7th august ,2017 daily global regional & local rice e newsletter

Daily Global Rice

E-Newsletter

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August 07,2017 Vol 8 Issue VIII

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News Detail...

Rice growers pessimistic about new varieties Amjad MahmoodAugust 07, 2017

RICE is the second major crop in the country whose contribution to the gross domestic product (GDP) stands at 0.6 per cent and 3pc in the agricultural value-added sector.

Since rice is not a staple food in the country, a large quantity of the produce is exported, fetching around $2 billion foreign exchange each year.

Still, the commodity fails to appear on policymakers‘ priority list, at least in Punjab which produces 97pc of the fine aromatic rice.

Rice growers generally complain of high fertiliser prices, shortage of canal water, high price of farm inputs, high rent charges of agricultural machinery, and a lack of consultancy facilities and finance during the crop production stage.

Moreover, they also say that research institutes have failed to develop new varieties of basmati having better yield and resistance against pest attacks and climate change.

Rice growers are sowing the same super kernel basmati variety for the last over two and a half decades. But the seed is now losing its productivity and attracting more pest attacks, says Chaudhry Nisar Ahmad, the central president of Kissan Board Pakistan.

He says there is a need to introduce new hybrid varieties that could yield more and perform better in case of pest attacks. This, he believes, will help growers earn more and bring down the production cost of rice. However, he doesn‘t think a new variety could be developed in the near future.

Stakeholders say the government is ready to spend huge sums on compensations or reliefs but is not developing new seed varieties that may help farmers stand on their own feet Online Advertisement:mujahid.riceplus@gmail.com Cell # 0321 369 2874 www.riceplusmagazine.blogspot.com www.ricepluss.com

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His pessimism is not that misplaced as policymakers in the province have allocated a meagre amount in the latest budget for the purpose.

Budget documents say that a sum of Rs8.74 million has been allocated for the provision of laboratory and field equipment to the staff of the Rice Research Institute in Kala Shah Kaku for developing hybrid basmati rice that is resistant to bacterial leaf blight disease as well as flood and salinity.

The project, with a total estimated cost of over Rs44m, was approved in 2015 and was allocated Rs8.84m that year and Rs12.86m in 2016. The completion of the project or provision of the equipment will take at least two more years as budget documents show its throw-forward beyond June 2019 to the tune of Rs5.66m.

Interestingly, the federal government allocated a sum of Rs20bn in the year 2016-17 as cash support for rice growers at a rate of Rs5,000 per acre to help them come out of the financial crunch caused by falling global prices.

Pakistan Kissan Ittehad President Khalid Mahmood Khokhar regrets that the government is ready to spend huge sums of money on compensations or reliefs but is not ready to allocated sufficient funds for research work to develop new seed varieties that may increase farm yields and ensure a better return to the growers so that they may not look towards the government for support.

Some private parties are now trying to fill the void. A rice exporting firm, which also runs its own farms, claims it will provide a new basmati seed for the next crop (in 2018).

Shahzad Ahmad Malik, CEO of the Guard Agricultural Research Services, says the firm will first introduce the open pollen variety while in the 2019 season it will also provide hybrid variety of the rice.

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He claims that the new varieties will be capable of yielding 3,200kg per acre while the length of its grain will be 8mm plus, which is in highest demand in the international market.

India, the main competitor of Pakistani basmati rice on the world market, has already developed 8mm-long rice grain variety. ―Currently, we are finalising formalities for the registration of the new seed with the Pakistan Agriculture Research Council,‖ he adds.

An official of the agriculture department acknowledges that the government is performing poorly in providing growers with seeds of various crops.

He says the government is meeting 30pc of the seed needs and a similar contribution is made by the private sector, while the rest is taken care of by the growers themselves who save seed from the previous crop for use in the next season. ―But the absence of an effective quality monitoring system is causing a new problem, i.e. a lack of uniformity as the seed is not coming into the market from a single source,‖ he adds varieties https://www.dawn.com/news/1350113/rice-growers-pessimistic-about-new-

Rice deal with Dhaka in the offing 7 Aug 2017 NEWSPAPER SECTION: BUSINESS | WRITER: PHUSADEE ARUNMAS

Thailand is seeking to strengthen its trade relations with Bangladesh in the hope of exporting more rice to the South Asian country, according to Commerce Minister Apiradi Tantraporn.

She said delegates will be in Dhaka on Aug 9-10 for the 4th Thailand-Bangladesh Joint Trade Committee (JTC) meeting. They are due to meet Bangladeshi Commerce Minister Tofial Ahmed, who is expected to raise several trade cooperation issues.

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"The discussion will be a good opportunity to upgrade our ties and could lead to a free-trade agreement (FTA) in the near future," said Ms Apiradi.

Bangladesh is expected to discuss a proposal to buy Thai rice, and could ask to enter a long-term contract. Bangladesh was among Asian countries that approached Thailand to buy rice recently, after their food crops were damaged by bad weather over the past few years.

It offered to buy around 200,000 tonnes of parboiled-grade Thai white rice for prompt shipment to serve strong demand at home. However, the deal has not yet be sealed since the countries are still discussing the price and delivery period.

In the short-term the countries are expected to sign a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on rice purchasing, covering a certain amount of rice that Bangladesh would buy from Thailand each year to secure its food security in the long run.

Other issues expected to be discussed concern further investment and cooperation covering agriculture, food-processing, fishery, construction, energy and tourism.

With a population of 160 million, Bangladesh has had annual gross domestic production (GDP) averaging 6% a year over the past 10 years.

It is Thailand's third-biggest trade partner among South Asian countries after India and Pakistan, with annual two-way trade with Thailand worth US$1 billion (33 billion baht) last year, up 10.4% from the previous year.

Thai exports to Bangladesh were worth around $940 million. Major exporting items are plastic pellets, chemical products, cement, textile, steel, tapioca products and cosmetics.

Thailand, meanwhile, imported from Bangladesh covered garments, fertiliser and livestock.

Bangladesh is not only a potential trade partner, but due to its sharing a boundary with India, is also seen as the gateway to the Middle East and African countries.

http://www.bangkokpost.com/business/news/1301479/rice-deal-with-dhaka-in-the-offing

Zim in rice production plans

by Staff reporter Local firm Life Brand Agriculture Services plans to put 10 000 hectares of rice in Masvingo – a project set to showcase Tokwe-Mukosi Dam's humongous impact on farming.

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Zimbabwe imports over 95 percent of its rice despite having ample production capacity underpinned by growing domestic demand for the crop.

President Mugabe indicated as much at the fifth Presidential Youth Interface Rally in Chinhoyi on July 29, 2017, exhorting the nation to seriously consider growing rice.

Life Brand has already secured part of the project's funding offshore, with the remaining sums being sourced domestically. Land preparation will begin in 2017 once all regulatory procedures have been concluded.The company will assemble a 50 MW electricity plant to power the 1,8 billion cubic-metre dam – Zimbabwe's biggest inland water source.

A settlement for 1 500 households, shopping mall and health facility are also part of the plan.Life Brand Chief Operations Officer Mr Israel Kembo told The Sunday Mail, "We are embarking on a commercial project where we are aiming to put 10 000 hectares under rice this or next season.

"There is progress on preparations and modalities to launch the project."As you know, Zimbabwe produces very little rice. Statistics show that we produce around just a tonne of rice annually and import over 400 metric tonnes."Therefore, Life Brand wants to fill that gap by producing rice domestically and establishing foreign markets like the Middle East.

"We have three good varieties of rice; the first was sourced from Malawi and the other two from China."Mr Kembo also said, "Our estimates show that we will create employment for no less than 5 000 people."In addition, downstream agro-processors around Tokwe-Mukosi Dam will benefit.

"Government invested a lot in setting up the country's biggest in-land dam. On that element alone, it is going to change the entire economy of Masvingo."Apart from rice production, Life Brand already has a running deal to supply hi-tech solar irrigation components worth US$300 million to local farmers.

The initiative will boost Government's Special Irrigation Rehabilitation and Development Programme.Petroleum giant Sakunda Energy has also heeded the State's call for private sector players to support farming and has shown the way by funding Command Agriculture

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When silver „growsâ€&#x; in paddy fields

R. Prasad

CHENNAI,AUGUST 06, 2017 00:21 IST

The rice is put to the test in the field. A rice variety originally from West Bengal is able to accumulate the metal in its grain, IIT researchers findIt is a rice variety with a silver touch, literally. Garib-sal, one of 505 types of rice plants tested by scientists, is capable of absorbing silver found naturally in soil and accumulating it in the grain to unusually high levels of 15 mg per kg.The rice was able to accumulate high quantities of silver even when the soil contained only about 0.15 mg per kg.

The unusual accumulation of silver in the grain and other parts of the plant, researchers say, throws open the possibility of commercial extraction of the metal through farming.

The maximum concentration of silver in the plant is in the grains. Silver accumulation is largely in the bran of the rice grain, and once polished, the silver in the grain is reduced significantly.

Polishing grain is crucial

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It is not, however, for consumption as food. ―We do not advocate consumption of the unpolished rice as staple food. If the rice is polished very well then it may not lead to silver toxicity,‖ says Prof. T. Pradeep from the Department of Chemistry, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, who authored the research.

Silver is not known to accumulate in the reproductive tissues of any cereal, and in agricultural crops the amount of silver that gets accumulated is less than 1 mg per kg of dry weight of the plant.Researchers at IIT Madras stumbled upon the rice variety while screening for different metal ions in the 505 rice varieties. Only nine showed high silver accumulation, with Garib-sal the highest.The rice varieties are maintained by Dr. Debal Deb, head, Centre of Interdisciplinary Studies, Kolkata, as part of rice variety conservation efforts. Garib-sal used to be grown by farmers in Purulia, West Bengal. The researchers tested Garib-sal‘s ability to accumulate silver even when grown in soils with very low silver concentration. Even when the soil contains only about 0.01 mg of silver per kg, the rice plant was able to concentrate 0.20 mg of silver per kg in the grains. ―The rice variety has the ability to accumulate silver about 100 times more than any other rice,‖ says Prof. T. Pradeep. The variety was cultivated in the farm for three successive years in soil containing about 0.15 mg per kg and the uptake and accumulation of the noble metal was nearly the same.Garib-sal accumulated 50 times more silver than another type in control tests

http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/agriculture/when-silver-grows-in-paddy-fields/article19437487.ece

Are Industrial Agriculture and Genetic Modification the Answer to Feeding Humanity?

Industrial agriculture has made it possible to produce large amounts of food fairly efficiently, but it also comes with numerous problems.

By Dr. David Suzuki, Ian Hanington / Greystone Books August 6, 2017, 12:00 PM GMT Photo Credit: Kletr The following excerpt is from Just Cool It! A Post-Paris Agreement Game Plan, by David Suzuki and Ian Hanington (Greystone Books, 2017)

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Over the past half century, the world has moved increasingly to industrial agriculture—attempting to maximize efficiency through running massive, often inhumane livestock operations; turning huge swaths of land over to monocrops requiring liberal use of fertilizers, pesticides, and genetic modification; and relying on machinery that consumes fossil fuel and underpaid migrant workers. Industrial agriculture has made it possible to produce large amounts of food fairly efficiently, but it also comes with numerous problems: increased greenhouse gas emissions; loss of forests and wetlands that prevent climate change by storing carbon; pollution from runoff and pesticides; antibiotic and pesticide resistance; reduced biodiversity; and soil degradation, erosion, and loss. Depletion of fertile soils is especially troubling, with losses estimated to be occurring up to one hundred times faster than they can regenerate with current industrial agriculture practices. Biodiversity loss refers to both a reduction in the number of crop varieties—more than 75 percent of plant genetic diversity has vanished over the past 100 years, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization—and to reduced biodiversity among species that require diverse habitats for survival.

The ―solution‖ many experts offer for feeding a growing human population is to double down on industrial agriculture and genetic modification. Some argue leaning more heavily on genetically modified crops, and perhaps even animals, is the only way to go. A new process called clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats, or CRISPR, allows researchers to turn a specific

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gene on or off. It‘s being touted as a way to produce ―plants that can withstand what an increasingly overheated nature has in store‖ and create ―a more nutritious yield, from less plant,‖ according to a 2015 Newsweek article.

Those who oppose increasing reliance on genetic modification for agriculture are often accused of being ―anti-science.‖ Although it‘s true that some activists focus on potential health impacts of eating genetically modified organisms, or GMOs, and many studies have found no real evidence for such impacts, the technology comes with a host of other problems, some of them intertwined with industrial agriculture itself.

Many GMO proponents point to ―golden rice‖ to illustrate the benefits of genetic modification and to criticize ―counterproductive‖ attitudes of anti-GMO forces. The rice, which unlike many genetically modified products, is not patented by a large company like Monsanto, is modified to produce more vitamin A, thus potentially reducing infection, disease, and blindness among poor people who don‘t get enough of the vitamin. Noting that the International Rice Research Institute has itself admitted the rice hasn‘t yet proven to do much if anything to address the problem, Greenpeace Southeast Asia campaigner Wilhelmina Pelegrina told the Washington Post, ―Corporations are overhyping ‗Golden‘ Rice to pave the way for global approval of other more profitable genetically engineered crops. This costly experiment has failed to produce results for the last 20 years and diverted attention from methods that already work. Rather than invest in this overpriced public relations exercise, we need to address malnutrition through a more diverse diet, equitable access to food and eco-agriculture.‖ A number of researchers agree. Washington University researcher Glenn Stone, initially a golden rice supporter, said, ―The rice simply has not been successful in test plots of the rice breeding institutes in the Philippines, where the leading research is being done.‖ Industrial agriculture and increased genetic modification ignore how natural systems function and interact and assume we can do better. History shows such hubris often leads to unexpected negative results. Excessive use of pesticides such as DDT is just one example of human innovation and ―dominance‖ over nature that came back to bite us. People thought DDT was a benign wonder chemical that would reduce diseases spread by mosquitoes and protect crops from insects. Then, in 1962, biologist Rachel Carson published Silent Spring, which showed that the chemicals bio-magnify as they move up the food chain. In other words, higher concentrations of the chemicals accumulate in fat cells of animals throughout the food chain, with the highest

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concentrations found in top predators, including humans. Predatory birds, such as eagles, were hit especially hard by widespread DDT use. Of course, our use of fossil fuels, once thought to be an entirely beneficial fuel that would improve lives and give people more freedom and mobility, is another example of how the lack of a full understanding of natural systems can lead to dire consequences http://img.alternet.org/books/are-industrial-agriculture-and-genetic-modification-answer-feedinghumanity

GST: Luxury cars, SUVs may become costlier as Council plans to increase cess to 25% from 15% Business FP StaffAug, 07 2017 13:50:59 IST

The cess on sports utility vehicles and luxury cars is likely to be increased to 25 percent from the current 15 percent, making these vehicles more expensive, according to media reports. The Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council has taken a decision to this effect but has not discussed this yet, the reports said. The increase in the cess will take the effective tax rate on these cars to 53 percent.

A report in the Mint newspaper said the Council did take up the the proposal on Saturday as there were other issues that had to be discussed. It will be discussed at the 9 September meeting, the report said.However, a report in The Economic Times said an immediate increase in rates is not likely as the compensation law requires to be amended before it becomes effective.

Honda cut prices of CR-V. Reuters

The automobile industry has been one of the biggest beneficiaries of the GST rollout from 1 July as the tax incidence on cars and motorbikes had declined sharply, prompting the companies to reduce prices.

Under the GST rates, cars attract the top rate of 28 percent with a cess in the range of 1 to 15 percent on top of it.

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While small petrol cars with engine less than 1,200 cc will attract 1 percent cess, that with a diesel engine of less than 1,500 cc will attract 3 percent cess.

Large cars with engine greater than 1,500 cc and sports utility vehicles (SUVs) with length more than 4 metres and engine greater than 1,500 cc will attract cess of 15 percent over and above peak rate of 28 percent.

Hybrid vehicles will also fall in the category under GST. In comparison, tax on electric vehicles has been kept at 12 percent. At present hybrid vehicles attract excise duty of 12.5 percent, similar to the ones on entry level small cars such as Tata Nano or Maruti Alto.

Earlier, the tax incidence on cars ranged between 28 percent and 45 percent. Under GST, the maximum rate is 43 percent.

While Toyota cut the prices of all new Fortuner by up to Rs 2.17 lakh and Innova Crysta by up to Rs 98,500, Honda slashed the prices of its premium SUV CR-V by up to Rs 1,31,663.

Meanwhile, Ford's flagship SUV Endeavour became cheaper by up to Rs 3 lakh (in Mumbai) and its compact SUV Ecosport by up to Rs 8,000.

Among luxury brands, BMW cut prices ranging from Rs 70,000 on base end version of X1 to Rs 1.8 lakh on the top end of its sedan 7 series and Jaguar Land Rover by an average by 7 percent. http://www.firstpost.com/business/gst-luxury-cars-suvs-may-become-costlier-as-council-plans-toincrease-cess-to-25-from-15-3903217.html

Rice basmati weakens on low demand PTI | Aug 6, 2017, 09:12 PM IST New Delhi, Aug 5 () Rice basmati prices slipped by Rs 200 per quintal at the wholesale grains market today on the back of easing demand against ample stocks position.

A few other bold grains also declined on reduced offtake by consuming industries.

Traders said tepid demand against sufficient stocks position, mainly led to the decline in rice basmati prices.

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In the national capital, rice basmati common and Pusa- 1121 variety slipped by Rs 200 each to Rs 6,000-6,100 and Rs 4,600-4,625 per quintal, respectively.

Other bold grains like bajra and maize also eased to Rs 1,150-1,155 and Rs 1,290-1,300 against last close of Rs 1,190 -1,200 and Rs 1,300-1,305 per quintal, respectively.

Jowar yellow and white too finished lower at Rs 1,400- 1,450 and Rs 2,800-2,900 from previous levels of Rs 1,450- 1,500 and Rs 2,900-3,100 per quintal, respectively.

Following are today's quotations (in Rs per quintal): Wheat MP (desi) Rs 2,100-2,350, Wheat dara (for mills) Rs 1,760-1,765, Chakki atta (delivery) Rs 1,765-1,770, Atta Rajdhani (10 kg) Rs 260-300, Shakti Bhog (10 kg) Rs 255-290, Roller flour mill Rs 970-980 (50 kg), Maida Rs 1,010-1,020 (50 kg)and Sooji Rs 1,035-1,040 (50 kg).

