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Pakistan’s first Bran Oil Plant SONA boasting on rice imports spikes prices in world market During Drought, Once-Mighty Texas Rice Belt Fades Away 6 foreign firms join rice imports auction 3 m tonnes of rice 'is below standard' China signs 100,000-tonne rice import agreement TABLE-India Grain Prices - Delhi - Aug 12 India cuts monsoon rains forecast but says no drought New rice variety to improve yields China’s refusal of cross-border rice shipments has little impact on Vietnam: experts
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SONA boasting on rice imports spikes prices in world market By Christine F. Herrera | Aug. 12, 2014 at 12:01am PRESIDENT Benigno Aquino III’s announcement during his State of the Nation Address that he had authorized the importation of 500,000 metric tons of rice to bring down local prices has backfired, with the
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world market price going up by $15 a ton, a Palace source said Monday. The National Food Authority buffer stocks are good only for 12 to 14 days, driving local prices for the grain up to P50 a kilogram, while the price of NFA rice has also climbed from P25 a kilo during the Arroyo administration to the present P27 to P32 a kilo, the Palace source added. The source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said this is also the first time in history that the government would import rice at 15 percent brokens, much more expensive than the usual 25 percent brokens. “With highgrade 15 percent brokens, unscrupulous traders and NFA officials have connived to re-bag NFA rice and passed them off as commercial rice that sells at P2,200 per 50-kilo bag of rice,” the Palace source told the Manila Standard. “When President Aquino in his SONA said he gave NFA a standby authority to buy another 500,000 metric tons of rice on top of the 500,000 metric tons scheduled for bidding on Aug. 25, 2014,international prices quickly rose,” the source said. “Web posted prices rose for 15 percent brokens by $10 per ton and for 25 percent brokens from $400 to $415, or as much as $15 per ton in the last week of July. President Aquino delivered his SONA on July 28,” the source said.Brokens refer to rice that are not whole grains, broken in the milling of palay into rice.Zero to 5 percent brokens is the premium grade and commands the highest prices. Most commercial grades in the Philippine market are 10-15 percent brokens, branded as Sinandomeng, Dinorado, and Angelica, and sell for P44 to P50 per kilo.Citing official government records, the source said that in April this year, NFA bought 800,000 metric tons of 15 percent brokens rice from Vietnam. Of the amount, about 450,000 arrived on July 15.“Now, the 800,000 metric tons of 15 percent brokens in April 2014 plus 500,000 metric tons in August 2014 equals 1.3 million metric tons. The USDA again tagged the Philippines as the biggest importer of rice in the world, easing out Indonesia and Bangladesh,” the Palace source said.“Then PNoy [Aquino] authorized standby 500,000 MT more to fight the hoarders so that becomes 1.8 million MT, back to 2008 levels. All because the Department of Agriculture claimed we were self-sufficient, but this turned out to be a joke,” the source said.The source said the country’s economic managers panicked when they learned that the price difference between 25 percent and 15 percent brokens is about $25 to $30 per metric metric ton.“That was the alleged overprice charged against the NFA’s 2013 imports from Vietnam of a two-part 705,700 MT purchase under former NFA Administrator Orlan Calayag,” the source said.It was Calayag that imported the 800,000 MT of 15 percent brokens in April, a few weeks before he was to be replaced. It was dubbed a “midnight importation” and Calayag resigned. Calayag and Agriculture Secretary Proceso Alcala are now facing plunder charges before the Ombudsman due to alleged overpricing in government-to-government rice importation.“NFA bought 800,000 MT at $439 per ton also from Vietnam, even lower than its 2013 contract of $461.77 per MT for 705,700 MT,” the source said. In April 2014, low prices prevailed in the international rice trade with only $360-370 per metric ton for 15 percent brokens, $335 for 25 percent brokens, the source said.“The current skyrocketing of prices can thus be traced to the insistence of the DA to impress the public that it is fast achieving rice sufficiency, even making a
