11th november,2017 daily global regional local rice e newsletter

Daily Rice E-Newsletter

Daily Global, Regional and Local Rice E-Newsletter November 11, 2017 Volume 9 | Issuu XI

 Basmati rice exports may drop to 3 year low on new EU rule  Water is Scarce in Egypt; so are Research Funds  Why dietary choices have an impact on global wildlife and human populations  Elevated CO2 Alleviates Aluminum Toxicity in Rice  Recent floods to affect food production growth: FAO  Cost of importing food poised to rise by 6% to $1.413 trillion in 2017  India Basmati Rice Exports May Drop to 3-Year Low on New EU Rule  Peru-Australia free trade deal to boost sugar, beef, rice and wine for exporters  Battambang facility soon to start drying rice  Rice exports grow as China buys lion’s share  Loans allotted to hold paddy  Rice importer acquires industrial building in Missouri City  Export Summary-Iran, Japan buy wheat; Morocco seeks durum  Rice producers fear unemployment next year  Nagpur Foodgrain Prices Open- November 10, 2017  Egypt takes measures against rice straw burning: Environment Min  Rice exports grow as China buys lion’s share  IRRI team to be deployed to Papua New Guinea to train farmers on sustainable rice production  University of Arkansas System notebook  PM s statement prior to his departure to philippines  Water is Scarce in Egypt; so are Research Funds  Yolo County’s first woman rice miller calls for more women

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Daily Global, Regional and Local Rice E-Newsletter Rice News Detail‌

Basmati rice exports may drop to 3 year low on new EU rule Basmati rice exports may decline as much as 5% to 3.79 million metric tons in the year that began on 1 April from a year earlier Pratik Parija

Rice companies are expected to focus on the domestic market after a surge in local prices following lower stockpiles and concerns that a drop in the crop area would lead to lower output.

Photo: Hemant Mishra/Mint New Delhi: India’s basmati rice exports may drop to a three-year low this year as the European Union (EU) tightens a fungicide rule and local prices strengthen.

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Daily Global, Regional and Local Rice E-Newsletter Exports may decline as much as 5% to 3.79 million metric tons in the year that began on 1 April from a year earlier, said Vijay Setia, president of All India Rice Exporters Association. That would be the lowest since 2014-15, according to the association’s data.

“We will try to export polished rice to the European Union to avoid the new fungicide norms,” Setia said in a phone interview. Exporters are possibly not yet fully prepared to meet the new stringent norms, he said.

According to the European Union’s rule, the residue level of Tricyclazole fungicide in basmati rice should not exceed 0.01 parts per million from 1 January 2018, compared with 1 part per million currently, Setia said. About 80% of India’s basmati rice shipments include unpolished grains. The rest is sold after polishing, which significantly lowers fungicide residues.

Rice companies are expected to focus on the domestic market after a surge in local prices following lower stockpiles and concerns that a drop in the crop area would lead to lower output, Setia said. Basmati paddy output may fall 8% from a year earlier to 5.65 million tons in 2017-18, a decline for a third straight year and the lowest since at least 2009, according to the association.

Farmers across the country have reduced planting 7.7% to 1.55 million hectares (3.8 million acres) from a year earlier to grow other agricultural crops, according to the association.

Local prices of some aromatic varieties used in dishes such as biryani and pilaf have surged 50% to around Rs30 per kilogram from a year earlier. The price rally may boost earnings of millers such as KRBL Ltd and LT Foods Ltd, which have already seen their share prices doubling this year.

Basmati rice exports totaled 2.12 million tons in the six month through 30 September, compared with 2.06 million tons a year earlier. Total rice exports climbed to 6.07 million tons from 5.43 million tons, according to the association’s data. Bloomberg http://www.livemint.com/Home-Page/6ECgIN0oPp60aQfM3ISt2L/Basmati-rice-exports-may-drop-to-3year-low-on-new-EU-rule.html

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Daily Global, Regional and Local Rice E-Newsletter Water is Scarce in Egypt; so are Research Funds Tarek Abd El-Galil / 10 Nov 2017

El Ibrahimiya Canal, Egypt's largest irrigation canal, depends on water from the Nile. (Photo by Tarek Abd Elgalil) ASSIUT, Egypt—Egyptian researchers are exploring innovative solutions to some aspects of the country’s water-scarcity problem, including projects that seek to make the use of water in agriculture more efficient, to devise affordable ways of desalinating brackish water, and to recycle the “gray water” produced by laundries. But weak public funding for these projects makes it difficult to carry them out.

One promising new project aims to cut in half the amount of water needed to cultivate rice—a significant issue as rice crops now consume more than 10 billion cubic meters of water a year, or one-fifth of the 55.5 billion cubic meters of water that Egypt claims as its annual share of the Nile River’s flow. But that claim is coming under pressure as disputes intensify between Egypt and other nations that share the Nile and its headwaters.

Egypt’s economy, especially agriculture, depends almost entirely on water from the Nile. Even with its current allotment, Egypt faces a deficit between available water resources and current uses. Its per-capita water resources—about 660 cubic meters per person per year, according to a 2014 report—are already below the global “water poverty” line and approaching the threshold the United Nations defines as “absolute scarcity.”

The water politics of the region and the heavy use of water in growing rice underscore the importance of projects like one led by Mohamed El-Sayed El-Hagarey. El-Hagarey, a researcher at the Desert Research Center of Egypt’s Ministry of Agriculture, was honored last year by the International Commission on Irrigation and Drainage, an international organization based in New Delhi, for devising a plow and planting technique that can save about half the amount of irrigation water needed to grow rice.

“Rice needs to be continuously immersed with water until it reaches 10 to 15 centimeters above the soil surface,” said el-Hagarey. “This causes significant loss of water and fertilizers.”

El-Hagarey’s new plow forms V-shaped trenches in the soil, and a seeding tray that follows the plow deposits rice seedlings into the furrows. The trenches are then filled with the water necessary for the plants’ growth. This amount is much less than the irrigation water used in traditional rice cultivation, in which the entire field is flooded.

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Daily Global, Regional and Local Rice E-Newsletter The new technique was tested in a field in Kafr El-Sheikh, a governorate famous for rice cultivation in Egypt. “The results were satisfactory, with the crop increasing by 4.6 percent and the use of water decreased by 50 percent,” said el-Hagarey.

Egypt’s concerns over its water resources have increased since 2011, when Ethiopia began building its Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on the Blue Nile River, a major tributary of the Nile. The new dam, now nearing completion, will create a reservoir that ultimately is expected to hold more than 60 billion cubic meters of water. It will take years to fill the reservoir, and that process threatens to reduce the flow of fresh water downstream to Sudan and Egypt.