Basmati rice (Lal Quila) Rs 10,700, Shri Lal Mahal Rs 11,300, Super Basmati Rice Rs 9,800, Basmati common new Rs 6,000-6,100, Rice Pusa (1121) Rs 4,600-4,625, Permal raw Rs 2,1502,175, Permal wand Rs 2,200-2,225, Sela Rs 2,300-2,400 and Rice IR-8 Rs 1,825-1,850, Bajra Rs 1,150-1,155, Jowar yellow Rs 1,400-1,450, white Rs 2,800-2,900, Maize Rs 1,290-1,300, Barley Rs 1,465-1,475. SUN KPS SRK

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/india-business/rice-basmati-weakens-on-lowdemand/articleshow/59943988.cms

Texas rice farmers hope for increased trade opportunities

BY LYDIA DEPILLISHouston Chronicle AUGUST 04, 2017 11:36 AM

RAYWOOD, TEXAS

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A bumper sticker that reads, "Eat rice, potatoes make your butt big," sits on the back of rice farmer Ray Stoesser's truck Wednesday, July 26, 2017 in Raywood, Texas. For the Stoesser farm, selling to China could mean a slightly bigger financial cushion in a business that can see a year's income decimated by floods or drought or both. Houston Chronicle via AP Michael Ciagl Ray Stoesser rumbled around his quiet green fields in a mud-caked SUV, noting the minute gradations of the land, which is subtly terraced to allow water to flow downhill, irrigating the fields in slow succession.

"We're going uphill, believe it or not," Stoesser said. After more than a half century of farming, he knows what each field needs and when, harvest after harvest. "Just like taking care of your backyard," he said.

The Houston Chronicle reports if Stoesser's land hasn't changed, the economic conditions have.

Rice prices have declined for several years, averaging about 10 cents a pound last year, because of competition from huge rice producers like Vietnam and Thailand as well as increases in agricultural productivity that have boosted supplies. Over the past few decades, hundreds of rice farmers in Southeast Texas have given up the crop entirely.

But in mid-July, the Texas rice industry — which is worth about $100 million per year to farmers — was granted a reprieve: a deal to allow U.S. rice sales to China. The industry

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estimates that China soon could buy 250,000 tons of U.S. rice per year, out of the 9 million tons it produces, which could boost prices significantly.

Although trade between the two countries had been liberalized when China entered the world trade organization in 2001, trade in rice remained off the table. An agreement to allow exports has been in the making for nearly a decade, with talks launched by George W. Bush, continued under Barack Obama and ultimately concluded under President Donald Trump. The deal sets complex safety standards to prevent pests from entering China with rice imported from America, which, if met, opens a market of more than 1 billion rice eaters to U.S. farmers.

The agreement comes at a critical time as the Trump administration prepares to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement, potentially threatening agricultural exports to the rice industry's biggest customer, Mexico.

For the Stoesser farm, selling to China could mean a slightly bigger financial cushion in a business that can see a year's income decimated by floods or drought or both.

"If we could get to 16 cents instead of 10 cents a pound, it would take a lot of risk out," Stoesser said. "Trade is the answer to our problems."

The last few decades have left the Stoessers feeling isolated.

The flat, humid counties east of Houston used to be full of rice fields — in 1968, 70 square miles of Liberty County were planted with the crop. Growing up in the area, Ray's son, Neal, always saw the rice business as his future, and he didn't finish college.

"I went to the University of Rice Farming, I guess," he said, while piloting a giant combine around the field, gobbling up stalks with a 40-foot-wide reaper and separating them from the grains.

The Stoessers have owned land since Neal's great-grandfather came to the area from Germany in the late 1800s, and Neal has been driving a combine since he was old enough to climb up into the cab, as his 8- and 4-year-old sons do now. Over that time, the Stoesser farm has grown to cover several thousand acres as the family bought out surrounding farms.

The rest of Texas' rice industry, however, has shrunk to 187,000 acres from more than 600,000 in the 1950s. In Liberty County, the 70 square miles of rice fields is now 8.

"I hate to say it, but when I was in high school, there were 70 farmers," Neal said. Now there are just three in Liberty County — Neal, his father and his brother, Grant.

Several reasons are behind the decline, including the encroachment of suburban housing developments, which raised land prices to the point where it made more sense to sell than keep farming. Today, Texas accounts for about 6 percent of U.S. rice production, far behind the leader, Arkansas, which accounts for about half.

But Texas rice farmers have a few things working in their favor. New seed varieties allowed them to nearly double the yield per acre, with the assistance of experts from Texas A&M's field

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offices. And federal crop subsidy programs have kept them afloat through thin years, paying out $1.8 billion to Texas rice farmers between 1995 and 2014, according to a database maintained by the Environmental Working Group, an advocacy organization that opposes farm subsidies.

Meanwhile, the rice industry has tried to expand its market by boosting Americans' rice consumption. Stoesser runs the Texas Rice Council, which collects payments from the state's rice farmers for joint marketing efforts, such as one that produced a bumper sticker on his Yukon SUV. "Eat Rice," it reads. "Potatoes make your butt big."

In one regard, they've made progress. Americans now eat 26 pounds of rice per year on average, which is nearly triple their consumption in the 1970s. But that increase is driven largely by immigrant communities that favor jasmine and basmati varieties, mostly imported from Thailand, India and Pakistan, over American medium and long grain rice.

Back in 2005, Greg Yielding took a trip to China.

Nothing terribly official for the executive director of the Arkansas Rice Growers Association — just a few visits with people like the U.S. Department of Agriculture's representative in China and the office of COFCO, China's state-owned food importer. At that point, the prospect of selling rice to China seemed like a hopeless quest — "The ultimate example of selling ice to the Eskimos," as one California official put it.

But Yielding heard differently. Chinese supermarket executives, he said, thought they could market American rice as a high-end, safer alternative to their own crops, which had suffered waves of contamination. On successive visits, funded by grants from the USDA, Yielding engaged a market research company to have young women hand out samples of U.S. rice at luxury supermarkets in big cities.

"I couldn't tell you that there was something better about it, but they tried it, they liked the taste of it, they liked the cooking quality," said Yielding, who soon started working for the U.S. Rice Producers Association, a Houston-based trade group. "I just kept making contacts and finding out that the Chinese wanted to buy U.S. rice."

And at the time, China was about to undergo a much larger shift.

For decades, in the name of national security, China had maintained a goal of producing 95 percent of its grain domestically. Around 2012, rocked by food safety scandals, China backed off that target, allowing it to slip to 85 percent. The U.S. went from exporting about $100 million in grain and feed from the U.S. in 2007 to a peak of $4.9 billion in 2015.

"That 10 percent is big for agricultural exporters," said Luis Ribera, an agricultural trade expert at Texas A&M. Rice, however, was still barred entirely, since the two countries hadn't agreed on a common food safety protocol. So, a few years ago, the USDA started facilitating trips by Chinese scientists to visit U.S. farms and rice mills. Ray Stoesser helped shepherd them around in Arkansas.

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"The Chinese were optimistic about what they saw," he said, extolling the quality and sanitation of U.S. facilities.

The Rice Producers Association, of which Stoesser is a member, wasn't the only group working for market access — the USA Rice Federation, a coalition of farmers and millers, was sponsoring exchanges as well. Rice mills remove the tough husk from rice grains to make it edible. The millers were particularly keen on the Chinese market, since all the rice going there would be milled in the U.S., in contrast to the largely unmilled "rough" rice that goes to Mexico and South America.

Two years ago, USA Rice's executive director, Betsy Ward, said she thought U.S. negotiators had a deal with China. But they could never get it signed by the Chinese, which Ward thinks may have had to do with the Obama administration having other trade priorities — such as the massive Trans Pacific Partnership, which pointedly didn't include China.

After Trump's agriculture secretary, Sonny Perdue, took office, Ward said her group met with him four times about getting the rice agreement done. Only a few weeks after Perdue visited China to celebrate a deal allowing exports of beef, the rice deal was finally signed.

It was a relief, after more than a decade of work. But the road forward may not be easy.

"It's a very complex agreement and gives them room to find problems when they decide they want to," Ward said.

Whatever the Chinese demand, the Stoesser family stands ready to satisfy it. And the local economy in Liberty County has a stake in their success as well: More acres of rice planted mean more seed and fertilizer ordered, more storage used, more people employed (the Stoesser farm employs about 20).

But even China may not be enough, if trade deals with other countries go south. Ray Stoesser is exasperated over the failure of successive White Houses to allow rice exports to Cuba, which was the largest buyer of Texas rice before trade was embargoed in the 1960s. The Trump administration recently rolled back the small steps that Obama had taken to liberalize trade.

"That's a no-brainer," Stoesser said. "If we can trade with China, why can't we trade with Cuba?"

And now, there's a new worry: The reopening of negotiations with Mexico and Canada over NAFTA. If Trump chose to put tariffs on Mexican manufactured goods, as he's threatened, Mexico could retaliate by limiting its imports of U.S. agricultural products — like rice.

"We've got to have that," Stoesser said, of NAFTA. "I don't see Trump taking that away. If he did ." he trails off, and looks out the window of the truck, as the fields roll by, one freshly tilled under.

"Get a whiff of this dirt," he said. "It just smells good." ___

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Information from: Houston Chronicle, http://www.houstonchronicle.com This is an AP Member Exchange shared by the Houston Chronicle

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Rice farmer Ray Stoesser, one of the biggest rice farmers in Texas, looks at his crop as he prepares to harvest it Wednesday, July 26, 2017 in Raywood, Texas. For the Stoesser farm, selling to China could mean a slightly bigger financial cushion in a business that can see a year's income decimated by floods or drought or both. Houston Chronicle via AP Michael Ciaglo

GST Council approves e-way bill, cuts textile job levy; Finance Minister appeals to pass on tax benefits

By PTI | Published: 05th August 2017 08:46 PM | Last Updated: 05th August 2017 10:39 PM | Finance Minister Arun Jaitley. | PTI NEW DELHI: The GST rates on textile job works like stitching and embroidery, and tractor parts were today cut while e-way bill provisions relating to online pre-registration of goods before transportation were relaxed.

The all-powerful GST Council, headed by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and comprising representatives of all states, decided to tax all job works in the textile sector, from embroidery to weaving, at 5 per cent instead of previously decided 18 per cent. This 5 per cent rate will be applicable for job works in apparel, shawls and carpets.

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farm equipment cheaper, tractor parts would attract the Goods and Services Tax (GST) rate of 18 per cent instead of 28 per cent previously.

Government work contracts would attract 12 per cent GST with input tax credit, Jaitley said.

The Council also gave in-principle approval to anti-profiteering measures and setting up of a Screening Committee in 15 days to see if tax reductions after implementation of GST have been passed on to consumers.

Briefing reporters after the 20th meeting of the Council, Jaitley said all goods worth over Rs 50,000 will have to be pre-registered online before they are moved for sale beyond 10 km.

GST-exempted goods have been kept out of the purview of e-way bill-- a minor relaxation from draft rules which required for all goods to be pre-registered under the e-way bill provision. The e-way bill mechanism is likely to come into force by October 1.

The permits thus issued would be valid for one day for movement of goods for 100 km and in same proportion for following days.

As per the draft provision, GSTN would generate e-way bills that will be valid for 1-20 days, depending on distance to be travelled -- one day for 100 km, 3 days (100 to less than 300 km), 5 days (300-less than 500 km) and 10 days (500- less than 1,000 km). He said more than 71 lakh central and state taxpayers have migrated to the GST system and have completed registration. Another 15.67 lakh new applications for registration have been received.

He appealed to businesses to pass on the benefit of the reduced tax under the GST to consumers, failing which the anti-profiteering mechanism will be triggered.

The Council will meet next on September 9 in Hyderabad during which it will take up the issue of many rice millers deregistering their brands to escape taxation under the GST. As per the GST rates, unbranded food items are exempted, where as branded and packed food items attract 5 per cent rate.

Jaitley said that the GST Council has given in-principle approval to pan India e-way bill.

"There will be no check post. The process will be technology-driven and human intervention would be minimised. It will be reviewed going forward," he said.

With regard to anti-profiteering provision, Jaitley said many businesses are not passing the benefit of tax rate reduction under GST. The market mechanism should compel that they give benefit of input credit," he said, hoping that there would be "minimal" use of anti profiteering provision and the provision should itself act as a deterrent.

Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia said that states will set up their respective screening committee within 15 days and the Centre will also set up the Standing Committee in same time frame. These committees would be the first point for receiving profiteering complaints. http://www.newindianexpress.com/business/2017/aug/05/gst-council-approves-e-way-bill-cuts-textilejob-levy-finance-minister-appeals-to-pass-on-tax-bene-1638918--1.html

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DA official receives Asean recognition

By Louise Maureen Simeon (The Philippine Star) | Updated August 6, 2017 - 12:00am 4

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Abdula MANILA, Philippines - A Department of Agriculture (DA) official was recognized as the Outstanding Rice Scientist of the Philippines by the ASEAN Rice Science and Technology Ambassadors Award Search Committee of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI).

Philippine Rice Research Institute executive director Sailila Abdula, a Maguindanao rice breeder, received the ASEAN award for his contribution to the development of the rice industry.

The 44-year-old Abdula helped develop tungro-resistant rice varieties such as NSIC Rc120 and Rc226 to help manage the disease in Southern Mindanao.

Rice tungro disease is caused by the combination of two viruses, which are transmitted by leafhoppers, and causes leaf discoloration, stunted growth, reduced tiller numbers and sterile or partly filled grains.

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Tungro infects cultivated rice, some wild rice relatives and other grassy weeds commonly found in rice paddies. ―This award means that the we are doing what is expected from us to help the people and having this award is more than just an achievement, it is also a challenge for me to continue doing researches to help our farmers,‖ Abdula said.He added that as a breeder, he needs to continuously develop disease-resistant, high-yielding, and climate-resilient rice varieties to increase farmers‘ competitiveness and income.

Currently, Abdula is developing transgressive lines, a possible rice variety whose performance is comparable with the expensive hybrid rice seeds developed by private companies.

Aside from being a rice breeder, Abdula led and implemented a collaborative project on ricebased farming system technology transfer system for Mindanao, funded by the Japan International Cooperation Agency in partnership with PhilRice and the local government units in ARMM. Abdula started working as a junior researcher at PhilRice in 1996 after finishing his bachelor‘s degree in agriculture from the University of Southern Mindanao.

He earned his master‘s degree in plant breeding from UP Los Baños and finished Master in Development Management at the Development Academy of the Philippines.

In 2012, he obtained his doctorate in agriculture, major in plant genetics from the Chungbuk National University in Korea.

The search for the outstanding rice scientists in each of the member countries of the ASEAN is being conducted by a committee composed of IRRI and ASEAN officials. http://www.philstar.com/business/2017/08/06/1725530/da-official-receives-asean-recognition

Brown-rice quality, shelf life improved with new technology

By BusinessMirror AUGUST 6, 2017

In Photo: Dr. Dominic S. Guevarra, senior science research specialist of Metals Industry Research and Development Center of the Department of Science and Technology, discusses the superheated-steam treatment system for brown rice.

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The consumption of brown rice is becoming popular these days because of its health benefits.

However, the ordinary brown rice has a shelf life of one to two months only. But with the newly introduced superheated steam treatment system (SSTS), it can last for nine months without spoilage and rancid flavor.

The new technology was discussed by Dr. Dominic S. Guevarra during the National Science and Technology Week Technology Forum held recently at the Philippine Trade Training Center in Pasay City.

Guevarra, senior science research specialist of the Metals Industry Research and Development Center of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST-MIRDC), led the project, ―Design and development of superheated steam treatment system for stabilized brown rice‖, with funding from the DOST‘s Philippine Council for Agriculture, Aquatic and Natural Resources Research and Development (PCAARRD).

He explained the advantages of eating brown rice and the need to improve its quality and shelf life through SSTS. Brown rice is unpolished rice with the bran retained and only the hull removed during milling.

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The SSTS involves the use of specialized machine and the application of superheated steam to deactivate the enzyme and reduce or delay enzyme activity, which starts after the bran layer of the brown rice has been exposed. MIRDC designed and developed two types of machine: the Batch-type and the Continuous-type SSTS. Guevarra said the project has already obtained the optimum parameters, such as temperature, treatment time and capacity at which both machines performed best. The physico-chemical properties of the treated rice have already been tested and results were satisfactory. MIRDC, in coordination with Food and Nutrition Research Institute (FNRI), implemented the project, which was completed last year.

During the forum, FNRI‘s Dr. Rosemarie Garcia explained that brown rice has been existing a long time ago when rice milling machines have not yet been widely used in the country.

Nowadays, many prefer brown rice because of its health benefits in terms of boosting the body‘s immune system, reducing diabetes, controlling body weight and others.

Garcia is the study leader of the project‘s component on ―Chemical, physico-chemical, microbiological and sensory evaluation of stabilized brown rice produced using superheated steam assembly,‖ also funded by DOST-PCAARRD. More than 100 participants composed of students, researchers and employees of nongovernmental and government organizations attended the Techno Forum. This activity was coordinated by PCAARRD‘s Socio-Economics Research Division and Agricultural Resources Management Research Division.

MIRDC and FNRI will continue the project‘s field testing and promotion. The project team is providing capability-building assistance to interested fabricators, rice millers and farmers‘ cooperatives.

Patent application for the technology has already been filed at the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines.

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The development of the SSTS machines and processes is expected to increase the production and consumption of brown rice in the Philippines and make it affordable and readily available to all types of consumers, children and adults, rich and poor. http://www.businessmirror.com.ph/brown-rice-quality-shelf-life-improved-with-new-technology/

Researchers add gene editing to rice research toolbox Fast Facts: Gene editing induces useful plant breeding traits without transferring genes Technique advances development of improved varieties Research seeks to make the technology ready when needed Posted: Saturday, August 5, 2017 9:00 am

By Fred Miller U of A System Division of Agriculture | FAYETTEVILLE. — Rice scientists are developing advanced gene editing tools for the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture crop breeding tool http://newtoncountytimes.com/news/researchers-add-gene-editing-to-rice-researchtoolbox/article_06b6a7a0-7858-11e7-ad0a-53ae03e49bb2.html

Pakistan is committed to FTA with Gulf Cooperation Council P AR V EZ J A B R I A U G 4 T H, 2 0 1 7 1 4 :0 2

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan is committed for finalizing the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) to enhance the multilateral trade.