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big fuss about exporting a few metric tons of rice [400 metric tons good to fill no more than three containers] in 2013. By the third quarter of 2013, however, economic managers were spooked by the surge in rice prices and the NFA was force to turn to importation, but it was too late to change the real supply and demand situation, the source said. “And when they followed up with their April 2014 purchase of 800,000 MT more, with Vietnam unable to deliver on time, the price spiral had become uncontrollable,” the source said. The source said the new rice czar, Francis Pangilinan, and the new NFA Administrator Arthur Juan raided a few private warehouses and discovered clear evidence of a lucrative racket that has victimized the public with the highest rice prices since the 2008 world rice crisis.“But how many can warehouses they raid? There are some 20,000 rice bodegas, big and small, in the country, not counting even houses which are also used by the unscrupulous traders,” the source said.“Worse, when raids are undertaken, the public may panic and increase their buying of NFA rice, which is a cheap P32 per kilogram. This would put more pressure on NFA’s dwindling inventory, especially since Vietnam is having a hard time complying with their shipping commitments,” the source said.The source said since rice prices were already going up since mid-2013, the NFA rice inventory was being depleted.Poor consumers bought NFA rice, even if it did not taste as good as commercial grade, because they could not afford P40 rice and higher, the source said. “NFA rice sold at P27 retail and the difference had become too big,” the source added.Initially, NFA sold its better, domestically bought rice at P32 a kilo. For many years, NFA maintained only a single price – P25 from 2009 to 2010. In 2012, NFA adjusted this to P27 a kilo but commercial rice was sold at P32-36 a kilo.“So most consumers, except the very poor, bought commercial grade, which was only P5 higher. When the difference hit P10 and up, they shifted to NFA rice, and the agency’s inventory, already low because of the policy of importing unrealistic low levels, just to show the country was achieving self sufficiency, went down to a perilous 12-14-day levels just before the lean months of 2014,” the source said.“With the 800,000 metric tons in April 2014 imports, which were 15 percent brokens, NFA sold this at P30 in wholesale, P32 retail. The 25 percent brokens remained at P27 retail. But since their low grade rice was low in stock, and the April imports of commercial grade 15 percent brokens was delayed in being shipped to the Philippines, unscrupulous traders took advantage,” the source said.“The gap between P32 and commercial prices of P44-P50 was so big and was a golden opportunity for more profit. They connived with NFA officials, high and middle managers, to divert NFA rice to the commercial market,” the source said. The source said NFA warehouse managers and provincial managers were given “overrides” by the traders to sell to them instead of the regular NFA retailers.At P30 per kilo, NFA was selling to retailers at P1,500 per 50-kilo bag. Since the commercial market was P2,200 per bag, and higher, traders would earn a gross mark-up of P700 per bag.“How much of this mark-up was shared by NFA warehouse managers, provincial and regional directors?” the source said.Pangilinan has vowed to probe the alleged diversion and re-bagging of rice from NFA warehouses to unscrupulous traders.
During Drought, Once-Mighty Texas Rice Belt Fades Away
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AUGUST 12, 2014 | 6:00 AM BY DYLAN BADDOUR
DYLAN BADDOUR / STATEIMPACT TEXAS
In the floodplain, several inches of fine silty mud sit atop thick, heavy clay. The clay is the finest dust eroded by the river, carried until this point then deposited as the river spreads out across the prairie. The silt is a thick rich mixture of sediment from upstream. The land in the floodplain naturally holds water very well.
In 2012, some farming districts on the Lower Colorado River were cut off from water for irrigation for the first time. Reservoirs were too low to flood tens of thousands of rice fields. Some asked, “Why would anyone be farming rice in Texas in the first place?” The answer is long, and it begins with the fact that parts of Texas haven’t always been dry. For farmers like Ronald Gertson, who remembers driving a tractorthrough rice fields as a child, recent years have been hard to bear. “It’s just unbelievable that it’s been so bad that we have had three unprecedented years in a row, and I recognize some experts say we could have a couple of decades like this. I hope and pray that’s not the case,” says Gertson, a rice farmer, chair of numerous water-related committees and, in recent years, unofficial spokesman for the Texas Rice Belt. “If that is the case then yeah, this whole prairie is going to change.” But it has already changed. Following the Colorado River, heading south on State Highway 71, the hilly woods of Central Texas give way to a vibrant green coastal flatland about a hundred miles from the coast. This is the Rice Belt. Almost all of the land here has been tilled for farming, but along the river’s banks, the old biome is still evident. Tall billowing trees and a thicket of vegetation grows enveloped by vines in the deep, squishy mud.
