Weekly inflation up 0.36pc
By APP
May 8, 2020
ISLAMABAD: The Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI)-based weekly inflation for the week ended on May 7 witnessed an increase of 0.36pc, Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) reported Friday.
The SPI for the week under review for the combined consumption group was recorded at 127.30 points, as against 126.84 points registered in the previous week.
The weekly SPI, with base year 2015-16, covers 17 urban centres and 51 essential items of all expenditure groups.
The SPI for the lowest consumption group, up to Rs17,732, witnessed 0.89pc increase, from 132.18 points in the last week to 133.36 points during the week under review.
Meanwhile, the SPI for the consumption groups from Rs17,733-Rs22,888, Rs22,889-Rs29,517, Rs29,518-Rs44,175 and above Rs44,175 per month increased by 0.88pc, 0.78pc, 0.65pc and 0.02pc, respectively.
During the week, prices of 12 items decreased, 16 items increased, while that of 23 items remained unchanged.
The items that recorded a decrease in their average prices included diesel, petrol, onions, tomatoes, pulse (masoor, gram), garlic, curd, wheat flour, sugar, mustard oil and vegetable ghee (loose).
On the other hand, commodities that recorded an increase in their prices included chicken, bananas, potatoes, LPG Cylinder, gur, long cloth, powdered chilies, mutton, men shirts, beef, pulse (mash, moong), milk (fresh, powdered), eggs and firewood.
Similarly, commodities that observed no change in th
300 Bihar migrants reach Telangana to work in rice mills
“These workers, who load and unload rice from trucks, had gone to Bihar for Holi and were left stuck there due to the lockdown,”
By
Hyderabad, May 8 : At a time when migrant workers stranded across the country are scrambling to return to their home states amid the nationwide lockdown, a train with 300 migrants from Bihar reached Telangana on Friday.
The Shramik special train carrying migrants working in the rice mills of Telangana reached Lingampalli station on the outskirts of Hyderabad from Khagaria in Bihar.
Minister for Food and Civil Supplies Gangula Kamlakar, Civil Supplies Corporation Chairman M. Srinivas Reddy and other officials welcomed the workers on their arrival with flowers.
The Health Department personnel screened the migrants for any symptoms of Covid-19. Thereafter, the workers were sent to the districts where they wanted to work.
Officials said the workers were provided water, food packets, face masks and sanitisers and were also briefed on the precautions to be taken to protect themselves from Covid-19.
The workers were sent to various districts in specially arranges buses. The officials ensured that the workers follow social distancing during the journey.
Kamalakar said more workers from different states would be reaching Telangana to work in rice mills.
He said the effective steps taken by the state government for containing the spread of Covid-19, huge employment opportunities, higher wages, and measures taken by the government for the welfare of migrants were attracting them to Telangana.
Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao had said on May 5 that trains carrying migrant workers to Bihar will return with 20,000 to 25,000 workers from the eastern state, who were working in rice mills in Telangana.
Last month, Rao had urged the Bihar government to send back migrant workers to Telangana. More than 90 per cent of the workers employed in Telengana rice mills were Bihari migrants.
“These workers, who load and unload rice from trucks, had gone to Bihar for Holi and were left stuck there due to the lockdown,” the Chief Minister had said.
Rao had even stated that if necessary he would talk to the Centre to arrange a few special trains to bring back the Bihari migrant workers.
The Chief Minister said as Telangana was procuring record 1.05 crore tonnes of paddy from farmers at designated procurement centres in villages in view of the lockdown, the task can’t be completed without the labourers from Bihar, who load and unload the crop from truc
CMCO food delivery: How about some biryani rice from Masala Wheels to celebrate the weekend?
Friday, 08 May 2020 10:46 AM MYT
By Lee Khang Yi
It's Sunday, relax at home and eat fragrant biryani rice with chicken, hard boiled egg and cucumbers in yoghurt – Pictures by Lee Khang Yi
PETALING JAYA, May 8 -- Phew! We made it through another week under the Conditional Movement Control Order (CMCO).
It's strange how even the body clock can differentiate that it's the weekend, despite all that work from home.
