South Korea seeks 95,127 tonnes rice for Jan-Feb

SEOUL: South Korea is seeking 95,127 tonnes of rice via tenders after the government's decision to resume US rice imports and sales last week, the state-run Korea Agro-Fisheries & Food Trade Corp said.

The world's fourth largest grain importer lifted on Friday a suspension on US rice imports and sales made on concerns of possible contamination with arsenic, after a test showed no significant risk for human consumption.

Following Seoul's decision, the state-run agency reissued cancelled tenders seeking 73,633 tonnes of non-glutinous rice, along with 21,494 tonnes more of various types of rice, the agency said late on Monday.

Registration for the tenders will close at 2 p.m. (0500 GMT) on Oct. 22 and electronic bids will be held from 10 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. on Oct. 23, the agency added.

Masafi Basmati Rice tingles the taste buds at Al Khaleej Friends Women’s Association gala

Masafi supports Al Khaleej Women's Association gala event

Masafi Select Basmati Rice – the finest quality Basmati offering an authentic aroma, taste and pure goodness – took the centre stage at the annual gala ceremony of Al Khaleej Friends Women’s Association, held at India Club in Dubai on October 13, 2012.

Nearly 120 people, including UAE nationals, took part in the fun-filled event, organized by the association to celebrate Eid Al Adha and Diwali. Dr Zulekha Daud, Managing Director of Zulekha Healthcare Group, and other prominent personalities attended the ceremony.

The activities during the gala event included a cooking competition using Masafi Select Basmati Rice. Winners were chosen on the basis of their expertise in using the rice, and bringing out its taste, aroma and the overall presentation.

Nikhil Desai, Category Marketing Manager at Masafi, said: “With its characteristic quality, hygienic packaging and sublime taste, Masafi Select Basmati Rice has delighted gourmets and food connoisseurs across the region since its launch last year. The gala event of Al Khaleej Friends Women’s Association was no different. Our support and sponsorship of the event was in line with our customer focus, which is at the heart of all our endeavours.”

A rare gift of nature, Masafi Basmati Rice is sourced directly from the foothills of the snow-clad Himalayan mountain range in India. It is 99 per cent fat free, cholesterol free, gluten free, salt free and offers high nutritional content, making it the ideal choice for mothers with their family’s nutritional interests at heart.

The gala event also emphasized the key attributes of Masafi Select Basmati – smooth, pearl, extra fine and extra long. The average grain length of Masafi rice is 8.34mm, compared to other Basmati rice which averages around 7mm.

PHL aiming for zero rice imports in 2013

Having already lowered its rice importation target to 100,000-150,000 metric tons (MT) in 2013, the government is now is saying that it might not have to import rice at all next year, if the upcoming harvest is a very good one.

"There is no evaluation yet, but if the third cropping harvest [is] successful, we might not as well import anymore," Agriculture Secretary Proceso Alcala said in an interview Wednesday.

According to DA initial estimates, the 2012 target output of P17.8 million MT might not only be met, but possibly even surpassed by a possible 400,000 metric tons (MT).

"Baka po mapaaga ang hinahangad nating self-sufficiency status. Instead of end-2013, we might be self-sufficient in rice by early 2013," said Alcala.

He said that the climate this year has "so far, been favorable to agriculture, in general. Padaplis-daplis lang ang mga bagyo and we were not hit that hard these first few typhoons."

If the Philippines makes its target output of 17.8 million MT of rice for 2012, it will have reached 95-percent sufficiency.

DA budget

The proposed 2013 budget allocates P74.1 billion to the Department for 2013, a P10-billion increase from the P64.1 billion given to the DA for 2012.

Most of the department’s bureaus and attached agencies will receive get larger budgets to fund ongoing developmental programs. The department has increased the budget for research and development to P2.5 billion from P1.45 billion for the creation of technologies that will help the Philippines attain its food security targets.

Achieving sufficiency in rice and corn, the country’s staples, is the priority, said Alcala, and sufficiency in“vegetables and the rest of other agriculture commodities should follow."

Rice, flour and sugar: Punjab govt plays vital role in stability of prices

LAHORE: Special Assistant to Chief Minister Punjab on Food, Muhammad Mansha Ullah Butt has said that Punjab government has played an important role in the stability of prices of rice, flour and sugar and no increase will be made in the prices of sugarcane and wheat in future as well. Provision of cheaper and quality flour is the top priority of Punjab Chief Minister, he added.

He expressed these views while addressing a ceremony to mark World Food Day at Flour Mills Association Auditorium arranged by Punjab Food Department, the other day. Secretary Food Irfan Ali, Director Food Dr Usman, DG Food Authority, Chairman Pakistan Flour Mills Association, office-bearers and officers of the Food Department were also present on the occasion.

Mansha Ullah Butt said that World Food Day is observed on October 16 and its purpose is to ensure availability of food to the people. Secretary Food informed that there are 42 lakh tons wheat stocks with the department this year which are enough for the needs of the next year.

Thai rice buying slows as govt runs out of storage space

BANGKOK: Thailand's rice intervention programme has slowed because the government is running out of space to store the grain it buys, with stocks already at a record high as the harvest of the main crop gets into full swing, farmers and industry officials said on Tuesday.

Farmers in several provinces complained they were unable to sell paddy to the government as millers were refusing to take it. Millers generally take the rice from the farmers, giving them a certificate for money they can claim at a state bank.

"Millers and warehouse owners who have joined the government intervention programme are now refusing to take paddy from farmers as they say they don't have enough space to store it," Prasit Boonchuey, head of the Thai Farmers Association, told Reuters.

Farmers started harvesting the main crop this month and around 25 million tonnes of paddy is expected to come into the market. Production normally peaks in November.

The commerce minister said on Saturday that stocks of milled rice had risen to a record high of 14 million tonnes from 12 million.

 The government is struggling to offload its stocks because it is paying farmers a high price of 15,000 Thai baht ($490) a tonne and needs to recoup its costs, but buyers can find grain at far cheaper prices in Vietnam and India.

The transport minister said on Friday that the government planned to use empty warehouses at Bangkok's old Don Muang airport to store rice. Other airports may be asked for help, too, and army bases could also be used.

 But Commerce Minister Boonsong Teriyapirom has said the government is in no rush to use Don Muang airport, and that it is just a back-up plan.

However, a senior official at the Public Warehouse Organisation (PWO), which comes under the Commerce Ministry, said he had been assigned to look at the Don Muang facilities to see if they were suitable for storing rice.

"At this stage, we estimate we would need about 10 million baht to renovate the Don Muang warehouse so that it would be fit to hold rice," said the official, who declined to be named.

Commerce Minister Boonsong has insisted that he has sold 7.3 million tonnes of rice to foreign governments but shippers and other industry officials see no evidence of that.

Other ministers have suggested the government has signed memorandums of understanding and that shipments of the rice would be spread over many months.

It needs to offload rice quickly as another 9 million tonnes is expected to flow in after milling of the 15 million tonnes of paddy it aims to buy from the main crop.

That could result in stockpiles of 23 million tonnes, more than double the amount the country exports even in the best years.

Thailand exported a record 10.6 million tonnes in 2011. So far this year it has exported 5.06 million tonnes, down 44 percent from the same period in 2011.

It has been the world's top rice exporter for years but looks likely to lose that title to Vietnam or India in 2012.

Rice power battle is on the boil

Mellow yellow: SunRice farmer and seed grower Barry Kirkup walks through a barley crop with his dog Polly.

RICE growers may soon see SunRice fall into foreign hands and, as a consequence, the loss of the single desk. 

Sunrice chairman Gerry Lawson could not hide his dismay last year when the takeover of the rice processor by Spanish suitor Ebro Foods was defeated by shareholders.

SunRice had told its shareholders the company had to be sold because its debt was too high and Ebro was offering an attractive price.

It was clear SunRice directors wanted to unlock the value of the shares.

Four of them have more than 200,000 shares, putting them in the top 20 shareholders.

When the vote was put to shareholders in May last year, the company's debt was about $300 million. A number of growers were clearly angry they were not told about the high debt.

Many believed SunRice also needed to stay in Australian hands and work for the betterment of Australian rice growers.
The Ebro deal was scuttled by angry A-class grower shareholders who thought the company could be turned around now that farmers had water to grow crops. And they have since been proven right.

