January 01 ,2019 Vol 10 ,Issue 1
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China Green Light on U.S. Rice Seen as ‘Goodwill’ Trade Gesture China, the world‟s top rice producer and consumer, is allowing imports of the grain from the U.S. in a move seen as “a goodwill gesture” while negotiations continue to resolve a trade war between the two countries.Registered U.S. suppliers can export rice to the Asian country with effect from Dec. 27, according to a statement from China‟s customs administration on Friday. That follows the conclusion of a phytosanitary agreement and comes before a resumption of bilateral trade discussions in China in January. “This is a goodwill gesture from the Chinese government before the talks,” said Ma Wenfeng, an analyst with Beijing Orient Agribusiness Consultant Co. But U.S. prices are not competitive compared with supplies from Thailand and Vietnam, China‟s main suppliers, and import volumes will probably be limited, said Ma. U.S. supplies would also still be subject to retaliatory tariffs. China is the world‟s biggest rice importer, according to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, with purchases estimated at 5 million metric tons in the 2018-19 year. Seven U.S. suppliers have registered to export to China, including Farmers‟ Rice Cooperative and American Commodity Company LLC, China‟s customs said in a separate statement. Author Name: https://www.bloombergquint.com/global-economics/china-green-light-on-u-srice-seen-as-goodwill-trade-gesture#gs.w7pR_SY
US rice wants sales after China lifts ban US rice wants sales after China lifts ban 12/31/18 5:06 PM By Bill Tomson China is technically open to U.S. rice now – the Chinese ban was lifted Friday - but trade can‟t begin flowing yet thanks to bureaucratic steps that remain unfinished, according to U.S. industry officials.USDA‟s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service reached out to U.S. rice mills Monday morning and told them that the agency is working on clearing up the remaining steps in the process that is needed to clear the way for actual sales, sources involved with the call tell Agri-Pulse. U.S. mills have not been individually cleared under the sanitary and phytosanitary protocol signed by the U.S. and China in 2017, but APHIS officials told millers the agency is working to clear all 34 that have applied for approval to export to China.
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There is no set timeline for the approvals, but millers were told APHIS hopes to complete the process “soon,” sources said. The fact that Chinese customs officials announced U.S. rice is no longer banned is a major step towards new sales for U.S. farmers and millers, says USA Rice Federation spokesman Mike Klein, but there is more to be done. “It‟s a good step they took, but it hasn‟t translated into any sales yet,” Klein said. “We‟re excited about it. We‟re not jumping up and down yet.” For any sales to happen, China needs to issue phytosanitary certificates to rice mills showing that they meet Chinese approval to supply rice to the country. That process is under way now. Thirty-four U.S. mills have applied for approval to export to the country. The USA Rice Federation expects they will all be been cleared, but that has not been confirmed yet. A delegation from China‟s State Market Regulatory Administration (SMRA) inspected 10 U.S. mills in Texas, Arkansas, California and Louisiana last June. Klein said it was USA Rice‟s understanding that if all 10 mills passed inspection, then the Chinese would accept assurances from USDA‟s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service that all of the mills would be approved. “I don‟t know where we are with that because the list (of mills) hasn‟t been made public yet – we haven‟t seen a list of who‟s in or who‟s out,” Klein said. “Our position is that it was all or nothing.” Those mill approvals are necessary for the rice tendering process, he said. A Chinese buyer cannot close a purchase from a seller that was not approved. Still, the Chinese announcement Friday that it implemented the sanitary and phytosanitary protocol is a major success for the U.S. rice sector, which has been fighting for access to the Chinese market for more than a decade. China consumes about 144 million tons of rice every year and it is the world‟s largest rice importing country. China imports about 5 million tons of rice, according to USDA data. "As with all our dealings with China, the devil is in the details, and we have many questions, including when the first sales will be made, but this is definitely good news for our producers and millers as we enter the New Year," said USA Rice Chair Charley Mathews. https://www.agri-pulse.com/articles/11778-us-rice-wants-sales-after-china-lifts-ban