The weekends are perfect to just chill and eat your favourite meal. In my case, I've been looking for a good biryani I can get delivered to my doorstep.
Since the lockdown started, I've been cracking my head over which Indian restaurant to order from. Sure, I live next to a handful of popular Northern Indian restaurants but I just wanted something simpler like banana leaf rice or biryani rice.
I did try one popular place in Petaling Jaya. Sadly, the food was dismal, despite all the online raves. It was probably living off its past glory.
I asked around for recommendations and settled for Masala Wheels. The eatery is a social enterprise set up to help marginalised communities.
They also allow you to sponsor suspended meals for the needy, which is delivered via their volunteers. If you prefer, you can also sponsor provisions that are packed in a bundle which will be delivered to those in need.
I have eaten there once before... fond memories of the fragrant biryani rice served only on Sundays. It was my only visit there as when I returned a few times, I would face a long queue of customers trying to get their biryani rice fix too.
Well, the good thing about the lockdown is I can get my meal delivered!
You can find the restaurant on Oddle. Their page shows the suspended meals, sponsored provision packs and a rather limited menu.
Order the chicken 'peratal' that is packed with flavour
You can have their vegetarian banana leaf rice for RM10 on a daily basis. There's also add-ons for mutton or chicken, with a choice of peratal or varuval cooking styles.
Sadly, there's no way to indicate which style you want so it's up to the restaurant to decide. The focus is really on their signature Chatti biryani rice, served only on Sundays.
There's a vegetable biryani for RM11, chicken biryani for RM14 and mutton biryani for RM17.
The biryani rice is on a pre-order basis. I managed to place my order on Saturday night and it was delivered on Sunday morning, about 11.30am, as requested.
Since it was my first time ordering via Oddle, I was happy to get an email confirmation for my order the night before. You also receive an email from the restaurant to confirm they got your order.
The next day, the restaurant will email you again to inform you that the food is being delivered to you.
Your biryani meal comes packed in a box with compartments. My add-on chicken and mutton were placed in separate plastic bags
My chicken biryani arrived in a plastic box with compartments. There was a mountain of rice with a piece of chicken, one whole hard boiled egg, a fragrant curry and chopped cucumber with yoghurt.
While the rice isn't the long, fluffy Basmati type, what made this incredibly great was the aroma from the spices. I like how it arrived still hot so it is best to eat it as soon as possible.
The portion was huge so I ended up splitting it into two meals. While the chicken wasn't very flavourful probably because its essence had been absorbed by the rice, the curry gave it flavour.
It may look unappetising but the mutton 'varuval' is flavourful and tender
I also had a chicken peratal and mutton varuval as add-ons. The chicken dish is RM7 while the mutton dish is RM10. Both were good stuff.
Each piece of the chicken with the curry gravy was flavourful. The mutton may look dry and unappetising but it was tender. There's a mild flavour of spices too as you chew on the meat.
Masala Wheels, 2, Jalan 1/3, Section 1, Petaling Jaya. Order through https://masalawheels.oddle.me/en_MY/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/masalawheels/
Non-basmati exports may rebound as India attracts new customers
Rice shipments, which were disrupted by the Covid pandemic, have resumed at a sluggish pace - Svetlana Ivanova
Malaysia, Philippines show interest; weak rupee makes country competitive
After almost a 40 per cent decline in shipments during last financial year, India’s non-basmati rice exports are set for a rebound this year on demand from new buyers such as Malaysia and the Philippines, exporters said. Firming prices, coupled with a decline in rupee, is seen aiding the shipments of the cereal.
“The demand from new buyers such as Malaysia and the Philippines should help the recovery in exports this year,” said BV Krishna Rao, President of the Rice Exporters Association.
Non-competitive pricing
The non-basmati rice exports slumped by about 40 per cent to 5-6 million tonnes in 2019-20, according to trade estimates. This decline was mainly on account of higher prices due to the rise in minimum support price (MSP) of paddy that hit the competitiveness of the Indian cereal in overseas market.
Official export figures for 2019-20 are yet to be released by the Agriculture and Processed Foods Exports Development Authority (APEDA), which monitors the non-basmati rice shipments. As per the latest data from APEDA, non-basmati rice exports for April-January 2019-20 period stood at 4.01 million tonnes, about 36 per cent lower than the corresponding period previous year.