Text of initial frame work on FTA was completed with Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) which comprise six countries including Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, Senior official of Ministry of Commerce told APP here Friday.

He said negotiation on third round of Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between Pakistan and Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries to be resumed after joint ministerial level meeting in

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GCCs countries presided by Bahrain.

Commerce minister of GCCs countries would meet at the end of August 2017, where Pak- GCCs FTA will on priority agenda. He said that negotiations on FTA between Pakistan and six GCC states also would be discussed in coming negotiation round for concluding the agreement.

Replying to a question, he said Pakistan and GCC countries were committed for trade liberalization and promotion of bilateral trade and business relations. Priority of both sides was promoting private sector to enhance business contacts and increase trade volume, he said.

The official said that Pakistan would have huge opportunity to export rice, meat, fruits and also

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investment in agro-processing unit in Pakistan. He said GCC countries had opportunity to concentrate on Tourism, manufacturing and services sector of Pakistan http://www.brecorder.com/2017/08/04/363185/pakistan-is-committed-to-fta-with-gulf-cooperationcouncil/

Flood-tolerant rice strains released Daniel Essiet On: August 4, 2017

Two high-yielding flood-tolerant rice varieties developed by the Africa Rice Center (AfricaRice) – FARO 66 and FARO 67 – have been officially approved for cultivation.

A statement from AfricaRice said the flood-tolerant varieties were selected based on farmers‘ rankings and results of on-station, multilocation and on-farm trials conducted in partnership with the National Cereals Research Institute (NCRI) and the National Rice and Maize Center (NRMC). ―For the first time in Nigeria, vulnerable rice farmers in flood-prone areas will have access to this powerful innovation,‖ said Dr Ramaiah Venuprasad, AfricaRice lowland rice breeder, who led the team that achieved this feat. Rainfed lowlands occupy more than 70 per cent of total rice area in Nigeria and are prone to recurrent flooding caused by heavy rainfall or overflow of nearby rivers http://thenationonlineng.net/flood-tolerant-rice-strains-released/

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BFAR to bare its projects in Agrilink 2017 August 4, 2017, 10:00 PM

By Zac B. Sarian The Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) will showcase its marketing chain projects for Davao Region‘s seaweed and milk fish industries at the Agrilink 2017 trade show that will be held at the World Trade Center in Pasay City on October 5 to 7.

This was announced by Antonio V. Roces, president of the Foundation for Resource Linkage and Development (FRLD), the agency that stages the annual agri expo.

BFAR, a bureau under the Department of Agriculture, is headed by Director Eduardo B. Gongona who declared that there are tremendous opportunities in the fisheries and aquaculture business in the Davao Region.

Milkfish at Agrilink 2017 – Bangus or milkfish from the Davao Region will be highlighted at the 2017 Agrilink trade show which will be held on October 5 to 7 at the World Trade Center in Pasay City. According to the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR), the event will create more opportunities for fishermen and entrepreneurs.

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30 According to BFAR Director Eduardo B. Gongona, milkfish is exported to over 30 countries, with the United States, Saudi Arabia and Guam as the biggest markets.

He said that Agrilink‘s focus on the Davao Region will create more opportunities for fishermen and entrepreneurs, pointing out that Mindanao is blessed with natural aquatic resources that fisherfolk can take advantage of. He stressed that ―tapping the potentials of the burgeoning aquaculture in Mindanao, particularly in the Davao Region, will bring a more diverse and robust fisheries industry.‖ He added that while the prospect of Philippine fisheries industry is bullish, BFAR wants to highlight the importance of technological innovations, such as in postharvest, so that we can tap its full potential and sustain the momentum of our agricultural industry moving forward in the global market.

Gongona cited the successes of seaweeds and milkfish in the region, the latter of which are exported to over 30 countries, with the United States, Saudi Arabia and Guam its biggest export markets. To augment this, BFAR‘s regional office in Davao conducts market matching and trade mission programs where they provide fisherfolk linkages to commercial traders and processors.

He added that recently, BFAR‘s regional office provided 72 units of fish stalls to a fish vending cooperative.

These not only improve the shelf life and mitigate losses in their fishery products. They also serve as sanitary facilities for vending fish products to ensure consumer safety.

Gongona also announced that BFAR‘s regional office in Davao is also building and maintaining fish landing centers strategically located in beneficiary municipalities. These ensure timely postharvest handling from the vessels. The centers also have aquaria that serve as fish tanks for live fish catches which command a high price in the market.

Gongona added that the establishment of the Community Fish Landing Centers all over the country is one of the agency‘s programs for coastal communities under the framework of Targeted Actions to Reduce Poverty and Generate Economic Transformation in the fisheries sector program. The facilities operate as the fisherfolks‘ permanent landing site for their daily catch. We are optimistic that these fish landing centers will spur economic activities in the coastal communities while reducing postharvest losses and ensuring safe and quality fishery products.

BFAR‘s regional office in Davao is also part of the DA‘s Philippine Rural Development Project (PRDP) on value chain analysis (VCA) studies for additional high-value crops and fishery commodities. In a recent scoping activity conducted by PRDP‘s Mindanao Project Support Office (PSO), three regions will embark on VCA studies for three commodities while another three will develop VCAs for fishery commodities. This will help in firming up a viable market for the commodities in the region, according to Gongona.

At the Agrilink, BFAR will conduct an investment forum featuring various investment opportunities in fisheries and a business matching activity to help link fisherfolk with local and foreign buyers.

Tags: Agrilink, Antonio V. Roces, aquaculture business, BFAR, Davao Region, fish industries, fisheries industry, Zac B. Sarian

http://newsbits.mb.com.ph/2017/08/04/bfar-to-bare-its-projects-in-agrilink-2017/

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Rice imports: AfDB decries $400 million annual bill African Development Bank (AfDB) President, Mr Akinwumi Adesina

Ghana has the capacity and resources to produce rice for consumption and export, the President of the African Development Bank (AfDB), Mr Akinwumi Adesina, has said.―It, therefore, has no business importing rice to the value of $400 million annually.―Ghana absolutely has no business at all importing rice. You are spending US$400 million a year importing what you should be exporting,‖ he said.

Addressing a dinner organised for him by the Ministry of Finance in Accra, Mr Adesina pledged the AfDB‘s support to Ghana in the area of rice production.

The dinner was attended by the Vice-President, Alhaji Dr Mahamudu Bawumia; the Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Dr Ernest Addison, and key government functionaries.

Mr Adesina is on a three-day visit to Ghana as part of the bank‘s efforts to strengthen cooperation with African countries.

The High 5s AfDB‘s portfolio in Ghana as of June 2017 is composed of 22 operations with an overall commitment of about US$ 950,319,370 The bank is finalising a new country strategy paper (CSP) for Ghana for the period 2017-2021.

The strategy will support Ghana‘s efforts to transform the economy through three of AfDB‘s High 5s (Light up and power Africa, industrialise Africa and feed Africa).

The High 5s are Light up and Power Africa; Feed Africa; Industrialised Africa; Integrate Africa; and Improve the Quality of Life for the People of Africa.

The High 5s are areas in which the bank is focusing on to help accelerate Africa's economic

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transformation. ―Coming from the airport, I was speaking to the Minister of Finance about northern Ghana and I was saying that northern Ghana has over 400,000 hectares of land which are very good for agriculture. I think we are going to do something about that. It is one of the key issues that we are going to be discussing,‖ he said.

Rural economies Mr Adesina said the fastest way to lift millions of people out of poverty in Africa was to transform rural economies. ―We have to make sure that agriculture, which is their basic source of livelihood, is made a business not a way of life. I don‘t believe that agriculture is a way of life at all. It is a development activity. This is where Africa‘s wealth will come from if we do it the right way.

Agro industrialisation has to play a very big role in what we do,‖ he stated.

Cocoa The AfDB president also spoke about the bank‘s plans to support Ghana and Côte d‘Ivoire to transform the cocoa industry and create more wealth and jobs from the produce. ―You are trying with 40 per cent of cocoa production but you can do more. The bank will support you and Côte d‘Ivoire with how you can co-ordinate your production and also your market support to avoid the fluctuations that you currently see. I have a firm belief that God has given every nation what they need to develop and to strive. The issue is what you do with it. We have a programme that we are going to be discussing with you,‖ Mr Adesina added.

Thanking the government for making the visit possible,The AfDB president spoke about the steady progress made by Ghana since the 2016 general election. ―Consistent with its ‗Feed Africa‘ strategy, the African Development Bank will support the government‘s efforts to improve the underperforming value chains which fail to add enough value to agricultural produce, repair and rebuild inadequate infrastructure, improve access to agricultural financing; and to reduce volatility in the international price of cocoa,‖ he said.

He added that the bank would also contribute to the stabilisation of the energy sector.

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Commendation Dr Bawumia lauded Mr Adesina for his focus on agriculture and pledged the government‘s support. ―It is clear that the AfDB is going places with you as President. We can see and feel it. For any economy in Africa to change, we need to solve the agriculture problem. This will put us on the way to industrialise. Our next budget as a country will focus on agriculture. We are counting on the bank to be with us on this journey as you have always been,‖ he said.

For his part, the Minister of Finance, Mr Ken Ofori Atta, commended AfDB‘s work in Ghana and expressed optimism that the partnership would be strengthened with Mr Adesina‘s visit. ―As a country, we believe we need to get back to basics and the beauty of Adesina‘s presidency is this clarity on agriculture and the need for us to have food security and more important, power and the whole concept of industrialisation. And it is exciting to have someone who has had quite a lot of experience and success in Nigeria as Agriculture Minister at this time when we most need it. ―There are a lot of loan facilities that we are working on, and there are already good projects in energy, agriculture, rural roads and others. For all of us, between energy and agriculture, we should be able to strike a partnership. ―We are also very clear that the AfDB should be the lead institution so that when we are getting multilateral donor funding, they are following what AfDB is doing. In all these, the need to increase our capital base is key. President, we are way behind you because it is important,‖ he said.

Mr Ofori-Atta also commended the bank for stepping in to ensure that Ghana and Côte d‘Ivoire worked together to change the cocoa narrative. ―That is because our leaders have not been working together. The President of the AfDB is stepping in and we are working together to see how we can change this,‖ he stated. https://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/business/Rice-imports-AfDB-decries-400-million-annualbill-566283

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Indonesia Confirms NO Imports of Rice, Corn, Onion and Chili Friday, 04 Augst 2017 | 04:30 WIB

Agriculture Minister Andi Amran Sulaiman said there has been no imports of rice, corn, onion and chili by the country so far this year. (The Business Times) KENDARI, NETRALNEWS.COM - Agriculture Minister Andi Amran Sulaiman said there has been no imports of rice, corn, onion and chili by the country so far this year.

Until August, there was no plan to import rice, corn, onion and chili, the minister told reporter here after heading a coordinating meeting with regional and district administrations in Southeast Sulawesi.

In the past years the government imported up to 2.5 million tons of the four commodities until August, he said. Amran attributed the success in reaching self sufficiency in the four commodities to hard work by stakeholders in supporting development of the countrys farming sector.

He said the government would seek to regain the countrys past glory as a spice country by allocating IDR5.5 trillion for the development of the sector all over the country. In the regency of Konawe

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Selatan, the minister promised that the government would provide a budget of Rp2 trillion to finance development of sugar factory the largest in eastern Indonesia. http://www.en.netralnews.com/news/business/read/9169/indonesia.confirms.no.imports.of.rice..corn..onio n.and.chili

Trump trade action could hinder ties, Beijing warns Friday, August 4, 2017, 1:36 pm TWN

China has put a strong emphasis on intellectual property rights protections and urged all WTO members to respect the rules of the organization, the Ministry of Commerce said on Thursday as U.S. President Donald Trump prepares to launch a broad investigation into China's trade policies.

"China and U.S. trade cooperation is the 'ballast and propeller' of bilateral relations and is mutually beneficial. We hope the two countries will continue on a path of cooperation," Commerce Ministry spokesman Gao Feng said at a news conference.

Trump is expected to make a speech and sign a memorandum at the White House on Friday targeting China's intellectual property and trade practices, the CNBC news channel reported.

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The Trump administration is considering initiating an investigation into Chinese trade practices under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974. It allows the head of state to unilaterally impose tariffs or other trade restrictions to protect U.S. industries from unfair trade practices of foreign countries.

Since the World Trade Organization was established in 1995, US Section 301 investigations have not led to trade sanctions. It was adopted to levy tariffs against Japanese motorcycles, steel and other products in the 1980s.

If the U.S. initiates an investigation under Section 301, that would indicate that it wants to replace international law with its domestic law, said Zhao Ping, director of the department of international trade research at the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade.

"The move would be unreasonable and violate international practice," she said. "A U.S. attempt to use unilateralism to override multilateral rules would be an abuse of its status as a superpower on the world stage. It would show disrespect for other countries."

The Trump administration might do so partly because it is looking to "divert attention from his (Trump's) domestic economic weakness," she added.

China and the U.S. agreed to initiate a comprehensive 100-day action plan to address the trade imbalance in April. Under the plan, China will resume US beef imports and allow rice imports for the first time.

China-US trade volume reached 1.85 trillion yuan (US$272 billion) in the first half of this year, up 21.3 percent year-on-year, according to the General Administration of Customs.

Such a policy against China could "definitely harm workers and entrepreneurs in both countries", said Zhou Mi, a senior research fellow at the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation.

Wei Jianguo, vice-president of the China Center for International Economic Exchanges, said China's imports from the U.S. will increase faster than its exports in the second half of 2017, so the U.S. trade deficit with China is likely to be narrowed.

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Wei said that the U.S. is expected to overtake the European Union as China's largest trade partner this year with such growth.

"The world economy is currently on track to recover, but uncertain and unstable factors still exist," said Gao. "We are willing to work together with the U.S. to jointly promote China-US economic and trade relations, as well as to inject fresh vitality into the world economy. http://www.chinapost.com.tw/china/national-news/2017/08/04/499826/trump-trade.htm

Inapt names as hajj pilgrimsâ€&#x; medical attendants!

Rozina Islam | Update: 16:01, Aug 05, 2017

The religious affairs ministry has appointed as medical attendants of Bangladeshi hajj pilgrims, quite a number of persons who, officials concerned apprehend, are unlikely to serve the sick devotees in Makkah and Medina.

In the team of 171 attendants, religious affairs minister Matior Rahman has included from his constituency, Mymensingh, as many as 35 persons who are not even remotely connected to this service.

The minister himself said to Prothom Alo, ―Whoever applied from Mymensingh to join the team, we are bringing them.‖

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―Some others are being taken as requests in this regard came from different departments. Many are known [to us],‖ he said about inclusion of drivers in the team of attendants.

Conspicuously, members of the team range from class-I and class-II officers to agriculturists and pharmacists, and from drivers to carpenters.

According to terms of service, the attendants will be required to assist the pilgrims as and when required, clean garbage and help them accomplish daily chores. ―But most of these people will in no way do it,‖ said an official of the ministry seeking anonymity.

The team includes 25 drivers of members of the cabinet, and from different ministries, and government offices. There are security guards, sweepers, personal assistants, office assistants, pump operators and typists.

Class-I and class-II officials who are named in the team include the Bangladesh Rice Research Institute‘s plant breeding department‘s scientific officer AKM Salauddin, the public administration ministry‘s assistant secretary Azizur Rahman Talukder, the land record and survey department‘s grainer Kamruddin, the Bangladesh Agricultural University‘s sports training centre‘s assistant director M Bajlul Alam and the finance ministry‘s assistant secretary Ruhul Amin Mallik.

During their stay in Saudi Arabia, each member of the team will be entitled to an aggregate amount between Tk 800,000 and 1,000,000, inclusive of plane fare, travel allowance and daily allowance, depending on their positions.

An official of the ministry told Prothom Alo, ―As a matter of custom, dedicated office assistants and attendants from the religious affairs and health ministries are supposed to go in Saudi Arabia.‖ The official regretted that favouritism often played a big part in selecting attendants and in most cases they did not serve the pilgrims. ―That‘s why there are complaints that the attendants did not even meet the pilgrims there,‖ the official added.

The religious affairs ministry has recently published the names of the medical team members comprising 114 physicians, 97 nurses and brothers, 43 pharmacists and 12 technicians for treating the pilgrims in Saudi Arabia. The 171-member team of attendants has been formed to assist them.

The religious affairs and health ministries and Islamic Foundation are supposed to jointly prepare the list of attendants. But there are allegations that the list was prepared bypassing the health ministry proposal.

Contacted, health and family welfare minister Mohammad Nasim told Prothom Alo, ―Every year we send names of attendants to the religious affairs ministry but they [attendants] get appointment through irregularities.‖ Nasim further said everyone understands the reason for appointment of the persons who do not have experience in such services.

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When asked, religious affairs secretary Abdul Jalil said the list has been prepared following proposals from the prime minister‘s office, several ministers and important personalities. ―The ministry itself hasn‘t included any name from outside of the proposals.‖ About inclusion of scientific officers or class-I and class-II officials, the secretary said all kinds of professionals are required in such a team.

In response to a question, what the drivers would do, Abdul Jalil said the minister has given approval to their inclusion in the list http://en.prothom-alo.com/bangladesh/news/155519/Inapt-names-as-hajj-pilgrims%E2%80%99-medicalattendants

Thailand: West Prepares Ground For Regime Change

By Tony Cartalucci Global Research, August 04, 2017

Featured image: The “two horsemen of US regime change,” US Senator’s John McCain and Joseph Lieberman, appear and surround the US proxies of choice ahead of any US-backed attempt to destabilize and overthrow a sovereign nation. Here they lend support to Yingluck Shinawatra ahead of her anticipated ousting from power in 2014. Efforts are now underway to have her and the party she represents placed back into power. (Source: Land Destroyer Report)

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Ahead of a pivotal court case in Thailand, US interests – both political and across the media – are preparing the grounds for the next round of foreign-backed destabilization.