Basmati rice exports up 11.54% in April-October PTI Updated on December 31, 2018 3|www.riceplusmagazine.blogspot.com mujahid.riceplus@gmail.com
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Indiaâ€&#x;s exports of basmati rice grew by 11.54 per cent to Rs 16,963 crore during April-October this fiscal, Parliament was informed on Monday.In April-October 2017-18, the exports stood at Rs 15,208 crore, Minister of State for Commerce and Industry C R Chaudhary said in a written reply to the Lok Sabha. In volume terms, however, the exports declined to 22.95 lakh tonnes in
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April-October 2018-19 as against 23.72 lakh crore in the same period last fiscal. “While there is a marginal decline of 3.28 per cent per cent in quantity terms, in value terms the exports have grown by 11.54 per cent,” the minister said. The major export destination for basmati rice are Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, UAE, Kuwait, Yemen, the US, and UK. The Agricultural & Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA), an autonomous organisation under the Department of Commerce, has registered Basmati Rice as a Geographical Indication (GI) in February 2016, a move aimed at promoting outbound shipments. A GI tag is primarily an agricultural, natural or a manufactured product (handicrafts and industrial goods) originating from a definite geographical territory. Typically, such a name conveys an assurance of quality and distinctiveness, which is essentially attributable to the place of its origin. https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/economy/agri-business/basmati-rice-exports-up-1154-inapril-october/article25871516.ece
the deception – there are no 12 million rice farm-holders in Nigeria Stop
As an economist I have an inquiring mind. What the profession teaches in essence, is the need to keep asking questions. And for that reason, there is nothing called an „economic expert‟, except you are experts in asking questions. Anyone who says they are an expert in economics is a fraud, simple. Pay them their consultancy fees because that is what they are after. Otherwise, an economist is someone with an unbelievably broad mind, who is ready to take on more and more information because he knows that he can never know it all. And no one really needs a degree in economics to think this way, though the degree helps. One other thing you may gain from being an economist, having developed a broad, questioning mind, is the nose to smell fraud and deception from a mile off. Your mind constantly calculates – you are constantly looking for variances, correlations, causalities, means, averages, trends, patterns, relationships, your mind is constantly testing hypothesis, rejecting or accepting, drawing graphs and looking for equilibria, churning our models and populating them with variables that explain the phenomena.
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Let me not bore us with economic jargon. And so it was when Akinwunmi Adesina – our former Minister of Agriculture under President Jonathan and now President of the African Development Bank – told us that they had collated the names of 10 million farmers in Nigeria and that since he believes that Agriculture is strictly business, they had bought smartphones for these 10 million farmers so that they could get on websites, check the price and location of fertilizers, as well as the global prices of their crops in the international market. Click here. My mind did a quick math. If Nigeria had 180 million people, and let‟s say 120 million of those were working age, fit, people, with majority of landowning farmers being men, we were looking at approximately 60-70 million male adults who could be potentially landholders. I disagreed with Adesina that there could be as many as 10 million farmers in Nigeria (for whom we had bought smartphones). That was 10 million potential enquiries about fertilizers and crop prices coming from Nigeria potentially on a daily basis. That is a tremendous amount of data to mine. Of course nobody knows the fate of those smartphones today. The entire process of purchase was actually shrouded in secrecy. Money went down and was allegedly deployed for the PDP‟s 2015 campaigns. Smooth guy Adesina landed his plum job, and we ushered in the symbol of integrity, Mr Buhari… This is the point where you have to screech to a halt if it was an animated movie. Halt!!! What integrity? I ask, because this government is also coming up with a grander lie. From the time that Jonathan‟s government managed to find 10 million landholding farmers from the population of Nigeria‟s mostly 70 million working males, the Buhari government has done the unthinkable, the incredible; the found 12 million RICE FARMERS alone, from this same population. Let us even admit that men and women own farmlands in equal measure in Nigeria. The sheer