Wednesday, November 28, 2018

28th November,2018 Daily Global Regional Local Rice E-Newsletter


Solon pins hope on RCEF to hike rice production
November 27, 2018 at 10:05 pm by Maricel Cruz
THE establishment of the Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund will help boost farm productivity and will partly result in easing the farm credit crunch that has ballooned to P367 billion, a pro-administration lawmaker said on Tuesday.
Camarines Sur Rep. Luis Raymund Villafuerte said although the RCEF, that would be established under the Rice Tariffication Bill, would allocate only 10 percent of its P10 billion funding or P1 billion for credit to farmers and cooperatives, it would help the agriculture sector gain access to lending facilities so far denied it by the banking sector despite a law requiring banks to allot a specific portion of their credit facilities to the agriculture sector.
“That is only P1 billion offered at preferential lending rates to farmers and cooperatives. But alongside the other features of the RCEF, the agriculture sector would finally get the assistance it needs to directly provide palay farmers the facilities they need to boost their incomes and make them competitive in the global market,” Villafuerte said.
Villafuerte made the statement as President Rodrigo Duterte was expected to sign soon the Rice Tariffication Bill scheduled to be ratified at the House this week.
The bicameral conference committee report on the bill, which has been approved by the House of Representatives, replaces the quantitative restrictions on rice imports with tariffs and remove unnecessary government intervention in the rice market, said Villafuerte, a co-author of the measure.
Villafuerte said he believeb the bill would boost farm productivity and help rein in inflation since the spike in food prices contributed largely to the runaway inflation in the past few months.
Under the measure, the RCEF will have a minimum annual allocation of P10 billion for six years, and tariff revenues from rice imports in excess of P10 billion shall be appropriated by the Congress for this sector, based on a list of programs in the Rice Tariffication Law. 
Under the bill, the proposed fund will be allocated as follows: 50 percent for grants to farmers’ associations, registered rice cooperatives, and local government units in the form of rice equipment, to be implemented by the Philippine Center for Post-Harvest Development and Mechanization; and 30 percent for the development, propagation and promotion of inbred rice seeds to rice farmers and organizations, to be implemented by the Philippine Rice Research Institute.
The 10 percent will be in the form of credit at preferential rates to rice farmers and cooperatives to be managed by the Land Bank of the Philippines and the Development Bank of the Philippines.
The remaining 10 percent will be for extension services to teach rice farmers modern methods of farming, seed production, and farm mechanization, to be administered by PhilMech, PhilRice, the Agricultural Training Institute and the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority.

 

http://manilastandard.net/news/national/281573/solon-pins-hope-on-rcef-to-hike-rice-production.html

 

Japanese rice farmers now see overseas market as potential savior

  • NOV 27, 2018
Rice farmers are seizing on their chance to boost sales for their high-quality product amid a fall in domestic demand and expected liberalization of trade rules.
Kazuya Terasawa, 66, plans to export about 10 percent of this year’s output from his paddies in Niigata. The city on the Sea of Japan sits in one of the nation’s major rice growing areas.
“More cheap foreign rice will surely enter the domestic market, especially for use in restaurants and in meals to go, blending with domestic rice,” Terasawa said.
The forecast is behind his decision to shift toward more exports, the decision made more necessary with the incoming 11-member Pacific trade pact taking effect in December and due to the upcoming bilateral trade talks with the United States.
Terasawa’s rice is being exported by Niigata Nosho, a group firm under farm equipment maker Kubota Corp.
Niigata Nosho shipped 1,896 tons of rice mainly to Hong Kong, Singapore and Mongolia in 2017, accounting for 16 percent of Japan’s entire rice export volume.
Becoming a leading exporter, Niigata Nosho started exporting rice in 2011 as a way to help farmers who use its equipment.
Export volumes quickly expanded from the first year’s 36 tons as the reputation of Japanese rice’s quality spread overseas.
“We expect to export some 2,500 tons this year,” said Batsukh Oyun, a Niigata Nosho section chief in charge of exports.
According to Oyun, a Mongolian citizen who joined the company in 2013 after studying at Niigata University Graduate School, Niigata Nosho exports unmilled rice to be freshly polished into white rice at its destination.
Less fresh rice is often found in rival Chinese exports as they are shipped days or months after being polished in China.
“Japanese rice has become known for being fresh and delicious,” Oyun said.
She expects the company to receive orders from abroad for an annual total of 5,000 tons in the near future.
Domestic demand for the traditional staple has declined year after year, down to 7.4 million tons in the year from July 2017 through last June, from 9.1 million tons 20 years earlier, according to government data.
However, profits on exported rice tend to be lower than when it is sold domestically, so Japanese rice farmers are not always in favor of sending their crop overseas.
Exports of Japanese rice, including sake and other processed products, stood at some 11,800 tons in 2017, far less than the government’s target of 100,000 tons a year.
The government data show that Japanese rice is two or three times higher in price than that grown in China and the United States. Including export costs, Japanese rice increases in price in foreign markets, becoming a luxury commodity for the wealthy.
To boost global consumption of Japanese rice, overseas prices need to be kept in check so that it becomes accessible to middle-class families.
Given the situation, Terasawa grows varieties with high yields and cheaper unit prices for export.
Profits will potentially increase if he cultivates more Koshihikari-type rice, a high-priced, big-name variety from Niigata Prefecture.
But Terasawa will continue in his quest to expand his exports, even if the effort does not always reap rewards.
“Japanese rice is expected to have a tough road ahead. I’ll suffer more if I hold back from doing it now,” he said.
Japanese rice policy reached a turning point when the government this year ended its half-century strategy of providing subsidies to farmers who reduce rice production to ensure price stability, despite falling demand.
Rice farmers also face difficult choices with the increased international competition that will come with the Trans-Pacific Partnership, as people in Japan will have access to cheaper imported products.

Rice, Seaweed, and Chips Ahoy: Creative Creations at ‘Asian Chopped’

By Matthew McGowen Boris Tsang / Sun Assistant Photography Editor
Community members create dishes during the Asian Chopped culinary competition.
November 27, 2018
There are plenty of places to get sushi on campus, but few if any feature the originality on display at the first annual Asian Chopped culinary competition, an event hosted by Cornell Asian Pacific Student Union’s First Year Initiative.
FYI co-directors Jennifer Yu ’21, Jeannie Yamazaki ’21 and Grace Shau ’20 judged the cooking contest mostly on appearance and creativity, refraining from taste testing some of the more creative flavor combinations.
“It’s 50 percent presentation, 50 percent creativity, zero percent taste,” Shau said. The table shared by all of the participants was strewn with a bewildering mix of ingredients: avocados, rice, Chips Ahoy!, egg, ham, Oreo Thins and seaweed.
Leaderboard 1

The event mirrored the television show Chopped on the Food Network, a contest in which contestants must incorporate discordant ingredients into dishes on tight time constraints. The format of the FYI event included a 20-minute time limit but a decidedly casual approach to which ingredients were required in students’ dishes.
Victor Butoi ’22 proved his name with a first place prize for his piece titled “Under the Sea,” featuring a choco-pie crab, a hand roll hermit crab, a deli ham sea star and a cookie crumble sea floor.
“The judges were impressed by his command of the canvas (plate), and felt he earned his place as champion for the complexity and artistry of the scene that he depicted,” Yamazaki told The Sun in an email.
Leaderboard 2

Honorable mentions included Priyanka Dilip ’22 for her “socially conscious” piece, “Elon Musk Rocket,” and Samantha Chu ’22 for her “Millennial Snowman,” complete with a Canada Goose cape and avocado toast. Unfortunately, the sushi sculpture met an untimely demise shortly after the judging, tumbling to the floor in a flurry of rice. 
The culinary aspect of the event, however, was secondary to the overall mission of bringing Asian American students together to celebrate culture and teaching students how to plan and execute an event from start to finish.
Asian Chopped, one of FYI’s three projects this semester, was spearheaded by organizers Tamara Sato ’22, Liying Wang ’22 and Crystal Tang ’22. Other FYI teams include a bubble tea fundraiser that took place last week and a photography project currently in the works.
Sato said the event went “much better than planned.” Wang added that “we weren’t expecting such innovative designs.”
The mission statement of FYI, is to “create future leaders in the Cornell community by instilling passion and drive, encouraging skills development, and sparking intellectual growth through the lens of the Asian and Asian American experience,” according to their website.