Efforts to reinstall US proxies into power in Thailand is part of a larger effort to transform Southeast Asia into a united front against a rising China in an attempt to reassert American ―primacy‖ over the region. US support for the Shinawatra family dates back to Thaksin Shinawatra‗s time as adviser to US-based equity firm, the Carlyle Group, and continues to present day.

Ousted Thai prime minister, Yingluck Shinawatra, faces charges of negligence regarding a vote-buying rice scheme in which above market prices were promised to farmers if they put her political party, Pheu Thai, into power during 2011 elections.

As a global leader in rice production and exports for decades, Thailand‘s markets were immediately disrupted as funds quickly ran dry, quality plummeted, and regional competitors found favor with the nation‘s traditional trading partners instead.

In 2014 when Shinawatra was finally ousted from power after months of street protests and a military coup, government warehouses were overflowing with unsold, mold-infested rice.

Billions were lost in the program, and the provisional military-led government that took power has since spent years repaying farmers and attempting to mend the nation‘s agricultural industry.

It was a clear-cut case of a vote-buying scheme riddled with corruption and incompetence that ended with the nation‘s rice farmers more dependent on political handouts and more vulnerable to the realities of national and global economics.

What the West is Saying: The Lies Despite these facts, the West through its various lobbyists and the media outlets that host them, are attempting to frame this current political juncture in an entirely different light.

Opposition lobbyist and Shinawatra confidant, Pavin Chachavalpongpun, who poses and is presented by the Western media as an impartial ―academic‖ based at Kyoto University‘s Center for Southeast Asian Studies, recently posted a summary of the latest talking points being used by US and European special interests and their political proxies in Thailand.

The op-ed published by Reuters and republished by Japan Times titled, ―Trial of Yingluck sparks deeper crisis for Thailand,‖ claims: Yingluck won a landslide victory in the 2011 election, riding on her party‘s populist platform inherited from the government of her brother, Thaksin, who had been in power from 2001 to 2006. Thaksin implemented policies designed to empower rural residents of the north and northeast regions. They subsequently served as strong power bases for Thaksin‘s party. Yingluck initiated the rice-pledging scheme, which resulted in purchasing rice from farmers at abovemarket rates, distorting global prices. This proved highly popular among her supporters in the rural provinces.

He also claims: Therefore, if the junta decides to get rid of her through legal means, street protests are a possibility and political violence might be inevitable. Imprisoning Yingluck would not be the end

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of the political game, however. Already her supporters are comparing her with Myanmar prodemocracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who had to live under house arrest for 14 years over a 20year period. Suu Kyi‘s incarceration earned her the title of a democratic icon and she became the symbol of struggle against Myanmar‘s military rule.

While Pavin admits that the scheme distorted global prices, virtually everything else is an intentional, well-rehearsed lie.

His attempted comparison between Yingluck Shinawatra and Myanmar‘s Aung San Suu Kyi is apt – however not in the way Pavin likely intended. Suu Kyi – like the Shinawatras – is a decades-long recipient of US and European political backing – her political party and the Western-funded fronts posing as nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) serve as an extension of foreign interests abroad.

Her ―saintly‖ image has been carefully constructed through Western propaganda for years, so carefully that even the genocide she complicity presides over regarding Myanmar‘s Rohingya minority has failed to tarnish her image in the eyes of many, including – apparently – Pavin.

What the West Isn‟t Saying: The Truth The 2011 Thai election was far from a ―landslide.‖ In reality, only 35% of all eligible voters voted for Shinawatra‘s Pheu Thai Party (PTP), and among Thais who voted, PTP failed to garner even a popular majority.

Pavin omits that during the 2011 election, Yingluck Shinawatra openly ran as a proxy for her brother, Thaksin Shinawatra, a convicted criminal who fled abroad evading a 2 year jail sentence for corruption. The PTP campaign slogan for 2011 was literally, ―Thaksin Thinks, PTP Does,‖ openly admitting that a convicted criminal and fugitive was running PTP from a hotel room in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, not those in Thailand on the actual ballots people were casting.

A 2011 PTP campaign sign reads, ―Thaksin Kit.. Pheu Thai Tom,‖ which when translated means, ―Thaksin Thinks, Pheu Thai Does,‖ openly acknowledging that a convicted criminal and fugitive evading a 2 year jail sentence is running the opposition party in direct contradiction to the law. Because of Shinawatra‘s immense wealth and foreign backing, he and his followers have enjoyed this sort of flagrant impunity for years.

Pavin also claims between 2001-2006, Thaksin Shinawatra‘s policies ―empowered rural residents.‖ In reality, they were unsustainable handouts provided in exchange for political support – the only real ―empowerment‖ was of Shinawatra‘s political machine in the nation‘s rural northeast.

Pavin conveniently omits Shinawatra‘s 2003 ―war on drugs‖ in which nearly 3,000 innocent people were mass murdered in the streets over the course of 90 days. He also omits systematic abuses between 2001-2006, including abductions, intimidation, and assassinations of Shinawatra‘s political opponents.

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Vote-buying ―populism‖ destroyed Thailand‘s rice industry, including an international reputation it has built up over decades. Even as the country attempts to repair the damage, those responsible for it are attempting once again to claw their way back into power – with Western backing.

Pavin also omits throughout his lengthy op-ed the street mobs Shinawatra and his Western backers created after being ousted from power in 2006, the ―United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship‖ (UDD or ―red shirts), who have – since 2006 until present – carried out attacks, murder, terrorism, and even wide-scale armed riots and insurrections.

In 2010, Thailand got a taste of US-backed ―peaceful pro-democracy activists‖ – ―red shirts‖ – who carried out Arab Spring-style violence in an attempt to trigger nationwide Libyan or Syrian-style conflict. Luckily for Thailand, these attempts failed.

This includes violence in 2010 that claimed nearly 100 lives and culminated in citywide arson in Bangkok, terrorism carried out against anti-Shinawatra protesters between 2013-2014 that left over 20 dead including women and children, and a bombing spree this year that included a hospital.

Pavin omits all of this, because if readers understood the actual context of Yingluck Shinawatra‘s trial or the true nature of the ―opposition‖ he is lobbying for, they would realize just how much Thailand‘s current political order is attempting to compromise with the opposition – an opposition whose crimes if committed anywhere in the West would have been long ago labelled terrorism, prompting the opposition‘s judicial – and if necessary – martial eradication.

Pavin envisions at the end of his op-ed a scenario that might lead to protests and even violence in the streets, similar to 2010. It is the same sort of scenario that US and European interests are trying to implement in Venezuela, and have already ignited and left to burn in Libya, Syria, and Yemen.

In addition to dishonest paid-placements in the media, the US Embassy and others are busy at work on the ground in Thailand – funding and directing fronts posing as NGOs, including Prachatai, Thai Lawyers for Human Rights (TLHR), Thai Netizen, the New Democracy Movement, and many more

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– posing as impartial rights advocates – but who are in fact working behind such advocacy to protect and propel a US-backed client regime back into power.

Similar efforts were underway across North Africa and the Middle East before the US-engineered ―Arab Spring‖ was ―sprung.‖ The same sort of concerted subversion and propaganda being spread in Thailand today, was quietly used in places like Syria before brutal warfare grabbed international headlines.

Seeing it unfolds now in Thailand means that potential headline-grabbing conflict later will take no analysts by surprise, and provide them with a clear picture of what really led up to any wider conflict that may erupt. http://www.globalresearch.ca/thailand-west-prepares-ground-for-regime-change/5602559

Bangladesh signs deal to buy rice from Cambodia

By New Delhi Times Bureau on August 4, 2017

Bangladesh government has signed an agreement with Cambodia under which Bangladesh will purchase 1 million tonnes of rice from Cambodia within the next five years.

The Memorandum of Understanding was signed by Bangladesh Food Minister Kamrul Islam and Cambodia‘s Commerce Minister Pan Sorasak at Phnom Penh, the capital city of Cambodia.

Cambodia‘s Commerce Minister Pan Sorasak told that Bangladesh will purchase 200,000 tonnes of white rice and 50,000 parboiled rice this year.

Bangladesh has become the major importer of rice since the flash floods in April 2017 hit the domestic output. Earlier this year, Bangladesh bought 200,000 tonnes of Vietnamese white rice

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at $430 a tonne and 50,000 tonnes of parboiled rice at $470 a tonne in a state-to-state dealhttps://www.newdelhitimes.com/bangladesh-signs-deal-to-buy-rice-from-cambodia/

Texas teachers 'go nuts' seeking better ways to explain science

By Kathleen Phillips, Texas A&M Aug 4, 2017 BEAUMONT — The thin, metallic lid curled as the tab was pulled across the top of a can, issuing a salty, nutty scent as almonds, Brazil nuts, cashews, hazelnuts and peanuts spilled onto a tabletop.

But they were not to eat. No, these mixed nuts were sorted and counted by teams of middle and high schoolteachers seeking ways to interest their students in science careers. ―It‘s a cool way to show students how to calculate and do statistics,‖ said Evan Rawls, an eighth grade science teacher at Lumberton Middle School. ―With this, we can teach the students about mean, median and mode, for example, as they compare their counts to what‘s on the label.‖ The exercise was but one simple, cost-effective method taught to about 40 regional science teachers at the Texas A&M AgriLife Research and Extension Center-Beaumont by Dr. Mo Way and his fellow scientists there.

Way — whose ordinary day as an entomologist at the research facility west of Beaumont might include walking barefoot through a flooded rice field sweeping insects into a net — has led the teacher workshop for four years. It‘s an effort to teach so-called STEM courses — science, technology, engineering and mathematics — via agriculture.

The U.S. Department of Education estimated that only 16 percent of American high school seniors are proficient in math and interested in a STEM career, while the percentage of jobs in STEM-related careers is projected to be increasing by as much as 60 percent through 2020. The department also said the U.S. is ―falling behind internationally, ranking 29th in math and 22nd in science among industrialized nations.‖ But while many of the STEM educational efforts point to math, computer and medical science, researchers at the Beaumont station note agriculture is a common thread through all of those disciplines. ―There‘s nothing more important than the production of food. We have 7 billion people in the world, and that‘s expanding. The general population needs to know that what we‘re doing for the community, the state, the nation and the world – how important it is,‖ Way said.

He also ponders retirement — his own in about three years and those of so many of his colleagues in agriculture who‘ve done the largely behind-the-scenes work of developing higher yielding crops that are more resistant to pestilences. ―Who will take our place? This is one way to get kids interested in biology, the sciences and math – because they are the future entomologists, physiologists, pathologists, rice breeders,‖ Way said. ―What we need is more students at the high school and middle school level to become interested.‖ Stoking the interest for the teachers – who will convey the information in a hands-on way to their students beginning this fall – were a nature walk and several lab activities.

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The nature walk incorporated math, for instance, by using a measuring wheel with a 6.6-foot circumference to calculate distance. Along the mile-long walk, the scientists pointed out fields of conventional rice, organic rice, soybeans, sugarcane and sorghum, as well as aquatic and terrestrial insects, and many species of weeds and birds. ―In fact, we found some Johnsongrass that was infested with sugarcane aphids, so we collected some to view under the microscope,‖ Way said. ―And we talked about the life history of the sugarcane aphid and how it attacks crops.‖ Back indoors, the teachers measured the contents of cans of mixed nuts to determine the percent of each type, then compared the results to the label. This demonstrated the method for developing data sets and the need for replications of research experiments, Way said.

The teachers also were taught by AgriLife Research-Beaumont rice breeder Dr. Rodante Tabien how to cross two varieties of rice by manipulating the plants‘ flowers.

Way sent each teacher home with some rice seed and instructions on how to grow it. ―Teachers have a big impact on kids and what direction they are going to go in the future,‖ Way said, recalling his own high school biology teacher who taught by letting his classes experience trips to a garden or collecting wildflowers to press and identify. ―Some of the teachers told me that their students are urban kids, so they don‘t know where bread comes from. Our society needs to become more educated about science issues because it‘s becoming so important.‖ Rawls said when he conveys what he learned to his students, they are likely to be interested in pursuing careers in agricultural science. ―Being from Lumberton, they are aware of agriculture, but this will help show them some of the opportunities,‖ Rawls said. ―Otherwise, they might pursue careers in industry, which is fine. But it‘s good to show them there are other opportunities, and in agriculture there are ways to make a good living in jobs they didn‘t even know existed. The research here at the Beaumont center affects the world, and they can be a part of that.‖ http://www.ntxe-news.com/artman/publish/article_107193.shtml

Rice sales to China hold promise for California Bill Husa-Enterprise-Record file photograph The bankout wagon collects rice while a harvester works a field of short grain rice. Rice sales to China are expected to boost statewide sales.

By Ching Lee, AgAlert POSTED: 08/03/17, 3:20 PM PDT | UPDATED:

After struggling with depressed market prices for the last two years, California rice farmers and marketers say the historic deal reached last month between the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Chinese officials couldn‘t have come at a better time.

The two countries have agreed on a long-stalled phytosanitary protocol that will permit the import of U.S. milled rice into China, an action expected to benefit American rice farmers generally but that could be particularly positive for California growers and millers.

China opened its rice market when it joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, but U.S. rice was barred from the market because of a lack of a phytosanitary agreement between the two governments.

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With a population of 1.38 billion, China is the world‘s largest consumer of rice, with imports reaching nearly 5 million metric tons last year, according to USDA. The country consumes the equivalent of the entire U.S. rice crop every 13 days, the USA Rice Federation said. ―We think that‘s a market where we can get a premium for our rice, so we‘re certainly encouraged,‖ said Tim Johnson, president and CEO of the California Rice Commission.

In the first year, China is expected to import up to 50,000 metric tons of U.S. rice, with some 30,000 to 40,000 metric tons coming from California, said Steve Vargas, senior vice president of sales for Sun Valley Rice Co. in Arbuckle. The hope, he added, is to grow those shipments to 200,000 metric tons within five years. ―For California, it‘s very promising, because the bulk of that business will come to California for medium-grain and short-grain varieties,‖ said Vargas, who serves as vice chair of the USA Rice international promotion committee.

China already imports a great deal of long-grain rice from Vietnam, Pakistan and India, which will make it more difficult for U.S. Southern rice growers to compete in that market, he noted.

With food safety being a major concern for Chinese consumers, he said California rice, which is largely Calrose medium grain, has a ―very distinctive marketing advantage‖ because of its reputation for being a quality, safe product.

Not only does the Golden State produce the quality of rice that Chinese consumers desire, but it also has a shipping advantage over other, major rice-growing states such as Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri and Texas, said Mark Chesini, director of operations for the Yuba Citybased Rice Growers Association, which markets California rice.

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Himself a fourth-generation farmer, Chesini said many California rice growers have been feeling down about market prices that have been below their cost of production during the last two years, although prices have been trending higher in recent months due to stocks that are now ―well below average.‖ The wet spring this year also kept many growers from getting in their fields, reducing California rice plantings about 20 percent. Fields that were planted late may have lower yields, he added. With all these pressures already boosting prices, Chesini said he expects access to China‘s market will lead to even-better prices for the 2017 crop and beyond. ―I think this is going to help us get back to those price levels that will keep farmers — and everybody else who works in the industry — in business,‖ he said. ―I think they‘re feeling a lot more confident about this crop that they‘re growing.‖ Announcement of the U.S.-China agreement represents just the first step in a process before any U.S. rice can begin shipping to China, said Chris Crutchfield, president and CEO of American Commodity Co. in Williams. He also chairs USA Rice‘s Asia promotion committee.

Ten years in the making, the phytosanitary protocol is ―the most in-depth and extensive‖ in which the U.S. has ever entered and requires interested exporters to go through inspections and other activities to become qualified, he added. Chinese inspectors are expected to visit U.S. mills this fall to begin that process.

If everything goes without a hitch, Vargas said, U.S. rice shipments could start making their way to China by the end of the year.

Even though the bar is higher, Johnson said he does not think California mills will have trouble achieving the standards. Crutchfield and Vargas noted many facilities, including those of ACC and Sun Valley, have already implemented the required processes in anticipation of the agreement.

They further noted that USA Rice has been leading promotion activities for more than 10 years to introduce Chinese customers to U.S. rice and to educate them about its types and quality. The U.S. began actively pursuing that market, Crutchfield said, when China evolved from being a major exporter of rice—and one of the state‘s biggest competitors—to being a net importer during the last decade. It is still the world‘s largest producer of rice.

Whereas other export sales for U.S. rice are typically handled by import or tariff-based quotas rooted in trade agreements, Johnson said China will be a commercial market, in that there are no pre-set tariff restrictions or volumes. This would be no different from how U.S. rice currently enters Canada, Mexico or Turkey, he noted. ―This simply says the market can determine the amounts of rice that will be imported,‖ he said. ―It‘d be based on consumer preferences. We‘re excited about that, because we know we compete quite well when people get a chance to try our rice.‖ The target market, at least initially, is expected to be in China‘s coastal areas, among higherincome people and in the hotel and restaurant trade, USA Rice said.

Crutchfield said even though China‘s expanding middle class is a ―super-small percentage‖ of its overall population, it is still a huge number that‘s comparable to the entire U.S. market. Higher-

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income Chinese consumers, he said, ―don‘t want to feed their families much food that is produced in (China) because of the food-safety issues.‖ ―When you look at it from that perspective, it‘s a great market potential,‖ he said. ―Of course, that‘s not going to happen overnight. But over time, I think it can be developed into a great market for not just the main Calrose medium-grain rice that we (in California) grow but for all types and varieties of U.S. rice.‖ http://www.dailydemocrat.com/business/20170803/rice-sales-to-china-hold-promise-for-california/

Pakistan is committed to FTA with GCC

By DND August 4, 2017 ISLAMABAD, Pakistan: Pakistan is committed for finalizing the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) to enhance the multilateral trade.Text of initial frame work on FTA was completed with Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) which comprise six countries including Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a senior official of Ministry of Commerce told the state-run news agency in Islamabad on Friday.

He said negotiation on third round of Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between Pakistan and Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries to be resumed after joint ministerial level meeting in GCCs countries presided by Bahrain.