As Deniliquin grower John Bradford, a leading opponent of the Ebro takeover, said, once the drought was over, SunRice would get back on its feet and pick up from where it left off some years earlier.

"We always said that once we start producing rice again, we would be back again," Mr Bradford said.
"Now, we have quickly got our markets back."

The SunRice board is running the line the drought and the Ebro bid has opened up a Pandora's box on the company's structure.

In June, the board announced a review of the company's capital structure and its board make-up.
At the same time, it put a moratorium on the issue of new shares.

Mr Lawson told the company's annual general meeting in Jerilderie two months ago, the uneven spread of investment in SunRice by active growers was an issue.

He said SunRice would "consider how best to approach the matter of growers who deliver paddy to us and again access to our brands and premium markets, yet have opted to have no investment in our business, or a very low level of investment".

Other issues on the agenda include the number and mix of directors.

But he would not be drawn further on what the review would recommend.

Softening up shareholders was a report distributed to selected growers just before the AGM by stockbroking firm Bell Potter, whose directors also ran Australian Food and Agriculture Company Limited - SunRice's second largest shareholder.

Bell Potter wants the rice processor listed on the Australian Stock Exchange because it would "broaden the potential investor base, provide better access to capital, likely improve the liquidity in the shares and create a more transparent market".

The SunRice board considered listing on the ASX as an alternative to selling to Ebro but clearly favoured the Spanish offer.

Mr Bradford has tipped the structural review will favour listing on the ASX to essentially end up with the same result: a foreign takeover.

Rice growers only need to look at the history of its three nearest peers - the Australian Wheat Board, the Australian Barley Board and GrainCorp - to understand what will happen to their industry if SunRice lists on the ASX. The wheat and barley boards and GrainCorp listed on the ASX in a bid to unlock share value but also raise capital to expand without necessarily borrowing more money.

But the move also diluted the grower share base. Extra independent directors were appointed to all the boards and - certainly in the case of AWB and GrainCorp - they played important roles in removing grower control.

Once grower control is removed, there is a strong chance the company will end up in foreign hands.
Both AWB and ABB Grain were sold off to foreign interests within about a year of grower control being ceded.

UAE Mulls Investing In Halal Food, Rice In Cambodia

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is considering investing in halal food production and rice milling in Cambodia, visiting UAE Minister of Foreign Trade Sheikha Lubna Bint Khalid Al Qasimi said here on Tuesday.

Speaking in a meeting with Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen at the Peace Palace, Sheikha Lubna said her visit was to seek Cambodia's potential for investment.

The UAE minister, who also held a talk with her Cambodian counterpart Cham Prasidh on Monday, said Dubai will prepare specific plans to investment in Cambodia in halal food production and rice milling, and the products will be exported to her country, reports China's Xinhua news agency.

Sheikha Lubna said her delegation will come back to Cambodia again in May next year with the specific investment plans.

Trade volume between the UAE and Cambodia stood at US$89 million last year, up 121 percent year-on-year.

While giving his full support for Dubai's investment plans, Hun Sen expressed the belief that the trade volume would be growing fast in the future with continuous improvements in bilateral relations.

The premier said Cambodia is rich in raw materials for halal food production, adding that the project will create jobs for the Muslim community in the country.

On the rice side, he said the country produced some 8.25 million tons of paddy rice last year, but it is short of sophisticated post-harvesting technologies to process rice for exports.

B240bn approved for rice pledging scheme

The cabinet on Tuesday approved a total budget of 240 billion baht for a new round of rice price pledging, destined for the 15 million tonnes harvest due to begin this month, permanent secretary for commerce Watcharee Wimuktayon said.

The period for the new round of pledging runs from Oct 1, 2012 to Sept 15, 2013. Mortgaged rice prices were set at 15,000 baht a tonne for unmilled white rice paddy and 20,000 baht per tonne for Hom Mali (Jasmine) paddy, she said.

Mrs Watcharee said the cabinet had not discussed the pledging scheme for the second crop, which would be harvested in March next year. The government had a six-month window to reconsider the scheme.

She said the allocation of the 240 billion baht budget was based on the premise the government would receive about 40 billion baht from its current rice release.

It was expected that by the end of this year cash returns would be about 100 billion baht and, therefore, the Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives would not have to raise loans to cover the entire 240 billion baht, she added.

Meanwhile, the main opposition Democrat Party said it does not believe there is only four million tonnes of rice remaining in the government stockpile.

Democrat MP for Phitsanulok Warong Dejkitwikrom said on Tuesday that Commerce Minister Boonsong Teriyapirom had not made public the true facts on the state of the rice stockpile.

There should be about 14 million tonnes of milled rice remaining in the stockpile, not four million tonnes as the minister had claimed, he said.

Mr Warong called on Mr Boonsong to clarify exactly where the rice went, and at what prices.

The opposition MP said he believed the stocked rice was secretly sold to close aides of politicians and that the rice would be mortgaged to the government’s pledging scheme again, to reap a second payment.

Mr Warong said the permanent secretary for commerce’s remark that the rice price pledging scheme was constitutional and that it was a just and fair scheme to help poor rice farmers was just not true.

Only large farmers would benefit from this scheme, not the small ones. He had visited farmers in Sukhothai and they complained bitterly that they were not paid the declared mortgage prices. Many of them had still not received the money, he said.

He defended the right of academics at the National Institute of Development (Nida) to petition the Constitution Court to issue an injunction halting the scheme. The Democrat MP said these academics were directly affected by the government’s budget spending on this programme. Therefore, they had the constitutional right to take action.

Farmers in Phitsanulok's Bang Rakam district rushed to harvest rice in mid September despite it is not yet ripe  due to flood run-off.

Members of the Farmers Network and the June 24 for Democracy group on Tuesday rallied in front of the Nida building compound in opposition to the 146 academics, led by Adis Isrankul na Ayutthaya, who petitioned the Constitution Court seeking a ruling on the constitutionality of the pledging scheme.

They issued a statement saying that they opposed the move, that they are poor farmers who have no money to hire academics to help protect their interests. They were not like the members of the Rice Traders Association, who were among the country’s richest people.

The statement said the academics admitted that they had never asked poor farmers for opinions about the scheme. This was an admission that they listened only to the other side and that the academics moved to protect only the rice traders.

It stated that the academics had no legitimacy to petition the court because they had failed to make any wide study of the impacts and benefits of the pledging scheme, particularly on farmers, who were the poorest group of people in the country.

The benefits of farmers in developed nations were well protected and they had high incomes, but some Thai academics had failed to stand side by side with Thai farmers, who were the underdogs, the statement said.

Many reporters had interviewed farmers and reported that the farmers confirmed that they benefitted from the ricre scheme, the statement said. Rice traders and rice milers stood to lose from this policy. It questioned whether the academics had taken this into account.

The statement asked the academics whether they saw themselves as opponents of the government, which gained a landslide victory in the general election. The academics had never moved against any government formed by the military camp.

The farmers' statement asked whether the movement by the academics was aimed at giving the justice system more power over the government elected by the majority of the people.

Songchai Wimolphattranont, a representative of the June 24 for Democracy group, said the academics were attempting to use the charter to minimise the authority of the government.

“If there is any problem with the government’s policy, the parliamentary system should be used to address and settle it,” he said.

SL Agritech enters regional pact on rice production and marketing

Hybrid rice producer SL Agritech Corp. on Tuesday said it signed deals with companies from Thailand, Myanmar, and Singapore on rice production and marketing in Asia.

 

A memorandum of understanding – a first in agriculture among members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations – signed last month in Manila, covers a regional cooperation toward contributing specific expertise for the benefit of the venture.

 

Involved in the deal are Thailand’s Capital Rice International Co. (CRIC), IBTC Group of Companies-Myanmar, and Singapore-registered Radiant Stone Pte. Ltd.

 

A company listed on the Singapore Stock Exchange and owned by Filipino-Chine Julio Sy of the Tao Group,  Radiant Stone finance the venture as corporate investor.

 

“We have this opportunity to form an ASEAN joint venture where the Philippines takes the lead in hybrid rice technology,” said SL Agritech president and CEO Henry Lim.

 

 “We already own SL-8H trademarks in several Asian countries But this MOA offers opportunities for us to export to the big markets,” he added.

 

The agreement calls for SL Agritech to develop a hybrid rice variety using Myanmar's own germplasm, and made accessible through Los Baños, Laguna-based International Rice Research Institute.