Fall in exports
In value terms, non-basmati rice shipments were down 35 per cent at $1.63 billion ($2.50 billion in same period last year). India has been the largest exporter of rice, after the exports of non-basmati rice were allowed from 2011. India, the second largest producer and top exporter of rice, competes with countries such as Thailand and Vietnam in the markets of Africa and Asia.
Though global prices have firmed up in recent months on short supplies in the Asian countries, Indian prices are still competitive, attracting buyers, Rao said. Indian rice prices for parboiled and 5 per cent brokens, which hovered around $375 a quintal in February are quoted at $400-420 per tonne FOB to African countries.
Vietnam prices are in the range of $460-470 and Thai prices around $500. “The weakening of rupee by 7-8 per cent has helped us to be competitive,” Rao said. However, exporters are cautious about the African markets as the slump in oil prices could slacken the demand in some countries.
Shipments resume
Rao said the rice shipments, which were disrupted by the Covid pandemic, have resumed on a sluggish pace.
India’s rice production for 2019-20 is estimated at an all-time high of 117 million tonnes, as per the second advance estimates. Rice stocks with the Food Corporation of India stood at 27.66 million tonnes as on May 4.
Published on May 08, 2020
ARS working to create rice under reduced water use
05.08.2020
WASHINGTON, DC, US — The Agricultural Research Service of the US Department of Agriculture in partnership with university scientists are hoping to identify US rice varieties with genetic markers for coping with reduced water use.
Their research is in line with the water saving trend that US rice growers are implementing.
According to the ARS, rice traditionally is grown in leveed sections of fields called paddies that can be flooded with water pumped in from rivers, alluvial aquifers, on-farm reservoirs, and other sources. Such flooding helps control weeds and ensures the rice crop can attain its maximum yield potential.
But with issues such as water availability and climate change, Jai Rohila and Anna McClung, both with the ARS Dale Bumpers National Rice Research Center as well as Christopher Henry with the University of Arkansas and Argelia Lorence with Arkansas State University are looking to identify traits that can help the grain crop cope with reduced water.
“Reducing water use, which is currently about 30 inches per acre over the season for Arkansas-grown rice, is a necessary step toward sustainable production of rice and food security,” said Rohila, an agronomist. “About 80% of the irrigation water for the Arkansas rice crop is pumped from the Mississippi River Valley alluvial aquifer.”
Over the past four decades, however, the aquifer’s water levels have dropped at the rate of 12 to 18 inches per year, Rohila said. Alternate wetting and drying, furrow irrigation, land leveling, tailwater recovery and multiple-inlet irrigation are some of the strategies that growers are investigating or already using to conserve water, in some cases by 20%.
But there is a genetic hiccup that can lead to grain yield reductions under such measures.
“All current rice varieties in the United States were essentially developed for production under continuous flood irrigation management systems,” said McClung, a supervisory geneticist who directs the ARS center. “We conducted this research to determine what are the traits and genetic resources that can be used to develop new rice cultivars that will have high grain quality and yield under reduced irrigation inputs.”
Toward that end, the team designed a series of field experiments in which they subjected 15 different rice cultivars (conventional medium- and long-grain varieties as well as specialty rice) to sub-surface drip irrigation regimens based on one of four soil-moisture scenarios, or volumetric water contents (VWCs).
The first scenario was comparable to conventionally flooded field conditions with a VWC of 30%. The fourth mimicked a severe water-deficit scenario (VWC 14%) capable of triggering catastrophic wilting from which the rice crop cannot recover. In between these extremes were two moderate water-deficit scenarios with VWCs of 24% and 20%.
“This gradient of soil moisture regimes in our study allowed us to assess how well the varieties can respond to varying degrees of water deficit,” Rohila said.
Among the results, the researchers reported that:
- Of 10 total traits (e.g., plant height, flowering time/duration, and grainfill) they examined, six traits accounted for 35% of the variability in the varieties' physiological responses to water stress, including their ability to produce grain.
