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TOP Contents - Tailored for YOU Latest News Headlines…
IRRI renews push for rice futures market in Asia Commerce Ministry initiates rice flea markets to help rice farmers Rally in rice market ends on sluggish buying TRS seeks MSP for rain-damaged paddy Climate-smart rice now grown by 10 million farmers Rice farmers face upstream battle (w/video) The First GMO Field Tests TPP Trade Ministers Meet in Singapore; Still Seeking Agreement Weekly Rice Sales, Exports Reported CME Group/Closing Rough Rice Futures Fast & Furious Weeknight Cooking: Spinach and Pea Fried Rice EAC probes rice import duty decision Miscellaneous More World Rice News 05.22.2014
PhilRice unit to mitigate climate-change impact on farmers Rice mills threaten shutdown Genetically modified products of tomorrow: wheat, rice, even salmon?
News Detail… IRRI renews push for rice futures market in Asia (philstar.com) | Updated May 22, 2014 - 10:00pm MANILA, Philippines (Xinhua) - The Philippine-based International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) today renewed its call for the establishment of a rice index and commodities exchange in Asia.IRRI Director-General Robert Zeigler said a rice futures market will help stabilize rice trade in the region."A well-regulated rice futures market will benefit society and give farmers an opportunity to increase their incomes," said Zeigler on the sidelines of a public session on sustainable agriculture production during the 23rd World Economic Forum on East Asia.A well-designed futures market, he said, will allow farmers to sell their produce when prices are favorable. To do this, countries would need to put up enough storage and port facilities to handle large volumes of grain.
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Socieconomic Planning Secretary Arsenio Balisacan said the Philippines welcomes the idea of having a rice futures market in the region."The presence of a futures market, at least for rice, should be beneficial (for the Philippines) and for the world because it would stabilize (prices)," said Balisacan.IRRI initially pitched the idea of a regional rice futures market in 2010, but Zeigler said Asian countries were lukewarm to the idea. Singapore was urged to host a rice futures and a spot exchange, which includes the actual and selling of rice for immediate delivery."My sense is that people fear futures market because they equate it with speculators and obscene profits," he said.Zeigler said participants can put in place mechanisms to minimize speculation.The size of the Asian rice economy has been estimated at $160 billion.
Commerce Ministry initiates rice flea markets to help rice farmers Date : 22 พฤษภาคม 2557 BANGKOK, 22 May 2014 (NNT) - The Ministry of Commerce has set plans to organize rice flea markets in the hope to help rice farmers during this period when government policy and assistance measures for them are absent. Director-General of the Internal Trade Department Somchart Soithong said the flea markets would be held in 32 provinces from May – September this year. Rice mill entrepreneurs in the provinces would attend the markets to meet and trade rice with the farmers. The flea markets were part of the ministry‘s mechanisms to make sure that rice prices in the country were in line with the market, the official said. The average rice price at present is between 7,000 – 7,500 baht per ton. The department has also instructed provincial internal trade offices to work with the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives in promoting the flea markets and giving the farmers advice on how to increase their rice production by decreasing the costs of production and improving the quality of rice.
Rally in rice market ends on sluggish buying KARNAL, MAY 22: The rice market witnessed some revision in prices with aromatic and non-basmati rice dropping by ₹50-300 a quintal on Thursday.Amit Chandna, proprietor of Hanuman Rice Trading Company, said that after witnessing an uptrend over the last few days, prices have come down unexpectedly. Sentiments in the market are low and prices may drop further in coming days. Availability of stocks has improved but the domestic demand has failed to pick up which is the prime reason behind the current situation of the market, said experts. Pusa-1121 (steam) dropped by ₹300 to ₹9,200, while Pusa-1121 (sela) quoted at ₹7,500, ₹100 down. Pure Basmati (raw) quoted at ₹12,300. Duplicate basmati (steam) went down by ₹200 and sold at ₹7,200 a quintal. Pusa-1121 (second wand) was at ₹7,200, Tibar at ₹6,100 while Dubar at ₹5,250.