 

SL Agritech will also lend IBTC a hand in producing hybrid rice seed in Myanmar in exchange for royalty payments. Myanmar has no existing commercial hybrid rice variety.

 

According to SL Agritech, a feasibility study will be available in December 2012 to determine the optimum area of planting and other profit-making opportunities.  

 

Once all documents required for an investment proposal, rice planting  is expected to start in Myanmar on January 15, 2013.

 

"We have five months at the start of 2013 to plant before the monsoon crop (in May or June)," said Myanmar’s U Aung Moe Kyaw.

 

A subsidiary of Myanmar’s International Sun Moon Star Agricultural Ltd., IBTC is one of Myanmar’s biggest beverage firms.

 

Around 30 years ago, Myanmar – then known as Burma – was the world’s largest exporter of rice. As the second last country in Southeast Asia, it has 

An estimated 6.14 million hectares of land for rice cultivation – or more than twice the area planted to rice in the Philippines.

 

Accounting for 20 percent of Thailand's total rice exports, CRIC offers the opportunity to export the commodity to big buyers like China and Indonesia, according to SL Agritech.

 

CRIC’s role in the regional venture is to determine the best model for marketing hybrid rice.

 

"There’s a big market for white rice in Asia. China has imported 1.4 million tons so far this year,” said CRIC director Anant Pitchetpongsa, noting that “Indonesia normally imports 500,000 to one million tons."

Thailand extends expensive rice subsidy scheme

The Thai Cabinet has extended a rice-buying scheme that has been plagued by complaints of corruption and threatens the country's long-time reign as the world's top rice exporter.

The Cabinet on Tuesday approved a tentative budget of 240 billion baht ($7.8 billion) to buy 15 million tons of rice at above-market prices from farmers for another year.

Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra said the subsidies have raised the incomes of Thai farmers. She vowed to solve corruption in the program.
The scheme, which started last year, is popular in the north and northeastern strongholds of Yingluck's party.

But critics said it had caused a plunge in Thailand's rice exports due to the high price guarantee at home. Vietnam is expected to surpass Thailand as the world's biggest rice exporter this year.

Rice exporters to target $2.5b in exports

LAHORE: The Rice Exporters Association of Pakistan (REAP) has decided to prepare a road map to explore and enter new markets in a bid to boost rice exports.

“We should focus on long-term planning with short-term targets to enhance Basmati exports. Keeping in view the challenges and opportunities for rice exporters, REAP will focus on Vision 2020 as a first initiative for our long-term planning,” newly-elected REAP chairman Javed Ali Ghori said while delivering his speech to the body’s 14th Annual General Meeting.

“We will soon send delegations to different countries to explore new markets for Pakistani Basmati rice,” Ghori said. “Our initial target will be to increase our exports to $2.5 billion, from the current $2 billion,” he said.

Rice exports from Pakistan in fiscal 2012 crossed 3.7 million tons, valued at $2.08 billion at an average price of $871 per ton for Basmati rice, and $448 per ton for non-Basmati rice.

“It is an achievement that despite tough international competition with India – which reduced prices by up to $200 per ton – rice exports from Pakistan managed to cross 3.7 million tons,” said Safdar Mehkari, outgoing REAP chairman.

“We focussed on new markets for Pakistani rice,” he said. “We have worked with concerned government authorities for rice exports to India, Iran and other countries. Rice imported into India is subjected to around 70% import duties and taxes, while this is about 14% in Pakistan, he said. “A level tariff between the two countries is essential. REAP has suggested a zero import duty between the two countries,” he added.

“In order to boost rice exports from Pakistan to Mauritius, and upon request by Pakistan’s High Commission in Mauritius, REAP acceded to the Mauritius authorities’ request to train their staff in order to build their capacity in Basmati rice testing. Officials will soon visit Pakistan in this regard,” Mehkari said.

“To secure REAP members against the risks of exporting rice to Iran, the body met with the State Bank governor in April in Karachi to finalise modalities which will also safeguard Pakistan and its financial system’s interests, he said. “We are hopeful that we will soon start rice export to Iran.”

“The production of ‘Super Basmati’ rice has reduced drastically, so we need to prioritise this matter for the betterment of trade. Meetings have been conducted with the Nuclear Institute for Agriculture and Biology to encourage scientists to produce Super Basmati seed of high yield and quality. A MoU in this regard will soon be finalised,” Mehkari added.

“The government should provide subsidies to paddy farmers for better quality yields. India provides around $30 billion in subsidies to its farming sector every year through subsidised Urea/DAP fertiliser, and cheap electricity for tube wells,” Mehkari suggested.

Indonesia, Vietnam extend MoU on rice until 2017

JAKARTA: Indonesia and Vietnam have extended a pact on rice supplies until the end of 2017, a trade ministry statement said on Tuesday, as Jakarta seeks to increase stockpiles of the staple grain to hedge against food inflation.

Last week, Indonesia's state procurement agency Bulog said it had a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Vietnam for 1.5 million tonnes which was due to expire in January.

The MoU was extended from Jan. 1, 2013 until Dec. 31, 2017, Indonesia's trade ministry said in a statement following talks with Vietnam.

"With the signing of the memorandum of understanding, we hope it can support the national food security programme," Indonesia's Trade Minister Gita Wirjawan said.

"A similar MoU has been signed with several rice producer countries in ASEAN, such as Cambodia and Thailand, which aims to provide alternative rice buffers for Indonesia when needed."

Indonesia last year imported 1.9 million tonnes of rice from Thailand, Vietnam and India to ensure it had plentiful stocks of rice to avoid food inflation.

Indonesia's main rice harvest is usually in June or August, with a second crop towards the end of the first quarter.

It expects unmilled rice output to be about 68 million tonnes this year, and has ambitious plans to maintain stocks of 10 million tonnes by 2014.

Indonesia was self-sufficient in rice in the early 1980s, but the crop gradually declined as farmland was turned into housing for a booming population. Monthly rice consumption stands at about 2.7 million tonnes.

Rice, sugarcane crops to get benefit of devastated rains

ISLAMABAD - Though National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) is not performing its duty as it was supposed to but in most of inundated areas, the farmers will get benefit of devastated rain spell in the country.

As per exclusive details taken from the farmers’ representative in different areas, rains have not damaged the crops a lot rather most of the crops have benefited from these rains.

It was learnt that NDMA was supposed to build temporary water stoppage walls at different locations, de-silting in some main channels but these works have not been done by the authority that ultimately caused the masses suffer.

As far as the rains effect is concerned in terms of crops that was observed overall positive throughout the country with partial loss to crops in some areas. The experts and farmers expressed that rice and sugarcane hopefully would get benefit of these rains. Especially they said that due to rains a disease named Pirella was controlled naturally that required pesticide spray.

Experts also said that impression of loss of crops in the country must not be given as that allows the black marketers to exploit and mint money by stocking product and creating artificial shortage in the market.

It was also learnt that cotton crop was also not under threat and rains controlled a lethal disease of cotton that was expected to damage the crop on large scale. The disease called “white fly” had attacked the cotton crop on early stage and rains have eliminated that pest that will ultimately increase the production.

It is worth mentioning here that country could not achieve cotton cultivation area target of 8 million acres, however rains could not hold responsible for it.

On the other hand, experts are of the view that if the rains continue in the next days that can prove disastrous for the crops

It is worth mentioning here that the long-term solution to the floods is constructing big and small dams in the different areas of the country and during that process it is needed to carry on maintenance work to reduce the losses occurred due to flood as much as possible.

The major loss that has been reported suffered by the masses and the country overall is structural loss, human lives and livestock.

Will Vietnam benefit from joining ASEAN Rice Exporters Alliance?

Thailand has proposed establishing an ASEAN Rice Exporters Alliance that consists of Vietnam, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar with the aim of increasing rice export prices.

 However, the proposal is facing some opposition from rice-importing countries and even in Vietnam, there are differing opinions on whether the country will benefit from joining the Alliance.

The aim of the Alliance taking shape at the end of this year is to help sharpen the competitive edge of ASEAN rice, promote information sharing and cooperation in production and marketing, and stabilize rice prices in the five countries.

The five previously mentioned ASEAN nations annually export a total of 20 million tonnes of rice, accounting for two thirds of global rice exports.