Gene-edited baby claim by Chinese scientist sparks outrage


In this Oct. 10, 2018 photo, He Jiankui speaks during an interview at a laboratory in Shenzhen in southern China’s Guangdong province. Chinese scientist He claims he helped make world’s first genetically edited babies: twin girls whose DNA he said he altered. He revealed it Monday, Nov. 26, in Hong Kong to one of the organizers of an international conference on gene editing. (Mark Schiefelbein/Associated Press)
By Marilynn Marchione | AP
November 26
HONG KONG — Scientists and bioethics experts reacted with shock, anger and alarm Monday to a Chinese researcher’s claim that he helped make the world’s first genetically edited babies.
He Jiankui of Southern University of Science and Technology of China said he altered the DNA of twin girls born earlier this month to try to help them resist possible future infection with the AIDS virus — a dubious goal, ethically and scientifically.
There is no independent confirmation of what He says he did, and it has not been published in a journal where other experts could review it. He revealed it Monday in Hong Kong where a gene editing conference is getting underway, and previously in exclusive interviews with The Associated Press.
Reaction to the claim was swift and harsh.
More than 100 scientists signed a petition calling for greater oversight on gene editing experiments.
The university where He is based said it will hire experts to investigate, saying the work “seriously violated academic ethics and standards.”
A spokesman for He said he has been on leave from teaching since early this year but remains on the faculty and has a lab at the university.
Authorities in Shenzhen, the city where He’s lab is situated, also launched an investigation.
And Rice University in the United States said it will investigate the involvement of physics professor Michael Deem. This sort of gene editing is banned in the U.S., though Deem said he worked with He on the project in China.
“Regardless of where it was conducted, this work as described in press reports violates scientific conduct guidelines and is inconsistent with ethical norms of the scientific community and Rice University,” the school said in a statement.
Gene editing is a way to rewrite DNA, the code of life, to try to supply a missing gene that is needed or disable one that is causing problems. It has only recently been tried in adults to treat serious diseases.
Editing eggs, sperm or embryos is different, because it makes permanent changes that can pass to future generations. Its risks are unknown, and leading scientists have called for a moratorium on its use except in lab studies until more is learned.
They include Feng Zhang and Jennifer Doudna, inventors of a powerful but simple new tool called CRISPR-cas9 that reportedly was used on the Chinese babies during fertility treatments when they were conceived.
“Not only do I see this as risky, but I am also deeply concerned about the lack of transparency” around the work, Zhang, a scientist at MIT’s Broad Institute, said in a statement. Medical advances need to be openly discussed with patients, doctors, scientists and society, he said.
Doudna, a scientist at the University of California, Berkeley and one of the Hong Kong conference organizers, said that He met with her Monday to tell her of his work, and that she and others plan to let him speak at the conference Wednesday as originally planned.
“None of the reported work has gone through the peer review process,” and the conference is aimed at hashing out important issues such as whether and when gene editing is appropriate, she said.
Doudna is paid by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Zhang receives grant support from the organization, which also supports AP’s Health & Science Department.
Another conference leader, Harvard Medical School dean Dr. George Daley, said he worries about other scientists trying this in the absence of regulations or a ban.
“I would be concerned if this initial report opened the floodgates to broader practice,” Daley said.
Notre Dame Law School professor O. Carter Snead, a former presidential adviser on bioethics, called the report “deeply troubling, if true.”
“No matter how well intentioned, this intervention is dangerous, unethical, and represents a perilous new moment in human history,” he wrote in an email. “These children, and their children’s children, have had their futures irrevocably changed without consent, ethical review or meaningful deliberation.”
Concerns have been raised about how He says he proceeded, and whether participants truly understood the potential risks and benefits before signing up to attempt pregnancy with edited embryos. He says he began the work in 2017, but he only gave notice of it earlier this month on a Chinese registry of clinical trials.
The secrecy concerns have been compounded by lack of proof for his claims. He has said the parents involved declined to be identified or interviewed, and he would not say where they live or where the work was done.
One independent expert even questioned whether the claim could be a hoax. Deem, the Rice scientist who says he took part in the work, called that ridiculous.
“Of course the work occurred,” Deem said. “I met the parents. I was there for the informed consent of the parents.”

Uganda: Government Mulls Banning Rice Imports

Tagged:
By Dorothy Nakaweesi
Uganda has more mills than rice to process, a situation that has left players in the industry in a tight spot as government plans to stop importing the unprocessed grains.
A new study on the size of the rice market in Uganda found that, the country has a daily milling capacity of 7,158 metric tonnes. This implies that it takes only 38 days to mill paddy rice that is currently grown in Uganda.
This means if it were not for the imports of unprocessed rice, the mills would be redundant for the remaining 327 days of the year.
Third deputy Prime Minster, Moses Ali who officially launched the report said, "The ban on importats is intended to protect farmers and increase our domestic production."
He said the country's domestic production target should double from the current 1.5 tonnes to 3 tonnes per hectare.
"Last year, Uganda alone imported rice worth some $120m (Shs450b). That money should have gone to our farmers and millers to improve domestic production and create more jobs," Mr Ali added.
Responding to the looming ban, Mr Philip Idro, the chairperson of the Rice Millers Council of Uganda said, "Millers have set up factories to process locally produced rice. Unfortunately, farmers are not producing enough. We want government and the private sector to help out on this."
Mr Idro added that investors have put in a lot of money to set up mills and if they stop operating, their mills will be taken away.
"This is why we are asking government to allow us (millers) import a bit of rice from Pakistan and other areas at least for the next two years to prepare for this action. This will give time to farmers to produce enough," Mr Idro pleaded.
He urged the ministry of agriculture to train farmers to grow more rice which will be supplied to the millers.
Imports
According to statistics from Uganda Revenue Authority and International Trade Centre (ITC), Uganda's imports have increased by 71.4 per cent in the last 10 years.
In 2008, the country imported a total of 59,988 tonnes. This has since increased to 210,102 tonnes recorded in 2017.
Rice imports into the country mainly come as raw (brown & paddy) and final refining happens in the country. It is parked and re-distributed into consumption areas.
Exports
Much as Uganda's production is not enough to run the mills throughout the year, the country also exports some.
Data indicate an increase in the rice exports from 33,757 tonnes in 2008 to 71,890 tonnes in 2017.
"Rice exports are mainly done as white rice which is exported to DRC and South Sudan. Part of the exports are from the local production and another part is from the imports," Mr Haam Rukundo, the team leader at Rhamz International - a multidisciplinary consultancy that conducted the research, said.
Mr Rukondo said their findings show that Uganda's imports of rice for the year ending December 2017 were 210,102 tonnes of paddy. Of this volume, 59,852 tonnes of paddy were re-exported to neighbouring countries.
"In the same year, the country exported 71,890 tonnes of paddy equivalent from the locally produced rice. Therefore the imports netted 78,360 tonnes of paddy rice," Rukondo added.
Due to the fact that the net imports also reflect informal exports which were not confirmed by this study, net imports range between 78,360 tonnes and 150,000 tonnes of rice.

Rice imports must avoid harvest window under new planting schedule
November 28, 2018 | 12:05 am
A worker at the NFA Quezon City warehouse. -- PHILIPPINE STAR/MICHAEL VARCAS
THE Department of Agriculture (DA) needs to announce a clear schedule for its proposed new crop timetable to facilitate the timing of imports, according to a former administrator of the National Food Authority (NFA).
Romeo G. David, who was NFA Administrator during the Ramos administration, said in a text message: “I have no problem imposing 35% tariff on imported rice but a very strict import or landing window must be clear and imposed, accountabilities identified, penalties spelled out subject to periodic updating. The Secretary of the DA should (also) be tasked to announce the cropping schedule with a clear date before each cropping season to allow the setting of the import window.”
The current import regime seeks to avoid synchronizing the arrival of rice imports with the harvest, in order not to depress the prices farmers obtain for their produce. The DA has since proposed altering the rice planting calendar to minimize the chances of destructive typhoons transiting through key rice growing provinces during critical periods of the crop’s development.
The rice tariffication bill aims to remove quantitative restrictions on rice importation, but applies a 35% tariff on shipments by the private sector from countries within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and a 50% tariff for non-ASEAN member countries.
“Anything arriving that falls outside the window must be immediately confiscated in favor of government without question (with responsibility and risk with the importer) to be added to government inventory for use in calamity relief. The illegally imported rice must be accounted for and released by Customs and delivered to NFA immediately for warehousing and management in trust for the government,” Mr. David said.
He added: “A portion of taxes collected must be committed to continuous updating of economic data (area-specific production and consumption including prices of inputs, transport, and retail prices) on rice, corn and grain to help farmers and government make informed decision towards improving farm family income.”
Mr. David said that the NFA or the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) should facilitate the registration of import applications and certificates that the volumes are within the consumption ceiling for the period to avoid oversupply. He said that to avoid corruption, this should be done electronically.
The rice tariffication bill which has been approved by the bicameral conference committee has yet to be signed by President Rodrigo R. Duterte.
Herculano C. Co, Jr., president of the Philippine Confederation of Grains Association (PCGA), said that the rice industry is a sunset industry, given the lack of support from the government for the farmers.
“This is a sunset industry. Give it two years, this industry will be gone,” Mr. Co said at a briefing on Food Supply for the Holidays organized by the Philippine Agricultural Journalists (PAJ) on Tuesday.
“If the palay (unmilled rice) falls below the support price, that is the time the NFA comes in. This time it will be different with private sector imports, which will depress prices, and that is a problem. Can the farmers match that price without government support?” Mr. Co said.
Mr. Co said that the tariff which is supposed to be used for the Rice Competitiveness and Enhancement Fund (RCEF) has no clear provisions on how this will be distributed to the farmers. — Reicelene Joy N. Ignacio
Rice imports must avoid harvest window under new planting schedule
November 28, 2018 | 12:05 am
A worker at the NFA Quezon City warehouse. -- PHILIPPINE STAR/MICHAEL VARCAS
THE Department of Agriculture (DA) needs to announce a clear schedule for its proposed new crop timetable to facilitate the timing of imports, according to a former administrator of the National Food Authority (NFA).
Romeo G. David, who was NFA Administrator during the Ramos administration, said in a text message: “I have no problem imposing 35% tariff on imported rice but a very strict import or landing window must be clear and imposed, accountabilities identified, penalties spelled out subject to periodic updating. The Secretary of the DA should (also) be tasked to announce the cropping schedule with a clear date before each cropping season to allow the setting of the import window.”
The current import regime seeks to avoid synchronizing the arrival of rice imports with the harvest, in order not to depress the prices farmers obtain for their produce. The DA has since proposed altering the rice planting calendar to minimize the chances of destructive typhoons transiting through key rice growing provinces during critical periods of the crop’s development.
The rice tariffication bill aims to remove quantitative restrictions on rice importation, but applies a 35% tariff on shipments by the private sector from countries within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and a 50% tariff for non-ASEAN member countries.
“Anything arriving that falls outside the window must be immediately confiscated in favor of government without question (with responsibility and risk with the importer) to be added to government inventory for use in calamity relief. The illegally imported rice must be accounted for and released by Customs and delivered to NFA immediately for warehousing and management in trust for the government,” Mr. David said.
He added: “A portion of taxes collected must be committed to continuous updating of economic data (area-specific production and consumption including prices of inputs, transport, and retail prices) on rice, corn and grain to help farmers and government make informed decision towards improving farm family income.”
Mr. David said that the NFA or the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) should facilitate the registration of import applications and certificates that the volumes are within the consumption ceiling for the period to avoid oversupply. He said that to avoid corruption, this should be done electronically.
The rice tariffication bill which has been approved by the bicameral conference committee has yet to be signed by President Rodrigo R. Duterte.
Herculano C. Co, Jr., president of the Philippine Confederation of Grains Association (PCGA), said that the rice industry is a sunset industry, given the lack of support from the government for the farmers.
“This is a sunset industry. Give it two years, this industry will be gone,” Mr. Co said at a briefing on Food Supply for the Holidays organized by the Philippine Agricultural Journalists (PAJ) on Tuesday.
“If the palay (unmilled rice) falls below the support price, that is the time the NFA comes in. This time it will be different with private sector imports, which will depress prices, and that is a problem. Can the farmers match that price without government support?” Mr. Co said.
Mr. Co said that the tariff which is supposed to be used for the Rice Competitiveness and Enhancement Fund (RCEF) has no clear provisions on how this will be distributed to the farmers. — Reicelene Joy N. Ignacio