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In the non-basmati section, Sharbati (steam) went down by ₹100 and sold at ₹4,700 while sharbati (sela) moved down by ₹50 to ₹4,250. PR varieties lost ₹50-125, Permal (raw) sold at ₹2,300, Permal (sela) at ₹2,400, PR-11 (sela) sold at ₹2,600 while PR-11 (raw) at ₹2,650. PR14 (steam) sold at ₹2,850 a quintal. (This article was published on May 22, 2014)
TRS seeks MSP for rain-damaged paddy Expressing concern over non-procurement of paddy by providing minimum support price to the farmers, the newly elected legislators of Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) have urged the district administration to take appropriate measures to procure paddy by providing MSP.The TRS team led by its district president Eda Shankar Reddy, newly elected legislators Etala Rajender, Gangula Kamalakar, Putta Madhukar, D Manohar Reddy have met the Collector here on Wednesday and urged him to provide MSP to the paddy which was damaged in the recent rains.Later, talking to newsmen, Etala Rajender said that though there was bumper harvest of paddy in the district, but the civil supplies department had failed to procure the produce.The IKP procurement centre and others had not even procured 20 per cent of the farmers produce, he said and added that the farmers were forced to sell their produce at less than the MSP to the traders due to no intervention by the government agencies and incurred huge losses. He said that they would talk with the authorities belonging to the Civil supplies department and solve the farmers problems within two days. Karimnagar MP-elect B Vinod Rao said that they would take all measures to fulfil the promises made during the elections such as increasing of pensions, construction of two-bed room houses to poor, waiver of crop loans to the farmers etc. On this occasion, the representatives belonging to the district police officers association and TNGOs have felicitated the newly elected MP and legislators. However, the Karimnagar legislator elect Gangula Kamalakar refused the felicitations.1.TRS team comprising newly elected MLAs Etala Rajender, Gangula Kamalakar, Putta Madhukar, D Manohar Reddy and Karimnagar district president Eda Shankar Reddy meet the Collector2.The Civil Supplies Department failed to procure the produce and the IKP procurement centre and others have not procured even 20 per cent: Etala Rajender
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3.The party will take all measures to fulfil the promises made during the elections such as increasing of pensions, construction of two-bed room houses to poor, waiver of crop loans to the farmers, says Karimnagar MP-elect B Vinod Rao Keywords: Rain-hit paddy, compensation, TRS, MSP sought, Telangana, Seemandhra
Climate-smart rice now grown by 10 million farmers New Delhi, IndiaMay 21, 2014 About 10 million of the poorest and most disadvantaged rice farmers have been given access to climate-smart rice varieties, which includes floodtolerant ones.―Swarna-Sub1 changed my life,‖ said Mr. Trilochan Parida, a farmer at the Dekheta Village of Puri in Odisha, India. Floods ravage Trilochan's rice field every year. Flooding of four days or more usually means a painful loss of the crop as well as of any expected income. In 2008, however, an amazing thing happened: Trilochan saw his rice rise back to life after having been submerged for two weeks.Swarna-Sub1 is a flood-tolerant rice variety developed by the Philippines-based International Rice Research Institute (IRRI). It was bred from a popular Indian variety, Swarna, which has been upgraded with SUB1, the gene for flood tolerance.Trilochan is one of millions of farmers who have found that there is a way out of losing their rice crop from regular flooding. They are no longer at the mercy of the seasons, which they have been for generations.Millions more are bound to be reached as a multistakeholder effort to make life better for these farmers has recently received funding to carry on its work for another five years. Climate-smart rice varieties are made to especially thrive in environments affected by flooding, drought, cold temperatures, and soils that are too salty or contain too much iron that leads to iron toxicity. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will fund the third phase of the IRRI-led Stress-Tolerant Rice for Africa and South Asia (STRASA) project with USD 32.77 million for five more years. The STRASA project was initiated in 2007, with its first two phases funded with about USD 20 million each.STRASA is holding its inception and planning meeting for its third phase this week, 20-23 May 2014, in New Delhi, India. Expected to attend are some 250 participants from South Asia and Africa, with the agriculture ministers of India, Bangladesh, and Nepal joining the opening session.Partners of the project responsible for each of its major objectives—drought, submergence, salinity/sodicity, and seed multiplication and dissemination—will report on their respective progress in the first two phases and plan for the third.―Under the past phases of the project, 16
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climate-smart rice varieties tolerant of flood, drought, and salinity were released in various countries in South Asia; about 14 such varieties were released in sub-Saharan Africa. Several more are in the process of being released,‖ said Abdelbagi Ismail, IRRI scientist and STRASA project leader.
In addition to improving varieties and distributing seeds, the STRASA project also trains farmers and scientists in producing good-quality seeds. Through the project‘s capacity-building component, 74,000 farmers— including 19,400 women farmers—underwent training in seed production.The project has also influenced regional policies through enhanced cross-border sharing of information. This has helped facilitate the faster release of climate-smart varieties and the broader sharing of seeds in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, especially among poor farmers who are most affected by climate change.An estimated 140,000 tons of seed of these varieties were produced between 2011 and 2013.