- Plant height was generally greatest in the first soil-moisture scenario (mimicking flooded fields), except for five of the varieties tested. Grain yields were also highest in the first scenario, except for seven varieties, which performed better in scenarios two and three.
- Varieties with higher leaf canopy temperatures tended to produce the most grain under water-stress conditions.
- Those same varieties also had genetic origins in tropical or subtropical regions of the world, where heat stress conditions are common, another form of physiological stress.
- One top contender that performed well under water-stress conditions is a tropical japonica-type rice from the Philippines known as PI 312777. Other top performers were Francis and Mars from the United States and Zhe 733 from China. Among the cultivars tested, 10 have been used to develop populations of offspring displaying different stress-coping traits that can be used with genomic mapping techniques, which according to the researchers can help identify the genes that control these traits and potentially use them in rice breeding and improvement programs.
McClung said they aim to provide rice breeders with DNA markers associated with the genes and alleles (alternate copies) for these traits so that they can be passed into elite rice varieties more quickly, efficiently and with less cost.
The researchers indicate that this is the first step in adapting rice varieties to production systems that use a minimum amount of irrigation.
“We understand our vision is ambitious," Rohila said. “But the goal is to have both food and natural resource (water) security for society and our future generations.”
To read more about the research visit Agronomy and take a look at the findings.
Like the Oscars, but for science | KSU researcher named to National Academy of Sciences
· Rafael Garcia rgarcia@themercury.com
· May 7, 2020 Updated May 8, 2020
· 0
· 3 min to read
Barbara Valent, a researcher and professor in K-State’s plant pathology department, is the first faculty member named to the National Academy of Sciences for work conducted at K-State.
Courtesy photo
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If it weren’t for the pandemic, Barbara Valent would be getting the red-carpet treatment right now.
Valent, a plant pathology researcher at K-State, became the first K-State faculty member to be inducted into the National Academy of Sciences for work during their tenure at the university. Induction into the academy is like the scientific equivalent of winning an Oscar, she said, and graduate students even dream of the honor. Valent says she’d know, because she was one of them.
“I wouldn’t say it’s what you work toward, but having it happen is a tremendous honor and a validation of all of the hard work, and the work that the people in my lab have done,” she said. “It’s huge.”
Valent found out about the honor last week after a colleague called her and told her the exciting news. The colleague later sent her an email invitation to a Zoom chat, and when she opened it, several members of the academy welcomed her into the prestigious society, which holds a Congressional charter and is charged with offering objective scientific counsel to the nation’s policymakers.
Induction into the academy — which numbers about 2,400 members and 500 foreign associates — is by nomination, often from an existing member, after which the members vote on whether to accept a candidate. Valent said she still doesn’t know exactly who nominated her, but she suspects it was a colleague in her discipline.
“It’s a tough thing,” she said. “You have to have a record that convinces all of these people who don’t especially know you that your work is good enough to be accepted into the academy.”
Valent’s research specifically deals with rice blast and wheat blast disease, the latter of which has caused several billions of dollars of destruction in South America and recently south Asia, and finding ways to improve crops’ resistance to the fungi which causes them.
Her team’s research — much of which has to be done in the Biosecurity Research Institute’s biosafety level 3 lab in Pat Roberts Hall — also works to keep wheat blast out of North America and away from the region, where the fungi could cause untold damage.
“It’s scary because we don’t have much resistance, fungicides don’t work very well, and if the weather’s right, we don’t have much of a way to control it,” she said. “It can kill whole fields.”
Megan Kennelly, interim department head of K-State’s plant pathology department, said Valent and her team has been instrumental in developing new protections for the crops.
“Her research is truly transformative, both in terms of basic understanding of plants and microbes but also with the potential to save wheat and rice yields worldwide,” Kennely said. “Her work has truly opened our eyes to the intricate interplay of plants and fungi in a completely new way.”
While the substance of Valent’s work is fungi research, Valent said her interest is in food security, saying that most people don’t realize how vulnerable the food supply is to diseases. Pathogens travel easily around the world, as evidenced by the spread of the coronavirus, she said, and the policy makers need to put in place measures to prevent a similar pandemic affecting the food supply.