https://media.philstar.com/images/articles/gen2-nfa-rice-price_2018-11-26_22-59-30.jpg

Major price increase eyed for NFA rice
Based on their computations, the NFA would only break even if it buys palay at P20.70 per kilo from local farmers and, after processing, sell this at P33 per kilo. It would have a “slight profit” if it sells at P35/kilo.
Louise Maureen Simeon (The Philippine Star) - November 27, 2018 - 12:00am
MANILA, Philippines — Consumers may have to prepare for a possible increase in the price of rice sold by the National Food Authority (NFA).
During yesterday’s budget hearing at the Senate, NFA administrator-in-charge Tomas Escarez said the food agency is proposing to increase the selling price of NFA rice from P27 per kilo to between P33 to P35 per kilo as it continues to incur losses.
“The NFA Council seems interested to increase the selling price locally. I have talked to them in the initial meetings and they are amenable. We have to sell our rice at a higher price,” Escarez revealed.
Based on their computations, the NFA would only break even if it buys palay at P20.70 per kilo from local farmers and, after processing, sell this at P33 per kilo. It would have a “slight profit” if it sells at P35/kilo.
“Our proposal is that we should at least earn a bit. Consumers are not exactly complaining with the current P38 per kilo of commercial rice and yet we are still selling at P27,” Escarez added.
Sen. Cynthia Villar, chair of the Senate committee on agriculture and food, admitted that the P27-per-kilo rate is causing NFA to lose money because this does not cover the overhead expense for milling and other processes needed to convert palay into the grains being sold in the market.
She added that during the milling process, only 65 percent is converted into rice grains.
Although she is not certain if the proposal will be approved, Villar urged the NFA to focus on local procurement and beef up its resources as rice importation, when quantitative restriction (QR) is removed, will soon become free-flowing.
The NFA stands to lose at least P160 million with the rice tariffication law that will effectively remove its regulatory and monitoring functions. About 400 employees doing the regulatory function will also be affected.
The Federation of Free Farmers (FFF) slammed senators for proposing the abolition of NFA and called instead for a thorough review of its mandate and functions.
Raul Montemayor, FFF national manager, said that instead of abolishing the NFA, which some lawmakers said will no longer have any significant role to play in terms of food security once the quantitative restrictions on rice imports are removed, senators should review its role to ensure effectiveness.
Even with a reduced role in the rice market, Montemayor said the agency could still help implement an e-trading system by which farmers in remote areas can sell their products directly to buyers in urban centers using cellphones and internet-based applications.
“The NFA’s warehouses and other assets can be used to process and store raw produce and transfer stocks from supply to demand areas in cooperation with private market players,” Montemayor said.
“NFA’s licensing and monitoring functions should be retained to ensure that speculators and unscrupulous importers do not manipulate the market at the expense of producers and consumers,” he added.
Last week, the bicameral committee adopted the Senate version of the rice tariffication bill that Villar sponsored.
Aside from removing QRs and replacing them with tariffs, the bill eliminates all the licensing and monitoring functions of NFA.
It also allegedly proposes to limit NFA functions only to maintaining buffer stocks for emergencies, which means that the agency will no longer be responsible for stabilizing prices by distributing cheap rice or buying from farmers when farm gate prices are low.
Ruben Presilda, FFF president, warned that the abolition of NFA would be dangerous to both consumers and rice producers.
“They are saying that open competition among importers and market players will ensure that rice prices will go down. What if that does not happen? What if large traders collude to manipulate prices of palay or rice to maximize their profits?” he argued.
“You need almost a billion pesos in imports just to supply the Metro Manila market with rice for one day. Only large financiers will have the resources to do this, and they can easily take control of the market specially since NFA will not be there anymore to monitor them and stabilize prices,” Presilda added. – With Cecille Suerte Felipe
https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2018/11/27/1872073/major-price-increase-eyed-nfa-rice

Need for lateral thinking

Grassroots & Governance

It’s about time. At long last, the government has embarked on a bold initiative to address our inability to produce enough rice for our own needs. The plan to work with the government of Papua New Guinea to cultivate rice and transfer rice production technology is promising. Papua New Guinea is reported to have fertile soil and lots of wetlands to make rice production effective, since it is expected to be more cost efficient. So, we are finally recognizing that despite our decades of obsession with attaining self-sufficiency in rice, we can’t seem to make it work. There is of course, climate change, with unpredictable weather conditions, exceedingly high price of fertilizers, our aging farmers (average age now estimated at 60 years) and lack of interest of the younger generations in grueling farm work, and, of course, the usual widespread corruption all the way down to agricultural field technicians.
Developing Papua New Guinea as an alternative source of rice makes sense in order to ensure that we have other options outside of Vietnam and Thailand which are rethinking their rice businesses toward higher-end varieties, branding, etc. We may have to pay higher prices for our rice imports if we don’t cultivate alternatives.
Yes, we can produce abundant rice given the right environmental conditions. But can the government actually produce it efficiently? Perhaps, if it partners with technical resources such as the University of the Philippines in Los Baños which supplies the scientists working at the nearby International Rice Research Institute. And if private business runs the show. I am skeptical about our chances of success if the government, which cannot maintain railways, or run government corporations without running them down to bankruptcy, is the way to go.
Vietnam’s An Giang Plant Protection Company, the successful Joint Venture of a private businessman who mobilized a multiple-stakeholder approach work in an “everybody wins” formula, is worth studying. Government provided land for research and start-up production, the agricultural school provided technical support, and European suppliers of technical inputs and equipment (chemicals, seeds, fertilizers, combine harvesters, etc.) at innovative and conciliatory pricing synergized to make this joint venture succeed in producing and selling rice to domestic and export markets (all the way to Africa).
An Giang introduced several innovations that are worth emulating: the JV did not own the land, the small farmers retained ownership. The Joint Venture supplied the seeds, chemicals, fertilizers at reasonable rates, payable upon sale of the rice outputs at current market prices. An Giang also provided rice milling and storage facilities, also payable upon sale of the rice outputs. Very significantly, An Giang also hired and provided agricultural field technicians and trained them in community relations so that they could become “farmers’ friends” over and beyond being technical advisers.
Proof of An Giang’s success was the decision of a Swiss-based investment firm to invest in minority equity shares in the JV worth USD90 million. This is incredible given that Vietnam is a communist-run government.