These seed releases are estimated to have reached over ten million farmers, covering over 2.5 million hectares of rice land.‖ said Dr. Ismail. This is double the initial target of 5 million farmers reached.IRRI collaborates with more than 550 partners in getting climate-smart rice varieties to farmers in South Asia and Africa. These partners include national agricultural research and extension programs, government agencies, nongovernment organizations, and private sector actors, including seed producers. Written by Lizbeth Edra.
Rice farmers face upstream battle (w/video) Farmers in Colorado, Wharton and Matagorda counties have depended on water from the Colorado River to irrigate their crops for generations.The light soil in southeast Texas has a high clay content, limiting the variety of crops that can be grown.But with irrigation from the Colorado River and upstream reservoirs built in the 1940s, rice has become a staple in Colorado, Wharton and Matagorda counties.Dick Ottis, the president of Rice Belt Warehouse Inc. based in El Campo, is a third-generation Texas rice farmer. His grandfather moved to Wadsworth, a small community south of Bay City, in 1910 and with his family built the second commercial rice dryer in Texas in 1943."It's not just the rice. It's the people you work with. The producers, the farmers - they are good people. They are fair and honest people, and I just enjoy working with them because their word is their bond," Ottis said.Population growth and six years of drought have pitted the needs of upriver municipalities with downriver agriculture.Though the Highland Lakes - which refers to the
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reservoirs west of Austin, including Lake Buchanan and Lake Travis - have provided a source of water for farmers for decades, downriver farmers have been cut off from the reservoirs for the past three years. And last week, the state environmental agency proposed changes to theLower Colorado River Authority's water management plan that would cut farmers off to more water in the future."I'm not real happy with the way that the upper basin has dealt with this. I certainly want them to have water to survive," Ottis said. "What they're getting ready to do is showing a lack of concern for people in the lower basin."In 2011, the stream flows into the Highland Lakes were the lowest on record. That same year, agricultural water users absorbed 61 percent of all water used from the Highland Lakes, or 433,251 acre feet.Whereas agriculture was the biggest water user in 2011, municipal use has since taken the lion's share.Farmers in Colorado, Wharton and Matagorda counties have been forced to drill water wells, find ways to make their crops more water efficient, and in some cases, replace rice with corn or other crops."The people who drill water wells have been very busy the last couple of years. This, in my mind, is a temporary solution to the problem," Ottis said. "We're going to keep pushing those straws into our aquifer and exhaust the resource."Replacing rice with corn has also meant cutting down on employees because rice is a more labor-intensive crop to dry than corn. Ottis has had to lay off 20 percent of his employees, he said."I've had to let go of some people, and that's been devastating to me," Ottis said. "If we don't get the water soon, there might be more of that going on."Under the proposed measures, the Lower Colorado River Authority would cut off downstream agricultural water when lakes Buchanan and Travis fall below 45 percent capacity. The reservoirs are 35 percent full - 2 percent lower than the lowest point in 2011. Full capacity for the lakes is 2.01 million acre-feet of water.The river authority will review the state's proposal during the next two to three months, wrote Bill Lauderback, Lower Colorado River Authority executive vice president for public affairs, in a prepared statement.By late summer, the state will provide its final recommendation and give an opportunity for the public to comment or request a hearing in the fall."I certainly think that farmers are not only essential for employment but also for food. I certainly understand the curtailing of the water, but I think it should be shared," Ottis said. "I guess I do a lot of praying the Lord will send some rain up there. Until then, we will have to suffer through this thing."
The First GMO Field Tests From their very first field test in 1987, GMOs have been the subject of intense debate. What we fight about when we fight about GMOs. By Brooke Borel
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In the spring of 1987 in Tulelake, a tiny California farming town four miles from the Oregon border, a small band of scientists wearing yellow Tyvek suits and respirators paced across a field spraying potato plants from handheld dispensers. Representatives from the Environmental Protection Agency perched on ladders above and checked air monitors to make sure the contents of the dispensers weren‘t spreading beyond the field‘s boundaries. Dressed in billowy white safety jumpers and peaked caps, the EPA agents looked like apocalyptic bakers. Nearby, journalists eagerly took notes and snapped photos of this eerie scene, which would become national news — this was the world‘s first field experiment of a controversial new technology: genetically modified organisms. Benign Beginnings The organism in the Tulelake test was a modified version of the bacterium Pseudomonas syringae, or ice-minus. In its natural state, P. syringae is a common pathogen to many plants. In the mid-seventies a doctoral student at the University of Wisconsin named Steven Lindow discovered that the bacteria caused plants to freeze at higher temperatures than normal. A few years later, Lindow moved to the University of California, Berkeley, and he and his new team began to peer inside the bacteria for the gene that promoted frost in plants – something that cost farmers $1.5 billion a year in crop damage. They found and deleted that gene, creating modified bacteria that didn‘t encourage frost. If the modified bacteria were released in a field, the reasoning went, they might outcompete native bacteria and keep crops from freezing in a cold snap. By 1982, the scientists were busy planning field tests to see if their genetically engineered bacteria could help crops fight frost.In preparation for Tulelake, Lindow‘s team conducted dozens of safety experiments, first for the National Institutes of Health, which regulated all genetic engineering at the time, and later for the EPA. These tests examined, for example, how ice-minus might affect local flora and whether the wind could carry it into the environment. In Smithsonian, science journalist Stephen S.