implication of 10 million landholders producing food – or any other farm product – in Nigeria, seems to be lost on us all. Are we saying that one out of every 7 men is a farmer with a productive land? We are not talking of farmhands. Did Adesina distribute his smartphones to farmers and their farmhands as well? Including their children and so on? Since that time, I always felt that if ten million farmers where even half productive in Nigeria, not only will all food be cheap in Nigeria, but we will be a massive exporter everywhere – and that a lot of crops will waste because we have no means of preserving them. Enter the Buhari propaganda machine. The Buhari people recently announced a huge donation of N1.2 billion from 12 million RICE FARMERS who donated a token of N100 each. Some people have alleged that the names of rice farmers is being used by the Buhari Campaign to do money laundering, by routing monies obtain corruptly by him and his friends through that scheme. In 2015, we also heard a number of stories from the same man, whereby he claimed that retirees, villagers and so on, provided the huge amount he spent to win the presidency. At least two very
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poor people were said to have spent their last savings for Buhari – and I wondered then why him or his campaign will collect people‟s last savings. My guess is as good as your as to how those people feel today if they are still alive. But hey, they have been brusquely shoved aside. Out goes the common man who worships the integrity phenomenon and is ready to trek 2,000 kilometres for him. In comes Anchor Borrowers Program. In comes Rice Farmers. Because we are so fixated with Rice in this country – and I confess I am too – it‟s as if our „rulers‟ are ready to use it for scams. They say it‟s what you love that kills you. I‟ve always said that this focus on rice alone – at the detriment of other crops where we are even doing well and should consolidate our position (such as millet, sorghum, sesame etc) – was toxic. Again my challenge is that we cannot have 10 million, not to talk of 12 million farmers with their own lands in Nigeria. On this rice farmers matter, we cannot have 12 million farmers, with farms large and productive enough as to attract funding from NIRSAL or CBN. The whole thing started with government prapagandists claiming they created 12 million NEW JOBS in Agriculture and specifically rice farming.Then the DG of the Nigerian Bureau for Statistics denied that he has any such record. Something is definitely amiss here. If however we were told that the Buhari campaign collected money from thousands of landholders, as well as their workers, children and labourers and that figure ran up to 12 million, that is believable. For one, Nigerians plant a lot more crops than rice. And it is not the whole of our landmass we use for Agriculture. The last record shows we cultivate about 40% of our arable land (Abdullahi, 2017). That is 40% of 923,000 square kilometres or 92 million hectares net of at least 20% built up. This is close to 300,000 square kilometres or 30 million hectares cultivated in Nigeria – with a lot of that owned by people like General Obasanjo, Admiral Nyako, Olam, Chi Limited and other massive players. By every means, 12 million rice paddies will be visible from space. Nigeria will have become the biggest rice producer for the universe. We will even supply some to the kingdom of Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs). We must note however that not all of our 923,000 square kilometer landmass is arable. We have some desert and increasing desertification. We have swamps. We have rivers, lakes and so on. We also have mindless environmental degradation. I did some research. Thailand, the world‟s largest rice producer, has about 70 million people in population. 48% of them live in rural areas. About 13 million are considered farmers (including their families). Out of that 13 million, 60% or 7.8 million are involved in the rice value chain. Yet they took over the world. In the USA, which is 9.8 million square kilometres (more than ten times the size of Nigeria), they have 2.05 million farms as at 2017, though the average size per farm is 177 hectares. One hectare is one kilometer by one kilometer. Only 910,000 square kilometer of the USA (or less than 10% of landmass), is farmed. In South Africa, there are about 420,000 farms with an average of 264 hectares each. 81% of South