The Department of Agriculture could benefit from organized consultations with academe, private entrepreneurs, and the government of Papua New Guinea toward formulating an approach that over the long term can result in an “everybody happy,” sustainable venture that can meet the multiple stakeholders’ expectations.
Perhaps the Secretary of Agriculture should also look into how our archipelagic nation, ironically surrounded by seas, can raise the productivity of our fisheries industry so that it becomes a prosperous contributor to our economy. Fisheries has been lagging behind manufacturing and services for many years. Perhaps the only time it became a significant contributor to our economic growth was when Malcolm Sarmiento was Director of the Bureau of Fisheries. Sarmiento (where is he now?) passionately pushed for acquaculture and marine sanctuaries to raise our productivity in fisheries. He also promoted sardine processing into bottled products in his home town of Dipolog. And look where we are now with even high end gourmet tuyo, branded, packaged, smoked tinapa, and other new gourmet products in our supermarkets.
There has been too much vertical thinking in our government approaches. Doing the same things over and over again, trying to just do the same things a little better each year. Obviously, we need more than that.
There is enough disruptive technology around the world to force us to wake up and anticipate the trends if we are to survive and hopefully, thrive.
I read recently that the Department of Science and Technology has been tasked with monitoring developments in information and communications technology. There seem to be threats to our Call Centers jobs over the long term with awesome developments in artificial intelligence, notably voice recognition. I hope Filipino IT experts such as Dado Banatao are being consulted on these.
The creative industries (film, fashion design, art, music, graphic arts, IT innovations) seem to be getting organized toward becoming a major force in our economic progress. Creative arts is something we seem to be naturally good at; and we should make serious efforts to develop these in our people, especially the youth. There are already too many lawyers, lawyering still considered a glamorous profession; and other career paths should be promoted instead.
In all of these enterprises, we need bold lateral, not vertical thinking.
 https://www.bworldonline.com/need-for-lateral-thinking/

Chinese scientist’s claim of gene-edited babies creates uproar

Chinese researcher He Jiankui claimed he helped make the world’s first genetically edited babies — twin girls. 
November 26
A Chinese scientist triggered alarm and confusion across the scientific community Monday with the claim that he had edited the DNA of human embryos to create twin baby girls, Lulu and Nana, who he said had been born “crying into the world as healthy as any other babies” a few weeks ago.
The controversial experiment, publicized through the media and videos posted online by He Jiankui of Southern University of Science and Technology of China, was criticized by many scientists worldwide as premature and called “rogue human experimentation.” More than 120 Chinese scientists called the experiment “crazy” in a letter, adding that it dealt a huge blow to the global reputation of Chinese science. Southern University said in a statement it would be investigating the experiment, which appeared to have “seriously violated academic ethics and codes of conduct.”
The unverified claim by He came on the eve of an international summit dedicated to discussing the emerging science and ethics around powerful tools that give scientists unprecedented potential to tweak traits and eliminate genetic diseases — but that have raised fears of “designer babies.” By editing the DNA of human embryos, scientists change not just the genes in a single person, but also their potential offspring — in effect, altering the human species.
“Here you have a scientist changing the human race, and you have a YouTube video about it, with no [scientific] paper. It’s just almost surreal,” said Eric Topol, founder and director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, who said he has seen some of the data behind the experiment. “This guy must have just remarkable chutzpah to proceed. Basically for the first time in history, he has used this powerful tool in a reckless way for no good reason.”
physicist by training, He told the Associated Press that embryos from seven couples who underwent in vitro fertilization had been edited. He said he used a tool called CRISPR-Cas9 that can make targeted cuts to DNA — to disable a gene that allows HIV to infect cells — with one successful pregnancy so far.
He did not respond to attempts to reach him by email and phone. He is scheduled to make a presentation at the conference on Wednesday. In opening remarks for the summit, biologist David Baltimore made only an oblique reference to the project.
“We may even hear about an attempt to apply genome editing to human embryos, giving rise to children carrying edited genes,” Baltimore said.
“I think this just shows the time is now that you have to talk about the ethics of genome editing, because the world may not wait,” said Insoo Hyun, a bioethicist at Case Western Reserve University. “We don’t know how much of this is true or verified. These are all kind of . . . rumors at this point . . . but in terms of scientific and medical rationale, I don’t think there is one.”
The experiment was first reported by MIT Technology Review and the Associated Press. According to a descriptionof the project posted online, He created embryos from couples with an HIV-infected father. The use of the technology immediately raised questions from ethicists since there are other ways to prevent HIV transmission to a fetus, and many think that the first applications of gene editing should be reserved for diseases that are deadly with no treatment options. In a video released on YouTube, He said that only a single gene had been changed, but gene editing is known to introduce unintended genetic effects that could raise concerns — either for the children themselves or the human gene pool if the children grow up to pass on their genes.
In a series of videos posted on YouTube, He explained that his experiment had worked and that the gene editing hadn’t made any unintentional changes to the children’s DNA, but Topol said that it was “frankly not possible” to make that claim and added that now Nana and Lulu’s offspring would be affected in ways that no one fully understands.
He, who is also a founder and chairman of Direct Genomics, a DNA sequencing company, sought to differentiate himself from those who would recklessly tweak the genome to create designer babies.
“Gene surgery is and should remain a technology for healing. Enhancing IQ or selecting hair or eye color is not what a loving parent does. That should be banned,” He said in one of the videos. “I understand my work will be controversial, but I believe families need this technology, and I’m willing to take the criticism for them.”
The public announcement was highly unconventional, with no supporting data provided to verify the claims and no submission to the traditional process of peer review. It raised deep questions for scientists about whether traditional oversight channels were followed, as well as what to believe about the experiment and the results. He posted a medical ethical approval form for the trial on his website from the HarMoniCare Shenzhen Women’s and Children’s Hospital.
Jennifer Doudna, one of the pioneers of genome editing from the University of California, Berkeley, said that the experiment appeared to be a “clear break” from the cautious and transparent approach recommended by international leaders.
“The lack of transparency and disregard for risk are deeply concerning,” Doudna said. “There are safe and effective ways to protect children from HIV transmission, so the study as reported does not appear to address an unmet medical need.”
Feng Zhang, a leader in the field from the Broad Institute, called for a moratorium on implanting edited embryos until safety requirements have been set.
“If it’s true as reported then it’s an extremely premature and questionable experiment in creating genetically modified children,” said Jeffrey Kahn, director of the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics. “There’s much to understand and discuss about oversight or lack thereof.”
When the international gene-editing summit was last held, in 2015, scientists who organized the meeting concluded with a statement calling it “irresponsible to proceed” with editing human embryos until “there is broad societal consensus about the appropriateness” of any proposed use.
“While each nation ultimately has the authority to regulate activities under its jurisdiction, the human genome is shared among all nations,” the statement said.
Matthew Porteus, a pediatrician and stem-cell scientist at Stanford University who is on the organizing committee for the meeting in Hong Kong, said that the announcement highlights the weaknesses of the current regulatory system. “This is not the way I would like to see science advance. I have serious concerns,” Porteus said.
Southern University of Science and Technology said in a statement that He is on unpaid leave and condemned the experiment, saying the university was “deeply shocked” by the news and had called an emergency meeting. The research was conducted off-campus, and the university was unaware of the project, according to the statement.
The Associated Press reported that Michael Deem, a professor of bioengineering at Rice University, was involved in the experiment. Deem did not immediately respond to calls or emails, and Rice said in a statement that it was investigating his involvement.
“Coming on the eve of the second international summit on genome editing, this announcement looks like a cynical attempt to seize headlines,” said Pete Mills, assistant director of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics. “If the claims are true, it is a premature, inexplicable and possibly reckless intervention that may threaten the responsible development of future applications of genome editing.”
William Wan contributed to this report.