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Hall wrote at the time: ―No test or data suggested the bacteria were capable of causing disease in people, animals or plants beyond its well-established host range.‖
The Fight Begins Despite the good intentions and low risks, environmentalists were wary of ice-minus and blocked the field tests through four years of protest and litigation, prompting congressional hearings and more safety tests. The lawsuits were spearheaded by the most prominent geneticengineering skeptic of the era, the political activist Jeremy Rifkin. Lindow‘s experiments were thorough, but no test could rule out all potential problems. Rifkin didn‘t see the point in accepting even a sliver of uncertainty. 1 21Environmental Protection Agency representatives take an air sample. Courtesy Steven Lindow, the University of California, Berkeley.
2A plant destroyed by frost. Courtesy Steven Lindow, the University of California, Berkeley. 3Berkeley researchers plant pieces of potatoes coated in ice-minus bacteria. Courtesy Steven Lindow, the University of California, Berkeley.
The argument fit into a common pattern for new technologies, which is a difference of opinion on how to assess risk. The scientific perspective is that if tests say the risk is low, it‘s reasonable to proceed. It‘s impossible to rule out all possible negative outcomes; to require it would mean halting all scientific and technological progress. Consumer advocates are typically much more leery of any potential risk – though both sides always want to minimize possible dangers.
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Both sides have their points. Without the long and dangerous history of chemical rocket propellant research, space exploration would be impossible. Then again, ask the residents of Three Mile Island how they feel about ―acceptable levels of risk.‖ Without the long and dangerous history of chemical rocket propellant research, space exploration would be impossible. Then again, ask the residents of Three Mile Island how they feel about ‗acceptable levels of risk.‘ In the case of ice-minus, ―there was a lot of playing to people‘s fears and capitalizing on a lack of familiarity with science and how it works in order to make what was really an incredibly small probability of a problem sound more dire than it actually was,‖ former Smithsonian writer Hall tells Modern Farmertoday. ―And that is a very current problem. The whole issue of risk assessment and probability — and how that is viewed by scientists versus the public — is a continuing and perhaps unresolvable dilemma.‖ The actions of a small California biotech company called Advanced Genetic Sciences didn‘t help the public‘s perception of ice-minus. AGS licensed Lindow‘s technology under the name Frostban, and according to Hall‘s Smithsonian piece, the company tested the product on trees on the roof of its Oakland headquarters without official permission. The EPA slapped AGS with a $13,000 fine, and the environmentalists had a new reason to distrust companies involved in GMOs. Despite the corporate missteps and litigations, the government eventually approved the ice-minus tests, but required strict scrutiny, hence the ghostly moonsuits and air-monitoring towers. Lindow‘s team coated several thousand pieces of potato with the bacteria and then planted them in the Tulelake field. Before he could move to the second stage, which was to spray bacteria on the leaves of the sprouted seedlings, trespassers uprooted around half of the potatoes. The scientists replanted and sat guard by night from a van parked nearby. Vandals slashed the van‘s tires, according to Lindow. Further south in Brentwood, a sanctioned test by AGS involving ice-minus and strawberry plants also faced abuse. ―We weren‘t too surprised,‖ says Lindow of the protests. ―It was a very high visibility thing — there was lots of press on it and a lot of concerned people. But we were surprised that they went to that step, to do something physical.‖ Ice-minus never went commercial, partly because of regulatory hurdles and partly because there were natural bacteria products that did the same job (although ice-minus worked a little better). But nearly 30 years later the fight over GMOs continues. There‘s growing scientific consensus on the technology‘s safety, but skepticism has deepened and GMO crops have been ripped out of fields from the United Kingdom to the