“This will cause the desertification of three million acres of land in Egypt,” said Nader Noureddine, a professor of water resources and land reclamation at Cairo University. That’s an area equivalent to 51 percent of the country’s agricultural land, he said, and its loss would worsen the nation’s food gap.

Other Sources of Fresh Water Another option for providing fresh water is desalination, but that technology typically has been considered too slow and expensive for widespread adoption.

At Alexandria University, researchers are testing a technique that they believe can filter and desalinate highly saline water in a short time and at a reasonable cost. The new technique relies on “membrane evaporation,” a process in which water is filtered through a membrane to remove large particles and then heated. The evaporating steam is condensed to remove small impurities before collecting the clean water.

“The membrane can be easily made using cheap components, which makes it an excellent choice in Egypt,” said Ahmed El-Shafe’i, an assistant professor of agricultural engineering and biosystems at the University of Alexandria and one of the researchers involved in testing the technique.

“This method can be applied in remote areas because it only requires providing membranes for the filtration process and then the heat to evaporate the filtered water,” said el-Shafe’i.

Other scientists are working on projects for treating and reusing “gray water,” which includes the wastewater from commercial laundries as well as from domestic bathtubs and washing machines, and even the runoff from washing cars.

Egypt produces about 10 billion cubic meters of gray water per year, says Wael Abdel Mo’ez, a professor of chemical engineering at Minia University who has developed a device for cleansing it of chemicals that can damage sewage networks.

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Daily Global, Regional and Local Rice E-Newsletter The device separates oil and grease from the water, then uses a chemical treatment to remove any industrial detergents, heavy materials and other residues. Finally it performs a sterilization process to eliminate bacteria and other biological contaminants, so the water can be recycled for industrial or agricultural use.

“In this way, 80 percent of the water can be restored to be used in washing, provided there are underground tanks in the laundries to collect the outgoing water after cleaning,” Abdel Mo’ez said.

The new Assiut Barrage on the Nile, which provides irrigation water for 1.6 million acres in Upper Egypt.

Financial and Logistical Hurdles Despite the diversity of projects seeking solutions to the water-scarcity problem in Egypt, putting them into practice has been hampered lack of funding and other problems.

El-Hagarey, the researcher whose plow project won an international award, financed his research at his own expense, but needs more money to develop the machine. “The cost of the machine is 100,000 Egyptian pounds — about 5,000 U.S. dollars,” he said. “But I am seeking greater funding from the government to develop it and make it suitable for commercial use.”

Abdel Mo’ez needs more than money to see his gray-water purification project succeed on a large scale. “Besides funding, the government must pass legislation that forces building owners to allocate separate gray-water drainage,” he said.

Hossam Abu El-Nasr, a professor of agriculture at Assiut University, says he believes that researchers have developed models that can reduce waste, reuse water, and manage water resources better. But research alone is useless, he said.

“There is no real encouragement from government institutions, which invariably argue that there is no funding budget, even though the water crisis is worsening one day after another,” he said.

The problem has worsened in recent years as the government has cut its investment in research and adopted austerity measures in response to an economic crisis that now grips the country.

The ministry of agriculture’s budget amounts to 545 million Egyptian pounds ($30.8 million) for the 2016-17 fiscal year. But the Agricultural Research Center’s budget was reduced sharply this year, to 3 million Egyptian pounds ($170,000), compared to 70 million pounds (about $4 million) the previous year. The Desert Research Center’s budget was reduced from 32 million Egyptian pounds ($1.8 million) to 4 million pounds ($226,000).

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Daily Global, Regional and Local Rice E-Newsletter The reduction in research funds “is very large and unjustified, especially with our urgent need to increase agricultural production amid droughts, climate change and the shortage and pollution of Egyptian water resources,” said Noureddine, the professor of water resources and land reclamation at Cairo University.

Others called for more cooperation between government and academic research centers. “Every ministry has research centers that work separately from other centers, and there is no coordination with university research centers,” said Ali el-Bahrawi, a professor at the department of irrigation and hydraulics at Ain Shams University’s college of engineering. “Efforts to carry out research and cooperate in their implementation must be consolidated.”

Hani el-Nazir, the former head of the Academy of Scientific Research and Technology, a nonprofit organization affiliated with Egypt’s ministry of higher education, agrees with elBahrawi that research successes in Egypt are mostly individual and lack governmental support and institutional cooperation. “Government spending is very weak on research,” he said. “The efforts of institutions to conduct real research at a large level must be combined.”

“This article is part of the science journalism project “Schreiben über Wissenschaft of the Goethe-Institut and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), supported by the German Federal Foreign Office. More information can be found at https://www.goethe.de/egypt.” https://www.al-fanarmedia.org/2017/11/water-scarce-egypt-research-funds/

Why dietary choices have an impact on global wildlife and human populations November 10, 2017 by Julia Horton

Credit: PlanetEarth Online Tropical climates in the depths of Asia, Africa or South America might seem a world away from the checkout queue in your average Scottish supermarket or corner shop. But if your basket contains chocolate, coffee, bananas or rice, you can almost guarantee that what you eat comes from far warmer places thousands of miles away.

And, as a result, your dietary and lifestyle choices will be having a real impact on people and wildlife on the other side of the planet. That doesn't mean you shouldn't be buying those foods, far from it, but it does mean that you should know how they are produced and what you can do to help reduce the risk to the environment and the economy in countries already hard-hit by climate change.

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Daily Global, Regional and Local Rice E-Newsletter Paul Hallett at Aberdeen University, whose research on soil health in tropical regions also considers social issues that balance environmental and economic concerns, said: "People have a perception that what they eat and buy affects the local area, and it does. But there is not a person in the UK whose diet does not have some kind of impact on tropical countries. A lot of what people here are buying comes from tropical climates with a huge amount of biodiversity, which are very susceptible to climate change, but where people also need to earn a living. What we're trying to do is balance both sides to make that shopping basket of diverse foods people buy in Scotland have a much lower impact on the environment in tropical places.

Scientists are developing ways to grow rice with less water. Credit: PlanetEarth Online We're helping farmers in countries such as Brazil use less fertiliser or water, so that they can make more money from what they produce. At the same time, by making those improvements the soil is then also better maintained and farming produces smaller amounts of greenhouse gases, which is also better for the planet. The same approaches are being applied in Ethiopia to improve food security and in China to cut pollution."

To do that, experts have been conducting research to improve understanding of the natural environment in tropical countries, and of the needs and customs of local people.