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Africa‟s landmass is used for agriculture. They are aggressive about it. Their model is commercial and has pushed the peasants to the fringes. In Nigeria, most of our farming is subsistence. Most farmers here are neglected people, living in the realm of confusion even as modern economics overtakes them. Let‟s round off with a little math. So if Nigeria has just 300,000 square kilometres or 30 million hectares cultivated as a whole, how do we fit in 12 million rice farmers? If we used all our cultivated land for rice, that will be a mere 2.5 hectare per farmer. There will be nothing to finance using Anchor Borrowers Programme in a 2.5 hectare farm. Where will the big players be? But since we don‟t use all our land to farm rice, let us be generous and concede a tenth of Nigeria‟s farmed land to rice alone. This shrinks each landholding to just 0.25 hectares. Absolute waste of time. I think Nigeria has officially instituted deception, lies, stealing, fraud and corruption as official governance models. Time shall tell where this all ends. Fashua is the presidential candidate of Abundant Nigeria Renewal Party (ANRP) https://www.thecable.ng/stop-the-deception-there-are-no-12-million-rice-farm-holders-in-nigeria
Govt grapples with rice shortage, price surges BY EIREENE JAIREE GOMEZ JANUARY 01, 2019 GOVT GRAPPLES WITH RICE SHORTAGE, PRICE SURGES The year 2018 was also the time when ordinary Filipinos had to turn their pockets inside out and stretch their meager budgets to meet their daily needs, as prices of basic goods, particularly rice, soared to an all-time high.Since the start of 2018, rice reserves of the National Food Authority (NFA), were drastically depleted. The NFA is mandated to ensure food security, and stabilize rice supply and prices in the market. In April, the grains agency announced that its rice stocks had gone down to less than a day‟s requirement, much lower than the mandated 15-day rice reserve at any given time and the 30-day buffer stock during the lean season. This eventually pushed the price of the staple to as high as P60 per kilo in Metro Manila and P70 per kilo in Zamboanga City, which was later placed under a state of calamity from the rice shortage. Farmers separate rice grains from stalks using a thresher machine in a rice field in Plaridel, Bulacan. Government-subsidized NFA rice is sold at P27 to P32 per kilo, which is significantly lower than the typical commercial rice priced at P40 per kilo and above.
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The government‟s economic managers pointed to the rice shortage as the main driver of inflation, which peaked at a nine-year high of 6.7 percent in October and strained the already tight budget of consumers.To curb inflation, the Duterte administration flooded the market with cheap imported rice. Also, the NFA implemented a suggested retail price (SRP) on the staple. Series of importations For 2018, the NFA booked a total of 1.25 million metric tons (MT) of rice imports as approved by the NFA Council, the grain agency‟s inter-agency policy-making body. The move was meant to boost NFA‟s buffer stocks. Also, the NFA Council approved the procurement of an additional 350,000 MT of rice under the importation program of the Department of Trade and Industry, which aims to offer commercial rice at P38 per kilo exclusively in supermarkets. While the government clearly laid out importation plans, several factors hampered the early arrival of rice imports aimed at bringing back the presence of NFA rice in the local market. These included late conduct of biddings, high price offers from suppliers, bad weather conditions, and other climatic disturbances. According to former agriculture chief William Dar, while it is necessary for the Philippines to import rice to satisfy fast-growing consumption, the NFA Council must make necessary decisions to import rice at the “right time” to ensure stable supply in the market. Doing that also protects local farmers from the inflow of cheap imported rice. “We have to look at our own rice adequacy level which tells us that we lack about 3-10 percent of rice supply yearly. This means that we have to plan importation to prevent a rice crisis. Importation is a complimentary solution to increasing our levels of productivity in rice,” Dar told The Manila Times. “However, the imports must be taken at the right time and right circumstances,” he added. SRP on rice In an apparent bid to curtail possible exploitation of the prices of commercial rice by alleged “profiteers” in the market, the NFA also implemented the SRP for the staple beginning October 27. Under the SRP, local regular-milled and well-milled rice should be sold at no more than P39 and P44 per kilo, respectively. For imported variants, well-milled rice should be sold at no more than P39 per kilo while premium rice should be priced no higher than P43 per kilo.
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However, Dar said, “This [SRP] is a temporary mechanism. Once the [rice] tariffication is in place, that will really bring down prices of rice to the market level. I‟m seeing that once we have enough rice in the market, we won‟t be needing the SRP anymore.”