Commerce minister of GCCs countries would meet at the end of August 2017 where Pak- GCCs FTA will on priority agenda.

He said that negotiations on FTA between Pakistan and six GCC states also would be discussed in coming negotiation round for concluding the agreement.

Replying to a question, he said Pakistan and GCC countries were committed for trade liberalization and promotion of bilateral trade and business relations.

Priority of both sides was promoting private sector to enhance business contacts and increase trade volume, he said.

The official said that Pakistan would have huge opportunity to export rice, meat, fruits and also investment in agro-processing unit in Pakistan.

He said GCC countries had opportunity to concentrate on Tourism, manufacturing and services sector of Pakistan. https://dnd.com.pk/pakistan-is-committed-to-fta-with-gulf-cooperation-council/132708

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Indonesia Confirms NO Imports of Rice, Corn, Onion and Chili Friday, 04 Augst 2017 | 04:30 WIB

Agriculture Minister Andi Amran Sulaiman said there has been no imports of rice, corn, onion and chili by the country so far this year. (The Business Times) KENDARI, NETRALNEWS.COM - Agriculture Minister Andi Amran Sulaiman said there has been no imports of rice, corn, onion and chili by the country so far this year.

Until August, there was no plan to import rice, corn, onion and chili, the minister told reporter here after heading a coordinating meeting with regional and district administrations in Southeast Sulawesi.In the past years the government imported up to 2.5 million tons of the four commodities until August, he said. Amran attributed the success in reaching self sufficiency in the four commodities to hard work by stakeholders in supporting development of the countrys farming sector. He said the government would seek to regain the countrys past glory as a spice country by allocating IDR5.5 trillion for the development of the sector all over the country. In the regency of Konawe Selatan, the minister promised that the government would provide a budget of Rp2 trillion to finance development of sugar factory the largest in eastern Indonesia. http://www.en.netralnews.com/news/business/read/9169/indonesia.confirms.no.imports.of.rice..corn..onio n.and.chili

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Pakistan 5th largest producer of mangoes in world Mango, food festival held in Ankara Observer Report Ankara With the aim of further popularizing Pakistani mangoes in Turkey and facilitating their availability in the Turkish market, the Embassy of Pakistan organized a ―Pakistan Mango & Food Festival‖ recently. The event was also part of the celebrations of the 70th Anniversary of Pakistan‘s Independence as well as the 70th Year of Pakistan-Turkey Diplomatic relations.Key political figures, representatives from the food and beverages industry, fruit importers, diplomats and media representatives tasted the juiciness and aroma of Pakistani mangoes. The ―Pakistan Mango & Food Festival‖ included a wide-range of mango delicacies such as mango ice cream, mango soufflé, mango mousse, mango trifle, mango tart, mango pudding, mango salad, mango milk-shake, mango lassi, and mango cake, made of freshly-arrived mangoes from Pakistan. Pakistani cuisine including ‗Biryani‘ made of famous Pakistani Basmati rice was also served. Welcoming the guests, Ambassador Sohail Mahmood stated that with a production of 1.8 million tons per year, Pakistan was the 5th largest producer of mangoes in the world.

He also highlightedthat Pakistan was the 6th largest exporter of mangoes, exporting it to 57 countries. However, most mango-lovers believed that the Pakistani mangoes were number 1 in the world in taste. The Ambassador added that there were over 110 varieties of high quality Pakistani mangoes including Sindhri, Anwar Retaul, Lungra, Malda, Dusehri, Fajri, Chaunsa and others. ―Chaunsa is the most popular variety – and we are serving the White Chaunsa today,‖ added the Ambassador. He hoped that the invited guests, who tasted Pakistani mangoes and mango-based products, would widely share their experience in quality and taste and help in promoting mangoes to consumers and importers in Turkey.

Turkish Deputy EU Minister Ali ªahin, in his remarks, urged everyone to visit Pakistan to taste the ―King of Fruits – the mango‖ and to enjoy the ―magnificent hospitality‖ of the people of Pakistan.

Dilating upon the deep-rooted fraternal ties between the two countries, he termed Pakistan and

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Turkey as ―Two States – One Nation.‖The Chairman of Pakistan-Turkey Cultural Association and Member of the Turkish Grand National Assembly from Van, Mr. Burhan Kayaturk, in his speech fondly recalled his stay in Lahore as a student and described Pakistan as ―our best friend.‖ Calling Pakistani mangoes the world‘s best fruit, he underlined the importance of more efforts by food companies to bring Pakistani mangoes to the Turkish market. Ambassador Sohail Mahmood also thanked the Trade Development Authority of Pakistan (TDAP) and Swissotel, Ankara for their collaboration in organizing the event. http://pakobserver.net/pakistan-5th-largest-producer-mangoes-world/

Govt committed to finalise FTA with GCC ISLAMABAD: Pakistan is committed for finalising the free trade agreement (FTA) with Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) to enhance the multilateral trade.

Text of initial frame work on FTA was completed with Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) which comprise six countries, including Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, senior official of ministry of commerce told APP on Friday.

He said negotiation on third round of FTA between Pakistan and GCC countries to be resumed after joint ministerial level meeting in GCC's countries presided by Bahrain. Commerce minister of GCC countries would meet at the end of August 2017 where Pakistan-GCC FTA will be on priority agenda.

He said negotiations on FTA between Pakistan and six GCC states would also be discussed in coming negotiation round for concluding the agreement.

The official said Pakistan and GCC countries are committed to trade liberalisation and promotion of bilateral trade and business relations. Priority of both sides is to promote private sector to enhance business contacts and increase trade volume, he said.

The official said Pakistan would have huge opportunity to export rice, meat, fruits and also investment in agro-processing unit in Pakistan. GCC countries had opportunity to concentrate on tourism, manufacturing and services sectors of Pakistan. https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/221386-Govt-committed-to-finalise-FTA-with-GCC

Pakistan Mango food Festival Held in Ankara

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ANKARA: With the aim of further popularizing Pakistani mangoes in Turkey and facilitating their availability in the Turkish market, the Embassy of Pakistan organized a “Pakistan Mango & Food Festival” in Ankara.

The event was also part of the celebrations of the 70th Anniversary of Pakistan‘s Independence as well as the 70th Year of Pakistan-Turkey Diplomatic relations.

Key political figures, representatives from the food and beverages industry, fruit importers, diplomats and media representatives tasted the juiciness and aroma of Pakistani mangoes. The ―Pakistan Mango & Food Festival‖ included a wide-range of mango delicacies such as mango ice cream, mango soufflé, mango mousse, mango trifle, mango tart, mango pudding, mango salad, mango milk-shake, mango lassi, and

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mango cake, made of freshly-arrived mangoes from Pakistan. Pakistani cuisine including ‗Biryani‘ made of famous Pakistani Basmati rice was also served.

Ambassador Sohail Mahmood, while welcoming the guests, stated that with a production of 1.8 million tons per year, Pakistan was the 5th largest producer of mangoes in the world. He also highlighted that Pakistan was the 6th largest exporter of mangoes, exporting it to 57 countries.

However, most mango-lovers believed that the Pakistani mangoes were number 1 in the world in taste. The Ambassador added that there were over 110 varieties of high quality Pakistani mangoes including Sindhri, Anwar Retaul, Lungra, Malda, Dusehri, Fajri, Chaunsa and others. ―Chaunsa is the most popular variety – and we are serving the White Chaunsa today,‖ added the Ambassador. He hoped that the invited guests, who tasted Pakistani mangoes and mango-based products, would widely share their experience in quality and taste and help in promoting mangoes to consumers and importers in Turkey.

Turkish Deputy EU Minister Ali Şahin, in his remarks, urged everyone to visit Pakistan to taste the ―King of Fruits – the mango‖ and to enjoy the "magnificent hospitality" of the people of Pakistan. Dilating upon the deep-rooted fraternal ties between the two countries, he termed Pakistan and Turkey as ―Two States – One Nation.‖

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The Chairman of Pakistan-Turkey Cultural Association and Member of the Turkish Grand National Assembly from Van, Mr. Burhan Kayaturk, in his speech fondly recalled his stay in Lahore as a student and described Pakistan as ―our best friend.‖ Calling Pakistani mangoes the

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world‘s best fruit, he underlined the importance of more efforts by food companies to bring Pakistani mangoes to the Turkish market.

https://www.thenews.com.pk/latest/221321-Pakistan-Mango-Food-Festival-held-in-Ankara

Indonesia detains rice company official for alleged false labelling FAW A D M A Q S O O D A U G 3 R D , 2 0 1 7 0 0 :4 2

JAKARTA: Indonesian police have detained the chief executive of rice company PT Indo Beras Unggul (IBU), over allegations of false product labelling, police said on Wednesday, as the government moves to rein in prices of the staple. Food prices are a politically sensitive issue because of their impact on the poor, with the Indonesian government blaming high prices on food hoarding and speculators, although some analysts credit the country's self-sufficiency policy.

IBU, a unit of food company PT Tiga Pilar Sejahtera Food , is suspected to have displayed incorrect information on rice products and misstated the quality of two brands, National Police spokesman

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56 Martinus Sitompul said.

Violations of business competition rules, and laws on food and consumer protection, are among the charges facing IBU president director Trisnawan Widodo, Sitompul told reporters.

"Today his detention begins," he told a news conference. If convicted of the charges, the chief executive could face up to 20 years in prison, officials have said. Despite a similarity in names, he is not related to Indonesia's president.

Police are also investigating IBU for possible money laundering linked to its rice sales, Sitompul added.

"This investigation is still in an early stage and there is a series of further investigations," he said.

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Reuters could not reach Trisnawan Widodo or a representative for comment. An official of parent company Tiga Pilar did not respond to telephone calls and a text message from Reuters to seek comment.

Late last month, police raided an IBU warehouse near Jakarta, the capital, confiscating more than 1,000 tonnes of rice and alleging the company bought lower quality grain and sold it as premium rice. The company has denied the allegations. Shares of Tiga Pilar fell 4.3 percent on Wednesday, underperforming a gain of 0.3 percent in the benchmark index

http://www.brecorder.com/2017/08/03/362827/indonesia-detains-rice-company-official-

Arkansas Rice Expo - Home Grown, World Famous

By Ben Mosely

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58 STUTTGART, AR -- The University of Arkansas held its annual rice expo and field day here today, and USA Rice staff joined several hundred rice farmers and industry members to highlight research, discuss industry issues, and to celebrate everything rice just before harvest begins in the area.

In addition to field tours, the expo featured a trade show and research seminars showcasing the latest rice products and varieties. The keynote address was delivered by former U.S. Congressman Charlie Stenhom of Texas who discussed the many challenges in passing a new farm bill and balancing the federal budget.

The Arkansas Rice Research and Promotion Board also met yesterday, and USA Rice President & CEO Betsy Ward provided updates on USA Rice domestic and international activities, and talked about some of the new players in key positions in Washington, DC.

"The expo had a great turnout this year," said Arkansas Rice Federation Chairman Jeff Rutledge. "This speaks volumes about the quality of the programming and research done by the University of Arkansas."

Market Information

Daily Rough Rice Prices

Hokkaido University professor Noboru Noguchi (center) oversees a test on a tractor operated with a tablet computer on the university campus in Sapporo on June 27. | KYODO

Japanâ€&#x;s farming industry poised for automation revolution BUSINESS / TECH

BY HAYATO ISHII KYODO •AUG 4, 2017

In a few years, robotic farming equipment will be able to plow and prepare soil while human farmers sleep.

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That is what Hokkaido University professor Noboru Noguchi and his team are aiming for as the nation‘s farmers age, with no successors in place.

The improved use of robotics in agriculture will not only reduce manual labor but will enable aging farmers to continue working and focus their time and energy on areas that require their knowledge and experience.

The related technology has been advancing in recent years. Machinery that allows a driver to sit back while it plows the field in straight lines is already on the market.

But unmanned farm machinery would require accurate positioning systems. To date, such machinery has used a combination of GPS, supplied by U.S. satellites, supplemented with data sent from ground-based stations to improve accuracy.

Depending on the lay of the land, however, the machinery occasionally strays up to 10 meters from the plotted path due to GPS systems not always providing completely accurate data.

But on June 1, Japan put its second quasi-zenith satellite, Michibiki No. 2, into orbit to improve the accuracy of the country‘s GPS. Two more navigation satellites are set to be launched by the end of 2017 to provide accurate and constant data.

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The quasi-zenith system ensures one of the planned four satellites will be above Japan at any one time. When the four Japanese satellites are in operation, the margin of error is expected to be narrowed to a few centimeters.

The agricultural ministry, meanwhile, adopted guidelines in March for autonomous farming machinery. The rules ban self-driving units on regular roads and limit who can enter farmland where the machines are working.

The guidelines prompted leading farm equipment manufacturer Kubota Corp. to start selling advanced self-driving tractors on a trial basis on June 1.

For now, the guidelines cover the use of self-driving machinery under on-site human supervision. But a team of researchers at the Graduate School of Agriculture at Hokkaido University is developing a tractor that can be controlled remotely.

The team is working on a robotic system that automatically observes the surrounding environment, recognizes obstacles and avoids them or halts operation if necessary.

During a recent trial, a team member maneuvered a prototype tractor via a tablet computer. The tractor was equipped with GPS receiver as well as various sensors and other devices. A buzzer went off when it recognized an obstacle and it stopped automatically.

Team leader Noguchi said a planned tractor, capable of autonomously harvesting, leveling ground and flooding rice paddies at night will become available ―within a few years.‖ Beginning this autumn, the university team will conduct verification tests on a fully unmanned tractor in a 950-hectare area of land in Hokkaido, taking into consideration actual restrictions such as the use of radio waves and traffic laws. ―To put agricultural robots to work, it is important for the people involved, including researchers, engineers and farmers, to allow a process of trial and error to play out,‖ Noguchi said.

Noguchi‘s team is going a step further in a project that will allow farm machines to analyze weather and soil data so they can predict disease and pest infestations. Further, the ability to predict crop yields would enable refined operations such as distributing more fertilizer where needed.

The use of such detailed data can help avoid the wasteful use of fertilizer and agricultural chemicals, improve the efficiency of operations, enhance the safety of agricultural products and contribute to the protection of the environment.

To be sure, automation cannot take over all farming operations.

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Shigeru Someya, a large-scale rice grower in Kashiwa, Chiba Prefecture, said that while advances in agricultural equipment have made farming more efficient, it has led to a situation where farmers no longer take good care of paddies by themselves. ―I‘ve been taught that rice grows (best) when they hear the footsteps of human beings,‖ Someya said. ―Looking over (rice paddies on foot) is indispensable.‖ The key to the future of Japan‘s agriculture may be combining the knowledge of farmers like Someya and farming technology — artificial intelligence that analyses and learns from a huge volume of data, and the introduction of robots http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2017/08/04/business/tech/japans-farming-industry-poised-automationrevolution/#.WYhkGvmGMdU

Team of hajj „attendants‟!

Update: 10:42, Aug 07, 2017

A medical team of 144 physicians, 97 nurses, 43 pharmacists and 12 technicians is accompanying hajj pilgrims to tend to their needs if they fall ill while in Saudi Arabia. Having physicians and nurses is understandable, but it is hard to comprehend what 43 pharmacists and 12 technicians will do there.

It doesn‘t end here. The religious affairs ministry had formed a 171-member hajj ‗attendant team‘ to assist this medical team. Based on their ranks, Tk 8 lac (Tk 800 thousand) to Tk 10 lakh (Tk 1 million) will be spent on each of them from government funds. This team of assistants includes ministers‘ security guards, personal officers and even typists. Also included in this assistant team, scientific officer of Bangladesh Rice Research Institute, assistant secretary of the public administration ministry, assistant director of the Agricultural University‘s sports training centre, land record and survey directorate grainer, accounts officer of the TB hospital, and other officers and employees, have no connection to assisting the medical team.

Why should a ‗team of attendants‘ be required at all to assist the hajj passengers‘ medical team?

Nurses can assist the doctors and they can be accompanied by some cleaners. It would be adequate to send a team comprising physicians, nurses and cleaners. It is absolutely wrong to form a separate team of persons favoured by the ministries and ministers and send them to Saudi Arabia on taxpayers‘ money.

It is shameful that 35 members of this team are from Mymensingh alone, the constituency of religious affairs minister Matiur Rahman. It can be questioned whether this is an attempt for the religious affairs minister to gain mileage before the next election. A total of Tk 13 crore (Tk 130 million) to Tk 17 crore (Tk 170 million) will be spent on this unnecessary hajj attendants‘ team.

Such waste of public money occurs every hajj season. This must stop from this year. http://en.prothom-alo.com/opinion/news/155661/Team-of-hajj-%E2%80%98assistants%E2%80%99

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GST Council to address tax avoidance by rice millers tomorrow ANI | New Delhi [India] August

4, 2017 Last Updated at 14:22 IST

Texas Teachers ‗Go Nuts‘ Seeking Better Ways to Explain Science Newswise — The thin, metallic lid curled as the tab was pulled across the top of a can, issuing a salty, nutty scent as almonds, Brazil nuts, cashews, hazelnuts and peanuts spilled onto a tabletop.But they were not to eat. No, these mixed nuts were sorted and counted by teams of middle and high school teachers seeking ways to interest their students in science careers.―It‘s a cool way to show students how to calculate and do statistics,‖ said Evan Rawls, an eighth grade science teacher at Lumberton Middle School. ―With this, we can teach the students about mean, median and mode, for example, as they compare their counts to what‘s on the label.‖ The exercise was but one simple, cost-effective method taught to about 40 regional science teachers at the Texas A&M AgriLife Research and Extension Center-Beaumont by Dr. Mo Way and his fellow scientists there.

Dr. Rodante Tabien, Texas A&M AgriLife Research rice breeder in Beaumont, teachers middle and high school science teachers how to cross two varieties of rice. (Texas A&M AgriLife photo).

Way — whose ordinary day as an entomologist at the research facility west of Beaumont might include walking barefoot through a flooded rice field sweeping insects into a net — has led the teacher workshop for four years. It‘s an effort to teach so-called STEM courses — science, technology, engineering and mathematics — via agriculture.