Many tropical food crops require large amounts of things like water or fertiliser. This is expensive for small-scale farmers and can cause conflict over scarce resources like drinking water.

Scientists at Aberdeen have been investigating ways of producing crops and fruits that require fewer resources, such as growing rice with less water. It could save farmers money, but the environment also wins because increased profits would mean they'd be less likely to need to expand into protected areas. The new crops would even produce fewer greenhouse gases. Which

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Daily Global, Regional and Local Rice E-Newsletter is fantastic considering that, after livestock, rice emits more methane than anything else we grow.

Palm oil plantation edging into the rainforest. Credit: PlanetEarth Online Fellow Aberdeen environmental scientist Dr Yit Arn Teh said: "You might already know about conservation issues in the tropics; for example how the orangutan's rainforest habitat has been lost to palm oil plantations in countries like Malaysia.

Palm oil is in demand for a range of foods, including chocolate and some brands of oatcake. But, although a lot of production is by big business, 40% is produced by small communities. In parts of Indonesia and Malaysia smaller businesses make up over half of the trade. So there are a lot of issues around balancing people's economic needs with environmental concerns.

It's not just about palm oil, it's also about rice, bananas, coffee, cocoa beans... Consumers really can make a difference, and what they do matters. Big food chains like Unilever or Tesco are really paying attention to the fact that some customers care if their shopping is sustainable, or is having an environmental impact. These firms will then ask their suppliers to verify the ethical or sustainable nature of their products, which means that growers will then receive a fairer price for their produce. Things like Fairtrade really do make a difference."

https://phys.org/news/2017-11-dietary-choices-impact-global-wildlife.html#jCphttps://phys.org/news/201711-dietary-choices-impact-global-wildlife.html

Elevated CO2 Alleviates Aluminum Toxicity in Rice

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Daily Global, Regional and Local Rice E-Newsletter

Paper Reviewed Zhu, X.F., Zhao, X.S., Wang, B., Wu, Q. and Shen, R.F. 2017. Elevated carbon dioxide alleviates aluminum toxicity by decreasing cell wall hemicellulose in rice (Oryza sativa). Frontiers in Physiology 8: 512, doi: 10.3389/fphys.2017.00512.Setting the stage for their study, Zhu et al. (2017) note that aluminum (Al) is the most abundant metal on earth. When present in significant quantities in the soil, it can be detrimental to plant growth, disrupting physiological and molecular properties. In many instances, aluminum toxicity inhibits root elongation, even at very low concentrations, making it difficult for plants to acquire nutrients, thus leading to a reduction in both the magnitude and quality of their growth.

To date, there has been surprisingly little research conducted on the response of plants to aluminum stress under elevated atmospheric CO2 conditions. Therefore, Zhu et al. set out to investigate the interactive effects of elevated CO2and aluminum toxicity on one of the most important global food crops -- rice (Oryza sativa).

Working with two subspecies cultivars (ssp. indica, cv Kasalath and ssp. japonica, cv Nipponbare), the five Chinese scientists subjected 3-day-old seedlings to 24 hours treatment of one of two CO2 concentrations (400 or 600 ppm) and one of two aluminum solutions (no added aluminum or 50 ÂľM aluminum added) in a controlled environment chamber, measuring a number of physiological and molecular parameters before and after the treatment to discern impacts of these two growth-competing variables. And what did their experiment reveal?

As shown in the left and center panels of the figure below, acting alone, aluminum toxicity inhibited root growth in both cultivars, relative to control conditions, by 69 percent in Kasalath and 52 percent in Nipponbare. Elevated CO2, in contrast, stimulated root growth in Kasalath, but had no impact on Nipponbare. In the combined treatment, elevated CO2 ameliorated the negative impacts of aluminum toxicity on root growth, causing a smaller 49 and 32 percent reduction in root growth relative to control in the Kasalath and Nipponbare cultivars, respectively.

Searching for the potential mechanism responsible for the reduction in aluminum toxicity by elevated CO2, Zhu et al.'s additional analyses revealed that "elevated CO2 significantly reduced aluminum retention in the [root] cell wall (see figure 4c), which in turn increased aluminum resistance in rice, indicating the operation of the cell-wall-based aluminum exclusion mechanism." And thus it is, that the authors conclude that "elevated CO2 can alleviate aluminum toxicity in rice," which is a pretty magnificent finding for them to have observed.

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Daily Global, Regional and Local Rice E-Newsletter

Figure 1. Effects of elevated CO2 on the relative root growth of cultivars Kasalath (Panel A) and Nipponbare (Panel B) on three-day-old rice seedlings that were treated with 0.5 mM CaCl2 solution with or without 50 ÂľM Al under ambient (400 ppm; CK) or elevated (600 ppm; CO2) CO2 for 24 h (pH 4.5). Root length was measured before and after treatment. Panel C shows the effects of elevated CO2 treatment on root cell wall Al accumulation in Kasalath under the same treatment conditions. Columns with different letters are significantly different at P < 0.05. Adapted from Zhu et al. (2017).

http://www.co2science.org/articles/V20/nov/a7.php

Cost of importing food poised to rise by 6% to $1.413 trillion in 2017 Saturday, 11 November, 2017, 08 : 00 AM [IST] Rome While food commodity prices have been generally stable, the cost of importing food is set to rise in 2017 to $1.413 trillion, a six per cent increase from the previous year and the second-highest tally on record.

This was stated by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in its latest Food Outlook report, which was published recently.

The higher import bill was driven by the increased international demand for most foodstuffs as well as the higher freight rates. Of particular concern were the economic and social implications of the double-digit

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Daily Global, Regional and Local Rice E-Newsletter increases in the food import bills for least-developed countries (LDCs) and low-income food-deficit countries (LIFDCS).

“Higher bills do not necessarily translate into more food being bought by them, as the cost of importing has greatly escalated,” said Adam Prakash, economist, FAO.The higher import costs come at a time when inventories are robust, the harvest forecasts are strong and the food commodity markets remain well supplied.

The food commodity outlok, issued twice a year, takes a close look at the markets of key food categories, including cassava, the livestock and dairy sectors, fish, vegetable oils and the main cereal grains.

While production trends are broadly strong across the board, average prices in international transactions can mask more specific trends. For example, while international wheat prices have been flat, US Hard Red Spring wheat, a popular high-quality variety with enough protein content to make noodles and pasta, was 40 per cent higher in July 2017 than it was a year ago.

Aromatic rice varieties have risen eight times faster than the FAO All Rice Index, which is up four per cent on the year.Likewise, the FAO Butter Price Index has risen 41 per cent so far in 2017, more than three times as much as the Dairy Price Index, of which it is a component.