DYLAN BADDOUR/STATEIMPACT TEXAS
“I am extremely concerned about this tradition," says rice farmer Ron Gertson.
This is the state’s youngest land – a vast accumulation of sediment, slowly left behind during ages of floods. From the high Hill Country, the Colorado River carried dirt down to the flatlands, extending Texas’ coastline over millions of years. The region was literally created by water. The floodplain of the Colorado River Basin was a part of Stephen F. Austin’s first land grant from the Mexican government, and it was here that some of the first pioneers from Europe and the United States came to settle Tejas. They
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found a soggy marsh where the Karankawa people procured vital mosquito repellant from the fat of local alligators, and they saw massive floods that covered miles of prairie with water from rains in higher parts of the state. COLORADO COUNTY CHRONICLES, VOL 1, BY COLORADO COUNTY HISTORICAL COMMISSION, 1986
A saloon in Garwood, cerca 1910, a few years after it was founded by the Red Bluff Irrigation Company
The region was a collection of humble backwoods settlements until the turn of the 20th century, when rice farming was brought over from Louisiana. Rice, suited to the fine shallow mud of the floodplain,brought the region to life with business, and the Texas Rice Belt was born. In 1901, the first pumping station was built on the Colorado River in Colorado County and the town of Garwood was founded to suit. By 1914, there were stations in Whartonand Matagorda counties, and hundreds of miles of canals were dug to move water across the prairie. “Today I believe it can truthfully be said that rice farming has done more to redeem this low level and country of the Texas coast than any other branch of agriculture,” wrote Rice Industry, a Houston-based magazine in 1906. “As rice requires more water than anything else to grow it, here was a crop and a country that were adapted to each other.” Today that is not the case; the Rice Belt needs water, and there isn’t much to go around. Born 1931 in Garwood, Anthony Kallina remembers driving a Model A Ford on the one-lane dirt road that eventually became highway 71.
“It used to be that every time there’d be heavy rains anywhere around Austin, the river would come out of bank. Of course, Garwood is on the high bank so we didn’t really flood, but right across the ridge the river might be a mile and a half wide. In earlier days, it was even wider than that,” he says. “It hasn’t been out in a good while now. We haven’t had many rains, and they’ve been keeping the floods up above in the lakes.”He guesses that the last big flood was around 20 years ago. Here’s an important detail to understand the drastic change: When Kallina was born, there were six million people in Texas. Today, there are 27 million and hundreds of communities on the Colorado River system. Eight reservoirs and at least 14 dams have been built on the river and its tributaries in Kallina’s life. The river destroyed each attempted dam until the late 1930s, when the newly created Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA) built Buchanan Dam with money from a federal stimulus program. Early projects sought to tame the ravenous floods that ransacked Austin and to harness the wild river for electrical generation.
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Quickly, though, the need to store water for the growing population became apparent. By 1951, the LCRA finished the six reservoirs and dams known as the Highland Lakes, which stores drinking water for over a million people in Central Texas today.
LCRA
This graphic shows the six reservoirs that make up the Highland Lakes reservoir system. Other water authorities maintain similar reservoir systems in other parts of the basin.
In subsequent decades, the LCRA expanded its control as water scarcity stressed the importance of central resource planning in Texas. “[Garwood] had the oldest right to the water, but the owner, Lehrer Interests, sold most rights to the LCRA in the 1990s,” said Lehrer Interests CEO Ralph Savino. “The other irrigation districts had been bought out in earlier decades, and the water authority took full authority of the region’s infrastructure.“
LCRA
2011 was the last year that irrigation waters were released downstream. Like years before, irrigation constituted the majority of LCRA water use.
After buying the water rights, the LCRA legally owned the water in the Colorado RIver. They agreed to charge the same rates that farmers had previously paid irrigation companies. Because farmers held the oldest water rights, and naturally got water before dams were built, they were not asked to pay for the infrastructure upkeep that guaranteed water supply to cities upstream.So each year the authority released billions of gallons of irrigation water, the majority of its annual supply, for a fraction of the price that municipal customers paid.Lehrer Interests managed to keep Garwood’s guarantee to water in the reservoirs, “because Mr. Lehrer had a very good lawyer,” says Savino. But other districts did not. By contract, districts in Wharton and Matagorda counties could be denied irrigation water if the Highland Lakes ever fell to critical levels, around 40 percent full. Most
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never thought they’d see that happen. Texas has seen droughts before, most notably in the fifties and eighties, that have generally struck a decade or more apart. But in the late 90s, a dry spell kicked in, setting off a sequence of dramatically wet and dry periods. The state saw one of its rainiest years in 2007 and its driest in 2011. That same driest year, farmers in the Rice Beltflooded tens of thousands of acres with over 100 billion gallons like they’d done for 100 years. But it would be the last time for several years.