The International Grain Council (IGC) says that despite controlling nearly half of the global rice export volume, Vietnam and Thailand’s total share of the rice market will shrink to 38 percent later this year when India surpasses them to become the world's biggest rice exporter.

Establishing the ASEAN Rice Exporters Alliance is a response to the sharp increase in India’s rice market share after the country lifted its ban on exporting regular rice in  September last year.

As the world’s biggest rice exporter, Thailand has been carrying out a costly meal replacement programme after the government decided to buy rice from farmers at a price higher than it is on the market.

Currently, Thailand has up to 16 million tonnes of rice in stock but it is still reluctant to trade for fear of inflated prices.

Vietnamese rice has gone down in price since early this year in the face of tough competition from cheap Indian rice.

The Deputy Head of the Vietnam Agriculture Institute, Professor Dr Bui Chi Buu, says that as the second most populous country in the world, India stores a large volume of rice.

To maintain its temporary stockpiles, India has to sell the old rice in stock to make room for the newly harvested rice.

By far this year, India has traded just 30 million tonnes out of its more than 40 million tonnes of rice in stock.
The global rice market has experienced wild fluctuations following India’s decision to sell 20 million tonnes of stockpiled rice at low prices.

Vietnam has no such stockpiles of rice for export since its rice is not highly graded in the world. Most of its customers are mainly low-income nations, which puts the country at a disadvantage to compete with cheaper rice from India. 

In addition, experts say Myanmar will present the biggest challenge for Vietnam in the near future as it annually produces 13-14 million tonnes of rice and its government is trying to gain a leg up on the regional export market. 

Some claim the Myanmar Rice and Paddy Traders Association (MRPTA) are working on export management programmes to help drive up rice prices despite the fact it is only capable of producing rice of the same quality compared to Vietnamese rice.

So, in order to boost Vietnam’s rice exports and help farmers make a profit, Vietnam needs to join the ASEAN Rice Exporters’ Alliance to avoid unfair competition through reciprocal market concessions.

The Vietnamese Government knows too well that only by helping farmers earn higher incomes and stabilize their lives can it achieve the goal of rice production and export in a sustainable manner.

GM rice is more than food for thought

The Ministry of Health's investigation into a controversial US-backed genetically modified rice research project in Hunan province raises a wider set of questions than just the use of GM seeds to increase crop yields, because the researchers are alleged to have fed students GM rice as part of an experiment without their or their parents' knowledge.

The research was backed by the US National Institute of Health and the US Department of Agriculture, according to an article published in the August edition of the Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

The answers to all the questions that the Ministry of Health-ordered investigation raises are not yet known. GM seed makers say there is no proof that their seeds will harm human health, but a host of geneticists and ecologists across the world say there is no proof that GM seeds will not harm humans.

The battle lines for and against GM seeds were first drawn in Europe in the late 1990s. Activists in Europe claimed that GM seeds were unsafe for human consumption and damaged or destroyed other seeds and crops. Soon the opposition to GM seeds spread to other regions, and justifiably so if we look at what happened later to farmers in countries like India who planted GM seeds.

For all the claims of GM seed makers, especially Monsanto, cotton crops have been failing with eerie regularity in India. A country that first cultivated cotton more than 7,000 years ago (in what is now western Pakistan) and spread the skill of making cotton yarn to the Mediterranean and hence the rest of the world has seen more than 200,000 farmers commit suicide in the past decade. The farmers committed suicide because they were neck deep in loans, which they were forced to borrow to overcome successive Bt cotton crop failures.
The vicious circle the farmers were caught in - of using more expensive Bt cotton seeds and larger amounts of fertilizers and insecticides to increase their yields - was too much for them to sustain.

Thousands of kilometers away, Mexico, which gave corn to the world, has to import the bulk of its corn supply from the US today despite using GM seeds. If that was not enough of an irony, scientists in the US now say that corn rootworms might have developed resistance to GM corn, and the US Environmental Protection Agency says it plans to investigate.

Until the first half of the last century, seeds were overwhelmingly the property of farmers and public-sector plant breeders. But in the decades that followed GM seed makers have used intellectual property laws to commercialize seed supply throughout the world and are aggressive in their designs and sales strategies to maximize their profits. The top five GM seed makers - Monsanto (US), DuPont (US), Syngenta (Switzerland), Groupe Limagrain (France) and Land O' Lakes (US) - control 57 percent of the global seed market. Since the mid-1990s, Monsanto, Syngenta, and DuPont along with Bayer and Dow have bought up more than 200 other companies to become dominant players in the seed market. Can there be a better example of oligopoly?

GM seed makers jump in with "help" when crops fail in a country because of natural or human factors. They offer GM seeds as the panacea for all agricultural ills, only to milk farmers of their last penny, for once a farmer plants GM crops there is no going back to using normal seeds simply because natural seeds cannot yield anywhere near a healthy harvest on a piece of land where GM seeds have been planted.

The world may keep debating the pros and cons of GM seeds. But the farmers who have paid with their lives for using GM seeds have their own tale to tell.

Hopefully, the Ministry of Health has taken these factors into consideration while ordering the investigation into the controversial GM rice research in Hunan.

Monsoon revival helps Indian crops recover from drought

MUMBAI: Higher than average rainfall for the past three weeks in India, the world’s second-biggest producer of rice, sugar, and cotton, will help boost yields of summer-planted crops which were affected by the weak rain at the beginning of the monsoon season.

The June-September monsoon rains are vital for India’s agriculture sector, where 55 percent of farmland is rain-fed. Here are some key facts about the impact of the recent revival in the monsoon.

Rice: Rice makes up 70 percent of India’s summer-sown crops, which in turn make up about half of India’s total crop output. Key rice growing states in the east and south received good rains in the past two weeks, and the revival will help the crop which is in the grain formation stage.

In some areas of Andhra Pradesh and Odisha states, the crop was damaged due to heavy rains. Farm Minister Sharad Pawar said on Wednesday the recent rains would help improve yields but overall production could be lower than the previous year due to the deficient monsoon.

India is sitting on huge stockpiles of rice and has been exporting the grain since September 2011.
Rice acreage is 4.2 percent lower than the previous year and traders expect an up to 8 percent drop in production from the 91.53 million tonnes produced in the previous year. Ample stocks will help India continue unrestricted exports.

Cane: The leading sugar producing states of Maharashtra and Karnataka received more than average rainfall in the past two weeks, helping the maturing cane crop. But the rains are unlikely to completely neutralise the damage due to the April-to-July dry spell.

Overall cane acreage in the country is 4.5 percent higher than last year, but analysts expect production to drop to 24 million tonnes in the 2012-13 season beginning October against the current year’s 26 million tonnes. This decline will ultimately squeeze the surplus that can be exported.

Soybean: The recent rains have helped soybeans, the main summer-sown oilseed. Soybean production in 2012-13 is likely to rise to 11.8 million tonnes from 11 million tonnes in the current year, JP Morgan said in a research report last week. Despite the higher output, India’s edible oil imports in the 2012-13 season beginning November will rise due to a drop in groundnut and cotton seed supplies. India is the world’s top vegetable oil importer.
Cotton: Poor rainfall at the start of the monsoon season and unattractive prices cut cotton acreage by 4.7 percent from the previous year. Yields were expected to drop sharply but the revival in Maharashtra and Gujarat states compensated some of the losses.
Traders estimate cotton production at around 34 million bales each of 170 kg for the 2012-13 season starting Oct. 1, lower than the current year’s record 35.3 million bales. Lower output is likely to hit exports.

Corn: Output of summer-sown corn is likely to fall more than 10 percent in the 2012-13 season from the previous year’s 16.22 million tonnes, as scanty rainfall in the key growing southern states hit sowing and growth of some early planted varieties. Recent rains have helped late-sown varieties in central India.

India’s corn exports in 2012-13 may fall to 1.9 million tonnes from 3.8 million tonnes in the current year as lower production and robust local demand trims surplus availability for overseas sales, J P Morgan said in a recent research report.

Pulses: Recent rains are likely to help pigeon peas and black matpe but heavy rains in some areas hit green gram, which was ready for harvesting. Overall production is set to fall for the second straight year.

Pulses acreage is down 6 percent, but dry weather in June and July can decrease output by nearly 15 percent from the previous year’s 6.16 million tonnes, forcing India to import more from Australia, Canada and Myanmar.