The livestock and dairy sectors are particularly dynamic. The meat import bill is set to reach an all-time high of $176 billion this year, up 22 per cent from 2016.World milk production is predicted to grow by 1.4 per cent, led by a robust four per cent expansion in India, even as more stringent environmental regulations and quality controls in China may lead to a contraction there.

The world output of oilseeds oils - vegetable oils and animal fats are the largest items in the LIFDC import bills - is expected to increase slightly this year after last year’s strong season.But global soybean production, despite a planting boom in the Northern Hemisphere, is set to decline as yields return to normal levels after last year’s nearly optimal weather.

Opportunities loom for tropical fruits “Tropical fruits are increasingly stars in global trade, with export volumes of mangoes, pineapple, avocado and papayas on course to achieve a total combined value of $10 billion this year,” according to the Food Outlook. Their popularity is promising for poverty relief and rural development as almost all production takes place in developing countries, usually through smallholder farmers with fewer than five hectares.

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Daily Global, Regional and Local Rice E-Newsletter FAO estimated that the total production of the four fruits could reach 92 million tonne this year, compared to 69 million tonne in 2008.Currently 95 per cent of that output is consumed locally, but the rising incomes and the changing consumer preferences will likely boost the export volumes, especially if freer trade and better market access stimulate further technological gains in distribution.

Major producers of tropical fruits include India (home to about 40 per cent of the global mango production), Costa Rica (which supplies a large share of the world's pineapples), China and Brazil, besides Mexico, which is the largest exporter.

Africa may set record for cassava output As well as providing detailed analyses of the production, trade and demand for major cereal and oil crops, the Food Outlook updates trends for cassava, which has been one of the fastest-expanding staple crops at the global level, and is the third most important source of calories in the tropics, after rice and maize.Production in sub-Saharan Africa may reach a record high this year of 156 million tonne, buoyed by various commercial expansion programmes aimed at curbing the reliance on food imports in the region.

“Still, global production of this root will likely contract slightly in 2017 - to 278 million tonne - after two decades of uninterrupted growth, due to a combination of drought conditions, depressed prices and policy changes,” said FAO

http://www.fnbnews.com/Top-News/cost-of-importing-food-poised-to-rise-by-6-to-1413-trillion-in-201741360

Recent floods to affect Bangladesh’s food production growth: FAO Sun Online Desk

10th November, 2017 04:01:17

A sequence of floods has dampened the outlook for Bangladesh, likely translating into a third successive season of little or negative food production growth, mainly rice, says FAO. Barring major setbacks, production recoveries could instead permit Bangladesh and Sri Lanka to slightly lower their 2018 imports to 1.1 million and 450 000 tonnes, respectively, according to the latest Food Outlook published by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

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Daily Global, Regional and Local Rice E-Newsletter

Among other rice importers, Bangladesh, Iraq, Nigeria and the Philippines are all similarly predicted to replenish their inventories, according to the report a copy of which obtained.

These gains are, however, likely to be offset by stock reductions in the Republic of Korea, Madagascar, Sri Lanka and the United Republic of Tanzania, all linked to output shortfalls.

Although the use of rice as animal feed is being sustained by the release of supplies from government granaries in Japan, the Republic of Korea and Thailand, more affordable feedstuffs are expected to displace rice in most other countries, especially in Bangladesh, China (Mainland) and Vietnam.

Since the previous Food Outlook report, a series of unfavourable climate-related events have affected main paddy crops in the Northern Hemisphere, which have now reached the harvesting stage.

This has been the case in Asia, where, unlike 2016, the critical Northern Hemisphere summer months were characterised by mixed growing conditions that inhibited planting expansions.

As a result, FAOâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s latest forecast of world rice production in 2017 points to a broadly stable output level of 500.8 million tones.

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Daily Global, Regional and Local Rice E-Newsletter Production in Asia is now forecast to fall 550 000 tonnes below the 2016 bumper harvest to 452.5 million tonnes.

The UN agriculture agency has said the cost of importing food is rising in 2017, driven by increased international demand for most food stuffs, as well as higher freight charges.

The cost of importing food is forecast to rise six per cent in 2017 to $1.413 trillion, making it the second highest bill on record while food commodity prices have been generally stable, according to the latest Food Outlook that expressed concern about the economic and social impact of this trend on poor countries.

Although weather disruptions are set to stall production growth this season, global rice supplies are still forecast to exceed utilisation, enabling a small expansion of world rice inventories.

After staging an 8 percent recovery in 2017 global trade is expected to rise only modestly in 2018.

The food import bills are set to increase by double-digit rates for least-developed countries (LDCs) and low-income food-deficit countries.

Aromatic rice varieties have risen eight times faster than the FAO All Rice Index, which is up four per cent on the year.

However, the higher import costs come at a time when inventories are robust, harvest forecasts are strong and food commodity markets remain well supplied.

The export of tropical fruits is promising for poverty relief and rural development as almost all production takes place in developing countries.

The export volumes of mango, pineapple, avocado and papayas are on course to achieve a total combined value of $10 billion this year, according to the Food Outlook. http://daily-sun.com/post/267655/Recent-floods-to-affect-BDâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s-food-production-growth:-FAO

India Basmati Rice Exports May Drop to 3-Year Low on New EU Rule

By Pratik Parija Photographer: Dhiraj Singh November 10, 2017, 9:32 AM GMT+5

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Daily Global, Regional and Local Rice E-Newsletter 

Basmati shipments seen falling 5% in 2017-18, Setia says



Production of basmati paddy may drop for a third staright year

India’s basmati rice exports may drop to a three-year low this year as the European Union tightens a fungicide rule and local prices strengthen. Exports may decline as much as 5 percent to 3.79 million metric tons in the year than began on April 1 from a year earlier, said Vijay Setia, president of All India Rice Exporters Association. That would be the lowest since 2014-15, according to the association’s data.

"We will try to export polished rice to the European Union to avoid the new fungicide norms,” Setia said in a phone interview. Exporters are possibly not yet fully prepared to meet the new stringent norms, he said.

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According to the European Union’s rule, the residue level of Tricyclazole fungicide in basmati rice should not exceed 0.01 parts per million from Jan. 1, 2018, compared

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Daily Global, Regional and Local Rice E-Newsletter with 1 part per million currently, Setia said. About 80 percent of Indiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s basmati rice shipments include unpolished grains. The rest is sold after polishing, which significantly lowers fungicide residues.