There aren’t many other plant pathogen specialists in the academy, and Valent said her expertise in food security and fungi would be put to good use. She also wants to serve as an advocate for higher levels of agricultural research funding.
“We always struggle with having the money to do the critical research,” Valent said. “That’s been getting worse lately, and I really worry how it’s decreased to the point that we have young faculty members who have trouble getting the money to do the research they want to do and build their careers on.”
Originally from Iowa, Valent grew up in Colorado and was the first person in her family to graduate from college, having earned her bachelor’s and doctoral degrees from the University of Colorado in 1972 and 1978, respectively, and serving as a post-doctoral fellow at Cornell University from 1980 to 1982. She came to K-State in 2001 as a researcher and was named a university distinguished professor, K-State’s highest award for faculty, in 2002.
In addition to research, Valent also teaches three K-State graduate classes and advises doctoral student and postdoctoral fellows in her lab.
Valent said she credits public education at all levels for helping her get to this point in her career at a land-grant university, and she encouraged young researchers who might be dreaming of being inducted into the academy to follow their passions.
“It’s important to choose important problems, things that matter in the real world,” Valent said. “That’s what was important to me, to be working on something that could make a difference in people’s lives, and plant pathogens do make a difference.
“You can’t work toward an honor,” she continued. “You’ve got to work toward a research goal.”
For now, with in-person celebrations out of the question, Valent said she’s celebrating her induction with old friends, students and colleagues, some of whom she hadn’t seen in years, with champagne parties via Zoom. She said her induction was just as much a recognition of their work and assistance as it was hers.
While one other recent K-State faculty member — Jim Riviere, who retired in 2017 — was inducted to the National Institute of Medicine, Valent is the first K-State faculty member to be inducted into the National Academy of Sciences.
“I hope I’m the first of many,” Valent said. “We have a lot of really great researchers and research going on, and it’s a big deal for the university. I’m very proud to have brought that to K-State.”
Drought tolerance of rice: research and recent advancements
The crop of rice is affected by drought tolerance (below-average precipitation) in the areas where water shortage exists. But rice can bear the drought and can tolerate it.
Rice (Oryza sativa) is used as a staple food by billions of people around the world. Probably the oldest domestic grain (~10,000 years. Pakistan is the world’s 11th largest producer of rice. Pakistan’s export makes up 8% of the world’s total rice trade. In the year 2016-17, Pakistan produced 6.7 million tons of rice.
In the last few decades, the researchers have worked on the drought and have given the possible ways of drought tolerance. Drought-tolerant varieties have been introduced by International Rice Research Institute
(IRRI) in several countries and are now being planted by farmers.
(IRRI) in several countries and are now being planted by farmers.
Sahbhagi dhan in India, 5411 variety in the Philippine’s, sookha dhan variety by Nepal, BRRI dhan variety by Bangladesh has been introduced. Drought Degree Tolerance (DTD) is a new introduces technique in which the mean of the ratios of green leafs length to the total leaf of top three leaves in every rice seedling is taken after drought treatment.
This is an effective technique but it is avoided in drought tolerance of upland rice at late growth stages. Direct Seeded Rice is a technique in which rice seed is sown and sprouted directly in the field reducing the crop’s water requirement. Improving the photosynthesis in rice by inserting the c4 pathway is the latest drought tolerance technique.
In c3 plants like rice, CO2 is assimilated into a 3-carbon compound by the photosynthetic enzyme ribolose1-5, bisphosphate carboxylase oxygenase (Rubisco). At temperature above 30°C which is typical of rice-growing areas of the world rate of oxygenation increases substantially and this reduces the photosynthetic efficiency of C3 plans by up to 40%.
Thus photosynthesis of rice in the tropics and warm temperate regions becomes inefficient. The C4 plants which have CO2 concentration mechanism within their leaves have very much reduced level of photorespiration. Rice with a photosynthetic mechanism would have increased photosynthetic efficiency while using scarce resources such as land water and fertilizer specifically nitrogen more effectively.
