia Seed Market
·       Analyst Recommendations


For more information on the market research report, please refer to below link:
Related Reports by Ken Research 

Contact Us: 
Ken Research
Ankur Gupta, Head Marketing
Ankur@kenresearch.com
+91-1244230204 ext. 26

Rice Cooker Market increasing demand with Leading players (Midea, Joyoung, Panasonic, PHILIPS)

A new research study from HTF MI with title Global Rice Cooker Market Research Report 2018 provides an in-depth assessment of the Rice Cooker including key market trends, upcoming technologies, industry drivers, challenges, regulatory policies, key players company profiles and strategies. The research study provides forecasts for Rice Cooker investments till 2022.
If you are involved in the Rice Cooker industry or intend to be, then this study will provide you comprehensive outlook. It’s vital you keep your market knowledge up to date segmented by Household & Commercial, Electric Rice Cookers & Gas Rice Cookers and major players. If you have a different set of players/manufacturers according to geography or needs regional or country segmented reports, we can provide customization according to your requirement.
The Study is segmented by following Product Type: Electric Rice Cookers & Gas Rice Cookers
Major applications/end-users industry are as follows: Houshold & Commercial
Geographically, this report is segmented into several key Regions such as North America, Europe, China, Japan, Southeast Asia & India, with production, consumption, revenue (million USD), and market share and growth rate of Global Rice Cooker in these regions, from 2012 to 2022 (forecast)
Early buyers will receive 10% customization on reports. Read Detailed Index of full Research Study at @ https://www.htfmarketreport.com/reports/1057180-global-rice-cooker-market-5
Major companies covered in the report are Midea, Joyoung, Panasonic, PHILIPS, SUPOR, ZO JIRUSHI, TIGER, Povos, Toshiba, Matsushita, Mitsubishi, Sanyo, Philips & LG
This study also contains company profiling, product picture and specifications, sales, market share and contact information of various international, regional, and local vendors of Global Rice Cooker Market. The market competition is constantly growing higher with the rise in technological innovation and M&A activities in the industry. Moreover, many local and regional vendors are offering specific application products for varied end-users. The new vendor entrants in the market are finding it hard to compete with the international vendors based on quality, reliability, and innovations in technology.
Some of the key questions answered in this report:
– Detailed Overview of Global Rice Cooker market helps deliver clients and businesses making strategies.
– Influential factors that are thriving demand and constraints in the market.
– What is the market concentration? Is it fragmented or highly concentrated?
– What trends, challenges and barriers will impact the development and sizing of Rice Cooker market?
– SWOT Analysis of each key players mentioned along with its company profile with the help of Porter’s five forces tool mechanism to compliment the same.
– What growth momentum or acceleration market carries during the forecast period?
– Which region is going to tap highest market share in future?
– What Application/end-user category or Product Type may see incremental growth prospects?
– What would be the market share of key countries like United States, France, UK, Germany, Italy, Canada, Australia, Japan, China or Brazil etc.?
– What focused approach and constraints are holding the market tight?

Make inquiry before purchase @ https://www.htfmarketreport.com/enquiry-before-buy/1057180-global-rice-cooker-market-5
There are 15 Chapters to display the Global Rice Cooker market.
Chapter 1, About Executive Summary to describe Definition, Specifications and Classification of Rice Cooker market, Applications [Houshold & Commercial], Market Segment by Regions;
Chapter 2, to analyze objective of the study.
Chapter 3, to display Research methodology and techniques.
Chapter 4 and 5 , to show the Overall Market Analysis, segmentation analysis, characteristics;
Chapter 6 and 7, to show the Market size, share and forecast; Five forces analysis (bargaining Power of buyers/suppliers), Threats to new entrants and market condition;
Chapter 8 and 9, to show analysis by regional segmentation[North America, Europe, China, Japan, Southeast Asia & India ], comparison, leading countries and opportunities; Regional Marketing Type Analysis, Supply Chain Analysis
Chapter 10, focus on identifying the key industry influencer’s, overview of decision framework accumulated through Industry experts and strategic decision makers;
Chapter 11 and 12, Market Trend Analysis, Drivers, Challenges by consumer behavior, Marketing Channels and demand & supply.
Chapter 13 and 14, describe about the vendor landscape (classification and Market Positioning)
Chapter 15, deals with Global Rice Cooker Market sales channel, distributors, traders, dealers, Research Findings and Conclusion, appendix and data source.
Thanks for reading this article; you can also get individual chapter wise section or region wise report version like North America, Europe or Asia.
About Author:
HTF Market Report is a wholly owned brand of HTF market Intelligence Consulting Private Limited. HTF Market Report global research and market intelligence consulting organization is uniquely positioned to not only identify growth opportunities but to also empower and inspire you to create visionary growth strategies for futures, enabled by our extraordinary depth and breadth of thought leadership, research, tools, events and experience that assist you for making goals into a reality. Our understanding of the interplay between industry convergence, Mega Trends, technologies and market trends provides our clients with new business models and expansion opportunities. We are focused on identifying the “Accurate Forecast” in every industry we cover so our clients can reap the benefits of being early market entrants and can accomplish their “Goals & Objectives”.

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Rice R&D News:Chinese researchers find evidence of the beginning of rice cultivation

Chinese researchers find evidence of the beginning of rice cultivation

BEIJING (Xinhua) – Chinese researchers have found evidence of the shift from wild rice to rice cultivation.
Researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) collected the samples of phytoliths, a microscopic structure of silicon dioxide, from an archaeological profile at the Hehuashan site, located in the upper Qiantang River region in east China’s Zhejiang Province.
They found and analysed the fan-shaped phytoliths which were contained in rice leaves.
A change in the amount and forms of the fan-shaped phytoliths found at the Early Neolithic site indicated a change from wild rice to cultivated rice at the time of human occupation, which provides evidence of possible manipulation of wild rice during Shangshan Culture period about 10,000 years ago.
Rice cultivation has a long evolutionary process. “Ancient humans recognised wild rice could satisfy their hunger,” said Wu Yan, associate professor from CAS Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology. “Then they learnt to collect and preserve wild rice and began rice cultivation.”
The phytoliths were resistant to corrosion and well preserved. They are expected to be a key finding for the research into the origins of rice, said Wu.
https://borneobulletin.com.bn/chinese-researchers-find-evidence-of-the-beginning-of-rice-cultivation/