LCRA
A map of the watershed basin
In 2012, 2013 and 2014, the reservoirs helplessly awaited great rains to fill them, but the water never came. Levels stayed under 40 percent, hitting the second lowest point ever in September 2013. For the last three years, most of the Rice Belthasn’t gotten floodwaters.The once-wild river from which farmers draw their livelihood now oozes slowlyfrom the base of the Longhorn Dam in Austin to Matagorda Bay on the Gulf. The LCRA sends reservoir water downstream to a nuclear plant, a coal plant and several cities, so the river bed doesn’t dry out. But overall, less water has been reaching the ocean than ever before. “If you look downstream of Austin, you’re looking at places where the river has been stagnant, algae vegetation has grown in it, and the river has basically stopped,” said Kirby Brown, a biologist with the Lower Colorado River Basin Coalition, at an LCRA board meeting in June.
DYLAN BADDOUR / STATEIMPACT TEXAS
The Kallina rice dryer just north of Garwood
Like the river, the economy in the Rice Belt isn’t what it used to be. When water was cut for the first year, farmers were relieved to learn that federal crop insurancewould cover their losses, but other businesses like crop dusters, storage facilities and tractor depots that also rely on the harvest for income haven’t been so lucky. Therice dryer that Kallina has owned since 1955 is processing about half of what he says it should.“It’s depressing; it really is,” he says. “Because so many of our businesses closed. All those empty buildings there… It hurts.”In 2011, Matagorda County planted about 22,000 acres of rice. But without water in 2012, that number fell to 2,100.Mitch Thames, Director of the Bay City Chamber of Commerce in Matagorda County, says that even local gas stations, grocery stores and car
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dealerships are feeling the economic losses without a rice harvest in the community. Farm equipment repair shops have lost about 70 percent of their business in Bay City, and one family’s three-generation crop-dusting business has closed completely, says Thames. “We see that the drought is causing the economic problems that we’re seeing in Bay City and it has been farreaching. We are feeling the devastation,” says Thames.
RONALD GERTSON / DYLAN BADDOUR / STATEIMPACT TEXAS
Gertson, top right, plays with his father during race harvest in the early 60's while is mother and siblings stand by. In addition to the economic damage, he says that he's sad to see his family tradition fall on hard times.
Farmers know that crop insurance will eventually end. Many have experimented with other crops and some have found success. But for people like Gertson whogrew up farming rice patties, such big adjustments aren’t quickly made.“I am extremely concerned about this tradition, but I’m not tied to rice. If we can figure a way out to grow something else and make a living off of it, we’ll do it, and we’re trying,” says Gertson.Wharton County has managed to maintain over half of its standard rice crop since 2012 with water from the Gulf Coast Aquifer. Gertson, who chairs the Coastal Bend Groundwater Conservation District, estimated that 65 new wells have recently been drilled in Wharton County, some operating for the first time this year. The aquiferrecharges, he says, but there’s a limit to how fast. DYLAN BADDOUR / STATEIMPACT TEXAS
A motorized pump draws aquifer water up to the surface to irrigate the rice crop in the background.
“I am fearful that the level of pumpage that all of these new wells are calling for is not sustainable over the long haul, that we are going to be pumping water out at a faster rate than it can recharge,” he says.Forecasters can’t agree on how long this drought will last or if current conditions may be a new normal for the state. Rains may pick up, the reservoirs may fill and things may be back to normal in the Rice Belt soon. But Gertson acknowledges the possibility that they may not. In that case, he expects the rice fields to be sold as grazing pasture for cattle – worth just a fraction the price of land that can nourish crops.Over a hundred years, the Rice Belt changed from a soggy landscape graced with mighty floods to a place where wells are drilled ever deeper in search of water. No one knows what the future holds, but someday many Texans may share the farmers’ memories of a time when precious water came easy.