CRISPR enhances Golden rice
By
Reading Time: 2 minutes
Published: May 7, 2020
A scientist compares Golden Rice, right, and ordinary rice. Golden Rice is genetically modified to be infused with beta-carotene, a chemical substance responsible in producing vitamin A in the body. The biofortified rice helps prevent vitamin A deficiency, which causes immunity deficiency syndrome and is the leading cause of blindness in children in developing nations. | REUTERS/Erik De Castro photo
Golden rice, a genetically modified rice with high levels of beta-carotene, which converts to vitamin A, is highly valued in countries where vitamin rich food is limited.
To improve upon the conventional method of genetically modifying rice, scientists at the University of California, Davis, used CRISPR technology to more precisely transfer genes encoding certain desired traits into the rice genome.
CRISPR enables scientists to alter DNA sequences to modify gene function. It is used to create more disease-resistant and drought-tolerant crops.
The research team used Kitaake, a Japonica rice variety that received a large segment of donor DNA from Golden rice. The DNA was placed precisely into regions of the plant where researchers knew it would not cause adverse effects to the host rice.
Oliver Dong, a postdoctoral scholar in the UC Davis Department of Plant Pathology and Genome Center, said CRISPR has important advantages compared to conventional methods of genetic modification.
“Compared with conventional methods of gene delivery, the biggest advantage of using CRISPR to insert genes is that the insertion site is defined,” he said. “As well as inserting genes at a known position, CRISPR has also been used to disrupt genes (gene knockout) or modify the genetic code at a given gene. In application, CRISPR has been used to engineer rice with herbicide tolerance, or disease resistance to diverse pathogens.”
The research has opened up the possibility that genes controlling multiple desirable traits, such as providing high levels of beta carotene or producing a plant that is disease-resistant or drought-tolerant, can be clustered at a single position within the genome. This can lead to a significant reduction in the need for subsequent breeding endeavours.
Going forward, the research team will continue to refine the method of DNA transfer using the CRISPR technology.
“Now that we can insert large DNA fragments at a defined region in the rice genome, we would like to demonstrate the insertion of multiple trait genes at the same site by the iterative use of the method,” said Dong. “Stacking multiple genes at the same genomic position would simplify downstream breeding efforts.”
The research study was published recently in the journal Nature Communications.
India lockdown boosts Pakistan’s rice exports to Middle East
By Ali Ahmed on May 8, 2020
- Pakistan's rice exports to the region increase by about 59 percent to $420 million in April.
The lockdowns imposed by India proved beneficial for Pakistan, as the country rice exports to the Middle East region rose significantly.
As per details, Pakistan rice exports to the region increase by about 59 percent to $420 million in April, amid lockdowns imposed by India in order to curb the spread of coronavirus.
“The Middle East is the main market of India's basmati rice," Muhammad Raza, senior vice chairman of the Rice Exporters' Association of Pakistan (REAP), quoted Arab News. “When New Delhi decided to impose the lockdown, the orders were diverted to Pakistan."
The development comes amid Pakistan's exports on month-on-month (MoM) basis have witnessed a massive decline of 47.24 percent, from $1.814 billion to $957 million, during April 2020 against March 2020, Pakistan Bureau of Statistic (PBS) said.
According to PBS, the country's imports during the period also witnessed a decline of 6.88 percent from $3.316 billion to $3.088 billion. Meanwhile, The country's balance of trade during April-March 2020, also witnessed a decline of 41.88 percent, from $1.502 billion to $2.131 billion, the PBS said.
Amid COVID-19, Asia’s White Rice Is the New Black Gold
Surging demand and slashed exports are leading to inflated prices for rice across the region.
By Bob Savic
May 07, 2020
For Eduardo Astrero, a small-hold farmer in the Philippines’ lowlands province of Nueva Ecija, located north of Manila on the country’s main island of Luzon, the rice growing season that begins in June every year is regarded with a certain degree of foreboding. Still, in late April each year, Eduardo’s village and surrounding rural communities celebrate the Tanduyong Festival, marking the end of the hot sun-soaked dry season, lasting from start of January to the end of May.
The period is normally a Filipino farmer’s paradise as the hot sun yields an abundant variety of cash crops like onions, pumpkins, watermelons, sunflower, corn, and various tropical fruits. By the end of the dry season, the rich agricultural produce has been harvested and transported to local government cooperatives, which in turn sell the produce to private buyers at the retail level.