Tea, coffee, rubber: Heavy rains disrupted tea plucking in some areas but it is unlikely to affect output in the next few months. Output in the world’s second-biggest tea producer may drop to 973 million kg in 2012 from the previous year’s 988.3 million kg as dry weather hit the crop during the first half of the year.

An improvement in rains in the top coffee-producing Karnataka state will help erase some damage caused by the dry weather conditions. Output in the 2012-13 season is likely to be slightly lower than state-run Coffee Board’s forecast of 325,300 tonnes. In some pockets, the crop has been hit by the white stem borer pest.

The top rubber producing Kerala state last week received 29 percent higher than average rains, ensuring normal production in the next three peak months for tapping. The state-run Rubber Board has forecast an output of 942,000 tonnes for the year ending March, which is likely to be met.

Small delta rice dryers lose business to new technology

Last year, Tran Chi Tam's small paddy dryer in Can Tho City operated at full capacity during the rice-harvest season, but this year business has dropped dramatically. 
 
"The small dryers are not operating as much because they do not meet paddy traders' needs to dry a large quantity at a high quality," he said. 

Tam, who has provided drying services in Co Do District for 10 years, said his machines dried about 300 tonnes of paddy during a summer-autumn crop in previous years but only 70 tonnes for this year.
Even though the price of drying paddy has fallen by VND20,000 to VND120,000-140,000 a tonne, Tam still faced difficulty finding buyers. 

Thousands of other owners of small paddy dryers in the Delta are also losing customers, who are increasingly choosing larger dryers that have a higher quality. 

Co Do District has 200 dryers, but most of them have a small capacity and do not meet paddy traders' needs, according to the District's Agriculture and Rural Development Bureau. 

Lam Minh Tri, the bureau head, said the district's dryers could dry only 40 per cent of the summer-autumn rice crop harvested during the rainy season. 

"However, small dryers often do not produce high-quality dried paddy as their temperatures are under 40 degrees Celsius, and their products do not meet husking standards for export," he said. 

Large dryers that have better technology have been operating at full capacity. 

Nguyen Van Nhon, owner of eight large dryers in neighbouring An Giang Province's Phu Tan District, said the issue was one of quality, not price. 

Even though many large dryers offer a price of VND180,000 a tonne, VND40,000-50,000 higher than the price of other dryers, traders are still willing to use them. 

The paddy from these dryers has a lower rate of broken rice when it is husked, so traders earn a higher profit compared to paddy processed by small dryers. 

The Mekong Delta has about 9,600 dryers that can dry 40-50 per cent of the Delta's summer-autumn crop, but most of them are small dryers, according to figures from Delta provinces. 

The summer-autumn crop is harvested in the rainy season when the demand for dryers is higher. During the dry season, the rice crops are dried under the sun. 

Dr. Pham Van Tan of the Southern Institute for Agricultural Engineering and Post Harvest Technology said that most traders bought fresh paddy at fields and dried it in modern dryers, so small dryers were losing their competitiveness. 

Le Van Banh, head of the Cuu Long Rice Research Institute, said farmers should buy bigger drying machines with better technology. 

"Modernisation in the paddy drying process is very important, especially when there is a labour shortage and traders are buying fresh paddy directly at the fields," he said.

Researchers identify sterility genes in hybrid rice

Researchers identify sterility genes in hybrid rice This image shows heterosis and sterility of hybrid between indica and japonica subspecies.

Hybrids of many plant and animal species and subspecies are sterile, and a group of researchers in China have now identified the genes that operate to make crossbred rice sterile.

The scientists, from the National Centre of Plant Gene Research at Huazhong Agricultural University in Wuhan and the Chinese University of Hong Kong, examined two subspecies of the cultivated rice (Oryza sativa L.), japonica and indica, and identified three genes that act together to regulate fertility in these hybrids. Japonica is a common variety of sticky short-grain rice also known as Japanese rice, sinica or sushi rice, and indica is a non-sticky long-grain rice.

Both varieties are thought to have been first domesticated in Central China around eight thousand years ago, and from there they spread throughout Asia.

When crossbred the hybrids tend to be more vigorous than the parent subspecies and can yield significantly larger crops of rice.

 The researchers used techniques such as gene sequencing and genotyping to analyze the genetics of hybrid indica-japonica rice in the region of a specific locus (S5) that had previously been shown to be involved in sterility in hybrids.

They then compared their findings with genes in that region in other rice varieties, including Nanjing 11 (a subspecies of indica), Balilla (subspecies of japonica), and varieties producing fertile crossbred offspring: Dular and 02428.

This image shows heterosis and sterility of hybrid between indica and japonica subspecies in rice.

They identified three genes that contribute to the sterility in a "killer-protector" system that determines whether or not spores are formed.

They found that Open Reading Frame (ORF) 5+ (killer) produces a protein that ORF 4+ influences to cause endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress in the spore-producing cells, while a third gene, ORF 3+ (protector), produces a protein in response to the stress that counteracts it and protects the ER. The japonica variety has a different form of the gene, ORF 3-, which means that the hybrids often carry a muted ORF gene that is unable to protect against the hybrid's more potent form of the killer ORF 5+, often resulting in premature death at the embryo-sac stage in the hybrid.

The researchers explained in their paper in Science that a potent combination of ORF 4+ and ORF 5+ would allow genetic differentiation of the two subspecies and prevent genes being passed on, while a potent ORF 3+ and weaker combinations of the killer genes would allow hybrids to be fertile and genes to flow to the next generation.

The findings add to the understanding of hybrid sterility, a process that restricts the flow of genes between populations, lead author Qifa Zhang said. He added that understanding the cause of the sterility may allow scientists to overcome it, and this could help in the development of more desirable and higher-yielding cultivated rice crops.

 ABSTRACT
  Hybrid sterility is a major form of postzygotic reproductive isolation that restricts gene flow between populations. Cultivated rice (Oryza sativa L.) consists of two subspecies, indica and japonica; inter-subspecific hybrids are usually sterile.

We show that a killer-protector system at the S5 locus encoded by three tightly linked genes [Open Reading Frame 3 (ORF3) to ORF5] regulates fertility in indica-japonica hybrids.
 During female sporogenesis, the action of ORF5+ (killer) and ORF4+ (partner) causes endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress. ORF3+ (protector) prevents ER stress and produces normal gametes, but ORF3– cannot prevent ER stress, resulting in premature programmed cell death and leads to embryo-sac abortion. Preferential transmission of ORF3+ gametes results in segregation distortion in the progeny.
These results add to our understanding of differences between indica and japonica rice and may aid in rice genetic improvement.

Rice sold, but no one can see it

Govt announced large sales of rice to other govts (Philippines, China, Africa) but with all deals hidden, experts don't believe it.

Thai rice industry surprised by deals

The rice industry was taken by surprise yesterday by Commerce Minister Boonsong Teriyapirom's announcement that his ministry has concluded six export deals for a combined 7.33 million tonnes of rice.

The minister said all the deals involved government-to-government (G-to-G) transactions with Indonesia, the Philippines, China and Ivory Coast.

He declined to give details of the transactions, particularly prices or how much each buyer purchased, saying vaguely only that deliveries have already started and will be completed this year.

But local rice exporters expressed doubt about the sales and deliveries, saying they know only of Ivory Coast agreeing to purchase 240,000 tonnes of rice in July.

Mr Boonsong has worked hard to sell rice in recent months, but a source said as far as could be determined, the minister was able to clinch memorandums of understanding to sell 1 million tonnes of rice each to Indonesia, the Philippines and Bangladesh plus 200,000 tonnes to Guinea.

We're not aware of any active rice loadings at the ports if what the government says is true, that it has sold most its record inventory and already started shipping it," said Chookiat Ophaswongse, honorary president of the Thai Rice Exporters Association.

Export of more than 100,000 tonnes of rice would at least have a shipment booking, which cannot be concealed, and due to the current low export volume, we'd know about any large exports such as those announced by the minister.

He urged the government to disclose at least the amount of rice sold under the G-to-G contracts to each buyer and the amount due for delivery this year and next, like it did with the earlier Ivory Coast deal.

"Exporters are concerned about the selling prices, as reports are the government itself has been trying to sell rice to Indonesia under G-to-G contracts at only $500 a tonne, which is below the present market price of $560-580," said Mr Chookiat.

If the selling price turns out to be as low as $450 a tonne, that will mean a massive loss for the government and the destruction of Thailand's rice export market.