Rice tariffication Under rice tariffication, rice to be imported from member-states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) would be levied with a 35-percent duty. On the other hand, rice imports from non-Asean member-states will be slapped a 50-percent tariff. Eventually, the import quotas on rice will be scrapped. Sen. Cynthia Villar, who heads the Senate Committee on Agriculture and Food, said the package of support for farmers in the rice tariffication measure approved by Congress includes giving “preferential attention” to rice farmers, cooperatives and associations. Under the bill, P10 billion will be allocated annually from 2019 to 2014 for the Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund, which would be used to provide direct financial assistance to rice farmers to make them competitive with their Asean counterparts, particularly Thailand and Vietnam. Vietnam and Thailand produce palay (unmilled rice) at 5-8 MT per hectare at P5 to P9 per kilo. Meanwhile, the Philippines averages 4 MT per hectare at a cost of P11 to P14 per kilo, not to mention additional costs imposed by middlemen.
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Dar said the massive spending stipulated by the rice tariffication bill can be the long-term solution to make the country‟s rice industry truly competitive. “Also, they have to design the credit facility [with no double-digit interest] that the farming sector can tap. Then, enhance the farmers‟ capabilities and entice today‟s youth to go into farming. These are the very things that can make rice farmers competitive in the future,” he added. https://www.manilatimes.net/govt-grapples-with-rice-shortage-price-surges/490193/
Amira Nature Foods Ltd Announces $30 Million Contract with Repeat Customer December 27, 2018 08:00 AM Eastern Standard Time DUBAI, United Arab Emirates--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Amira Nature Foods Ltd (the "Company") (NYSE:ANFI), a global provider of packaged Indian specialty rice, today announced that it entered into a, approximately $30 million contract, to supply third party branded basmati rice to a repeat customer in the Europe, Middle East, and Africa (“EMEA”) region. The Company expects to recognize the benefit of this contract in the fiscal 2020 ending March 31, 2020. Amira Nature Foods Ltd Announces $35 Million Contract with Repeat Customer Tweet this “We are extremely pleased to continue our relationships with our customers in the EMEA region”, stated Karan A. Chanana, Amira‟s Chairman. About Amira Nature Foods Founded in 1915, Amira has evolved into a global provider of packaged Indian specialty rice, with sales in over 40 countries today. Amira sells Basmati rice, premium long-grain rice grown only in certain regions of the Indian sub-continent, under their flagship Amira brand as well as under other third party brands. Amira sells its products primarily in emerging markets through a broad distribution network. Amira‟s headquarters are in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and it also has offices in India, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Cautionary Note on Forward-Looking Statements This release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the U.S. federal securities laws. These forward-looking statements generally can be identified by phrases that we or our members of management use such as “believe,” “expect,” “anticipate,” “foresee,” “forecast,” “estimate” or other words or phrases of similar import. Specifically, these statements
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include, among other things, statements that describe our expectations for the global rice market, the financial impact of new sales contracts on our revenue, our expectations regarding the successful efforts of our distribution partners, and other statements of managementâ€&#x;s beliefs, intentions or goals. It is uncertain whether any of the events anticipated by the forward-looking statements will transpire or occur, or if any of them do, what impact they will have on our results of operations, financial condition, or the price of our ordinary shares. These forward-looking statements involve certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated in such forward-looking statements, including but not limited to our ability to perform our agreements with customers; our ability to recognize revenue from our contracts as planned; continued competitive pressures in the marketplace; our reliance on a few customers and distribution partners for a substantial part of our revenue; our ability to implement our plans, forecasts and other expectations with respect to our business and realize additional opportunities for growth; and the other risks and important considerations contained and identified in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. All forward-looking statements attributable to us or to persons acting on our behalf are expressly qualified in their entirety by these risk factors. Other than as required under the securities laws, we undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking or other statements herein, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Contacts Miriam Nasralla The Amira Group +97144357303 miriam.nasralla@theamiragroup.com https://www.health24.com/Diet-and-nutrition/News/make-nice-with-rice-to-boost-your-diet20181205
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