The U.S. Department of Education estimated that only 16 percent of American high school seniors are proficient in math and interested in a STEM career, while the percentage of jobs in STEM-related careers is projected to be increasing by as much as 60 percent through 2020. The department also said the U.S. is ―falling behind internationally, ranking 29th in math and 22nd in science among industrialized nations.‖

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But while many of the STEM educational efforts point to math, computer and medical science, researchers at the Beaumont station note agriculture is a common thread through all of those disciplines. ―There‘s nothing more important than the production of food. We have 7 billion people in the world, and that‘s expanding. The general population needs to know that what we‘re doing for the community, the state, the nation and the world – how important it is,‖ Way said.

He also ponders retirement — his own in about three years and those of so many of his colleagues in agriculture who‘ve done the largely behind-the-scenes work of developing higher yielding crops that are more resistant to pestilences. ―Who will take our place? This is one way to get kids interested in biology, the sciences and math – because they are the future entomologists, physiologists, pathologists, rice breeders,‖ Way said. ―What we need is more students at the high school and middle school level to become interested.‖ Stoking the interest for the teachers – who will convey the information in a hands-on way to their students beginning this fall – were a nature walk and several lab activities.

The nature walk incorporated math, for instance, by using a measuring wheel with a 6.6-foot circumference to calculate distance. Along the mile-long walk, the scientists pointed out fields of conventional rice, organic rice, soybeans, sugarcane and sorghum, as well as aquatic and terrestrial insects, and many species of weeds and birds. ―In fact, we found some Johnsongrass that was infested with sugarcane aphids, so we collected some to view under the microscope,‖ Way said. ―And we talked about the life history of the sugarcane aphid and how it attacks crops.‖ Back indoors, the teachers measured the contents of cans of mixed nuts to determine the percent of each type, then compared the results to the label. This demonstrated the method for developing data sets and the need for replications of research experiments, Way said.

The teachers also were taught by AgriLife Research-Beaumont rice breeder Dr. Rodante Tabien how to cross two varieties of rice by manipulating the plants‘ flowers.

Way sent each teacher home with some rice seed and instructions on how to grow it. ―Teachers have a big impact on kids and what direction they are going to go in the future,‖ Way said, recalling his own high school biology teacher who taught by letting his classes experience trips to a garden or collecting wildflowers to press and identify. ―Some of the teachers told me that their students are urban kids, so they don‘t know where bread comes from. Our society needs to become more educated about science issues because it‘s becoming so important.‖ Rawls said when he conveys what he learned to his students, they are likely to be interested in pursuing careers in agricultural science. ―Being from Lumberton, they are aware of agriculture, but this will help show them some of the opportunities,‖ Rawls said. ―Otherwise, they might pursue careers in industry, which is fine. But it‘s good to show them there are other opportunities, and in agriculture there are ways to make a good living in jobs they didn‘t even know existed. The research here at the Beaumont center affects the world, and they can be a part of that.‖ https://www.newswise.com/articles/texas-teachers-go-nuts-seeking-better-ways-to-explain-science

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Could perennial crops be an answer to climate change?

IANS| Updated: Aug 07, 2017, 12.56 PM IST "Perennial crops, on the other hand, hold the soil and tremendously reduce the energy required for food and fruit production."BENGALURU: While India reaped the benefits of the Green Revolution in the 1960s, her neighbour China is now taking the lead in another area of sustainable agriculture - developing crops that meet the challenges posed by global warming.Chinese agricultural scientists are working to convert seasonal crops into perennial crops that regrow after being harvested and deliver multiple yields before dying.

"They are saving labour costs. Besides, greater soil carbon storage and lesser input requirements mean that perennial crops have the potential to mitigate global warming," Erik J. Sacks, Associate Professor of Crop Sciences at the University of Illinois, told this correspondent in an e-mail.

China's Yunnan Agricultural University (YAU) started working on perennial rice after the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in the Philippines wound up this project in 2001 owing to a financial crisis.

At YAU, Fengyi Hu and his colleagues developed a perennial rice by crossing Oryza sativa -the short-lived Asian rice -- with a wild African perennial O. longistaminata.

The cross, known as PR 23, "apparently lasts at least five years and gives 10 seasons of grain twice a year with yields comparable to seasonal rice", Nandula Raghuram, Professor and Dean of Biotechnology at New Delhi's Indraprastha University, told this correspondent.

"It seems very convincing and promising," said Raghuram, one of the 50 delegates from over a dozen countries who recently toured different perennial rice-growing sites in the Yunnan province and tasted the cooked rice. "Farmers we spoke to seemed enthusiastic about adopting perennial rice and possibly other crops

because

of

lower

input

costs."

Noting that perennial rice is a great idea, "next only to hybrid rice", he said perennial legumes are also being developed and it may be possible to have both rice and legume grow perennially in alternative rows/plots on the same field. "This also reduces or eliminates the need for nitrogen fertiliser and reduces the

pest/pathogen

problems

typical

to

monocultures,"

Raghuram

said.

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65

Work on developing perennial wheat, buckwheat, sorghum and sunflower are also at various stages in China.

"The fact is that rice farmers in China are beginning to adopt perennial rice because they see the benefits to themselves," Sacks said. "Similarly, in the US, some leading farmers are beginning to adopt Kernza (a perennial wheat-like crop) because they find the market conditions and environmental benefits advantageous."

Perennial crops hold many benefits, including reduced chemical runoff -- which means less water pollution -- and reduced soil erosion as these plants develop much greater root mass and protect the soil year-round. Their superior capacity to store carbon and manage resources is widely recognised by ecologists

and

soil

scientists.

The Land Institute in Kansas, according to Timothy Crews, its Director of Research, plans to convert US farmlands to 70 percent perennial crops from the current 25 percent within 50 years.

However, M.S. Swaminathan, considered the father of India's Green Revolution, said the main problem with perennial varieties is the need to effectively manage the "unholy triple alliance" of weeds, pests and pathogens.

"Perennial rice used to be common in the past, but I think because of the pest problem, farmers had given it up," Swaminathan told this correspondent. "There is also perennial wheat and many crops in nature that tend to be perennial. The advantage of perennial crops is that they will be very helpful where there is labour

shortage

and

where

the

work

is

being

done

by

family

labour."

Raghuram admitted that perennial crops may not be a panacea for all the ills of agriculture -- especially agrarian distress and farmers' suicides in India -- but "they can be an engine for progressive change, both in economic and environmental terms. The challenge for scientists, extension workers and policymakers is

to

make

it

happen".

"While the present varieties of perennial rice developed in China may be suited for Chinese agro climates, "they do offer adequate proof of concept that they can be developed for other agro climates and markets", Raghuram

noted.

The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), which has been highly supportive of the Chinese efforts

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66

to develop perennial rice, is keen to extend this technology to other parts of the world.

"Perennial rice, combined with perennial legumes, has huge potential in Asia, especially India," Hans Dreyer, director of FAO's plant production division, told this correspondent on the telephone. "A southsouth

collaboration

on

this

technology

can

make

this

happen."

Anil Rajvanshi, director of Nimbkar Agricultural Research Institute in Phalton, Maharashtra, who is visiting

the

Land

Institute

in

the

US

this

month,

is

all

for

perennials.

"In India we should have a national mission for developing perennial crops for wheat and rice, and ultimately for other crops and vegetables," Rajvanshi told this correspondent. "Crops are like factories.

We never destroy a factory after the produce is made and sold. In fact, most of the time we tweak the machinery

and

use

the

same

factory

to

produce

different

products."

"Yet in agriculture, after the harvest we uproot the plants, till the soil and replant a new crop. This increases soil erosion, takes away a lot of minerals from the soil and uses up a huge amount of water and energy to develop new root structure, besides increasing the time of harvest," he added.

"Perennial crops, on the other hand, hold the soil and tremendously reduce the energy required for food and fruit production," Rajvanshi concluded.

An unforgettable date with a Russian n-plant Aug 07, 2017, 11.07 AM IST

Novovoronezh (Russia), Aug 7 (IANS) Imagine "shutting down" a nuclear power plant by pressing a button with your thumb, or having access to no-go zones for the public in a nuclear site -- all accompanied

by

experts

lucidly

explaining

the

core

operations.

These and various other thrills awaited a small group of mediapersons from various geographies on a visit to Russia's Novovoronezh nuclear plant -- the commissioning of whose first unit nearly 53 years ago is taken as a virtual starting point in the history of nuclear power development not only in the erstwhile USSR but

also

in

a

number

of

eastern

and

central

European

countries.

The plant stands close to the town of Novovoronezh, located on the left bank of the Don river -- about 55 km south of Voronezh, the main city and administrative unit of Voronezh Oblast (as provinces are called in

Russian).

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It took 70 minutes of flying time to cover the over 500 km distance from Moscowto Voronezh airport, where the journalists were divided into small groups -- each provided with a separate bus and escorted by security

service

officers

during

the

entire

tour.

The security and industrial safety briefing during the transfer laid down the rigorous dos and don'ts, and protective

gear

was

also

handed

out.

One of the instructions read: "Walk along sidewalks, and look out for audible signals. For instance, one long signal followed by three short signals will be blown by the machinist of a locomotive in case people appear on its travel line."

The journey from the airport to Voronezh -- the centre of Russia's black soil region -- was pleasant, with the road lined with pine and birch trees and dachas or private houses seen in ones and twos at a distance.

The first stop was the plant's new information centre in Voronezh town, a city of a million people. The aroma of fresh paint pervaded the nicely done up information centre, close to which were the two training centre

buildings.

Comprising 50 rooms, the training centre caters not only to personnel from the Russian Federation but also

those

from

other

countries

which

are

constructing

nuclear

plants.

"Here we impart training to maintenance and operating personnel. We offer simulations of all actions that may happen at a unit. The trainees are made familiar with both normal operations and the emergency situations, including manual shutdown of the plant under extreme conditions," said Vladimir Lobanov, deputy

chief

engineer

for

personnel

training.

After a walk through the classrooms, the visitors were brought before a full scope simulator (physical copy) of the main control room of the plant's very latest unit 6 -- that began operations this year.

"Look, here even the lead engineer's workstation is in the same position as it is in the actual unit," announced Lobanov.

At this point, Lobanov made a thrilling offer. "Why don't you shut down the plant yourself," he asked, pointing

to

a

small

button.

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An emergency situation was simulated, and at the press of the button, things began to happen (or not happen)

within

four

seconds,

and

the

"unit"

came

to

a

halt.

After the simulation, it was time for the real thing. The visitors were transferred to the plant's unit five, that was commissioned in 1980, and would be operational till 2040 after being equipped with additional "post-Fukushima" (the Japanese nuclear plant that met with a disaster in 2011 primarily triggered by a tsunami

after

an earthquake)

emergency

facilities.

After passing through a high security checkpoint, the delegation was taken on a guided tour through the emergency mobile equipment site, and shown the mobile pumping unit. Then came the safety systems building, which, according to plant shift supervisor Alexander Kulakov, has been designed to withstand the

severest

of

earthquakes

and

other

disasters.

"There is now no chance of any Fukushima-type tragedy," said Kulakov, a physicist with a charming and super cool demeanour and 17 years of experience. He has been holding his present post for the last four years.

The premises had a lot of empty spaces, with the white and blue reactor (VVER 1000) building looking awesome.

"The reactor building is the main structure of the plant, with all other edifices and structures arranged around it. The normal operation area includes control boards of reactor and turbine department operations as well as the unit shift supervisor's workstation," said the aquiline nosed shift supervisor.

Climbing up the stairs, Kulakov led the scribes to the turbine hall, where the machines were then undergoing routine maintenance. The tour ended with a guide through the main control room (MCR). A common-use screen is provided at the MCR for fast and clear assessment of the prevailing situation, allowing the shift crew to use the same information on the unit conditions. "In the rare case of MCR inhabitability, the unit is controlled from the emergency control room," said Kulakov.

(Sirshendu Panth was in Russia at the invitation of the Novovoronezh nuclear plant's operators. He can be contacted

at

s.panth@ians.in)

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/science/could-perennial-crops-be-an-answer-to-climatechange/articleshow/59951858.cms

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Acreage devoted to rice research climbs at MSU‘s Delta station MSU rice breeder Ed Redoña discusses his ongoing breeding program at the Delta Research and Extension Center.

Rice acreage may be down in Mississippi this season, but the amount of ground devoted to rice research at Mississippi State University‘s Stoneville research station is as high as Extension agronomist Bobby Golden can remember.This year, the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that the state‘s growers planted about 105,000-110,000 acres, down from the 194,000 acres harvested in 2016. But MSU has 132 acres in a wide variety of rice trials led by six scientists along with six graduate students at the Delta Research and Extension Center, Golden says. The bulk of the research is supported by grower check-off funds administered by the Mississippi Rice Promotion Board.

Golden, as well as several other researchers, gave growers some glimpses of their projects at MSU‘s recent rice field day at the DREC. Based on input from growers, rice breeder Ed Redoña continues to look for genetic material that will improve heat tolerance in rice. High temperatures at the wrong time during plant reproduction can reduce yields by up to 10 percent, he says.

Redoña has imported what he calls ―new blood‖ from the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines and has begun making initial crosses with that genetic material. Altogether, he has about 58 acres of breeding material and varieties in various stages of development.

Yield is the No. 1 selection criteria, followed by other characteristics, such as standability, disease resistance, and milling and cooking quality.

Selections that show promise are put into the five-state uniform regional rice nursery to see how they perform throughout the Mid-South. Redoña also may turn to a facility jointly managed by the five states in Puerto Rico to increase seed during the winter when Mississippi fields are fallow.

But the university‘s work is not finished even after a variety is released. Take Thad, for example.

MSU released the long-grain, which has high amylose and is suitable for parboiling, in 2016.

Golden and his group are conducting variety-by-nitrogen trials to determine optimum fertilization rates and timing for Thad as well as a number of new hybrids and Clearfield inbreds.

Monsanto recently donated its old Leland research station, including a greenhouse, to the university. Redoña says the equipment that is part of the donation will improve his breeding work by enhancing his work with molecular markers.

Grower problems influence trials

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The bulk of the research conducted at the Delta Research and Extension Center is funded by the Mississippi Rice Promotion Board.

Golden along with MSU Extension weed specialist Jason Bond are leading two projects that look at the effects of herbicide drift on rice at various stages of development.

Early in the season, Bond and Golden receive calls from growers about potential drift from burn-down products applied to nearby soybean fields. In the fall, the calls are about desiccants applied to soybean fields that may drift onto nearby rice fields.The researchers also are looking at different fertilization programs to determine the best regimes to nurse along damaged rice.

Bond also continues to conduct trials with new herbicides and those nearing registration. Among those is Provisia herbicide, which was registered in 2016 for use on Provisia rice.

Provisia herbicide from BASF is a grass material with no residual, so it will have to be as part of a full-season program that includes a residual as well as broadleaf control.

Several herbicides, including propanil, have shown antagonism when tankmixed with Provisia. ―Its quirky what causes us problems,‖ Bond says of Provisia. ―The label will be pretty specific.‖ Calling Dow‘s Loyant with Rinskor active a ―really cool herbicide,‖ Bond said the product can take out pigweed as well as Roundup did in its early days. Loyant also is good on barnyardgrass but isn‘t nearly as strong on sprangletop. Loyant‘s weakness is morningglory.

As a broadleaf herbicide, Bond says, Loyant is ―death on a soybean,‖ so growers will have to pay close attention to drift management. It is not registered for use on rice.

March of the fall armyworm MSU Extension rice agronomist Bobby Golden acted as host and tour guide during the recent Mississippi Rice Field Day. Based on increasing infestations of fall armyworm, Jeff Gore, MSU associate Extension entomologist, is trying to replicate the defoliation the larvae can cause. Fall armyworms are migratory, moving north each year from South Texas and Florida.

For the past three to four years, Gore says the larval pest has been arriving earlier in Mississippi, allowing populations to build up to larger numbers.

Not only does he hope to quantify yield reduction but he also wants to examine the infestation‘s effects on milling quality. This work is being done in conjunction with Dr. Gus Lorenz, University of Arkansas Extension entomologist, who is conducting similar trials in his state.

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―We‘re spraying a lot of rice now, but we don‘t know where a lot of our recommendations for spraying fall armyworm on rice came from,‖ Gore says. http://www.ricefarming.com/departments/feature/acreage-devoted-to-rice-research-climbs-atmsus-delta-station/

Philippine National Scientist Gelia Castillo passes away at 89 Published August 7, 2017 1:31pm

By AKARI NAKANO

Philippine National Scientist Gelia Casitllo has passed away. The reason and date of her death are still unknown. She was 89 years old.Castillo was given the rank and title of Philippine National Scientist in 1999 by former President and now Manila Mayor Joseph Estrada.

During her professional career, Castillo was able to share her skills both locally and internationally, 31 provinces and 41 countries, to be exact. Dr. Castillo has served in more than 70 national and international boards, advisory committees, and more with multi-faceted topics such as agriculture, health, population, development policy, women-in-development, social dimensions of science and technology, rural development, nutrition, the family, employment, land-use systems, etc.

She was considered the "grande dame" of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI).

She was IRRI's visiting scientist during the mid-1980s as well as the institue's longtime consultant from 1994 onwards.

Gelia Castillo's passing was commemorated by the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) through a Facebook post where they remembered notable moments with her. http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/scitech/content/620916/philippine-national-scientist-gelia-castillopasses-away-at-89/story/

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China to tackle climate change with crops that will deliver multiple yields Work on developing perennial wheat, buckwheat, sorghum and sunflower are at various stages in China IANS | Bengaluru August

7, 2017 Last Updated at 16:38 IST

Photo: Shutterstock

While India reaped the benefits of the Green Revolution in the 1960s, her neighbour China is now taking the lead in another area of sustainable agriculture -- developing crops that meet the challenges posed by global warming.

Chinese agricultural scientists are working to convert seasonal crops into perennial crops that regrow after being harvested and deliver multiple yields before dying.

"They are saving labour costs. Besides, greater soil carbon storage and lesser input requirements mean that perennial crops have the potential to mitigate global warming," Erik J Sacks, Associate Professor of Crop Sciences at the University of Illinois, told this correspondent in an e-mail.

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73 China's Yunnan Agricultural University (YAU) started working on perennial rice after the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in the Philippines wound up this project in 2001 owing to a financial crisis.