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Dylan Baddour is a reporting intern with StateImpact Texas.
6 foreign firms join rice imports auction By Anna Leah G. Estrada | Aug. 12, 2014 at 12:01am Six international rice traders have expressed interest to supply the additional 500,000 metric tons of rice the government allowed this year, the National Food Authority said Monday.NFA special bids and awards committee chairman Efren Sabong said during the pre-bid conference Monday the six international traders had bought bidding documents.The companies are Vietnam Southern Food Corp., Vietnam Northern Food Corp., LG International, Louis Dreyfuss Inc., ADM Rice Inc. and Olam International Limited.Representatives from several trading companies and officials of the embassies of the United States, Thailand and Vietnam also attended the pre-bidding conference.NFA earlier divided the bidding for the 500,000 MT of rice imports into five lots, or 100,000 metric tons each.The state-run agency allotted P10.27 billion for the additional rice imports this year. The bidding on Aug. 27 would be for shipments of well-milled white rice, with 25-percent brokens.NFA said the shipment should have been harvested from January to June this year and must be packed in polypropylene bags with NFA markings. It said the first 40 percent of the entire volume should be delivered not later than Oct. 31 while the remaining 20 percent should arrive not later than Nov. 30.Presidential assistant for food security and agriculture modernization Francis Pangilinan said the volume would be on top of the 800,000 metric tons of rice imports expected to be completed by the end of this month.
Thailand's first Rice Trade Development Institute is set to be launched next year with the aim of fuelling industry growth and ensuring it is sustainable. Chutima Bunyapraphasara, permanent secretary of the Commerce Ministry, said the institute should result in the sustainable development of every sector involved in the rice industry.She said representatives of all industry stakeholders - government agencies, farmers, millers, packers, domestic rice traders and exporters - would be on a committee to draw up plans and strategies to develop the industry.
She said the institute would promote all aspects of the sector - plantations, production, and marketing.All participants could share their ideas for the industry's development, while the committee's strategies could be adopted by all stakeholders so that they could comply with the institute's plan.Under the plan, Chutima said the Budget Bureau would set aside Bt500 million for the first year of the institute's establishment. She said the institute should get about Bt587 million from the International Trade Promotion Fund.The government plans to
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promote the rice industry in every facet and Thailand has the potential to become the world's leader in plantations, seed development, polishing, and marketing, she said.
The institute would also help solve problems relating to duplication in the work of relevant government agencies. All agencies would work under the same umbrella and be steered by the institute.Chutima said that to aid the long-term development of the industry, the military's ruling National Council for Peace and Order had also devised a project that aimed to reduce the cost of production and increase yield per rai."A rice seed bank will be established soon to support the production of high-quality rice grains for farmers," she said."The government has also set up a zoning system for rice cultivation and is encouraging farmers to grow other economic crops on land that is not suitable for rice."Chutima said the Rice Policy Committee had recently agreed to set up a fund to help farmers if rice prices fall.
3 m tonnes of rice 'is below standard' Petchanet Pratruangkrai The Nation August 13, 2014 1:00 am
ABOUT 3 MILLION tonnes of rice out of the government's overall stockpile of 18 million tonnes is below standard, said a source from a committee charged with checking the stocks.Much of the substandard rice could, however, still be sold for quality adjustment or for use by non-consumption sectors.The panel reported its findings last week after checking about 90 per cent of the rice in the government's stockpiles. The full inspection procedure will be concluded by the end of the month.Commenting on the interim findings, Chookiat Ophaswongse, honorary president of the Thai Rice Exporters Association, said it was not beyond expectation that up to 3 million tonnes of rice had deteriorated in quality. However, he said the government could still sell this below-standard produce to rice traders, as well as to nonconsumption industries, because there was still good demand for rice.For substandard rice, Chookiat suggested that the ministry should sell it to general traders, but it would have to accept a low price because the traders would need to spend money on improving the quality, which entails polishing and sorting the grain. Such quality improvement costs about Bt2,500-Bt3,000 per tonne. For poorer-quality rice that it is not suitable for human consumption, he suggested that the government should sell it for feed meal, or for other industrial uses. For poor-quality or seriously damaged rice, the government may be unable to sell those stocks at all because it has to file cases with the courts about such produce, said the rice-panel source.Rice millers or the owners of warehouses at which damaged rice has been found will be sued under contract for not keeping the rice in good condition.PTT and Bangchak Petroleum had previously offered to buy damaged rice for ethanol production.