As of last Friday, year-to-date rice export volume had fallen by 45% year-on-year to 4.5 million tonnes.

But Mr Boonsong is confident Thailand's rice exports will reach 8.5 million tonnes this year.

The minister said the government's stockpile is set to drop to only 4.1 million tonnes from 12.6 million tonnes before.

These grains will be held as food security for the country, although occasional sales can still occur, said Mr Boonsong.

"We'll continue our policy of pledging each grain of rice, as we believe global demand will be strong," he said.

(Source: Bangkok Post, Economics, COMMODITIES, Thai rice industry surprised by deals, 13/09/2012, Phusadee Arunmas, link) 


Rice Industry Vocabulary

government-to-government (G-to-G) transactions - when one government sells goods to another government
G-to-G contracts

the amount of rice sold under the G-to-G contracts

taken by surprise - were surprised by some event

announcement - information given to public ประกาศ
ministry - a government department dealing with an area of activity กระทรวง

concluded - finished; completed; ended
concluded six export deals

The rice industry was taken by surprise yesterday by Commerce Minister Boonsong Teriyapirom's announcement that his ministry has concluded six export deals for a combined 7.33 million tonnes of rice. The minister said all the deals involved government-to-government (G-to-G) transactions with Indonesia, the Philippines, China and Ivory Coast.

decline - refuse, say that you will not or cannot do something
decline to give details
declined to give details of the transactions

vaguely - to not be exact or give any details (descibe something without any details, so people don't know exactly what is happening)
saying vaguely only that deliveries have already started

doubt - not know for sure if something is true or false, uncertain
express doubt - say you think something might not be true
rice exporters expressed doubt about the sales

purchase - buy
agreeing to purchase 240,000 tonnes of rice

He declined to give details of the transactions, particularly prices or how much each buyer purchased, saying vaguely only that deliveries have already started and will be completed this year. But local rice exporters expressed doubt about the sales and deliveries, saying they know only of Ivory Coast agreeing to purchase 240,000 tonnes of rice in July.

source - 1. someone who gives information to the media such as a newspaper แหล่งข่าว 2. where something comes from or starts at, or the cause of something ต้นกำเนิด, แหล่งกำเนิด
a source said ...

determined - found out; discovered ระบุชี้ชัด
as far as could be determined

Memorandums Of Understanding (MOU) - a temporary written agreement between two organizations that explains how they intend to do business with each other and what their relationship will be (See Wikipedia)

clinch - get (something you try hard or compete to get, but not certain)
clinch memorandums of understanding

Mr Boonsong has worked hard to sell rice in recent months, but a source said as far as could be determined, the minister was able to clinch memorandums of understanding to sell 1 million tonnes of rice each to Indonesia, the Philippines and Bangladesh plus 200,000 tonnes to Guinea.

load - put goods onto some transport (truck, ship, airplane)
rice loadings - putting rice on ships

active - currently happening; operating, doing its job
active rice loadings
active rice loadings at the ports

aware - knowing that something exists, or having knowledge or experience of a particular thing ทราบ
We're not aware of any active rice loadings at the ports

inventory - the products kept in a shop, warehouse, etc., in this case, unsold cars; goods that a company has bought and stores for future use or sale สินค้าที่จัดเก็บในสต๊อก (See Wikipedia)

shipping - sending or transport of goods from one place to another place (especially on ships)
already started shipping it

We're not aware of any active rice loadings at the ports if what the government says is true, that it has sold most its record inventory and already started shipping it," said Chookiat Ophaswongse, honorary president of the Thai Rice Exporters Association.

shipment - goods sent (or "shipped") from one place to another
booking - making an arrangement or "reservation" to do something in the future (examples: room bookings in a hotel, booking for a concert)
shipment booking

conceal - hide (put something where people cannot see it)
cannot be concealed

current - of the present time ปัจจุบัน
volume - the quantity or amount of something
the current low export volume

Export of more than 100,000 tonnes of rice would at least have a shipment booking, which cannot be concealed, and due to the current low export volume, we'd know about any large exports such as those announced by the minister.

urged - advised someone very strongly about what action should be taken; requested them to do  วิงวอน
disclose - to make information known to the public เปิดเผย   เปิดเผยต่อสาธารณะ
urged the government to disclose

concerned - worried about something มีความกังวล
exporters are concerned about the selling prices

massive - very large in size, amount or numberใหญ่โต มหาศาล
a massive loss for the government

destruction - when something is destroyed การทำลาย, ภาวะที่ถูกทำลาย
the destruction of Thailand's rice export market

He urged the government to disclose at least the amount of rice sold under the G-to-G contracts to each buyer and the amount due for delivery this year and next, like it did with the earlier Ivory Coast deal. "Exporters are concerned about the selling prices, as reports are the government itself has been trying to sell rice to Indonesia under G-to-G contracts at only $500 a tonne, which is below the present market price of $560-580," said Mr Chookiat. If the selling price turns out to be as low as $450 a tonne, that will mean a massive loss for the government and the destruction of Thailand's rice export market.

year-to-date - the total amount from the beginning of the year to now
year-to-date rice export volume

confident - being certain of your abilities or of having trust in people, plans, or the future มั่นใจ
confident Thailand's rice exports will reach 8.5 million tonnes

stockpile - large quantities of goods stored for future use จำนวนสินค้าที่เก็บตุนไว้เป็นจำนวนมาก คลังสินค้า
the government's stockpile is set to drop

security - the activity of making safe or protecting from harm ความปลอดภัย
food security - safety from not having enough feed people (at a reasonable price)
grains will be held as food security for the country

policy - a plan of action to guide decisions and achieve outcomes นโยบาย (See Wikipedia)
pledging - giving crops to the government to get the special government price
grain - the seed from cereal crops such as rice, wheat, or corn เมล็ดพืช
policy of pledging each grain of rice

global - throughout the world; all over the world, including the whole world ทั่วโลก ทั้งโลก
demand - the need and desire to buy goods and services by households and businesses
global demand
we believe global demand will be strong

As of last Friday, year-to-date rice export volume had fallen by 45% year-on-year to 4.5 million tonnes. But Mr Boonsong is confident Thailand's rice exports will reach 8.5 million tonnes this year. The minister said the government's stockpile is set to drop to only 4.1 million tonnes from 12.6 million tonnes before. These grains will be held as food security for the country, although occasional sales can still occur, said Mr Boonsong. "We'll continue our policy of pledging each grain of rice, as we believe global demand will be strong," he said.

Greenpeace’s Golden Rice stand should appall us all

Two weeks ago, the Asian arm of Greenpeace issued an alarming press release: “24 children used as guinea pigs in genetically engineered ‘Golden Rice’ trial.”

A Chinese news agency leaped on the story and reported that Chinese and American researchers had carried out a dangerous and unauthorized experiment to feed modified rice to a group of rural children in Hunan.

The Chinese blogosphere lit up with outrage. China’s top health authority denied that it had approved the research; it suspended a Chinese scientist and demanded that the Americans investigate.

A spokesman for Greenpeace warned: “The next ‘golden rice’ guinea pigs might be Filipino children.”

Greenpeace has long been an implacable opponent of genetically modified foods, especially Golden Rice. And it had an especially good reason to be alarmed by this trial: It was a complete success.

The Hunan trial, conducted in 2008, was meant to determine whether a small bowl a day of genetically modified rice (called Golden because of its yellow colour) could effectively deliver enough Vitamin A to make a difference. Vitamin A deficiency is a scourge of the world’s poor (Vitamin A is contained in fruits and vegetables such as carrots, sweet potatoes and spinach). According to the World Health Organization, Vitamin A deficiency affects about a third of the world’s children under 5. It claims the lives of more than a million people a year, including hundreds of thousands of children. As many as half a million children go blind every year because they don’t get enough Vitamin A.

Golden Rice was developed in the late 1990s by crop scientists who donated it to the world as a humanitarian tool. It was hailed at the time as a spectacularly promising breakthrough. But, in the early days, Golden Rice couldn’t deliver enough Vitamin A to make a difference. For years, Greenpeace and other anti-GM groups ridiculed it as overhyped and ineffective. They called it a propaganda tool for the evil GM industry.

But now, that problem has been fixed. The trial conducted in Hunan – the results were published last month in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition – helps to demonstrate that. It showed that Golden Rice is now as good a source as vitamin supplements, and better than spinach. (For the record, the Americans say the trial was approved by all the proper channels at the time, and was entirely ethical.)