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Philippines. Some scientists and journalists involved in the debate say it has become increasingly polarized, with one extreme asserting that the technology will save the world and the other claiming the opposite. What We Fight About When We Fight About GMOs Why have GMOs captured the collective imagination? They aren‘t our only high-tech agricultural approach, or anywhere near as pressing a concern as climate change. Still, it‘s this specific technology that has struck a nerve. Nathanael Johnson, the food writer at Grist who wrote an in-depth series on GMOs last year, suggests the reaction comes from a heightened concern over where our food comes from, which coincided with the rise of the GMO. Why have GMOs captured the collective imagination? They aren‘t our only high-tech agricultural approach, or anywhere near as pressing a concern as climate change. Still, it‘s this specific technology that has struck a nerve. ―We are so alienated from our food supply and we have no clue about the realities of modern agriculture,‖ Johnson says. ―There has been this awakening over the past 30 years or so — a realization that things have really changed down on the farm. Maybe this is why people latched onto GMOs. They were the hot technology that was happening as people were becoming more aware and interested.‖ Concern continues to grow over our modern globalized and industrialized agricultural system, from the impact of factory farming and monocultures to food safety. There are broader questions, too. Should seeds be patented? Is it good or bad to have multinational corporations own vital swaths of the food supply?Climate change and a skyrocketing global populationgive these conversations a sense of urgency. GMOs have become a proxy for these legitimate worries, says Keith Kloor, a science journalist who has chronicled the GMO conversations for the past several years on his Discover blog. But it‘s difficult to have a nuanced and complicated discussion about our food system, and so GMOs are an easy target for venting frustrations. Add in the Internet and social media, nonexistent in 1987 during the ice-minus debate, and a worrying URL or meme spreads almost instantly. One reason it has been easy to talk about GMOs this way is because they are treated as a monolithic category, says Amy Harmon, a reporter at the New York Times who has written extensively about the technology and its social implications. This is partly because people don‘t trust Monsanto, which has cast a shadow on modern
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GMOs just as AGS‘s covert rooftop tests rattled the public‘s nerves over ice-minus. In many minds, GMOs equal Monsanto, and Monsanto equals evil. While Monsanto has cornered most of the GMO market with its insect-resistant and herbicide-tolerant crops, each of which has environmental costs and benefits, there is also the virus-resistant papaya that helped save an entire industry in Hawaii and the ongoing work from the University of Florida and other academic institutions that aims to save oranges from the plant disease citrus greening. These projects (not undertaken by Monsanto) are only alike in the technology they use. They differ in that each GMO has its own agricultural merit, as well as its own risk. And, like ice-minus, each goes through a litany of tests to make sure that risk is a small as possible. With the right applications and the right risk assessments, technology isn‘t the antithesis of sustainability — it can help build an ecologically based agriculture, too, says Pamela Ronald, a plant geneticist at the University of California, Davis. Ronald was a graduate student at Berkeley during ice-minus, and her research today focuses on genetically engineering rice for disease resistance and flood tolerance. ―We really need to consider the three pillars of sustainable agriculture, which are social, economic, and environmental,‖ she says. ―We must ask how we can reduce harmful inputs into the environment, how we can help rural communities thrive, how farms can make a profit, how we can conserve soil and water. And I think that this obsession with how seeds are developed is really a big distraction.‖ A Shift in Perspective?
Despite the gridlock in the GMO debate, which in many ways is still deeply polarized, there are hints that it may be easing. ―I do think there is a middle ground emerging,‖ says Tom Philpott, the food and agriculturecorrespondent at Mother Jones and a GMO critic. ―Debating this one technology into the ground — I don‘t think it‘s that fruitful. There are way, way bigger problems and I think the proper debate is where GMOs fit in to the way we address the bigger problems.‖ There‘s more evidence of this shift. Doug Gurian-Sherman, a senior scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists — one of the few scientific organizations that takes a skeptical view of GMOs — tells Modern Farmer that his group isn‘t actually fundamentally opposed to the technology. He also says that health risks and environmental impacts are not his primary concern, although he‘s pushing to minimize them further. Instead, the UCS simply wants better federal regulation to manage potential risks, no matter how small.