China signs 100,000-tonne rice import agreement Tue, 12 August 2014
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Chan Muyhong
The Chinese government-run China National Cereals, Oils and Foodstuffs Corporation (COFCO) will today formally agree to import 100,000 tonnes of rice from Cambodia, local officials say. Representatives from COFCO and Green Trade Co, a Cambodian government-owned agriculture firm, today met in Beijing to sign the agreement, which takes effect this month and is valid for one year.“Cambodia and China have long been trade partners and the fact that Cambodia is a reliable supplier has built trust for this deal,” Ken Ratha, spokesperson of the Ministry of Commerce said.But trust between the two nations might not be the only reason for today’s deal, according to David Van, president of local rice producing firm, Boost Riche Cambodia. “The South China Sea dispute lately may have also played indirectly a part in China wanting to diversify its rice import base as imports from Vietnam hit a substantial figure. China imported over 66 per cent of its total rice imports from Vietnam in 2013, while only 1 per cent came from Cambodia,” Van said. Government data show that China imported 7,700 tonnes of Cambodian milled rice in the first six months of year.
TABLE-India Grain Prices - Delhi - Aug 12 Tue Aug 12, 2014 2:22pm IST Rates by Asian News International, New Delhi Tel: 011 2619 1464 Indicative Grains
Previous
opening
close
(in rupees per 100 kg unless stated) ---------------------------------------------------------Wheat Desi
2,300-3,300
2,300-3,300.
Wheat Dara
2,000-2,900
2,000-2,900
Roller Mill (per bag)
1,700-2,000
Maida (per bag) Sooji (per bag)
1,800-2,000 1,700-1,900
Rice Basmati(Common)
1,700-2,000. 1,800-2,000. 1,700-1,900.
8,600-9,300
8,500-9,200.
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Rice Permal
2,000-2,500
Rice Sela I.R.-8
2,100-2,500 2,300-2,500
Gram
3,560-3,760
1,900-2,400. 2,000-2,400. 2,300-2,400. 3,500-3,700.
Peas Green
2,800-3,100
2,800-3,100.
Peas White
2,800-3,100
2,800-3,100.
Bajra
1,800-1,900
Jowar white
1,600-1,700
1,800-1,900. 1,600-1,700.
Maize
1,600-1,700
1,600-1,700.
Barley
1,500-1,800
1,500-1,800.
Source: Delhi grain market traders.
India cuts monsoon rains forecast but says no drought BY RATNAJYOTI DUTTA NEW DELHI Tue Aug 12, 2014 4:41pm IST
The latest forecast, given by Earth Sciences Minister Jitendra Singh, was a downward revision from a previous forecast of 93 percent given at the outset of the monsoon in June, but was nowhere near as bad some farmers had feared.Concerns over a possible drought arose after the rainy season got off to its weakest start in years, but a late pick-up has helped cut the rain deficit to a large extent, Singh said.
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"The second half of monsoon is expected to be better than the first half," the minister told reporters, reiterating views of the weather office."The distribution of rainfall by and large is expected to be good."The agriculture sector accounts for 14 percent the country's economy, and more than half of its arable land needs the summer rains to grow crops like rice, corn, soybean, cane and cotton. Singh said August-September rains were seen at 95 percent of the average. An average monsoon for the August-September period is when India receives downpours of between 96104 percent of a 50-year average of 43.5 centimetres, the weather office says. Rainfalls in August hold the key to production of major summer crops after a wet end to July failed to make up fully for the dry start to the season.A good crop would help bring inflation under control. Retail inflation, which the central bank tracks to set lending rates, eased below 8 percent in June after 28 months hovering above that level. In July, it probably edged up to 7.40 percent from 7.31 percent a month earlier, a poll showed. A late revival in the monsoon has improved water levels at main reservoirs, easing worries of a drinking water crisis. But overall planting for most summer crops continued to be lower than a year ago. The government last week floated a scheme to sell diesel at cheaper rates to farmers in those areas which receive less than half of the average rainfall this monsoon season. It has also raised the subsidy on seeds by half in those areas where the summer planting has started but has been affected by the weak monsoon.(Reporting by Ratnajyoti Dutta; editing by Malini Menon and Simon Cameron-Moore)
New rice variety to improve yields Vic Country Hour By Sophie Malcolm Updated yesterday at 12:30pmTue 12 Aug 2014, 12:30pm PHOTO: Samples of a new variety of fragrant rice, Topaz, at the Ricegrowers Association of Australia conference. (Sophie Malcolm ) MAP: Mildura 3500
Plant breeders hope a new rice variety will mean better yields for growers.