“The Tanduyong Festival is both a happy and sad time for us,” says Eduardo. “We enjoy celebrating in the dry season, even though it’s very hot, because we can grow so many different crops with hopefully enough money to support us for the rice-growing wet season to come,” he adds.
The wet season is much less predictable weather-wise, than the dry season, and rice is typically the only or main crop grown during that time. In fact, 80 percent of Philippines’ farmlands are devoted mainly to rice, as well as corn and coconut, cultivation. “Rice farming is back-breaking work,” laments Eduardo, who regularly plants rice seeds by hand in muddy, sometimes snake-infested paddy water.
His efforts are not made any easier given the wet season coincides with relentless arrivals of numerous typhoons. These tropical storms can blow away both the paddy water and underlying planted soils, leaving the rice cultivation ruined.
This year, though, Eduardo is a little more optimistic. “The government is issuing farmers across the nation with new more durable rice seeds and the prices we’ll be getting at wholesale, by the end of this wet season, should be the best in many years,” he claims.
Eduardo’s optimism may indeed be well-placed. Rice has been the global commodity market’s star performer this year with prices up by nearly 65 percent, year-on-year, at the end of April 2020. By stark contrast, following the onset of the worldwide coronavirus pandemic, global resources prices have generally collapsed with most commodities falling anywhere from 5 percent to 40 percent year-on-year, and in some cases even more.
Much of the reason for rice’s stellar and almost unique performance in the commodities space is attributable to governments’ coronavirus lockdown measures across Asia. This resulted in most of the world’s largest rice net exporters, namely India, China, and Vietnam, as well as major up-and-coming net exporters like Cambodia and Myanmar, freezing their overseas shipments to ensure sufficient stocks of rice for domestic consumption. Thailand stands out as the one significant rice exporting country continuing to supply the region’s heightened rice-consumption needs throughout the pandemic.
In the meantime, regional rice net importers including Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines have been adding substantial resource capacity to their domestic rice production and supply.
About three-quarters of worldwide rice exports originate from Asia, with shipments valued around $16.4 billion last year.
Yet the recent threat of a U.S.-induced economic war with China has potentially left rice vulnerable to the same downward trajectory in prices suffered by the entire span of agricultural and industrial commodities.
China Becomes the Rice Importing Global Game-Changer
Get first-read access to major articles yet to be released, as well as links to thought-provoking commentaries and in-depth articles from our Asia-Pacific correspondents.
China’s surging demand for rice at the beginning of the year was arguably the principal driver in boosting global prices for the agricultural commodity. In the first quarter of 2020, according to China’s Customs Statistics, the value of rice imports rose by 60.3 percent while the value of overall agricultural imports increased by 17.4 percent for the period.
China, which is both the world’s largest producer and consumer of rice, became a net importer in 2011, progressing to become the world’s biggest importer by 2012. It is second only to India in rice cultivation area, having paddy farmland of 30.35 million square hectares in contrast to India’s 43.2 million hectares. However, China produces the largest amount of milled rice, at 148 million metric tonnes versus India’s 116 million metric tonnes. Even so, India was by far the largest rice exporter in the world, in 2019, valued at $7.1 billion and accounting for 32.5 percent of world rice exports, while China only exported $1.1 billion or 4.8 percent of global exports despite being the world’s fastest growing rice exporter since 2015.
By 2017, China was importing 4.03 million tonnes of rice, due mainly to its domestic crop prices exceeding those of imports, typically from Thailand and Vietnam, while being of a roughly similar quality.
China also lifted its purchase prices for imported rice in 2020, with plans to buy record levels from this year’s global harvest in order to secure domestic supplies — in spite of not having to import or export a great deal relative to consumption – with a view to beefing up rice stocks in the wake of its coronavirus shutdowns.