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Nathanael Johnson‘s Grist series, which pushed beyond heated talking points for a more detailed look at GMOs, also suggests change. While the response was mixed, that an environmental publication like Grist would publish the series at all is telling. And more recently, a post on The New Yorker Elements blogexplicitly noted a breakthrough in a Berkeley classroom between Pamela Ronald and the food journalist Michael Pollan, who has been highly critical of GMOs. With most science journalists questioning GMO skepticism, Pollan told the publication: ―I feel pretty lonely among my science-writing colleagues in being critical of this technology, at this point.‖ Even Mark Bittman, the food columnist at the New York Times and a GMO critic, recently wrote: ―But the technology itself has not been found to be harmful, and we should recognize the possibility that the underlying science could well be useful (as dynamite can be useful for good), particularly with greater public investment and oversight.‖ Perhaps these small movements will give way to a more interesting conversation. Despite differences in opinions on the specifics, the scientists and journalists that Modern Farmer spoke with want to move in the same direction — towards addressing regulatory holes, streamlining the assessment of GMOs and tackling a failing patent system that stymies research. Others wondered whether or not GMOs are even necessary to feed the world. And if the technology is necessary or at least helpful, maybe there should be more of a push towards GMOs as an open-source public good rather than one controlled by corporate interests. Wherever the conversation leads, how will we look back on today‘s agricultural debates in 30 years? Which of our talking points will still be in rotation and which will be relics like the Tyvek suits and respirators of Tulelake? ―I think whenever you confront the introduction of a new technology there‘s a natural inclination to proceed very carefully and almost haltingly,‖ says Hall, the author of the 1987 Smithsonian piece on ice-minus, speaking today. ―When I look at the photographs now of the guys in the moonsuits spraying the potato plants and think of the message it sent — it must have looked scary. But they were only doing it from an excess of caution required by the regulatory agencies. And in retrospect, although the degree of caution was probably excessive, it also probably makes sense the first time you‘re doing it. Now, it seems a little bit less logical.‖
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(Photo at top: Berkeley plant scientists spraying a field of potatoes with ice-minus, a genetically engineered bacteria that prevents frost, in 1987. Courtesy Steven Lindow, the University of California, Berkeley.) FEATUREPLANTS AND ANIMALSGMOSPOTATOES
TPP Trade Ministers Meet in Singapore; Still Seeking Agreement
Is that progress I see? SINGAPORE -- Nearly all trade ministers of the 12 countries seeking to reach a Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement met earlier this week. Ministers are negotiating a broad free-trade agreement, but progress continues to be stalled pending agreement between the United States and Japan on market access issues for autos and light trucks - a key "offensive issue" for both countries - and agricultural products where the United States is on the offensive and Japan has a defensive, or protectionist, position. As at previous TPP meetings, USA Rice was represented. Michael Rue, a California producer and vice chairman of the USA Rice International Trade Policy committee, and COO Bob Cummings attended. An agreement in the near term is unlikely given divergent positions of key TPP countries on range of market access issues.USA Rice is seeking improvement in the quantity of U.S. rice available to Japan's market as well as significant improvement of our access so that consumers and end users, and not the Japanese government, decide the type and form of U.S. rice imported. Rue and Cummings met with U.S. negotiators and congressional staff representatives to discuss rice market access. "The TPP negotiations are the best opportunity in a generation to gain significant and lasting improvements in access for U.S. rice," said Rue. "We will continue to educate U.S. negotiators and Congress about the importance of an acceptable TPP agreement that delivers real benefits for U.S. rice producers and marketers." U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman announced that TPP countries will meet again in July at the level of chief negotiators. No date or location for this meeting was announced. Contact: Bob Cummings, (703) 236-1473
Weekly Rice Sales, Exports Reported WASHINGTON, DC -- Net rice sales of 64,500 MT for 2013/2014 were up noticeably from the previous and from the prior four-week average, according to today's Sales Export Highlights report. Increases were reported for Japan (25,300 MT), Haiti (14,300 MT), Mexico (10,500 MT) El Salvador (6,300 MT, including 6,800 MT switched from unknown destinations and decreases of 500 MT), and Costa Rica (5,000 MT). Decreases were reported for unknown destinations (7,400 MT). Exports of 90,600 MT were up 5 percent from the previous week and 42 percent from the prior four-week
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average. The primary destinations were Mexico (37,100 MT), Haiti (14,300 MT), Japan (13,400 MT), Honduras (9,100 MT), and El Salvador (6,300 MT).This summary is based on reports from exporters from the period May 9-15.