Rice companies are expected to focus on the domestic market after a surge in local prices following lower stockpiles and concerns that a drop in the crop area would lead to lower output, Setia said. Basmati paddy output may fall 8 percent from a year earlier to 5.65 million tons in 2017-18, a decline for a third straight year and the lowest since at least 2009, according to the association.

Farmers across the country have reduced planting 7.7 percent to 1.55 million hectares (3.8 million acres) from a year earlier to grow other agricultural crops, according to the association.

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Daily Global, Regional and Local Rice E-Newsletter Local prices of some aromatic varieties used in dishes such as biryani and pilaf have surged 50 percent to around 30 rupees (46 cents) per kilogram from a year earlier. The price rally may boost earnings of millers such as KRBL Ltd. and LT Foods Ltd., which have already seen their share prices doubling this year.

Basmati rice exports totaled 2.12 million tons in the six month through Sept. 30, compared with 2.06 million tons a year earlier. Total rice exports climbed to 6.07 million tons from 5.43 million tons, according to the associationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s data. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-10/india-basmati-rice-exports-may-drop-to-3-yearlow-on-new-eu-rule

Peru-Australia free trade deal to boost sugar, beef, rice and wine for exporters ABC Rural

By Tom Major, Chloe Chomicki and Charlie McKillop Posted yesterday at 09:18 Australia will have duty free access for 90,000 tonnes of sugar into Peru when it enters full force.

(ABC Rural: Charlie McKillop) Australian exporters will soon have market access to one of Latin America's fastest growing economies with the signing of the PeruAustralia Free Trade Agreement (PAFTA).A number of key of agricultural commodities will gain duty-free entry to Peru including sugar, beef, rice, dairy, almonds, sheep meat and wine.

In a statement, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said the

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Daily Global, Regional and Local Rice E-Newsletter agreement is an excellent outcome, that will eliminate 99 per cent of stiff tariffs that Australian exporters currently face.

"The export deal will generate economic growth and Australian jobs for decades to come," Mr Turnbull said.

"Our businesses, farmers and families are the big winners."

Australia-Peru FTA winners: 

Sugar: on entry into force of the agreement, Australia will have duty free access for 30,000 tonnes of sugar into Peru, growing to 60,000 tonnes in five years and 90,000 tonnes in 18 years. This is more than any other sugar exporting country has achieved in the last twenty years.

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Beef cuts: tariffs of up to 17 per cent will be eliminated within five years. This ensures Australian beef farmers will have duty free access to the Peruvian market at the same time as US farmers.

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Dairy: on entry into force of the agreement, Australia will have duty free access of 7,000 tonnes of dairy products into Peru, growing to 10,000 tonnes in five years.

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Rice: on entry into force of the agreement, Australia will have duty free access of 9,000 tonnes of dairy products into Peru, growing to 14,000 tonnes in five years.

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Sorghum: on entry into force of the agreement, Australia will have duty free access of 15,000 tonnes of dairy products into Peru, growing to 20,000 tonnes in five years.

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Sheep meat: tariffs on all sheep meat up to 9 per cent will be eliminated on entry into force of the agreement.

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Seafood: Peru will eliminate all tariffs up to 9 per cent on entry into force.

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Almonds: immediate elimination of duties on all tariff lines up to 9 per cent.

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Wine: immediate elimination of duties across lines of commercial interest to Australia with the remainder being phased out over 5 years, up to 9 per cent.

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Wheat: tariffs on all wheat up to 9 per cent will be eliminated on entry into force of the agreement.

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Mining machinery and parts: duty free access locked in across all tariff lines.

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Iron, steel and aluminium: duty free access locked in across all tariff lines.

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Mining equipment: duty free access locked in across most tariff lines.

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Daily Global, Regional and Local Rice E-Newsletter ď&#x201A;ˇ

Base metals: duty free access locked in across all tariff lines.

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Raw hides and skins: duty free access locked in across all tariff lines.

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Mining Equipment Services and Technologies (METS) and oilfield service providers: Peru has granted access on non-discriminatory terms to Australian suppliers of mining-related consulting, research and development, engineering, environmental, mining and technical testing and analysis services.

Emerging market Peru is a major food importer with $6 billion of agricultural goods imported last year.

However, Australia only exported $5.3 million dollars worth because of tariff barriers and preferential access for competitors like the United States.

Queensland Treasurer Curtis Pitt welcomed the opportunity to increase that figure.

"Peru has a population of 31 million and a GDP of around $189 billion, (but) our two-way trade now is only around $500 million dollars, so the potential for expansion is real," Mr Pitt said.

According to DFAT, Australia's sugar market access is more than any other exporting country has achieved in the past 20 years and equivalent to roughly 30 per cent of Peru's sugar imports.

Around 30,000 tonnes can be exported initially, doubling to 60,000 tonnes over five years and representing about three per cent of Australia's sugar exports.

Canegrowers chairman Paul Schembri backed the deal, citing the need to develop new markets.

"A grower will now be confident that if we can grow the cane we can sell it to multiple market destinations rather than it being confined to four to five base customers," he said.

"Free trade agreements do work. If you look at Australian agriculture, if you look at the Australian sugar industry, we're not subsidised.

"We've had to fight for everything we've got in terms of market access and we need to do it on a competitive basis."

Hinchinbrook MP Andrew Cripps, whose electorate covers the fertile cane fields of the Tully and Herbert regions, said it was a boon for the sugar industry.

Around 85 per cent of Queensland's sugar is sold in raw form, with northern growing areas providing the lion's share of those exports.

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Daily Global, Regional and Local Rice E-Newsletter "This is a huge boost for the industry and in particular the north Queensland region," he said.

"Free trade agreements and market access mean jobs and opportunities for our agriculture sector, for our farmers and for jobs in country towns."

Other commodities There will be immediate duty free access for Australian sheep meat, most wine and most horticulture products, kangaroo meat and wheat.

The Federal Government said the PAFTA delivers huge wins for Australian businesses with market access outcomes that go well beyond the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement.

Export Council of Australia board director Andrew Hudson said even though Peru is a relatively small trading partner, the deal will be beneficial.

"It's an important part of our move towards the Americas other than North America, so we're sort of initiating an opportunity there," Mr Hudson said.

Canegrowers chair Paul Schembri (C) said the FTA was a win for sugar producers.

(ABC Rural: Lara Webster) "North America seems to have shut the door a bit, so you look at Latin America as being a significant growth market.

What is an FTA? After seven years of negotiations Australia has signed a free trade agreement (FTA) with Japan, but what exactly is an FTA? "It will be very good for the agricultural sector. Not just for primary producers, but also for manufacturers of mining equipment which is currently our top export."