Gene-edited baby claim by Chinese scientist sparks outrage


In this Oct. 10, 2018 photo, He Jiankui speaks during an interview at a laboratory in Shenzhen in southern China’s Guangdong province. Chinese scientist He claims he helped make world’s first genetically edited babies: twin girls whose DNA he said he altered. He revealed it Monday, Nov. 26, in Hong Kong to one of the organizers of an international conference on gene editing. (Mark Schiefelbein/Associated Press)
By Marilynn Marchione | AP
November 26
HONG KONG — Scientists and bioethics experts reacted with shock, anger and alarm Monday to a Chinese researcher’s claim that he helped make the world’s first genetically edited babies.
He Jiankui of Southern University of Science and Technology of China said he altered the DNA of twin girls born earlier this month to try to help them resist possible future infection with the AIDS virus — a dubious goal, ethically and scientifically.
There is no independent confirmation of what He says he did, and it has not been published in a journal where other experts could review it. He revealed it Monday in Hong Kong where a gene editing conference is getting underway, and previously in exclusive interviews with The Associated Press.
Reaction to the claim was swift and harsh.
More than 100 scientists signed a petition calling for greater oversight on gene editing experiments.
The university where He is based said it will hire experts to investigate, saying the work “seriously violated academic ethics and standards.”
A spokesman for He said he has been on leave from teaching since early this year but remains on the faculty and has a lab at the university.
Authorities in Shenzhen, the city where He’s lab is situated, also launched an investigation.
And Rice University in the United States said it will investigate the involvement of physics professor Michael Deem. This sort of gene editing is banned in the U.S., though Deem said he worked with He on the project in China.
“Regardless of where it was conducted, this work as described in press reports violates scientific conduct guidelines and is inconsistent with ethical norms of the scientific community and Rice University,” the school said in a statement.
Gene editing is a way to rewrite DNA, the code of life, to try to supply a missing gene that is needed or disable one that is causing problems. It has only recently been tried in adults to treat serious diseases.
Editing eggs, sperm or embryos is different, because it makes permanent changes that can pass to future generations. Its risks are unknown, and leading scientists have called for a moratorium on its use except in lab studies until more is learned.
They include Feng Zhang and Jennifer Doudna, inventors of a powerful but simple new tool called CRISPR-cas9 that reportedly was used on the Chinese babies during fertility treatments when they were conceived.
“Not only do I see this as risky, but I am also deeply concerned about the lack of transparency” around the work, Zhang, a scientist at MIT’s Broad Institute, said in a statement. Medical advances need to be openly discussed with patients, doctors, scientists and society, he said.
Doudna, a scientist at the University of California, Berkeley and one of the Hong Kong conference organizers, said that He met with her Monday to tell her of his work, and that she and others plan to let him speak at the conference Wednesday as originally planned.
“None of the reported work has gone through the peer review process,” and the conference is aimed at hashing out important issues such as whether and when gene editing is appropriate, she said.
Doudna is paid by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Zhang receives grant support from the organization, which also supports AP’s Health & Science Department.
Another conference leader, Harvard Medical School dean Dr. George Daley, said he worries about other scientists trying this in the absence of regulations or a ban.
“I would be concerned if this initial report opened the floodgates to broader practice,” Daley said.
Notre Dame Law School professor O. Carter Snead, a former presidential adviser on bioethics, called the report “deeply troubling, if true.”
“No matter how well intentioned, this intervention is dangerous, unethical, and represents a perilous new moment in human history,” he wrote in an email. “These children, and their children’s children, have had their futures irrevocably changed without consent, ethical review or meaningful deliberation.”
Concerns have been raised about how He says he proceeded, and whether participants truly understood the potential risks and benefits before signing up to attempt pregnancy with edited embryos. He says he began the work in 2017, but he only gave notice of it earlier this month on a Chinese registry of clinical trials.
The secrecy concerns have been compounded by lack of proof for his claims. He has said the parents involved declined to be identified or interviewed, and he would not say where they live or where the work was done.
One independent expert even questioned whether the claim could be a hoax. Deem, the Rice scientist who says he took part in the work, called that ridiculous.
“Of course the work occurred,” Deem said. “I met the parents. I was there for the informed consent of the parents.”

Using microcredit to increase rice yield in Bangladesh

Small loans appear to lead to numerous benefits for tenant farmers
KYOTO UNIVERSITY
IMAGE: WHILE NO SIGNIFICANT CHANGE IN HOUSEHOLD INCOME WAS SEEN, FARMERS WERE ABLE TO ALLOCATE MORE TIME TO SELF-EMPLOYMENT ACTIVITIES view more 
CREDIT: KYOTO UNIVERSITY/MALEK MOHAMMAD ABDUL
In the developing world, access to credit can lead to higher productivity and an increase in living standards, but the ability to have this access is not universal. Formal financial institu-tions are reluctant to lend to households with low-incomes or which lack collateral.
This is where 'microfinance institutions' -- or MFIs -- play a role.
MFIs extend small loans, called microcredits, to individual households. While standard microloans tend to be geared toward business and entrepreneurial endeavors, in recent years Bangladesh has made a name for itself internationally by providing microcredits to tenant farmers.
Now, in a collaborative study with institutions in the United States and Bangladesh, a team led by Mohammad Abdul Malek -- of Kyoto University's Graduate School of Agriculture and the Research and Evaluation Division of BRAC -- has conducted a study examining the impact of agricultural microcredits on the livelihood of these farmers.
Writing in the American Journal of Agricultural Economics, the researchers analyzed vari-ous outcomes of these loans, such as: adoption of high-yield or hybrid rice, overall rice yield, and household income.
"The agricultural microcredit program Borgachashi Unnayan Prakalpa -- BCUP -- began in 2009 with a primary objective of increasing the credit access of tenant farmers to formal financial institutions," explains Malek. "So we conducted two surveys in 2012 and 2014 to see how households receiving this financing changed over time."
The Bangladesh Bank -- the central bank of Bangladesh -- started BCUP with a low-interest revolving fund, as part of its financial inclusion strategy. The average loan amount was equal to the production cost of rice for one hectare of land.
The team's results show that BCUP helped increase rice yield as well as overall crop farm income, and additionally the probability of adopting hybrid and higher yield rice. Further, there appeared to be a somewhat positive effect on the cultivation of owned land and live-stock ownership.
"BCUP has had a number of positive effects," continues Malek. "And while we did not find a change in household income, we noticed that the farmers were able to allocate more time to self-employment activities."
While several studies have examined the role of agricultural credit on the livelihood of farm households, this is the first to examine the impact of a program designed specifically to in-crease the financial inclusion -- in the broader economy -- of tenant farmers.
The team hopes to continue their inquiry into the effects of microcredits in order to better inform future policy decisions, while acknowledging that other interventions, in combina-tion with microcredit, may be necessary if the program is to be scaled up in Bangladesh or elsewhere in Asia.
###
The paper "Agricultural Microcredit for Tenant Farmers: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Bangladesh" appeared on 26 October 2018 in the American Journal of Agricultural Economics, with doi: 10.1093/ajae/aay070
About Kyoto University
Kyoto University is one of Japan and Asia's premier research institutions, founded in 1897 and responsible for producing numerous Nobel laureates and winners of other prestigious international prizes. A broad curriculum across the arts and sciences at both undergraduate and graduate levels is complemented by numerous research centers, as well as facilities and offices around Japan and the world. For more information please see: http://www.kyoto-u.ac.jp/en

BoT – a continuation of trends

BR ResearchNovember 26, 2018
The brakes have been applied to the widening current account deficit and as a result, imports have registered zero percent growth YoY while exports have sluggishly risen by 3 percent. This trend has been consistent so far this year with exports rising by low single digit numbers and imports stagnant.
The 4MFY19 numbers are more of the same with export growth led by food courtesy subsidies extended to the wheat sector while sugar exports tapered off. While textile exports are discouraging, knitwear was an exception registering 10 percent increase in growth. (Read “Textile exports remain glum,” published on November 19, 2018)
Though exports of basmati rice grew over the last month, overall rice sector has not fared too well this year. Better negotiations of trade agreements with rice consuming countries such as China, Malaysia and Indonesia may boost rice exports.
Pakistan’s oft overlooked small value added sectors of sports goods and surgical goods registered 4 percent and 2 percent growth while chemicals grew by 26 percent. Plastics, led by PET exports registered a 35 percent increase.
While essential energy imports of gas and crude petroleum increased by over $1 billion, the machinery group posted the largest decrease in imports YoY as CPEC projects reach maturity and the government curbs back on infrastructure projects. Higher prices and interest rates also decreased auto imports. On the other hand, palm oil imports declined due to lower global prices but increased in quantity by nearly 60,000 tons.
While higher interest rates and further bouts of devaluation may decrease imports, exports may suffer due to China-US war. As China will export less to US and hence will require smaller amounts of imports that are value added for US markets, Pakistan’s exports to China already a smaller proportion of bilateral trade may decline further. In this scenario, renegotiation of Pak-China FTA becomes imperative.
The decrease of CAD by 5 percent indicates that impact of currency adjustment and monetary tightening is starting to be felt. Over time efforts to curb the deficit will be more strongly felt especially when Pakistan goes into the IMF program. But the challenge is not only to decrease imports but to increase value added exports sustainably.

Delicious chicken fried rice - a healthy version of Chinese takeaway

Six-ingredient supper: chicken fried rice with plenty of spice

Norma Sheahan
When I find something that my three kids will eat, I make it – and only it – every day. This is a mistake, as they quickly grow to despise it. Here’s what they’re presently overdosing on.
Before I start, I need to tell you I like to sneak some herbs, spices, veg, stocks, and so on into our meals. Anything that’ll improve the good bacteria in the gut and keep the food intolerences to a minimum for all of us.
So, there will be cinnamon in the porridge, and the porridge will have been soaked overnight in lemon water, and we have avocado or olive oil on sourdough bread, rather than dairy.
My quick 15 minute supper at the moment is . . . chicken fried rice. (Vegetarians can replace the chicken with eggs, and use vegetable stock.)
What you’ll need and how to make it:
Basmati rice (brown is best, but my kids prefer the white)
Chicken stock (soothes gut lining. A great healer.)
Manor Farm chicken mince or organic chicken strips (quick to cook, easy to digest)
Ripe avocado (great for brain, hair and skin)
Coconut oil (kills yeast overgrowth, but doesn’t kill the good bacteria in gut)
Onion, finely chopped into tiny bits (contains super enzymes for digestion)
Frozen petits pois (very nutritious because usually frozen on site)
Tamari, to taste (this is a wheat-free soya sauce; use whatever soya sauce you prefer). A larder cupboard staple, so it doesn’t count in my six ingredients
Cook the basmati rice in stock. One part rice to two parts stock. Bring to the boil and simmer for 12 minutes, approximately.
I try to make my own chicken or veg stock and freeze it, but Kallo are a good brand for instant stock.
While it’s simmering, fry the onions and chicken in the coconut oil. When they are cooked, stir in the defrosted peas.
Mix the cooked rice with the cooked chicken.
If you’re going with the egg option instead of chicken, then beat a few eggs into the cooked rice and cooked onion, and fry to your liking. Add tamari to taste.
Slice an avocado and place it on top of the rice. And thin slices of raw onion too, if you’re a raw onion lover, with no intimate plans for the evening

Korean Consumers Urged to 'Come and Taste' Burrito Made with U.S. Medium Grain  

SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA -- A new foodservice menu promotion featuring a chicken burrito made with U.S. medium grain rice launched earlier this fall as a result of the partnership between USA Rice and Café Amoje, a take-out foodservice chain here.  
           