CME Group/Closing Rough Rice Futures CME Group (Preliminary): Closing Rough Rice Futures for May 22
Month
Price
Net Change
July 2014
$15.320
+ $0.050
September 2014
$14.500
+ $0.035
November 2014
$14.590
+ $0.025
January 2015
$14.735
+ $0.005
March 2015
$14.840
+ $0.060
May 2015
$14.840
+ $0.060
July 2015
$14.840
+ $0.060
Fast & Furious Weeknight Cooking: Spinach and Pea Fried Rice By Erin Alderson For the Mercury News
When I moved out to California, I began working for myself -- it was a scary proposition, but I felt ready and took the plunge. Things have worked out, but I was a bit naive about certain aspects of the work. Somehow, I
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thought I'd have plenty of time to go to the gym, take a day or two off and snowboard and spend some extra time cooking. Oh, how wrong I was. It's tough to squeeze gym time and healthy cooking into busy days.I love including whole grains in my meals, but I'm also the first to admit that grains can slow down what might otherwise be a quick meal. My cheat? I plan meals ahead of time and cook up large batches of grains on the weekend. These grains end up in salads, topped with eggs for breakfast, or mixed with vegetables and beans for dinner. I vary the grains I use, but I almost always have a batch of brown rice ready to turn into spicy rice bowls and this fried rice dish. The eggs give it a nice protein boost, and on occasion, I'll add cooked shrimp for my nonvegetarian husband. Don't feel like shelling peas? Frozen peas will work in a pinch. SPINACH AND PEA FRIED RICE Serves 2 2 tablespoons peanut oil, divided 1/2 bunch scallions, including some of the green stalks, diced 1 cup peas 2 cups cooked brown rice 3 tablespoons soy sauce 1 tablespoon rice wine vinegar 1 tablespoon mirin 1 1/2 cups shredded spinach 3 large eggs 2 tablespoons sesame seeds 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
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1. In a large skillet set over low heat, heat 1 tablespoon oil. Stir in diced scallions and peas, cooking until warm, 2 to 3 minutes. Stir in brown rice, soy sauce, rice vinegar and mirin, cooking for 2 to 3 more minutes to fry the rice. Add the shredded spinach, stirring and cooking until spinach starts to wilt slightly. 2. Create a large well in the center of the rice; add remaining tablespoon of oil. Whisk eggs in a bowl, then pour them into the well. Cook the eggs, stirring occasionally, until set, 3 to 4 minutes. Stir in sesame seeds and black pepper. Serve hot. Sacramento blogger Erin Alderson writes Naturally Ella (naturallyella.com), a seasonal, whole foods and vegetarian-centric recipe site for the whole family.
Image: This spinach and pea-fried rice rice makes a delicious, one-bowl dinner. ( Erin Alderson )
EAC probes rice import duty decision Published on Friday, 23 May 2014 00:19 Written by FINNIGAN WA SIMBEYE DECISION by Rwanda and Uganda to impose 75 per cent import duty on Tanzanian rice exports in contravention of East African Community (EAC) Customs Union Protocol is under scrutiny.Responding to Tanzania‘s rice exporters, the EAC Secretariat said in a statement on Thursday that: ―We know the issue and that the countries are negotiating a settlement.‖Under EAC Customs Union, rice originating from Tanzania is supposed to attract no import duty in both Rwanda and Uganda. The EAC Secretariat did not give details on the status of the talks and when will a final decision be arrived at. Kilombero Plantation Limited (KPL)‘s Chief Executive Officer, Carter Coleman said the Rwandan and Ugandan tariffs are illegal although the two countries are citing rice imports from Asia which entered the domestic market last year.―While the government of Tanzania got the rice exemption from the EAC Council of Ministers, the Ugandan and Rwandan tariffs are surely illegal,‖ Mr Coleman said in an email response.He said local rice producers are struggling to dispose of their commodity at a profit because the domestic market is still saturated with the product due to a bumper harvest and imports. ―The East African Community (EAC) should stop the Rwanda and Uganda revenue authorities from the illegal 75 per cent tariff that Uganda and Rwanda are still levying on Tanzania rice as a result of last year‘s exemption,‖ he pointed out.Coleman warned that such arbitrary tariff hikes affect regional trade as defined by EA Customs Union Protocol. Early last year, the government endorsed a 60,000 metric tons of rice imports
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from Asian to offset an artificial deficit created by traders seeking to import the cheap commodity from Asia.After almost half of the rice imports entered the domestic market, local farmers denounced the move after prices plummeted by close to 50 per cent.KPL which works with over 20,000 smallholder farmers still has 1,000 tonnes of rice from the 2012 season and another 5,000 tonnes from last season which is struggling to sell in the domestic market. Agriculture, Food Security and Cooperatives Minister, Eng. Christopher Chiza suspended the rice imports in March of last year following complaints from local producers and donors.Eng. Chiza said the government had approved the imports to help lower prices as local rice farmers were accused of hoarding the commodity which forced prices to peak at over 2,000/- a kilogram and was feared to fuel inflation.