Mr Hudson said he did not believe the granting of free trade entry to Peruvian products would majorly disrupt any local industries.

"I think we're well placed to deal with any increase in Peruvian imports," he said.

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Daily Global, Regional and Local Rice E-Newsletter

Mr Hudson nominated Peru's wine and vitamin supplement industries as potential competitors for the Australian sector.

"That's always the nature of the deal, that you've got to give something up to get something on the other side," he said.

"I think on balance this has significant positives for Australia compared to potential threats from competition."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2017-11-10/free-trade-deal-gives-australianexporters-access-to-peru-market/9137608

Battambang facility soon to start drying rice Fri, 10 November 2017 Cheng Sokhorng Farmers prepare to plant rice seedlings in Kampot province in 2015. Pha Lina

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A massive centralised rice drying facility in Battambang province being developed by Thaneakea Srov (Kampuchea) Plc will soon be operational, while its adjacent rice storage operations are on track to be completed early next year, the CEO of the company said yesterday.

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Daily Global, Regional and Local Rice E-Newsletter

Construction on both facilities began earlier this year when the firm inked contracts with three companies to help build its 200,000-tonne capacity silo and its drying facility capable of processing 3,000 tonnes of paddy rice a day. Thaneakea Srov first received a low-interest $15 million loan from the state-run Rural Development Bank in January.

While the drying facility is nearly prepared to open its doors, the silo isn’t expected to open for several more months, according to CEO Phou Puy. “Our drying machines are being tested now, and we will start full operations at our drying facility after days of testing,” he said.

“The entire project will hopefully be complete by April of next year, when our storage facility is complete,” he said, adding that construction was 60 percent finished.

The completion of the storage facility is expected to help struggling rice farmers to secure orders by having a dedicated storage site while ensuring that the quality of rice is sustained throughout the harvest season, said Hean Vanhan, undersecretary of state at the Ministry of Agriculture.

“The project will benefit rice farmers because it will stabilise the price and quality of rice during the harvest season,” he said. “Farmers will face less stress during harvest season as a result.” http://www.phnompenhpost.com/business/battambang-facility-soon-start-drying-rice 23

Rice exports grow as China buys lion’s share www.ricepluss.com / www.riceplusmagazine.blogspot.com Contact Online Advertisement : mujahid.riceplus@gmail.com Cell: 0321 369 2874

Daily Global, Regional and Local Rice E-Newsletter Fri, 10 November 2017 Cambodia has exported 446,439 tonnes of milled rice in the first 10 months this year, a 17 percent increase compared to the same period last year, according to a report released yesterday by the Secretariat of One Window Service for Rice Export.According to the report, China is by far the largest market for Cambodian rice and has accounted for about one-third of all rice exports so far this year. France is the second largest market, taking up 13 percent of rice exports, while Poland is third accounting for 8 percent with the United Kingdom fourth with a 5 percent share. http://www.phnompenhpost.com/business/rice-exports-grow-china-buys-lions-share

Loans allotted to hold paddy ď&#x201A;ˇ

10 Nov 2017 at 09:52

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NEWSPAPER SECTION: BUSINESS | WRITER: WICHIT CHANTANUSORNSIRI

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Daily Global, Regional and Local Rice E-Newsletter The state-owned Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives (BAAC) has set aside more than 80 billion baht in loans and grants for rice farmers who delay selling their paddy to stabilise prices."The BAAC estimates farmers will apply for loans worth 70 billion baht out of 83.7 billion in credit and subsidies. The loans will be drawn down later this year and early next year.

The money not only helps stabilise rice prices but also boosts liquidity in the economy," said Nukul Pharachat, senior executive vice-president.

The 83.7-billion-baht loan and grant scheme will be extended through a 21-billion loan scheme to delay selling paddy for the 2017-18 harvest season, a 3-billion set for cash handouts to farmers who store their paddy in barns for a designated period, a 12.5-billion loan for agricultural institutions that buy paddy from members to add value to product, and a 47.3-billion grant to 3.9 million rice growers who signed up with the Department of Agricultural Extension to subsidise their harvest costs.

Under the lending scheme to slow down paddy sales, the state-back farm bank offers credit based on average rice prices for the past three years -- 10,800 baht a tonne will be offered for hom mali and glutinous paddy, 7,200 per tonne is slated for white-rice paddy and 8,500 per tonne will be given for Pathum Thani fragrant paddy.

Retail rice farmers are each limited 300,000 baht in loans, while agriculture cooperatives, farmer clusters and community enterprises are capped at 300 million, 20 million and 5 million, respectively.

The government will subsidise interest worth a combined 453 million baht but borrowers who do not repay loans from the BAAC within five months after the loan is taken out must shoulder the remaining interest.

The loan is expected to be doled out from today to Feb 28, 2018. The programme is expected to help delay about 2 million tonnes of paddy sales during the annual harvest season.

Participating farmers who agree to hold their paddy will receive 1,500 baht a tonne, while all rice farmers will be granted 1,200 per rai for harvesting and rice-quality improvement costs, capped at 12,000 per family.

"The schemes are expected to be able to delay selling a higher-than-expected volume of paddy to stabilise prices. The paddy price stands at 11,550-13,000 baht a tonne. The BAAC will approve and be ready to extend the loan within three days," he said. https://www.bangkokpost.com/business/news/1357791/loans-allotted-to-hold-paddy

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Daily Global, Regional and Local Rice E-Newsletter Rice importer acquires industrial building in Missouri City Paul Takahashi

6:30 am, Friday, November 10, 2017

LT Foods USA, an importer and distributor of Basmati rice, has purchased a Class A industrial building within Lakeview Business Park in Missouri City. The property is at 14523 Fairway Pines Drive. LT

Foods USA, an importer and distributor of Basmati rice, has purchased a Class A industrial building in Missouri City.The 49,778-square-foot facility, located in the Lakeview Business Park at 14523 Fairway Pines Drive, will allow the company to expand their operations and product lines in Houston.

The building, built in 2009, has 14 docks, 24-foot ceilings and about 4,500 square feet of office space.

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Daily Global, Regional and Local Rice E-Newsletter "This offering presented a great opportunity for LT Foods to expand their business without interrupting their operations," Jarret Venghaus, who brokered the deal on behalf of LT Foods said in a statement.

Jarret Venghaus and Jeff Venghaus of commercial real estate brokerage JLL represented LT Foods. Jason English of Colliers International represented the seller.