 New burritos flying out of the food court

Café Amoje is run by Amoje Food, a top Korean foodservice group that operates franchise restaurants, business hotel buffets, and food courts in Incheon International Airport, amusement parks, and baseball stadiums.

"Amoje Food is a big fan of U.S. medium grain rice," said Jim Guinn, USA Rice director of USA Rice Asia Promotion Programs.  "Its family buffet franchise launched new rice menus with promotional support from USA Rice in 2016 and has been using U.S. medium grain consistently ever since."

For this latest promotion, the chicken burrito featuring U.S. medium grain was delivered daily to 15 Café Amoje stores nationwide.  To advertise the new menu item, promotional materials and name tags with the USA Rice logo were displayed at each store, and staff conducted taste tests with customers.  In addition to on-site promotion, news of the new burrito "filled with delicious ingredients" was broadcast across social media channels.

"More than 85 percent of customers surveyed said the new burrito made with U.S. medium grain rice was so good that, in the future, they would likely purchase other menu items featuring U.S. rice," said Guinn.

During the promotion period, rice usage at Café Amoje increased by approximately 3.5 times from the prior month - in total, a little less than one ton of U.S. medium grain.  Based on these positive results, Amoje Food is considering using U.S. medium grain for its other operations. 
USA RICE DAILY

Swan tours offered along rice fields near Marysville

Swans fly over the area of the 2014 California Swan Festival. (Submitted by David Rosen)
By KYRA GOTTESMAN | Correspondent
November 26, 2018 at 4:46 pm
MARYSVILLE — Before winter takes hold in the Arctic, more than 100,000 tundra swans migrate along the Pacific Flyway from their remote and solitary breeding grounds to spend winter in California. Many of those swans make their winter home in the rice fields around Marysville.
Now through January, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife offers the public an opportunity to see these spectacular birds in their habit.
The Fish and Wildlife host Swan Tours, at no charge, every Saturday at 9:30 a.m. and again at 1:30 p.m. Each tour is limited to 30 participants and advance registration is required. Lead by Fish and Wildlife vehicles, tour groups caravan in their own vehicles and stop for wildlife viewing opportunities. Little walking is required during the two-hour tours.
During the tour attendees are guided along public roads throughout a 23,000-acre expanse of privately owned rice fields and restored habitat.
“We encourage people to bring their own binoculars. And even though there is not much walking, they should wear good, comfortable walking shoes. We also recommend not bringing dogs and if you do, to keep them in your car,” said Brian Gilmore, scientific aide.
While they may be “ugly ducklings” when they’re small, the tundra swan grow into magnificent birds. At maturity they are all white with a little bit of yellow on the lower area of their bills. These swans can weigh 14 to 21 pounds with wingspans that reach up to 5.5 feet.
“They are spectacular and there are typically thousands of them. There are also other waterfowl we see sharing the habitat. Sometimes we see bald eagles,” said Gilmore.
Among the other birds that folks can glimpse on the tour are greater white-fronted geese, snow geese, white-faced ibis and ducks including the northern shoveler and the northern pintail.
“Unless you’re a birder, you know someone who is really into birds and bird watching, the most impressive thing is the sheer number of birds in this habitat,” said Gilmore.
The Swan Tours started in 2010 shortly after the ban on burning rice fields was put in place.
“The alternative to burning is to flood the fields so the rice stubble can decompose. This highly benefitted wildlife, especially the birds that migrate in the winter from the arctic tundra,” said Gilmore.

Driving swan tour

9:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. Saturdays through January in the rice fields around Marysville
Free, but pre-registration required at www.wildlife.ca.gov/regions/2/swan-tours
For information, (916) 358-2869 or interpretiveservices@ wildlife.ca.gov

NFA: Imported rice for NegOcc being unloaded in Bacolod port

By Erwin Nicavera/PNA
The first imported rice allocation of Negros Occidental, totalling 80,000 bags, arrived from Thailand in July this year. (File photo from NFA-Negros Occidental).BACOLOD CITY — The 100,000 bags of rice from Thailand imported by the National Food Authority (NFA) for Negros Occidental are being unloaded at the BREDCO port here.
Assistant manager of NFA-Negros Occidental, Marianita Gellecanao, said as of Monday afternoon, more than 19,000 bags were already unloaded and stored in the two warehouses in Bacolod.
She added that without disturbances like bad weather, the unloading can be completed by December 5.
The additional import allocation for the province, which arrived in the city on Nov. 23 via MV Inlaco Express, is the second for Negros Occidental this year. The first importation of 80,000 bags from Thailand arrived in July.
Gellecanao said part of the unloaded rice this week was transported to warehouses in Ilog town and San Carlos City.
The 100,000 bags for Negros Occidental are part of the 600,000 bags shipped by MV Inclaro Express to the Philippines.
Gellecanao said with the additional import allocation, NFA-Negros Occidental can start increasing the distribution to 20 to 50 bags per retail outlet among major and non-traditional markets.
In the previous months when stocks were limited, the distribution was calibrated to only five to 10 bags. “Our distribution will be back to normal starting next week,” Gellecanao said.
In the first week of July, NFA-Negros Occidental borrowed 10,000 bags of rice from Iloilo while waiting for the arrival of its imported rice allocation.
Also in the last week of September, it sought augmentation supply from Iloilo, which was then unloading its 170,000 bags of imported rice allocation from Thailand.

NFA hit for proposed rice price increase

November 27, 2018
MABALACAT CITY -- The National Federation of Peasant Women (Amihan) and the rice watch group Bantay Bigas hit the National Food Authority (NFA) for the proposed rice price increase, saying the move is anti-poor and a threat to the country’s food security.

Bantay Bigas spokesperson Cathy Estavillo disclosed the increasing NFA price from the current P27 and P32 to P33 to P35.ARTICLE_MOBILE_AD_CODE

Consumers are not exactly complaining with the current P38 per kilo price of commercial rice and the increase of NFA rice prices shows how insensitive and ignorant the government is on the plight of the poor and the marginalized, said Estavillo.

Many Filipinos, especially those who are earning below the minimum wage, barely afford a kilo of rice as result of the record-high inflation rate, she added.

“Poor Filipinos depend on NFA rice and they patiently fall in line for hours just to buy affordable rice. If the NFA increases its price on rice, the government is also prohibiting them to eat rice every day. This will aggravate the problem of hunger in the country,” Estavillo said.

Estavillo said the shortage of NFA rice in the market these past few weeks might be a method in conditioning the consumers to buy more expensive commercial rice in preparation for higher priced NFA rice.

The peasant women group Amihan claimed the proposal is a step toward NFA privatization.

Amihan Chair Zenaida Soriano said the approved version of the Rice Tariffication Bill has limited the functions of the NFA to buffer stocking.

Increasing NFA rice price will make the agency profitable and more attractive to the private sector making the Filipino consumers and farmers at the losing end, she said.

"An increase in the price of NFA rice will also favor the importers as it will lessen the price gap between NFA and commercial rice," Soriano said.

“We are demanding for NFA reorientation and strengthening of its functions to genuinely serve the interests of Filipino farmers and consumers,” she added.

The groups said the full implementation of liberalization in the rice industry will eventually kill the local rice industry and worsen the state of the country's food security.