At YAU, Fengyi Hu and his colleagues developed a perennial rice by crossing Oryza sativa -- the shortlived Asian rice -- with a wild African perennial O. longistaminata.

The cross, known as PR 23, "apparently lasts at least five years and gives 10 seasons of grain twice a year with yields comparable to seasonal rice", Nandula Raghuram, Professor and Dean of Biotechnology at New Delhi's Indraprastha University, told this correspondent.

"It seems very convincing and promising," said Raghuram, one of the 50 delegates from over a dozen countries who recently toured different perennial rice-growing sites in the Yunnan province and tasted the cooked rice. "Farmers we spoke to seemed enthusiastic about adopting perennial rice and possibly other crops because of lower input costs."

Noting that perennial rice is a great idea, "next only to hybrid rice", he said perennial legumes are also being developed and it may be possible to have both rice and legume grow perennially in alternative rows/plots on the same field. "This also reduces or eliminates the need for nitrogen fertiliser and reduces the pest/pathogen problems typical to monocultures," Raghuram said.

Work on developing perennial wheat, buckwheat, sorghum and sunflower are also at various stages in China.

"The fact is that rice farmers in China are beginning to adopt perennial rice because they see the benefits to themselves," Sacks said. "Similarly, in the US, some leading farmers are beginning to adopt Kernza (a perennial wheat-like crop) because they find the market conditions and environmental benefits advantageous."

Perennial crops hold many benefits, including reduced chemical runoff -- which means less water pollution -- and reduced soil erosion as these plants develop much greater root mass and protect the soil year-round. Their superior capacity to store carbon and manage resources is widely recognised by ecologists and soil scientists.

The Land Institute in Kansas, according to Timothy Crews, its Director of Research, plans to convert US farmlands to 70 percent perennial crops from the current 25 percent within 50 years.

However, M.S. Swaminathan, considered the father of India's Green Revolution, said the main problem with perennial varieties is the need to effectively manage the "unholy triple alliance" of weeds, pests and pathogens.

"Perennial rice used to be common in the past, but I think because of the pest problem, farmers had given it up," Swaminathan told this correspondent. "There is also perennial wheat and many crops in nature that tend to be perennial. The advantage of perennial crops is that they will be very helpful where there is labour shortage and where the work is being done by family labour."

Raghuram admitted that perennial crops may not be a panacea for all the ills of agriculture -- especially agrarian distress and farmers' suicides in India -- but "they can be an engine for progressive change, both

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74 in economic and environmental terms. The challenge for scientists, extension workers and policymakers is to make it happen".

"While the present varieties of perennial rice developed in China may be suited for Chinese agro climates, "they do offer adequate proof of concept that they can be developed for other agro climates and markets", Raghuram noted.

The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), which has been highly supportive of the Chinese efforts to develop perennial rice, is keen to extend this technology to other parts of the world.

"Perennial rice, combined with perennial legumes, has huge potential in Asia, especially India," Hans Dreyer, director of FAO's plant production division, told this correspondent on the telephone. "A southsouth collaboration on this technology can make this happen."

Anil Rajvanshi, director of Nimbkar Agricultural Research Institute in Phalton, Maharashtra, who is visiting the Land Institute in the US this month, is all for perennials.

"In India we should have a national mission for developing perennial crops for wheat and rice, and ultimately for other crops and vegetables," Rajvanshi told this correspondent. "Crops are like factories.

We never destroy a factory after the produce is made and sold. In fact, most of the time we tweak the machinery and use the same factory to produce different products."

"Yet in agriculture, after the harvest we uproot the plants, till the soil and replant a new crop. This increases soil erosion, takes away a lot of minerals from the soil and uses up a huge amount of water and energy to develop new root structure, besides increasing the time of harvest," he added.

"Perennial crops, on the other hand, hold the soil and tremendously reduce the energy required for food and fruit production," Rajvanshi concluded. http://www.business-standard.com/article/international/china-to-tackle-climate-change-with-crops-thatwill-deliver-multiple-yields-117080700317_1.html

Aloe candy gets Indian patent for 20 years THE HANS INDIA | Aug 07,2017 , 04:55 AM IST

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Hyderabad: After nine and half years of waiting, a candy made with Aloe vera got Indian patent for ‗preparation and method of processing of Aloe candy from Aloe species‘.One of the major difficulties with Aloe vera gel is shelf life. Heating of Aloe gel at temperature above 60 degrees centigrade results in destruction of bioactive polysaccharides, proteins and other enzymes, believed to be responsible for the therapeutic effect of Aloe.

According to Dr M M Azam, principal scientist, crop improvement section at the Indian Institute of Rice Research (IIRR), who developed the Aloe candy, said that in conventional process of making candy that may not survive after heating the targeted materials. Stating that they had adopted a novel process of candy preparation, Azam said the Aloe candy has an appealing flavour, colour, texture.

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The invention retains the therapeutic components of Aloe vera such as bioactive polysaccharides endowed in the pulp, considered the main therapeutic component of Aloe. Explaining the health benefits, he said Aloe vera was known remedy for many digestive disorders such as irritable bowel syndrome, ulcerative colitis, Crohn‘s disease, oesophagitis, peptic ulcers and oral lesions. http://www.thehansindia.com/posts/index/Telangana/2017-08-07/Aloe-candy-gets-Indian-patent-for-20years/317283

GST Council to address tax avoidance by rice millers tomorrow ANI | New Delhi [India] August 4, 2017 Last Updated at 14:22 IST In the wake of various companies withdrawing their registration plea to evade the levy of the Goods and Services Tax (GST), the GST Council will take up the matter of tax avoidance on Saturday.Additionally, the Council is also expected to address the concerns raised by the textile sector, along with discussions on E-Way bill and anti-profiteering authority.According to sources from the Ministry of Finance, the Centre has called on the GST Council for the meeting, fearing that companies are looking to avoid the GST using various tactics.Recently, KRBL Group, the parent company of India Gate, which owns a market share of 30 percent, withdrew its registration application on June 30, to avoid being taxed by the GST.Therefore, the Council has decided to look into the issue of tax avoidance by rice millers. http://www.business-standard.com/article/news-ani/gst-council-to-address-tax-avoidance-by-rice-millerstomorrow-117080400610_1.html

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Erratic Weather Threatens Livelihood Of Rice Farmers In Madagascar Listen¡5 August 6, 20177:51 AM ET Heard on Weekend Edition Sunday JASON BEAUBIEN FacebookTwitterInstagram

Children walk through a rice field outside the town of Kelilalina in eastern Madagascar. Rice is the dominant food and the dominant crop on the Indian Ocean island, but changing weather patterns are disrupting production in some parts of the country.

Samantha Reinders for NPR All his life, 56-year-old Jeanpier Marolahy has been growing rice in eastern Madagascar, on the steep hills that slope down from the central highlands toward the Indian Ocean.

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The thin, weather-beaten Marolahy knows that rice production is all about water and timing. The grain needs a lot of water at first, but if torrential rains fall at harvest time, they can destroy the crop.

Rice is a hugely important part of life on the island nation off the southeastern coast of Africa. At times, it shows up for breakfast, lunch and dinner. In much of the country, it dominates the landscape, planted in small plots across millions of acres of land.

But erratic rains and powerful storms are threatening rice production in parts Madagascar and putting the livelihoods of subsistence farmers like Marolahy at risk.

For years, Marolahy says, the wet and dry seasons arrived in his fields in a relatively predictable pattern. But that is no longer the case.

The weather has clearly changed, Marolahy says, from when he was a boy.

Article continues after sponsorship Ankle-deep in the mud of a rice paddy, Marolahy notes that when he was a kid, this part of eastern Madagascar might get hit by a cyclone once every five years. Now, he says, he can get five big storms in a single year.

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Jeanpier Marolahy has farmed rice all of his life in eastern Madagascar. The 56-year-old says the weather has definitely changed from when he was a boy. Rains are more erratic and cyclones more frequent.

Samantha Reinders for NPR Complicating matters even more, this area was plagued by a four-month drought last year that Marolahy says was the worst he has ever seen.Marolahy has two small rice paddies in a narrow valley just outside the Ranomafana National Park. He also has two smaller plots of rice and vegetables terraced into an adjacent hillside. These four fields are the only source of income for his family.This year, the rains have been steady, but he says it has been abnormally cold and the seedlings are growing very slowly."Look," he says, pointing to a 10-foot-by-10-foot plot of bright green rice shoots. "They are like this." He holds open his thumb and forefinger. "But they should be like this," he says, holding his hands about 6 inches apart. At night, he covers the seedlings with banana leaves to try to keep them warm.

Marolahy isn't just another farmer complaining about uncooperative weather. Climate scientists say weather patterns are becoming more unpredictable.Researchers tracking the temperature in the adjacent national park say the highs and lows in this part of Madagascar have become far more extreme over the past two decades.

Marolahy says he plans to slash and burn a nearby hillside to expand his small farm, in part because rice production is less reliable than it used to be.

Samantha Reinders for NPR

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In 2014, Celia Harvey, a scientist with Conservation International, helped conduct a study looking at how changing climatic conditions are affecting 600 small-scale farmers on the island nation.

"We found that farmers are experiencing very variable rainfall and very variable crop production," Harvey says.

The study also found that small-scale farmers in Madagascar are ill-prepared to deal with climatic fluctuations.

"They have large families. They have very small areas of land. They're very poor. They lack access to basic services. They're really living on the edge in many ways," she says. "So they depend almost entirely on rice production for both their food security and for income generation.

So anything that affects their rice production ultimately very quickly undermines their livelihood."

According to the World Bank, three-quarters of the population of Madagascar lives in poverty.

Most of those people survive by growing their own food.

In Madagascar, these small, subsistence farms are particularly vulnerable to tropical storms.

Madagascar is as long from tip to toe as Texas. Its 1,000-mile-long east coast stands as a long, straight bulwark protecting southern Africa from storms that barrel west across the open Indian Ocean. As ocean temperatures rise, climate scientists expect that more powerful and more frequent tropical storms will buffet Madagascar.

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Rice production in Madagascar depends heavily on predictable rains during the planting season.

Most of the rice in the country is grown in small plots by subsistence farmers who depend on the crop for their primary source of income and food.

Samantha Reinders for NPR "Madagascar is one of those countries that are very exposed to cyclones, and when cyclones come through, farmers typically lose most of their rice crop," Harvey says.

Marolahy, the rice farmer, says he has few options on how to deal with the erratic weather. His land is the most valuable thing he owns. He can't just move somewhere else or find another job.

His strategy to deal with the fluctuations in his rice yields is to expand. Later this year, he plans to burn the bushes off a hillside above his rice paddies and try planting cassava and beans.

Not far from Marolahy's fields, another family of rice farmers is also diversifying. Perline Ramaniandaibe and her two daughters are panning for gold in a small stream that serves as both the sewer and the spring for the village of Kelilalina in eastern Madagascar.

Ramaniandaibe says some days they don't find any gold, but other days, they find a few flecks of the precious metal. They use the gold to support their rice farm.

"We don't have any other way to make money, only this, this gold," she says.

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Rice farmers in Madagascar have started panning for gold to supplement their income. But there are days, these women say, when they don't find any gold at all.

Samantha Reinders for NPR One of the benefits of panning for gold, Ramaniandaibe says, is that when flooding makes it impossible to work in their fields, the rising water cuts in to the hillsides, exposing soil that potentially could yield more gold. She concedes that ripping up agricultural land to search for gold is a problem over the long term, but at least it can bring in some cash when crops fail.

And there may be another silver lining to climate change for some parts of the island. While researchers say storms and erratic rainfall will make it harder to grow rice in eastern Madagascar, rising temperatures might boost rice production in the central highlands of the country, where lower temperatures currently limit the growing season.

Farmers use what gold they find to support their rice fields, which have been battered by inconsistent weather patterns.

Samantha Reinders for NPR

http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2017/08/06/541462387/erratic-weather-threatens-livelihood-of-ricefarmers-in-madagascar

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Are Industrial Agriculture and Genetic Modification the Answer to Feeding Humanity?

Industrial agriculture has made it possible to produce large amounts of food fairly efficiently, but it also comes with numerous problems.

By Dr. David Suzuki, Ian Hanington / Greystone Books

August 6, 2017, 12:00 PM GMT Photo Credit: Kletr The following excerpt is from Just Cool It! A Post-Paris Agreement Game Plan, by David Suzuki and Ian Hanington (Greystone Books, 2017) Over the past half century, the world has moved increasingly to industrial agriculture— attempting to maximize efficiency through running massive, often inhumane livestock operations; turning huge swaths of land over to monocrops requiring liberal use of fertilizers, pesticides, and genetic modification; and relying on machinery that consumes fossil fuel and underpaid migrant workers. Industrial agriculture has made it possible to produce large amounts of food fairly efficiently, but it also comes with numerous problems: increased greenhouse gas emissions; loss of forests and wetlands that prevent climate change by storing carbon; pollution from runoff and pesticides; antibiotic and pesticide resistance; reduced biodiversity; and soil degradation, erosion, and loss. Depletion of fertile soils is especially troubling, with losses estimated to be occurring up to one hundred times faster than they can regenerate with current industrial agriculture practices. Biodiversity loss refers to both a reduction in the number of crop varieties—more than 75 percent of plant genetic diversity has vanished over the past 100 years, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization—and to reduced biodiversity among species that require diverse habitats for survival.

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The ―solution‖ many experts offer for feeding a growing human population is to double down on industrial agriculture and genetic modification. Some argue leaning more heavily on genetically modified crops, and perhaps even animals, is the only way to go. A new process called clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats, or CRISPR, allows researchers to turn a specific gene on or off. It‘s being touted as a way to produce ―plants that can withstand what an increasingly overheated nature has in store‖ and create ―a more nutritious yield, from less plant,‖ according to a 2015 Newsweek article.

Those who oppose increasing reliance on genetic modification for agriculture are often accused of being ―anti-science.‖ Although it‘s true that some activists focus on potential health impacts of eating genetically modified organisms, or GMOs, and many studies have found no real evidence for such impacts, the technology comes with a host of other problems, some of them intertwined with industrial agriculture itself.

Many GMO proponents point to ―golden rice‖ to illustrate the benefits of genetic modification and to criticize ―counterproductive‖ attitudes of anti-GMO forces. The rice, which unlike many genetically modified products, is not patented by a large company like Monsanto, is modified to produce more vitamin A, thus potentially reducing infection, disease, and blindness among poor people who don‘t get enough of the vitamin. Noting that the International Rice Research Institute has itself admitted the rice hasn‘t yet proven to do much if anything to address the problem, Greenpeace Southeast Asia campaigner Wilhelmina Pelegrina told the Washington Post, ―Corporations are overhyping ‗Golden‘ Rice to pave the way for global approval of other more profitable genetically engineered crops. This costly experiment has failed to produce results for the last 20 years and diverted attention from methods that already work. Rather than invest in this overpriced public relations exercise, we need to address malnutrition through a more diverse diet, equitable access to food and eco-agriculture.‖ A number of researchers agree. Washington University researcher Glenn Stone, initially a golden rice supporter, said, ―The rice simply has not been successful in test plots of the rice breeding institutes in the Philippines, where the leading research is being done.‖ Industrial agriculture and increased genetic modification ignore how natural systems function and interact and assume we can do better. History shows such hubris often leads to unexpected negative results. Excessive use of pesticides such as DDT is just one example of human innovation and ―dominance‖ over nature that came back to bite us. People thought DDT was a

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benign wonder chemical that would reduce diseases spread by mosquitoes and protect crops from insects. Then, in 1962, biologist Rachel Carson published Silent Spring, which showed that the chemicals bio-magnify as they move up the food chain. In other words, higher concentrations of the chemicals accumulate in fat cells of animals throughout the food chain, with the highest concentrations found in top predators, including humans. Predatory birds, such as eagles, were hit especially hard by widespread DDT use. Of course, our use of fossil fuels, once thought to be an entirely beneficial fuel that would improve lives and give people more freedom and mobility, is another example of how the lack of a full understanding of natural systems can lead to dire consequences.

David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster, author, and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation.

Ian Hanington is Senior Editor at the David Suzuki Foundaton and is co-author with David Suzuki of Everything Under the Sun: Toward a Brighter Future on a Small Blue Planet (Greystone Books, 2012) and Just Cool It! A Post-Paris Agreement Game Plan (Greystone Books, 2017). He lives in Vancouver, B.C.

http://www.alternet.org/books/are-industrial-agriculture-and-genetic-modification-answer-feedinghumanity

NIGERIA RISES TO ITS RICE POTENTIAL Omolola Ojo Aug. 4 2017, 1:10 pm After the night they say comes the dawn, agriculture in Nigeria has lived in the shadows of the monstrous oil sector since the discovery of oil in Nigeria but the dawn is here for the Nigerian Agriculture sector as its rice revolution intensifies and rice market indicates economic potentials in years to come.

With all these in mind, the goal is to ensure the reduction of agricultural produce, most especially rice and turn into a major rice exporter, the Country‘s Acting President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, commissioned the N10 Billion WACOT Rice Processing Mill with a production capacity of 100,000 tonnes annually; silos for storing 18,000 tonnes of paddy and a warehouse for storing additional 12,000 tonnes of paddy.

When operational, it is expected to generate direct and indirect employment for 3,500 people, as well as paddy procurement reach to 50,000 farmers. This mill underscores the policies of the Nigerian Government, that it is the private sector that must be the engine of development.

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Rice is an increasingly important crop in Nigeria, grown for sale and consumption, rendering satisfaction to bellies and purses of the growing population. With an estimated amount of N356 billion spent on importation of rice annually, it is an irony that Nigeria is currently largest producer of rice in West Africa and the second largest importer of rice in the world.

It was revealed in the first half of the year by the President of the Rice Farmers Association of Nigeria (RIFAN), Alhaji Aminu Goronyo, that ―annual rice production in Nigeria has increased from 5.5 million tonnes in 2015 to 5.8 million tonnes in 2017‖. This progressive increase is as a result of the Central Bank of Nigeria‘s Anchor Borrowers Programme (ABP) which was launched in 2015, the programme is aimed at creating economic linkages between over 600,000 smallholder farmers and reputable large-scale processors, making the vision of ‗ease of doing business‘ for private sectors in the country possible.