Southeast Asia’s Divergent Rice Policies
Vietnam, currently the world’s fourth largest rice exporter, behind India, Thailand, and the United States, managed $1.4 billion in exports, last year, which accounted for roughly 5 percent of international rice exports. Even so, Vietnam restricted export volumes for April and May to ensure ample reserves for domestic use. For the sake of maintaining cooperative relations with neighboring countries and within the Association for Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) framework, Vietnam’s government has been conducting bilateral negotiations with the region’s net rice importers to secure special government-supply agreements.
According to Vietnam’s deputy minister for agriculture and development, the Philippines, which imports 90 percent of its rice from the country, will be one of the first to be informed of the exception to this temporary restriction as Manila awaits delivery of about 1.2 million metric tonnes of rice. Other regional net exporters that have imposed such export restrictions, including Myanmar and Cambodia as top-ten global rice exporters, are similarly negotiating such agreements with the region’s net importers.
Thailand, the world’s second largest rice exporter, on the other hand, remains open for new business as its regional competitors close down international rice sales. The Thai government announced that sufficient rice was cultivated to meet its annual export target, normally around 10 million tonnes yearly, on top of its domestic consumption of a similar quantity, even in the face of a debilitating drought that’s lasted since November last year. The price of Thai white rice 5 percent broken, which is an Asian export benchmark, has risen over 25 percent this year, even reaching a seven-year high, as India and other exporters imposed export controls. At the beginning of the year, Thailand’s rice export prospects were relatively gloomy, but a complete about-turn materialized when the coronavirus outbreak arose.
In Hong Kong, which typically imports the bulk of its rice from Thailand, widespread hoarding led to the price of Thai rice rising by 30.3 percent from January to March. Over January to February alone, the special administrative region of China imported about 58,000 tonnes of rice worth $58 million as consumption expanded by nearly 17 percent in annual terms. Of the total imported, Thai white rice amounted to $37 million in value, followed by lower valued purchases from Vietnam, Cambodia, Japan, and China. Even so, those supplies were not sufficient to satisfy demand, resulting in the Hong Kong government having to intervene and limit purchases to one bag of rice per customer.
For larger regional net importers, such as Indonesia, Southeast Asia’s largest economy and population of 273 million, governments have set about ensuring that current rice stocks exceed estimated consumption for the year. Indonesia’s State Logistics Agency, known locally as “Bulog,” has been faced with concerns over mounting rice import shortfalls. As a remedy, Bulog plans to acquire an additional 950,000 metric tonnes of rice from local farmers to enhance this year’s stock. The agency had earlier anticipated reducing its domestic rice stocks of 2.25 million tonnes, held at the end of 2019, down to 1.3 million tonnes throughout 2020, with the goal of exporting up to a half million tonnes of premium rice for the current year. This ambition appears highly unlikely to be achievable this year.
The Philippines, also a net rice importer, has the second highest population in Southeast Asia (109 million people) alongside the highest regional population growth rate. Its government has been urgently allocating funds of over $600 million for food sufficiency programs. The Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund (RCEF) Seed Program, now in its second year of distribution operations, has been issuing free certified inbred rice seeds to the country’s rice farmers, in an effort to help raise productivity and competitiveness as well as continuity of rice production. For the coming wet season, it is targeting issuance of about 2.5 million bags of seeds, at 20 kg per bag, to over 1.2 million of the country’s farmers. In return for the provision, farmers are required to use hand sanitizers, wear face masks, monitor body temperature, and practice physical distancing when engaged in the business of farming the seeds.
For Eduardo, the RCEF program may not exactly be manna from heaven, but it is welcome support for himself and small-hold farmers who have struggled their entire lives to turn rice into enough cash to feed their families. “The government is beginning to recognize the importance of small-scale farming to our country and these support programs will help us grow more rice to feed the people and keep us on the land, “ stated Eduardo with a broad smile, as he tried to strap on a face mask for the first time in his farming life.
More likely the international price of rice will make the difference to rice farmers such as Eduardo, at least for this year. The problem is that international commodity prices have been notoriously fickle. For micro enterprises such as those in rice farming, the longer term intervention of the state will be key to their viability. The economic and health devastation arising from the coronavirus pandemic should ensure that state support for rice growers will remain an essential and increasing feature of global and national food security for decades to come.
Bob Savic is a Visiting Professor at the Asia Research Institute, Nottingham University