Consumer goods is driving demand for distribution centers and warehouses as the region's population grows. Earlier this week, Best Buy announced plans to build a 550,000-square-foot delivery distribution center in Missouri City.

The consumer electronics retailer said it was drawn to the southwest Houston suburb because of its proximity to major highways, available land and economic incentives from the city and Fort Bend County. http://www.chron.com/business/real-estate/article/Rice-importer-acquires-industrial-building-in12344768.php

Export Summary-Iran, Japan buy wheat; Morocco seeks durum March 21 (Reuters) - Snapshot of the global export markets for grains, oilseeds and edible oils as reported by government and private sources.WHEAT SALES: Iran’s state grains buyer GTC has purchased 120,000 tonnes of milling wheat from Australia and Germany, European traders said on Thursday.

WHEAT SALES: Japan’s Ministry of Agriculture bought a total of 132,777 tonnes of food wheat from the United States, Canada and Australia in a weekly tender that closed on Thursday.

DURUM TENDER: Morocco’s state grains agency ONICL has issued a tender to import 160,000 tonnes of U.S. durum wheat under a preferential tariff quota, the agency said on a statement on Thursday. The result of the tender will be decided on April 3.

FAILED CORN, SOYBEAN TENDER: The Taiwan Sugar Corp. rejected all offers and made no purchase in a tender for 23,000 tonnes of U.S.-origin corn and 12,000 tonnes of U.S.-origin soybeans which closed on Thursday, European traders said.

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Daily Global, Regional and Local Rice E-Newsletter PENDING TENDERS SOYOIL TENDER: Indian state trading company STC has issued an international tender to purchase 5,000 tonnes of soyoil to be sourced from the United States or South America, traders said. Tender deadline is Mar. 22.

WHEAT TENDER: Iraq issued a tender to buy a minimum of 50,000 tonnes of wheat from the United States, Canada, Australia, Russia, Romania, Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Germany, a statement from the trade ministry said. The tender is open until March 24 and offers must be valid until March 28, the statement said.

WHEAT, BARLEY TENDER: Jordan’s state grains buyer has issued two international tenders to purchase 100,000 tonnes of milling wheat and 100,000 tonnes of feed barley, European traders said. Tender offer deadline for the wheat is Mar. 27. Tender deadline for the barley is Mar. 26.

WHEAT TENDER: Bangladesh’s state grains buyer has issued an international tender to import 50,000 of wheat to boost reserves, a procurement official said. The deadline to submit offers is March 25, with validity up to April 7, and the wheat is to be shipped in 40 days of signing the contract.

RICE TENDER: Iraq issued a new tender on Thursday to buy at least 30,000 tonnes of rice with origins from the United States, Uruguay, Thailand and Argentina, the Iraqi trade ministry said in a statement. The closing date for the tender is March 31, and offers must be valid until April 4.

WHEAT TENDER: Bangladesh’s state grains buyer reissued an international tender to import 50,000 of wheat as the lowest bidder the first time round failed to meet its conditions, a procurement official said. The deadline to submit offers is April 2, with validity up to April 11, and the wheat is to be shipped within 40 days of signing the contract.

TOP STORIES: Brazilian dock workers called off a national port strike set for next week and said they are willing to relax rules that allow unions to control labor assignments at terminals, following talks with the government over reform of the country’s ports, union leaders said on Thursday. * Egyptian bakers who have threatened a strike that could affect the staple diet of the nation’s poor said a meeting they had hoped to hold with the prime minister on Thursday would not take place until next week.

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Daily Global, Regional and Local Rice E-Newsletter * Iran has started building grain stocks again, with purchases of wheat from Australia and Germany plus maize from Ukraine, traders said on Thursday, with Tehran getting around payment difficulties caused by toughened international sanctions. * China is selling between 1 million and 1.5 million tonnes of soy from state reserves to crushers to ease tight supply after port congestion in Brazil interrupted shipments to the world’s top importer of the oilseed, traders said on Thursday. * Ukraine has resumed exports of maize to Iran, which has been hit by international sanctions, with a shipment of 30,000 tonnes made on March 13, analysts and traders said on Thursday. http://www.reuters.com/article/us-apec-summit-usa-russia/putin-trump-agree-political-solution-neededfor-syria-kremlin-says-idUSKBN1DB04N

Rice producers fear unemployment next year IN BUSINESS · 09-11-2017 14:21:00 ·

Rice producers from Alcácer do Sal, south of Lisbon, have said they are worried they won’t be able to grow anything next year if the current state of drought continues.

This year, the sown area was already cut by between 20 to 30%. Rice producers fear they may be unemployed next year since the quantity of stored water in two dams in the region that supply the producers’ crops may be not enough to face future needs. The amount of water stored in the dams has been declining for three consecutive years. http://theportugalnews.com/news/rice-producers-fear-unemployment-next-year/43816

Nagpur Foodgrain Prices Open- November 10, 2017 Nagpur Foodgrain Prices – APMC/Open Market-November 10 Nagpur, Nov 10 (Reuters) – Gram and tuar prices firmed up in Nagpur Agriculture Produce Marketing Committee (APMC) on increased demand from local millers amid weak supply from producing regions. Fresh rise in Madhya Pradesh pulses and reported demand from South-based millers also jacked up prices, according to sources.

FOODGRAINS & PULSES GRAM * Gram Kabuli reported down in open market here in absence of buyers amid increased overseas supply.

TUAR * Tuar gavarani recovered marginally in open market here on good seasonal demand from local traders.

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Daily Global, Regional and Local Rice E-Newsletter * Batri dal moved down in open market here on poor demand from local traders. * In Akola, Tuar New – 4,000-4,100, Tuar dal (clean) – 5,900-6,100, Udid Mogar (clean) – 7,900-8,400, Moong Mogar (clean) 7,000-7,300, Gram – 4,800-4,900, Gram Super best – 7,300-7,500 * Wheat, rice and other foodgrain items moved in a narrow range in scattered deals and settled at last levels in thin trading activity.

Nagpur foodgrains APMC auction/open-market prices in rupees for 100 kg FOODGRAINS Available prices Previous close Gram Auction 3,651-4,580 3,620-4,300 Gram Pink Auction n.a.

2,100-2,600 Tuar Auction 3,700-4,075 3,550-4,075 Moong Auction n.a.

3,900-4,200 Udid Auction n.a.

4,300-4,500 Masoor Auction n.a.

2,600-2,800 Wheat Mill quality Auction 1,600-1,670 1,600-1,640 Gram Super Best Bold 7,500-8,000 7,500-8,000 Gram Super Best n.a. n.a.