Miscellaneous More :World Rice News 05.22.2014 22.05.2014
Vietnam exported 181,000 tonnes of rice in the first half of May worth US$79.87 million, lifting the shipment to date this year to 1.932 million tonnes worth US$845.38 million, Vietnam News agency (VNA) reported, citing data from the Vietnam Food Association (VFA). The association stated that the average price for export rice this month reached US$441.51 per tonne, down roughly US$21 per tonne against the same period last month. *** As Thailand's social-political crisis persists – the cause and outcome having major implications on regional and global food security – a unique organic rice farming movement that has emerged from the kingdom's primary rice-growing region, is reaching out to Phuket consumers. Conscious consumers in Phuket will have a golden opportunity this evening to learn about the Yasothon-based Moral Rice network, a considerable new alternative to the conventional agricultural order and supply chain that has caused so much strife. *** Tensions between Beijing and Hanoi have slowed Vietnam's rice trade and pressured prices for the grain, while plans to sell government stocks have made Thai rice more competitive, traders said on Wednesday. Vietnamese rice prices eased as sales to its major buyer China have slowed because exporters were reluctant to commit to new deals due to payment risks in the middle of a wrangle over territory in the South China Sea.
PhilRice unit to mitigate climate-change impact on farmers Category: Agri-Commodities
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21 May 2014 Written by Marvyn N. Benaning / Correspondent THE Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice) has formed the Climate Change Center (CCC) to plan and implement measures to avoid adverse climatic effects to rice farmers.The CCC will conduct studies on understanding climate to mitigate its impact on the rice industry.Earlier, the Department of Agriculture (DA) mandated all its agencies to mainstream climate change in all programs, plans and budgets.Under last year‘s memo, Agriculture Secretary Proceso J. Alcala approved the Seven-Wide Programs on Climate Change (SWPCC) to synchronize the efforts of bureaus and offices under the DA in climate-change adaptation and mitigation. ―The effects of climate change can be felt now more than ever. Our major concern in the center is to explore various ways to help our farmers adapt to it,‖ said Dr. Ricardo Orge, CCC director and program lead in coping with climate change.Orge said the center‘s vision is for a climate-resilient farming system where enough food will become available to every farming household at all times.―Studies show that resilience to climate change can be best achieved through diversification of sources of income. Within the context of ensuring household food security and income, we want to develop a farming system that may withstand climate-related stresses and is highly diversified but integrated to offer farmers alternative food sources and livelihood,‖ Orge added.The center‘s manpower is composed of agronomists, plant pathologists, engineers, social scientists communication specialists and other rice researchers who study the recent climate patterns and its effects to rice farming.CCC is expected to complement the goals of the institute‘s major programs such as coping with climate change, farming without fossil-fuel energy and integrated rice-based agri-biosystems, among other projects that concern climate-resiliency. In its framework, the center‘s program hopes to generate new knowledge and information on climate change in identified areas, develop climate-change adaptation, rice technologies and strategies, and explore other sources of food and income. Specifically, the strategies will involve variety development, pest and nutrient management, devising decision support tools, water harvesting and conservation, diversified/integrated farming, area mapping and vulnerability studies.―Despite the odds in our current weather conditions, we want to reassure our farmers that PhilRice will always be sensitive to addressing their needs through our strengthened research and development efforts. Their welfare is always our priority,‖ Orge said. At present, the PhilRice CCC team devised a master plan for immediate implementation to help farmers combat the impending threats of El Niño to rice production.―We have to concretize our plans, not just write about them. In this initiative [El Niño assistance], PhilRice has started to do so and we believe we can still do more given with enough resources,‖ Orge said.
Rice mills threaten shutdown
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The Karnataka State Rice Millers Association on Wednesday threatened to shut down operations if the government failed to clear Rs. 62 crore due to rice mills for the supply of levy rice under the Anna Bhagya Scheme.Briefing presspersons after a meeting, association executive president Vishwaradhya said that the 1,600 rice mills in the State are determined to observe a ―mill bandh‖ agitation if their dues are not settled within a week.This has caused concern among growers as paddy has started arriving at rice mills for hulling and the threat by rice mills to stop operations may trigger a crisis. Cash crunch He said that the rice mills were facing cash liquidity crunch in carrying out their daily business as the government has not paid all their dues towards the supply of levy rice for the scheme in the last three months.About 80 mills were on the verge of closure as their money was held up with the government, he said.He said that Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has not given them an appointment for a meeting, though they wanted to bring the issue to his notice.Association secretary N. Srinivas Rao said that the rice mills had supplied rice worth Rs. 388.78 crore for the scheme.The government had paid Rs. 326.73 crore, while the balance is yet to be cleared, he noted. Keywords: Karnataka State Rice Millers Association, levy rice, Anna Bhagya Scheme
Genetically modified products of tomorrow: wheat, rice, even salmon? AQUABOUNTY TECHNOLOGIES The biotechnology company AquaBounty in Maynard, Mass., has produced a variety of genetically engineered Atlantic salmon that would grow faster and bigger than typical salmon. This photos shows a size comparison of an AquAdvantage salmon (background) vs. a non-transgenic Atlantic salmon sibling (foreground) of the same age.
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