The last thing Greenpeace wants is for Golden Rice to be effective. It insists that the rice poses all kinds of environmental and health risks, even though repeated risk assessments by leading scientific bodies have found no such risks. In fact, according to scientists at the University of California, GM rice reduces pesticide use and improves farmers’ health.

Greenpeace is campaigning vigorously to block Golden Rice trials throughout Southeast Asia. And it has lots of allies, including luminaries such as Naomi Klein and groups such as the Canadian Biotechnology Action Network, whose mission is “collaborative campaigning for food sovereignty and environmental justice.”

These groups insist that what the poor really need is utopian political solutions.

 “Food insecurity is brought about by lack of enough land, by decreasing rice production and decreasing incomes,” says one Golden Rice opponent.

 “Only through a genuine land reform which ensures farmers’ access to sufficient rice and other food sources will farmers start to become healthy again.”

Genetically engineered crops do far more than improve people’s health. They can dramatically boost yields in places such as Africa. They are the key to feeding the world’s exploding population. But GM opponents have been tragically successful in stalling the spread of modified crops to the people most in need of it. In China, where people are already terrified about food safety because of major scandals over tainted milk powder, GM crops are generally shunned.

Are Greenpeace and its allies effectively allowing millions of children to go blind or die when there’s a safe solution? The rest of us should be appalled.

Guinea: Nation Grows Nerica Rice to Reduce Dependence On Imports

"Our first rice harvest is in, and we're getting ready to plant again," he says, surveying his farm in southeastern Guinea. "Other farmers who have not yet tried NERICA are still preparing for their only harvest of the year."
Along with 24 younger associates, Koné harvested nearly 700 tonnes of an improved variety of rice from their 140-hectare plot in the Beyla prefecture in the southeastern corner of this West African country at the beginning of August.

The group earned 294,000 dollars from their crop of NERICA, the New Rice for Africa, an improved variety that's proving to be well-matched to the low soil fertility in the region.

Roughly a third of their revenue has gone to pay off various creditors, but the balance, banked in their new account at a rural credit union, represents a handsome profit as they return to the fields.

Rice production in Guinea presently falls well short of the needs of its 10 million strong population.

According to a report from the agriculture ministry, the country's rice deficit is around 240,000 tonnes a year, forcing Guinea to import roughly a fifth of its annual consumption of 1.26 million tonnes from Thailand and Vietnam.

"It is time we begin to re-evaluate our dependence on imported rice. We need to increase our local output," said Agriculture Minister Jean-Marc Telliano.

This year, Guinea's National Agency for Rural Promotion and Agriculture Extension has made 500 tonnes of NERICA rice seed available to smallholders as part of a one million dollar project to increase output.

"This rice variety is a cross between African and Asian strains of rice. Rich in protein, it is prized by Guinean consumers, for whom rice is a staple," said Ali Condé, director of the agency.

Farmers in Beyla and neighbouring Kérouané have enthusiastically adopted the improved variety.
IPS visited a farm in Kérouané at the end of August, where a group of 17 farmers are growing NERICA on 130 hectares of land. There is no shortage of arable land in this part of the country, and the local community readily granted the group access to cultivate this large area.
"We harvested around 645 tonnes of (unprocessed) paddy rice," said Mohamed Dioubaté, head of the Kérouané collective. Some of the crop will go towards the farmers' own use, but most will be sold to buyers from all over the country.
Dioubaté told IPS that a 100-kilo sack of rice sells for about 300,000 Guinean francs - 42 dollars - which means the group made a gross income of roughly 270,000 dollars from the past three months of work.

"The introduction of this variety of rice here in 2012 has been a blessing for us," he said. "Now we can have two harvests a year which wasn't possible before."

"It's even possible to get three harvests per year since the growing cycle for this rice is actually 90 days," said Abdoulaye Sangaré, an agriculture extension worker in the region.

According to Sangaré, the new rice is perfectly adapted to conditions here, where farmers lack the resources to irrigate their fields or apply fertiliser and pesticides. NERICA is doing well despite low soil fertility and a dependence on rain for water.

The benefits of increased production are already being felt in the local marketplace.

"With the coming of NERICA, the price of rice has fallen in our region," said Sarata Keita, a rice seller in Kérouané. "Now a kilo of rice costs between three and four thousand francs (less than a dollar) while the price was between five and six thousand in the past."

However, the farmers complained about a lack of equipment and agricultural machinery that would let them work even more quickly and efficiently.

"We harvested the rice with sickles," said local farmer Samouka Kourouma, "and threshed and cleaned the rice by hand. We would be happier if we had mechanical rice hullers and other equipment."

Improved rice value chain expected to increase production

Quality quantity of rice production in the country is expected to improve, thanks to ongoing government intervention into the sector and co-funding from development partners.

SNV Tanzania, in collaboration with, the European Cooperative for Rural Development (EUCORD), has announced a rice sector development Project (2013-2015) financed in part by the Common fund for commodities (CFC).

A statement issued by the Netherlands based SNV, yesterday in Dar es Salaam, says the overall goal of the project is to improve the level of food security and the living standards of rice farmers in Tanzania.

Further the objective of the project is to establish a ‘demand driven model’ to boost the rice value chain in Tanzania and expected to lead to a quantitative and qualitative increase in rice production.

As part of the preparations for a four year project, SNV in collaboration with two local processors in Mbeya, has created an entry point for a rice market based approach that is also part of developing the value chain in the country, the statement said.

Tanzania‘s economy depends heavily on agriculture, which accounts for 45 percent of gross domestic product, 80 percent of employment and 30 percent of the nation’s foreign exchange earnings.

About 85 percent of country’s poor live in rural areas and rely on agriculture as their primary source of income.

However, the sector is underdeveloped due to a weak under-developed private sector, poor agricultural marketing policies which are fragmented and prone to political interference coupled with poorly managed infrastructure.

Also, restricted access to profitable markets locks in the majority of farmers in the subsistence production level of activities where many earn less than USD 1 a day!

Given the fact, development of the sector is critical as a major income generator a source of employment, reduces and even ultimately may very well eradicate poverty in the country.
In this context SNV Tanzania, focuses on the development of the agricultural sector to foster economic development and poverty reduction, the statement reiterated and expounded the scope of the project short-listing their objectives: The development of value chains of red meat, dairy, edible oilseeds (sunflower and sesame) and staple foods.

Value chains create a large outreach in terms of the umber of households engaged in production and also increases potential rise income and employment levels. Inclusion in agricultural value chains means that smallholders can sell more products at higher prices. This result is increased income and long-term social benefits especially in rural areas.

Starting out in the Netherlands more than 40 years ago, we now work in 36 of the poorest countries worldwide, explains the SNV website, snvworld.org.  SNV is an international not-for-profit development organization whose global team of local and international advisors works with local partners to equip communities, businesses and organisations with the tools, knowledge and connections they need to increase their incomes and gain access to basic services - empowering them to break the cycle of poverty and guide their own development.

Experts discourage Singapore from hosting rice futures market

Rice experts have discouraged Singapore from setting up an international futures trading market on the Asian staple, saying it will not help in price management.

The experts had discussed the rice futures trading in Singapore on the invitation from the Centre for Non- Traditional Security Studies at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies.

“Rather than supporting the proposal outright, many rice sector experts advocated a cautionary approach to considering an international rice futures market in Singapore,” said the centre in its reports on the findings of the experts who met in March this year.

“Some experts indicated that a rice futures market would reflect rather than improve current market conditions, including price volatility and complex trade dynamics,” it said in the report released this week.

The experts were concerned about the impact of rice futures on the region’s food security, said the report, adding that they were uncertain about how such market would affect the security of the poor in terms of food and livelihoods.

Many experts had argued that a rice futures market should not be seen as a stand-alone tool to improve the sector, and called for considering incremental steps and alternatives to the futures market.

The experts called for tangible steps to improve the existing cash market for rice functions and pointed out that some of the Asian governments’ control on rice trading would be one of the obstacles to futures trading.

Most of the Southeast Asian governments control rice trade to ensure stable supply of the staple.

Rice imports are regulated in Indonesia and the Philippines, while the governments in Thailand and India are regular buyers of the grains to ensure subsidised distribution among the poor, experts said.