While also increasing agricultural output and improve capacity utilization of integrated mills, with 12 million rice producers aiming to benefit from the ADP and 4 million hectares of FADAMA rice land available in the country, it is safe to say the initiative can close the gap between the level of local rice production and domestic consumption.

The WACOT Rice Mill, which is reportedly the largest parboiled rice mill in Africa, is also the first rice plant in Nigeria with captive power co-generation facility. It will generate electricity from rice husks, thereby ensuring that all by-products and waste products are fully consumed and the environment is protected. Professor Osinbajo said the mill emphasizes one of the policies of the Nigerian Government, that it is the private sector that must be the engine of development.

By owning a mill with the capacity to produce world class rice that could be compared with those produced in Thailand and India, Nigeria can expand its economy by exporting rice to other African countries like, Cameroon, Niger, Chad, Mali and Mauritania and other neighboring countries.

With a prospect of competing in the global market, it is therefore paramount that the Nigerian Government does everything possible to fully unlock the potential of agriculture in the country.

Agriculture produce exportation is not only a huge revenue earner but also a vehicle to achieving macro-economic and fiscal stability in nations. Adding to it is the ability to drive down inflation, create lot of jobs and promote rural transformation.

The present rice consumption rate is now said to be at a staggering 7.9 million tonnes and production rate has increased to 5.8 tonnes per annum, hence the need to expand its rice production capacity.

Records show that, N33.34 billion had been invested by the government through 12 participating finance institutions in respect of 146,557 farmers across 21 cultivating states with over 180,018

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hectares of land, and the acquiring of a N3 billion loan by Cross Rivers state, to establish a rice mill. The prospect looks good as many farmers are beginning to buy into the ABP initiative.

There is without doubt that, the country can fully unlock its great potential of agriculture with the willingness and determination of the present administration to empower farmers, ensure policy continuity, and improve of production-oriented initiatives; it is only a matter of time before the sun never goes to bed in the agricultural sector of the country.

Rice sales to China hold promise for California Bill Husa-Enterprise-Record file photograph The bankout wagon collects rice while a harvester works a field of short grain rice. Rice sales to China are expected to boost statewide sales.

By Ching Lee, AgAlert Posted: 08/03/17, 3:20 PM PDT | Updated: 55 secs ago After struggling with depressed market prices for the last two years, California rice farmers and marketers say the historic deal reached last month between the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Chinese officials couldn‘t have come at a better time.

The two countries have agreed on a long-stalled phytosanitary protocol that will permit the import of U.S. milled rice into China, an action expected to benefit American rice farmers generally but that could be particularly positive for California growers and millers.

China opened its rice market when it joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, but U.S. rice was barred from the market because of a lack of a phytosanitary agreement between the two governments.

With a population of 1.38 billion, China is the world‘s largest consumer of rice, with imports reaching nearly 5 million metric tons last year, according to USDA. The country consumes the equivalent of the entire U.S. rice crop every 13 days, the USA Rice Federation said. ―We think that‘s a market where we can get a premium for our rice, so we‘re certainly encouraged,‖ said Tim Johnson, president and CEO of the California Rice Commission.

In the first year, China is expected to import up to 50,000 metric tons of U.S. rice, with some 30,000 to 40,000 metric tons coming from California, said Steve Vargas, senior vice president of sales for Sun Valley Rice Co. in Arbuckle. The hope, he added, is to grow those shipments to 200,000 metric tons within five years.

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―For California, it‘s very promising, because the bulk of that business will come to California for medium-grain and short-grain varieties,‖ said Vargas, who serves as vice chair of the USA Rice international promotion committee.

China already imports a great deal of long-grain rice from Vietnam, Pakistan and India, which will make it more difficult for U.S. Southern rice growers to compete in that market, he noted.

With food safety being a major concern for Chinese consumers, he said California rice, which is largely Calrose medium grain, has a ―very distinctive marketing advantage‖ because of its reputation for being a quality, safe product.

Not only does the Golden State produce the quality of rice that Chinese consumers desire, but it also has a shipping advantage over other, major rice-growing states such as Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri and Texas, said Mark Chesini, director of operations for the Yuba Citybased Rice Growers Association, which markets California rice.

Himself a fourth-generation farmer, Chesini said many California rice growers have been feeling down about market prices that have been below their cost of production during the last two years, although prices have been trending higher in recent months due to stocks that are now ―well below average.‖ The wet spring this year also kept many growers from getting in their fields, reducing California rice plantings about 20 percent. Fields that were planted late may have lower yields, he added. With all these pressures already boosting prices, Chesini said he expects access to China‘s market will lead to even-better prices for the 2017 crop and beyond. ―I think this is going to help us get back to those price levels that will keep farmers — and everybody else who works in the industry — in business,‖ he said. ―I think they‘re feeling a lot more confident about this crop that they‘re growing.‖ Announcement of the U.S.-China agreement represents just the first step in a process before any U.S. rice can begin shipping to China, said Chris Crutchfield, president and CEO of American Commodity Co. in Williams. He also chairs USA Rice‘s Asia promotion committee.

Ten years in the making, the phytosanitary protocol is ―the most in-depth and extensive‖ in which the U.S. has ever entered and requires interested exporters to go through inspections and other activities to become qualified, he added. Chinese inspectors are expected to visit U.S. mills this fall to begin that process.

If everything goes without a hitch, Vargas said, U.S. rice shipments could start making their way to China by the end of the year.

Even though the bar is higher, Johnson said he does not think California mills will have trouble achieving the standards. Crutchfield and Vargas noted many facilities, including those of ACC and Sun Valley, have already implemented the required processes in anticipation of the agreement.

They further noted that USA Rice has been leading promotion activities for more than 10 years to introduce Chinese customers to U.S. rice and to educate them about its types and quality. The

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U.S. began actively pursuing that market, Crutchfield said, when China evolved from being a major exporter of rice—and one of the state‘s biggest competitors—to being a net importer during the last decade. It is still the world‘s largest producer of rice.

Whereas other export sales for U.S. rice are typically handled by import or tariff-based quotas rooted in trade agreements, Johnson said China will be a commercial market, in that there are no pre-set tariff restrictions or volumes. This would be no different from how U.S. rice currently enters Canada, Mexico or Turkey, he noted. ―This simply says the market can determine the amounts of rice that will be imported,‖ he said. ―It‘d be based on consumer preferences. We‘re excited about that, because we know we compete quite well when people get a chance to try our rice.‖ The target market, at least initially, is expected to be in China‘s coastal areas, among higherincome people and in the hotel and restaurant trade, USA Rice said.

Crutchfield said even though China‘s expanding middle class is a ―super-small percentage‖ of its overall population, it is still a huge number that‘s comparable to the entire U.S. market. Higherincome Chinese consumers, he said, ―don‘t want to feed their families much food that is produced in (China) because of the food-safety issues.‖ ―When you look at it from that perspective, it‘s a great market potential,‖ he said. ―Of course, that‘s not going to happen overnight. But over time, I think it can be developed into a great market for not just the main Calrose medium-grain rice that we (in California) grow but for all types and varieties of U.S. rice.‖ http://www.dailydemocrat.com/article/NI/20170803/BUSINESS/170809921

Rice sales to China hold promise for California Bill Husa-Enterprise-Record file photograph The bankout wagon collects rice while a harvester works a field of short grain rice. Rice sales to China are expected to boost statewide sales.

By Ching Lee, AgAlert Posted: 08/03/17, 3:20 PM PDT | Updated: 1 day ago After struggling with depressed market prices for the last two years, California rice farmers and marketers say the historic deal reached last month between the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Chinese officials couldn‘t have come at a better time.

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The two countries have agreed on a long-stalled phytosanitary protocol that will permit the import of U.S. milled rice into China, an action expected to benefit American rice farmers generally but that could be particularly positive for California growers and millers.

China opened its rice market when it joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, but U.S. rice was barred from the market because of a lack of a phytosanitary agreement between the two governments.

With a population of 1.38 billion, China is the world‘s largest consumer of rice, with imports reaching nearly 5 million metric tons last year, according to USDA. The country consumes the equivalent of the entire U.S. rice crop every 13 days, the USA Rice Federation said. ―We think that‘s a market where we can get a premium for our rice, so we‘re certainly encouraged,‖ said Tim Johnson, president and CEO of the California Rice Commission.

In the first year, China is expected to import up to 50,000 metric tons of U.S. rice, with some 30,000 to 40,000 metric tons coming from California, said Steve Vargas, senior vice president of sales for Sun Valley Rice Co. in Arbuckle. The hope, he added, is to grow those shipments to 200,000 metric tons within five years. ―For California, it‘s very promising, because the bulk of that business will come to California for medium-grain and short-grain varieties,‖ said Vargas, who serves as vice chair of the USA Rice international promotion committee.

China already imports a great deal of long-grain rice from Vietnam, Pakistan and India, which will make it more difficult for U.S. Southern rice growers to compete in that market, he noted.

With food safety being a major concern for Chinese consumers, he said California rice, which is largely Calrose medium grain, has a ―very distinctive marketing advantage‖ because of its reputation for being a quality, safe product.

Not only does the Golden State produce the quality of rice that Chinese consumers desire, but it also has a shipping advantage over other, major rice-growing states such as Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri and Texas, said Mark Chesini, director of operations for the Yuba Citybased Rice Growers Association, which markets California rice.

Himself a fourth-generation farmer, Chesini said many California rice growers have been feeling down about market prices that have been below their cost of production during the last two years, although prices have been trending higher in recent months due to stocks that are now ―well below average.‖ The wet spring this year also kept many growers from getting in their fields, reducing California rice plantings about 20 percent. Fields that were planted late may have lower yields, he added. With all these pressures already boosting prices, Chesini said he expects access to China‘s market will lead to even-better prices for the 2017 crop and beyond. ―I think this is going to help us get back to those price levels that will keep farmers — and everybody else who works in the industry — in business,‖ he said. ―I think they‘re feeling a lot more confident about this crop that they‘re growing.‖

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Announcement of the U.S.-China agreement represents just the first step in a process before any U.S. rice can begin shipping to China, said Chris Crutchfield, president and CEO of American Commodity Co. in Williams. He also chairs USA Rice‘s Asia promotion committee.

Ten years in the making, the phytosanitary protocol is ―the most in-depth and extensive‖ in which the U.S. has ever entered and requires interested exporters to go through inspections and other activities to become qualified, he added. Chinese inspectors are expected to visit U.S. mills this fall to begin that process.

If everything goes without a hitch, Vargas said, U.S. rice shipments could start making their way to China by the end of the year.

Even though the bar is higher, Johnson said he does not think California mills will have trouble achieving the standards. Crutchfield and Vargas noted many facilities, including those of ACC and Sun Valley, have already implemented the required processes in anticipation of the agreement.

They further noted that USA Rice has been leading promotion activities for more than 10 years to introduce Chinese customers to U.S. rice and to educate them about its types and quality. The U.S. began actively pursuing that market, Crutchfield said, when China evolved from being a major exporter of rice—and one of the state‘s biggest competitors—to being a net importer during the last decade. It is still the world‘s largest producer of rice.

Whereas other export sales for U.S. rice are typically handled by import or tariff-based quotas rooted in trade agreements, Johnson said China will be a commercial market, in that there are no pre-set tariff restrictions or volumes. This would be no different from how U.S. rice currently enters Canada, Mexico or Turkey, he noted. ―This simply says the market can determine the amounts of rice that will be imported,‖ he said. ―It‘d be based on consumer preferences. We‘re excited about that, because we know we compete quite well when people get a chance to try our rice.‖ The target market, at least initially, is expected to be in China‘s coastal areas, among higherincome people and in the hotel and restaurant trade, USA Rice said.

Crutchfield said even though China‘s expanding middle class is a ―super-small percentage‖ of its overall population, it is still a huge number that‘s comparable to the entire U.S. market. Higherincome Chinese consumers, he said, ―don‘t want to feed their families much food that is produced in (China) because of the food-safety issues.‖ ―When you look at it from that perspective, it‘s a great market potential,‖ he said. ―Of course, that‘s not going to happen overnight. But over time, I think it can be developed into a great market for not just the main Calrose medium-grain rice that we (in California) grow but for all types and varieties of U.S. rice. http://www.dailydemocrat.com/article/NI/20170803/BUSINESS/170809921

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Egypt cuts cultivation of water-intensive crops Author: Walaa Hussein Posted августа 3, 2017

A laborer transplants rice seedlings in a paddy field in Qalyub, northeast of Cairo, Egypt, June 1, 2016. (photo by REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh) CAIRO — Egypt‘s Cabinet completed July 5 the drafting of the new water resources and irrigation bill, which calls for penalizing farmers who grow water-intensive crops, especially rice, outside the land plots authorized by the government on an annual basis.

Summary⎙ Print In anticipation of a water crisis following the construction of the Renaissance Dam, Egypt‘s government is preparing a draft law to impose harsher sanctions on the cultivation of water-intensive crops, but some say farmers must first be offered alternatives.

Author Walaa Hussein Posted августа 3, 2017 The sanctions come amid a water crisis in Egypt, which is expected to exacerbate with the opening of the Ethiopian Renaissance Dam. Article 32 of the bill states, ―The Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation specifies the surface areas and regions allocated for rice cultivation yearly by virtue of a decision issued by the minister. The decision will also determine the areas and regions allocated for growing water-intensive crops yearly. The growing of rice and crops that

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require high water levels in places other than those determined by the ministerial decision will be prohibited.‖ Article 126 of the bill says that any person who violates the provisions of Article 32 will be sanctioned by imprisonment for a period of not more than six months and a fine not less than 2,000 Egyptian pounds ($112), and not more than 10,000 pounds ($560) for each acre or fraction of an acre or with any of those two sanctions. ―The sanction will be doubled in case the violation is repeated,‖ the article adds.

The Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation, in coordination with the Ministry of Agriculture, determines each year before the rice season the surface area to be cultivated with rice annually, according to the allocated water quantities to be pumped for agricultural use from Egypt's estimated Nile water quota of 55.5 billion cubic meters.

The Ministry of Irrigation issued a decision Jan. 23 for the 2017 rice planting season to allocate 1.76 million acres to plant rice in specific places in only eight provinces, and said sanctions would be imposed on violators.

The Ministry of Agriculture issued a report that was circulated in media outlets July 26 indicating that 227,000 acres have been planted in violation of the Irrigation Ministry‘s decision; violation reports were being drafted for 192,000 farmers.

Both ministries have shared responsibility to determine rice planting, detect violations and set fines.

Egypt‘s government is seeking to shrink the rice cultivation area. Mohamed Abdel Ati, the minister of water resources and irrigation, decided on Oct. 26, 2016, to decrease by 34.6% the area allocated to rice production in the 2017 season.

Although the annually cultivated area in 2016 exceeded 2 million acres and given that many farmers are inclined to oppose the government decision and grow rice outside the allocated lands, the Egyptian parliament has always intervened in previous years with the presidency and the government to obtain a decision exempting farmers from fines.The Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation has raised its voice against this exemption in the last two years, insisting on removing the unauthorized rice crops by burning them and fining violators about 3,600 Egyptian pounds ($202) per acre for squandering irrigation water.

The former head of the Egyptian Farmers Union, Mohamed Barghash, told AlMonitor, ―The law is an ultimatum for farmers — they either go to jail or face hunger."Barghash called on President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to intervene, especially since the government imposes stringent sanctions that prevent farmers from growing rice crops annually without providing any alternative, knowing that some Egyptian farmers are forced to grow rice to counter the salinization of the soil, especially in areas near the Mediterranean Sea. He said, ―Egyptian farmers are never against the protection and rationalization of Egypt's limited water resources, but the government is not looking at the whole picture.‖ Barghash called on the government to assess the role of agricultural research

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centers whose staff members are working in offices and not making any field visits to agricultural land and fields to promote the farmers‘ attachment to their land and guide them to alternatives crops that may fill the food gap in Egypt, as well as achieve a balance whereby the kinds of crops grown due to the salinity of their agricultural land do not drain water resources.

The referral of the bill from the government to Egypt‘s parliament is expected to stir a wave of controversy among parliamentarians in light of the opposition of many lawmakers to the sanctions imposed in the bill, which include an imprisonment penalty.

In 2016-17, the total fines collected by the Ministry of Irrigation and imposed on farmers cultivating rice in violation of the 1984 Irrigation and Drainage Law No. 12 amounted to 3.6 billion pounds.

The undersecretary of the Egyptian parliament's Agriculture Committee, legislator Raef Tamraz, told Al-Monitor that he intends to mobilize the members of the committee to keep the new government bill from being approved by parliament. ―The government must first provide alternative solutions for rice production. The law will turn more than 1 million acres of Egyptian land into fallow lands, especially in the regions near the Mediterranean Sea in the Delta, which are only suitable for rice cultivation in summer as a result of salinization of the soil,‖ he said.

Parliamentarian Magdy Malak, also a member of the Agriculture Committee, has a different opinion. He told Al-Monitor, ―Members of parliament must support any steps that would regulate and maintain Egyptian water rationing — especially as Egypt is expected to face an imminent water crisis if no agreement is reached with Ethiopia on the filling period of the Renaissance Dam in such a way that does not harm the flow of Egypt's Nile water quota.‖ Hossam El-Imam, the director of the Regional Center for Water Ethics in the Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation and official spokesman for the ministry, told AlMonitor, ―The new sanctions are not meant to imprison and fine farmers but to prevent them from committing a crime by violating the water rights of other farmers.‖ He noted, ―Egypt no longer has the luxury of growing crops with high water needs, given the scarcity of our water resources. It is not just about rice; other crops will soon be cut also.‖ In the meantime, Cairo keeps deploying continuous efforts to face its water scarcity and to resolve its disputes with the Nile upstream countries over their demands to redivide Nile water quotas on the one hand, and with Ethiopia to ease the anticipated impact from the filling of the Renaissance Dam on the other hand.

Read More: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2017/08/egypt-bill-sanctioncultivation-rice-crops-water-crisis.html http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/ru/originals/2017/08/egypt-bill-sanctioncultivation-rice-crops-water-crisis.html#ixzz4osLA8RvT

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