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Topaz is a new fragrant variety, which has been bred for conditions in the New South Wales Riverina and tested in northern Victoria.New South Wales Department of Environment and Primary Industries rice plant breeder Peter Snell helped develop Topaz. He says it has been a long time coming. AUDIO: Dr Peter Snell from NSW DPI on new rice variety Topaz(ABC Rural) "Fragrance was sort of neglected a little bit during the drought years and it's come back with a vengeance; both on the domestic and also international market," Dr Snell says."A big growth in food services, particularly for Jasmine, in prevalent in Australia at the moment." He says Topaz is also a semi-dwarf variety, which will mean a yield increase of about 15 per cent for growers. "We can get yields up to 11 tonnes per hectare with it," Dr Snell says."We have enough to get some commercial growers this season...experience with growers is the true test of a variety."I expect with the yield advantages of Topaz and its superior taste, there should be a large uptake. "I'm sure we're going to see the fruits of this variety for years to come." Topics: rice, mildura-3500
China’s refusal of cross-border rice shipments has little impact on Vietnam: experts TUOI TRE NEWS UPDATED : 08/12/2014 12:36 GMT + 7
China’s cessation of importing Vietnamese rice across the border does not affect the Southeast Asian country’s rice exporting activities very much, experts asserted Monday, three days after exporters confirmed cross-border rice shipments were rejected. The Vietnamese rice sector had been concerned about reports that China would prohibit rice imports via the border with Vietnam starting early August, and the reported ban actually took effect late last week. Nguyen Cong Khanh, a trader who sells rice via the border to China, told trade newswire Vietnam Quality on August 8 that only official rice exports are accepted by the Chinese side.Cross-border trading is a legal international economic activity between people of two neighboring states. The products usually are traded in small volumes and values, and require less paperwork than the official trading activities. “China bans cross-border rice imports because many Chinese businesses and traders have evaded their rice import duties,” Khanh said.Vietnam’s rice sector has been relying heavily on China over the last three years, according to industry insiders. But most Chinese traders demanded that the grain be exported across the border. Vietnam
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shipped 615,844 metric tons of rice in July, of which 32 percent was brought to China via the border, according to the Vietnam Food Association (VFA). Nearly two million metric tons of Vietnamese rice was shipped to the neighboring country in the first seven months of this year, the VFA reported. Little effect After ceasing imports from Vietnam, China is sourcing rice from Cambodia, a move Dr. Nguyen Duc Thanh, director of the Vietnam Center for Economic and Policy Research, said shows that the ban has been well planned.But Dr. Le Van Banh, head of the Mekong Delta Rice Research Institute, said that the impact of the cross-border import ban is inconsiderable.“Vietnam has recently signed huge contracts with other traditional markets such as the Philippines, Indonesia, and Malaysia,” he explained.Vo Hung Dung, director of the Vietnam Commerce and Industry Chamber branch in the Mekong Delta city of Can Tho, concurred with Dr. Banh, saying Vietnam’s rice trading activities are unfazed by China’s cessation of imports. “Even when China stops importing rice via the official channel, there will be no impact,” he asserted.Dung reiterated that Vietnam has contracted to supply rice to the Philippines, Indonesia, and Malaysia, and is likely to receive more orders from these markets in the future. “So we don’t need to worry about where to export our rice from now till the end of this year,” he said.Dr. Banh of the Mekong Delta Rice Research Institute noted that Vietnamese rice firms must consider getting rid of the cross-border business with China, given this latest move from the Chinese side.Vietnam exported its 5 percent broken rice at US$465 a metric ton in July, a strong rise from $420 a metric ton a month earlier, according to the VFA.Export price in August slightly dropped to $450 a metric ton, but the rate is still much higher than in the last three years, the association said.
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