The National Security Coordination Secretariat of the Singapore Prime Minister’s Office had asked the centre to seek views on the futures market from international experts, traders and futures exchanges.

Industry observers said Singapore aims to be a major agri-product trading centre having established as an Asian financial hub.

Black pepper is one of the agri-products currently traded in Singapore’s futures market.

Monsoon revival helps crops like rice, cane, soyabean & others recover from drought

MUMBAI: Higher than average rainfall for the past three weeks in India, the world's second-biggest producer of rice, sugar, and cotton, will help boost yields of summer-planted crops which were affected by the weak rain at the beginning of the monsoon season.

The June-September monsoon rains are vital for agriculture sector, where 55 percent of farmland is rain-fed. Here are some key facts about the impact of the recent revival in the monsoon.

RICE: Rice makes up 70 percent of India's summer-sown crops, which in turn make up about half of India's total crop output. Key rice growing states in the east and south received good rains in the past two weeks, and the revival will help the crop which is in the grain formation stage.

In some areas of Andhra Pradesh and Odisha states, the crop was damaged due to heavy rains. Farm Minister Sharad Pawar said on Wednesday the recent rains would help improve yields but overall production could be lower than the previous year due to the deficient monsoon.

The govt is sitting on huge stockpiles of rice and has been exporting the grain since September 2011.

Rice acreage is 4.2 percent lower than the previous year and traders expect an up to 8 percent drop in production from the 91.53 million tonnes produced in the previous year. Ample stocks will help India continue unrestricted exports.

CANE: The leading sugar producing states of Maharashtra and Karnataka received more than average rainfall in the past two weeks, helping the maturing cane crop. But the rains are unlikely to completely neutralise the damage due to the April-to-July dry spell.

Overall cane acreage in the country is 4.5 percent higher than last year, but analysts expect production to drop to 24 million tonnes in the 2012/13 season beginning October against the current year's 26 million tonnes. This decline will ultimately squeeze the surplus that can be exported.

SOYBEAN: The recent rains have helped soybeans, the main summer-sown oilseed. Soybean production in 2012/13 is likely to rise to 11.8 million tonnes from 11 million tonnes in the current year, JP Morgan said in a research report last week. Despite the higher output, India's edible oil imports in the 2012/13 season beginning November will rise due to a drop in groundnut and cotton seed supplies. India is the world's top vegetable oil importer.

COTTON: Poor rainfall at the start of the monsoon season and unattractive prices cut cotton acreage by 4.7 percent from the previous year. Yields were expected to drop sharply but the revival in Maharashtra and Gujarat states compensated some of the losses.

Traders estimate cotton production at around 34 million bales each of 170 kg for the 2012/13 season starting Oct. 1, lower than the current year's record 35.3 million bales. Lower output is likely to hit exports.

Floods threaten Niger's main rice crop - minister

Floods could wipe out most of Niger's main rice harvest this year as rain-swollen rivers rose to 50-year highs across West Africa, spreading devastation, a regional official said.

At least 81 people have been killed in Niger since annual rains caused flooding along the banks of the Niger River, raising its waters to their highest levels since the 1920s.

The country and surrounding region are still struggling to overcome food shortages caused by poor rains last year. "In Niger ... most of the rainy season rice crop, estimated at over 80,000 tonnes, risks being destroyed this year," Tiena Coulibaly, a Malian government minister told Niger's state television.

Coulibaly was speaking after chairing a meeting of ministers in Niamey focused on tackling food shortages and increasing production. The comments were broadcast on Friday after a meeting on Thursday.

The European Union, one of Niger's major donors said in a statement later on Friday that it has disbursed 19,678 billion CFA francs or 30 million euros ($39.44 billion) as part of a budgetary assistance measure, to help the country guarantee food security this year.

EU's delegation in Niamey said in a statement that the funding, following a earlier 10 million euros disbursed in June, will go towards buying cereals to be resold at affordable prices, distributed freely or replenish the country's stocks.

Niger, a country with high population growth that lies just south of the Sahara, produces about 130,000 tonnes of rice a year, with a dry season crop harvest bringing in about 50,000 tonnes.

Another 200,000-300,000 tonnes are imported to fill the gap in rising demand.

About 18 million people across an arid strip of nations stretching from Senegal in the west to Chad in the east faced a food and nutrition crisis after last year's poor rains, the latest in a cycle of shortages to strike the zone.

White rice linked to diabetes risk

Eating white rice regularly, as is commonly done in many Asian countries, may increase risk for developing type 2 diabetes, a new study shows.
Researchers looked at data from four studies: two in Asian countries (China and Japan) and two in Western countries (the U.S. and Australia). All participants were diabetes-free when the studies began. On average, people from Asian countries ate about four servings of white rice daily. Individuals in Western countries, however, ate less than five servings a week. The study found that the more servings of white rice a person eats per day, the greater their risk for developing type 2 diabetes, the form of diabetes most closely linked to obesity.

According to the new study, diabetes risk rises by about 10% with each increased serving per day of white rice. The study was not designed to show how white rice may increase the risk for diabetes, but researcher Qi Sun, MD, has some theories on the matter. White rice ranks high on the glycemic index, which means it can cause a sudden spike in blood sugar levels. White rice is also low in fiber that can help lower the risk for developing diabetes, Sun says.

China's rice imports from Vietnam seen tripling

HANOI: China could see a three-fold jump in rice imports from Vietnam this year, industry officials said on Monday, as the world's biggest consumer steps up purchases to contain domestic prices.

The demand from China, coupled with an industry-led stockpiling campaign, is keeping a floor under Vietnamese paddy prices even as the harvest of the major crop is peaking in the Mekong Delta food basket.

Vietnamese exporters have sold about 500,000 tonnes of rice to China so far this year, with nearly half that volume already shipped, Vietnam Food Association Chairman Truong Thanh Phong told the farm ministry-run Vietnam Agriculture newspaper.

"The number of contracts of rice sold to China has been increasing quickly," an official of Vietnam Food Association told Reuters, confirming the media report.

China has been buying rice from Pakistan and Vietnam in recent months to keep a lid on domestic rice prices which have climbed on the back of government support to paddy farmers, traders said.

"There is no problem with domestic supply. I think the estimated large imports could be due to cheap prices," said an analyst with a Chinese official think-tank.

A Singapore-based rice trader added: "It is not clear how much China is going to buy as it started very quietly and it is going to end very quietly."

Chinese domestic milled rice was quoted at about 3,900 yuan ($619) per tonne in Guangxi, bordering Vietnam, compared with $430 per tonne for Vietnamese rice, according to the China National Grain and Oils Information Centre.

The price differential has led to about 400,000 tonnes of Vietnamese rice sold across the border to China via largely unregulated trades, the Vietnamese food association said.

VIETNAM COULD OVERTAKE THAILAND AS RICE EXPORTER

Last year, China imported 309,000 tonnes of rice from Vietnam, almost 150 percent more than the 124,500 tonnes bought in 2010, customs data shows. Exporters must register contracts with the food association to obtain shipping permits.

The forecast demand by China represents nearly 14 percent of the record 7.2 million tonnes Vietnam aims to export this year. If Vietnam does sell that much rice, it will overtake Thailand to become the world's largest rice exporter in 2012.

Thailand, which has been the world's biggest exporter for three decades, looks set to see exports fall sharply to 7 million tonnes at most due to high prices caused by government intervention to support millions of poor farmers.

Vietnamese 5 percent broken rice prices have risen to around $435 a tonne, up from around $405 a tonne few weeks ago, thanks to fresh demand from China as well as a government-sponsored stockpiling plan aimed to keep in stock 2 million tonnes of paddy for three months ending June 15.

"The prices are not likely to spike as there is a lot of rice in the world but it is certainly supporting the market," said a Bangkok-based trader. "We are looking at another $20 increase in Vietnamese prices."

On Monday, prices for Vietnam's winter-spring rice grade 1, used for processing the 5-percent broken variety for export, rose to 7,050-7,280 dong (33.8-34.9 US cents) per kg, up 3 percent from March 8, the day before the stockpiling plan.

The US Department of Agriculture has estimated China's milled rice production in 2011/12 at 140.5 million tonnes, up from 137 million tonnes a year ago.

China harvested a record 200.78 million tonnes of paddy in 2011, up 2.6 percent from 2010, according to official data.

The data also showed 2011 rice imports were 578,383 tonnes imported while exports stood at 515,497 tonnes.