Govt extends duty benefit for export of non-basmati rice

NEW DELHI, Nov 26: The Government has extended duty benefits to non-basmati rice exporters under a scheme to boost the shipment of the agri commodity.
The duty benefit is provided under the commerce ministry’s Merchandise Exports from India Scheme (MEIS).
“Non-basmati rice items have been made eligible for MEIS benefits at the rate of 5 per cent for exports made with effect from November 26 and up to March 25, 2019,” the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) has said in a public notice.
DGFT, under the commerce ministry deals with export and import related policies.
Under MEIS, government provides duty credit scrip or certificate depending on product and country.
Those scrips can be transferred or used for payment of a number of duties including the basic customs duty.
India is one of the largest exporters of non-basmati rice and in 2017-18, the country exported 8.63 million tonnes of the rice, which was more than double the quantity of basmati rice exports of 4.05 million tonnes.
Non-basmati rice exports during April-February 2018 stood at USD 3.26 billion as against USD 2.53 billion in 2016-17.
Rice is the country’s main kharif crop. As per the first advance estimates of foodgrains production for kharif (summer-sown) season for 2018-19 crop year, rice output is estimated at record 99.24 million tonnes as against 97.5 million tonnes of production in last year’s kharif season.
The sowing operation of kharif crops begins with onset of monsoon and harvesting starts from mid-September. Paddy, maize and soyabean are major kharif crops. (PTI)
***

Rice Prices

as on : 27-11-2018 11:41:06 AM

Arrivals in tonnes;prices in Rs/quintal in domestic market.
Arrivals
Price
Current
%
change
Season
cumulative
Modal
Prev.
Modal
Prev.Yr
%change
Rice
Cachar(ASM)
80.00
100
6122.00
2400
2400
9.09
Naugarh(UP)
56.50
3.67
1474.20
2200
2250
6.02
Soharatgarh(UP)
6.50
-13.33
177.00
2270
2280
9.40
Dibrugarh(ASM)
6.00
100
806.90
2920
2920
29.78
Amroha(UP)
2.20
10
75.62
2600
2600
5.26
Balarampur(WB)
1.80
NC
95.15
2650
2670
12.77
Published on November 27, 2018


Major price increase eyed for NFA rice
MANILA, Philippines — Consumers may have to prepare for a possible increase in the price of rice sold by the National Food Authority (NFA). During yesterday’s budget hearing at the Senate, NFA administrator-in-charge Tomas Escarez said the food agency is proposing to increase the selling price of NFA rice from P27 per kilo to between P33 to P35 per kilo as it continues to incur losses. “The NFA Council seems interested to increase the selling price locally. I have talked to them in the initial meetings and they are amenable. We have to sell our rice at a higher price,” Escarez revealed.
“Our proposal is that we should at least earn a bit. Consumers are not exactly complaining with the current P38 per kilo of commercial rice and yet we are still selling at P27,” Escarez added. Sen. Cynthia Villar, chair of the Senate committee on agriculture and food, admitted that the P27-per-kilo rate is causing NFA to lose money because this does not cover the overhead expense for milling and other processes needed to convert palay into the grains being sold in the market.
She added that during the milling process, only 65 percent is converted into rice grains. Although she is not certain if the proposal will be approved, Villar urged the NFA to focus on local procurement and beef up its resources as rice importation, when quantitative restriction (QR) is removed, will soon become free-flowing. The NFA stands to lose at least P160 million with the rice tariffication law that will effectively remove its regulatory and monitoring functions. About 400 employees doing the regulatory function will also be affected.
 The Federation of Free Farmers (FFF) slammed senators for proposing the abolition of NFA and called instead for a thorough review of its mandate and functions. Raul Montemayor, FFF national manager, said that instead of abolishing the NFA, which some lawmakers said will no longer have any significant role to play in terms of food security once the quantitative restrictions on rice imports are removed, senators should review its role to ensure effectiveness. Even with a reduced role in the rice market, Montemayor said the agency could still help implement an e-trading system by which farmers in remote areas can sell their products directly to buyers in urban centers using cellphones and internet-based applications
. “The NFA’s warehouses and other assets can be used to process and store raw produce and transfer stocks from supply to demand areas in cooperation with private market players,” Montemayor said. “NFA’s licensing and monitoring functions should be retained to ensure that speculators and unscrupulous importers do not manipulate the market at the expense of producers and consumers,” he added. Last week, the bicameral committee adopted the Senate version of the rice tariffication bill that Villar sponsored. Aside from removing QRs and replacing them with tariffs, the bill eliminates all the licensing and monitoring functions of NFA.
It also allegedly proposes to limit NFA functions only to maintaining buffer stocks for emergencies, which means that the agency will no longer be responsible for stabilizing prices by distributing cheap rice or buying from farmers when farm gate prices are low. Ruben Presilda, FFF president, warned that the abolition of NFA would be dangerous to both consumers and rice producers. “They are saying that open competition among importers and market players will ensure that rice prices will go down. What if that does not happen? What if large traders collude to manipulate prices of palay or rice to maximize their profits?” he argued. “You need almost a billion pesos in imports just to supply the Metro Manila market with rice for one day. Only large financiers will have the resources to do this, and they can easily take control of the market specially since NFA will not be there anymore to monitor them and stabilize prices,” Presilda added. – With Cecille Suerte Felipe  
Government mulls banning rice imports
A rice grower dries rice in Butalejja. FILE Uganda has more mills than rice to process, a situation that has left players in the industry in a tight spot as government plans to stop importing the unprocessed grains.  A new study on the size of the rice market in Uganda found that, the country has a daily milling capacity of 7,158 metric tonnes.
This implies that it takes only 38 days to mill paddy rice that is currently grown in Uganda.  This means if it were not for the imports of unprocessed rice, the mills would be redundant for the remaining 327 days of the year.  Third deputy Prime Minster, Moses Ali who officially launched the report said, “The ban on importats is intended to protect farmers and increase our domestic production.” He said the country’s domestic production target should double from the current 1.5 tonnes to 3 tonnes per hectare. “Last year, Uganda alone imported rice worth some $120m (Shs450b). That money should have gone to our farmers and millers to improve domestic production and create more jobs,” Mr Ali added.
 Responding to the looming ban, Mr Philip Idro, the chairperson of the Rice Millers Council of Uganda said, “Millers have set up factories to process locally produced rice. Unfortunately, farmers are not producing enough. We want government and the private sector to help out on this.”  Mr Idro added that investors have put in a lot of money to set up mills and if they stop operating, their mills will be taken away.
“This is why we are asking government to allow us (millers) import a bit of rice from Pakistan and other areas at least for the next two years to prepare for this action. This will give time to farmers to produce enough,” Mr Idro pleaded. He urged the ministry of agriculture to train farmers to grow more rice which will be supplied to the millers. Imports According to statistics from Uganda Revenue Authority and International Trade Centre (ITC), Uganda’s imports have increased by 71.4 per cent in the last 10 years. In 2008, the country imported a total of 59,988 tonnes. This has since increased to 210,102 tonnes recorded in 2017.  Rice imports into the country mainly come as raw (brown & paddy) and final refining happens in the country.
It is parked and re-distributed into consumption areas. Exports Much as Uganda’s production is not enough to run the mills throughout the year, the country also exports some. Data indicate an increase in the rice exports from 33,757 tonnes in 2008 to 71,890 tonnes in 2017.  “Rice exports are mainly done as white rice which is exported to DRC and South Sudan. Part of the exports are from the local production and another part is from the imports,” Mr Haam Rukundo, the team leader at Rhamz International – a multidisciplinary consultancy that conducted the research, said. Mr Rukondo said their findings show that Uganda’s imports of rice for the year ending December 2017 were 210,102 tonnes of paddy.
 Of this volume, 59,852 tonnes of paddy were re-exported to neighbouring countries.  “In the same year, the country exported 71,890 tonnes of paddy equivalent from the locally produced rice. Therefore the imports netted 78,360 tonnes of paddy rice,” Rukondo added. Due to the fact that the net imports also reflect informal exports which were not confirmed by this study, net imports range between 78,360 tonnes and 150,000 tonnes of rice.
Author Name: https://www.monitor.co.ug/Business/Prosper/Government-mulls--banning-rice-imports-/688616-4869506-7ipr0jz/index.html
Water conservation critical for rice
LARKANA: Farmers, millers and exporters of rice have agreed to adopt latest water conservation, harvesting as well as milling measures to improve quantity, quality and exports of rice. Stakeholders were of the view that by adopting latest measures being practiced in the neighbouring countries - India and Bangladesh, the country would be able to save water and increase the production.
They said at least 20 percent crop was lost during the poor post harvesting process and at least 50 percent of the water could be saved by levelling the land. Rice Exporters Association of Pakistan (REAP) hosted a two-day thought provoking conference ‘REAP Rice Conference 2018’ on Monday and Tuesday at a local hall in Larkana with the support of stakeholders, including Sindh Chamber of Agriculture (SCA), Sindh Abadgar Board, and Sindh and Balochistan Rice Millers and Traders Association.
Larkana division is the centre for non-basmati rice production in the country. The conference conducted four sessions on farming, pesticide usage, milling and exports during the two days, besides discussing all important aspects started from sowing to exports. Pakistan’s rice exports had been struggled at around $2 billion for a decade, which needed measures to improve seed, harvesting, milling and exports. Pakistan’s total rice production was around 741 million tons, of which 52 percent production was exported.
Qabool Muhammad Khatian, chairman, SCA, said rice prices improved during the last one and half year, however, cost was increasing every year. “Water crisis is increasing, until farmers go for laser levelling of their lands, water crisis will not be controlled,” he said. He said the country needed to make exportable items like China was developing the exportable items.
Japanese firm launches ready-to-eat ’emergency rice’ in PH
MANILA - A Japan-based ready-to-eat rice maker formally launched Tuesday its 'Rice-to-Go' product intended mainly for use in emergency and disaster situations in the Philippines. Kiyosada Egawa, chairman of Biotech Japan Corp., said at the product unveiling event that he "would like to share our technology from Japan that has the ability to make rice keep its acceptable quality for a prolonged period of time.
" He noted that every year, the Philippines is struck by typhoons, "and each time the media shows us hundreds of people going hungry because food and fuel are either unavailable or scarce." To be sold as early as next year in 200-gram packs at a retail price of 35 pesos each (nearly $0.70), with a shelf-life of a year, Egawa said the Rice-to-Go, made from locally grown and processed rice, is "the perfect response to such emergencies," It is also ideal for those who have no time to cook at home, those who cannot or forget to bring their packed meals at work or in school, those who go hiking or camping, and others who are simply on-the-go, he added.
Egawa said his company is especially targeting the governmental and nongovernmental entities engaged in disaster relief. Its local subsidiary, Biotech JP Corp., was established in Batangas province, south of Manila, in April 2015, and already sells three other products packed, cooked rice products.
Unlike the company's Insta Rice, a regular, precooked rice that needs to be microwaved, Rice-to-Go does not have to be reheated. Braddy Agarma, an officer from the Department of Social Welfare and Development, recognized the need for ready-to-eat food. "Currently, we are looking for technologies available in the market, and Biotech is very good. You don't need to cook anymore, and the flavor of the rice is good. The rice is not hard and not dry," he said.

The New cision Agriculture By Water and Air

By Paul Schrimpf|November 27, 2018

WaterBit’s Carbon soil moisture sensor makes Greg Van Dyke’s dry-seeding approach to rice production measurable and facilitates improvements in techniques.
The specialty crop markets pose unique challenges for manufacturers that are attempting to bring value to service providers and farmers. Every crop — and in some cases, varieties within crop categories — requires different approaches that make a “one-size-fits-most” strategy virtually impossible.
Still, product development for specialty crops has continued to be robust. In this article we look at two technology concepts: WaterBit’s field moisture monitoring and control system, and Rantizo’s vision for targeted, drone-based crop protection application.

Waterbit: Maximizing Water Efficiency in Rice

Because agriculture is so variable intensive, turning sensor-gathered data into an actionable, high-value data collection system has been one of the “low-hanging fruits.” The ability to accurately measure and report factors such as weather data, pest infestation, soil moisture, and more should logically put some powerful decision-making tools into the hands of agronomists and farmers.
Through the recent boom in technology investment, sensors have emerged as a big area of exploration, in particular, for water and irrigation management in high-value crops. Given the pressure on agriculture to improve water-use efficiency and stewardship, interest is high. But there are not many one-size-fits-all systems out there — deployments in water-intensive crops require an operation-by-operation approach.
One of the companies that has accepted the challenge of bringing a more automated water-efficiency system to agriculture is WaterBit, headquartered in San Jose, CA. The system’s backbone is the WaterBit Carbon node, a hand-sized, solar-powered data collection tool that connects the various probes, sensors, and valve controllers in a particular deployment. The Carbon unit feeds data into a central communication unit, which moves data into the cloud for access via phone, tablet, or PC. Farmers and agronomists can turn this data and instant access into real-time irrigation decisions.

Greg Van Dyke (left) uses the WaterBit system on an 80-acre rice test site with a goal of monitoring soil moisture more accurately and improving water use efficiency.
Among those putting the WaterBit technology through its paces is Pleasant Grove, CA, rice producer Greg Van Dyke. Greg, along with his father Gary, his uncle Bob, and Bob’s son, Rob, are the fourth and fifth generation of his family to own the farm, and rice has been the only crop they produce. They’re fully integrated — Greg owns Kanpecki, a rice brand, and is co-owner of VA Farms and the Rice Growers Association of California, which creates distribution and marketing channels for the rice it produces.
With all the pressure farmers are under in California to maximize water use, the Van Dykes are keenly interested in finding ways to challenge the conventional, water-intensive production methods most commonly used. “Unlike most parts of the world, rice in California is water seeded,” Greg Van Dyke says. “We have a three- to four-passage tillage cycle to prepare our seed bed, and after fertilizer application and last seed bed preparation, we flood the fields and use airplanes to fly on presoaked, germinated seed, which sinks to the bottom into the last furrow preparation.” It gets silted over to the right seed depth, and the rice emerges out through the water.
Drill seeding, a less water-intensive practice in rice, has not proven practical in the region. “We have real issues with drill seeding because of a number of factors, including soil type and soil inconsistency, among other things,” Greg says. “And with a water seeding approach, the aquatic environment destroys about 95% of invasive weeds right off the bat.” In-season, the flood is kept on the rice until a month prior to harvest, keeping the pressure on water use.
Now, the Van Dykes are using some of what they have learned from producing organic rice through a “dry-seeding” approach. The soil is prepared the same, but dry seed is flown onto the furrows, and the seed is flat-rolled over the top to compress the seed to a prescribed depth, then treated with preemergent herbicide. A series of flushes is brought over the top of the seed to bring the soil to full saturation.
“We found that we not only reduce water usage by 15% to 20% per acre, but we stimulate seedling vigor, get less seedling death, and less lodging,” Van Dyke says.
It sounds simple on paper, but there are numerous complexities and variables that, while they’ve proven to work, have not had a lot of actual data behind them. A year ago a WaterBit system was installed on 80 acres of rice production to try to gather and monitor the myriad aspects of managing rice through a dry-seeding approach.
Greg Van Dyke notes that the dry-seeding regimen they developed is “cued off of soil moisture and temperature to determine when to culturally bring your flushes across, so a technology like WaterBit is critical in terms of learning the data and correlations between weather patterns and dry cycles in your soil, soil temperature, evapotranspiration, and more. Considering all the things we’ve learned historically from experience, a data monger like me has been craving the opportunity to capture this as big data to help us to start explaining these relationships and start to applying the data to management tools.”
The actual technology deployment was relatively straightforward on the 80-acre test site, Leif Chastaine, WaterBit Co-Founder and COO, says. Three of the WaterBit Carbon soil sensors were installed — one at the irrigation inflow, one at the outflow, and one in the center to monitor the flow of water through the field. A communications center was installed to collect and transfer data to the cloud, which uses LoRa protocol to send data at 15-minute intervals. Van Dyke accessed the data wirelessly via an online portal. The entire installation took less than a day, and data was collected almost immediately.
With a full season in, Van Dyke is pleased with what he’s learned and what he will be able to apply to best-planting practices next season on the test site. He’s also adding some features to the system, including atmospheric data gathering that will allow him to measure the carbon footprint of the field production cycle.
Van Dyke is certainly predisposed to data immersion and is always hungry for more, but the value so far has been clear. “We were one of the first rice farmers in California to use prescriptive fertilizer application based on continuous yield monitoring from our harvesters,” Van Dyke says. “And I have used it every year to come up with prescriptions for basically every input we have. The technology in reality is very simple, but it’s insanely powerful — we are gathering and applying data in a way that we’ve never been able to before.”

Rantizo: Targeted, Drone-Applied Pest Application

With so much data emerging from field sensors and imagery that reveal in-season field problems, the inevitable question is how can we do something about it? Behind this backdrop the concept of drone-applied crop protection as an answer to this question has been a focus for a number of ag technology startups.

Rantizo’s crop protection application drone.
Rantizo, based in Iowa City, IA, is one of the latest to throw its hat in the ring. On the strength of some positive recognition at events, including the 2018 InterDrone Expo and the recent Forbes AgTech Investment Summit in Indianapolis, coupled with some investment funding, the company is excited about its prospects as it fully launches next year.
The concept: a targeted drone spraying platform that utilizes electrostatic technology to safely and precisely deliver cartridge-dispensed ag chemicals when and where they are needed.
“We think there’s a big opportunity in figuring out what can be done to improve application,” Michael Ott, Founder and CEO, says. “We are looking for ways to make application of chemicals more precise, to get them applied exactly where they are needed.” Ott and COO Matt Beckwith started the company earlier this year. There are currently five employees.
Rantizo will not be designed as a diagnostic tool — it will rely on data and imagery from outside sources to determine the cause of a particular problem. The system is all about execution — getting the right product applied to the exact area that needs it via a drone and cartridge application system.
“We have a prototype unit that we can fly and spray autonomously,” Ott says. The prototype was successfully demonstrated for a farming operation in Memphis, and deployment of the technology next year is full steam ahead.
Retail will be the focus of conversations about bringing Rantizo to market, as Ott notes, “to gain access to the largest number of acres as soon as possible.” The company will offer the actual drones and cartridges of chemicals to start and will look at eventually offering spray services.
In early work on opportunities, high-value crop production is the best fit now. “We are looking at opportunities in lettuce, papaya, blueberries, sweet corn, and the greenhouse market,” Ott says. “As we tell our story, we’re having lots of one-off discussions with niche markets that see a fit for the technology, and we will be pursuing these in the months ahead.”
Row crop markets will come next, in particular with late-season applications that tackle in-season issues like disease and insect infestations when conditions preclude using a ground rig.For more information on Rantizo, visit rantizo.com.