Gram Medium Best 6,600-7,000 6,600-7,000 Gram Dal Medium n.a. n.a Gram Mill Quality 3,800-3,900 3,800-3,900 Desi gram Raw 4,700-4,800 4,700-4,800 Gram Kabuli 12,400-13,000 12,500-13,200 Tuar Fataka Best-New 6,200-6,400 6,200-6,400 Tuar Fataka Medium-New 5,800-6,000 5,800-6,000 Tuar Dal Best Phod-New 5,600-5,800 5,600-5,800 Tuar Dal Medium phod-New 5,000-5,300 5,000-5,300 Tuar Gavarani New 4,000-4,150 3,950-4,100 Tuar Karnataka 4,300-4,600 4,300-4,600 Masoor dal best 5,100-5,400 5,100-5,400 Masoor dal medium 4,700-4,900 4,700-4,900 Masoor n.a. n.a.

Moong Mogar bold (New) 7,000-7,500 7,000-7,500 Moong Mogar Medium 6,300-6,600 6,300-6,600 Moong dal Chilka 5,600-6,200 5,600-6,200 Moong Mill quality n.a. n.a.

Moong Chamki best 7,000-7,500 7,000-7,500 Udid Mogar best (100 INR/KG) (New) 8,000-8,800 8,000-8,800 Udid Mogar Medium (100 INR/KG) 5,500-7,000 5,500-7,000

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Daily Global, Regional and Local Rice E-Newsletter Udid Dal Black (100 INR/KG) 5,100-6,300 5,100-6,300 Batri dal (100 INR/KG) 5,000-5,400 5,000-5,300 Lakhodi dal (100 INR/kg) 2,800-3,000 2,800-3,000 Watana Dal (100 INR/KG) 2,900-3,000 2,900-3,000 Watana Green Best (100 INR/KG) 3,400-3,800 3,400-3,800 Wheat 308 (100 INR/KG) 1,900-2,000 1,900-2,000 Wheat Mill quality (100 INR/KG) 1,750-1,900 1,750-1,90 Wheat Filter (100 INR/KG) 2,100-2,300 2,100-2,300 Wheat Lokwan best (100 INR/KG) 2,200-2,450 2,200-2,400 Wheat Lokwan medium (100 INR/KG) 1,900-2,150 1,900-2,100 Lokwan Hath Binar (100 INR/KG) n.a. n.a.

MP Sharbati Best (100 INR/KG) 3,100-3,600 3,100-3,600 MP Sharbati Medium (100 INR/KG) 2,300-2,700 2,300-2,700 Rice BPT best (100 INR/KG) 3,000-3,500 3,000-3,500 Rice BPT medium (100 INR/KG) 2,800-2,900 2,800-2,900 Rice Luchai (100 INR/KG) 2,200-2,400 2,200-2,400 Rice Swarna best (100 INR/KG) 2,500-2,600 2,500-2,600 Rice Swarna medium (100 INR/KG) 2,300-2,400 2,300-2,400 Rice HMT best (100 INR/KG) 3,600-4,000 3,600-4,000 Rice HMT medium (100 INR/KG) 3,250-3,600 3,250-3,600 Rice Shriram best(100 INR/KG) 4,800-5,100 4,800-5,100 Rice Shriram med (100 INR/KG) 4,400-4,600 4,400-4,600 Rice Basmati best (100 INR/KG) 10,000-14,000 10,000-14,000 Rice Basmati Medium (100 INR/KG) 5,000-7,500 5,000-7,500 Rice Chinnor best 100 INR/KG) 5,000-5,500 5,000-5,500 Rice Chinnor medium (100 INR/KG) 4,700-5,000 4,700-5,000 Jowar Gavarani (100 INR/KG) 2,000-2,200 2,000-2,100 Jowar CH-5 (100 INR/KG) 1,800-2,000 1,700-2,000 WEATHER (NAGPUR) Maximum temp. 31.0 degree Celsius, minimum temp. 13.8 degree Celsius Rainfall : Nil FORECAST: Partly cloudy sky. Maximum and minimum temperature would be around and 32 and 14 degree Celsius respectively.

Note: n.a.--not available (For oils, transport costs are excluded from plant delivery prices, butincluded in market prices) https://in.reuters.com/article/global-precious/gold-falls-on-bond-yields-u-s-tax-doubts-limit-lossesidINKBN1DA05X

Egypt takes measures against rice straw burning: Environment Min www.ricepluss.com / www.riceplusmagazine.blogspot.com Contact Online Advertisement : mujahid.riceplus@gmail.com Cell: 0321 369 2874

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A farmer drives a tractor through smoke from burning rice straw in preparation for the next harvest in Cairo - Reuters/Amr Abdallah Dalsh CAIRO - 9 November 2017: A sum of 11,000 tons of rice straw were collected and transferred into organic fertilizers and fodders in Beheira and Dakahlia governorates in Egypt, announced the Ministry of Environment on Thursday. Legal action has been taken by the Ministry of Environment against farmers who continue to burn rice straw.

A number of 16 awareness seminars on measures to address the sources of air pollution and recycling rice straw and benefiting from it has been given to citizens and farmers in villages in Egypt, according to the report by the Ministry of Environment. Burning rice straw in Egypt is considered the main cause of what is known as "the black cloud," a thick layer of smog from burning rice straw that spreads across Cairo for an extended period of time.

The Egyptian government has adopted measures to encourage gathering rice straw to put into effect an agro-waste system introduced by the ministry instead of burning it, said Minister of Environment Khaled Fahmy, last month in a press conference. https://www.egypttoday.com/Article/1/31805/Egypt-takes-measures-against-rice-straw-burning-EnvironmentMin

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Daily Global, Regional and Local Rice E-Newsletter Rice exports grow as China buys lion’s share Cambodia has exported 446,439 tonnes of milled rice in the first 10 months this year, a 17 percent increase compared to the same period last year, according to a report released yesterday by the Secretariat of One Window Service for Rice Export. According to the report, China is by far the largest market for Cambodian rice and has accounted for about one-third of all rice exports so far this year. France is the second largest market, taking up 13 percent of rice exports, while Poland is third accounting for 8 percent with the United Kingdom fourth with a 5 percent share. http://www.phnompenhpost.com/business/rice-exports-grow-china-buys-lions-share

IRRI team to be deployed to Papua New Guinea to train farmers on sustainable rice production DA NANG, Vietnam — The Philippines will soon deploy a team from International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) to Papua New Guinea to train their farmers on stable and sustainable rice production. President Duterte has offered to help Papua New Guinea to develop its rice sector after asking Papua New Guinea Prime Minister Peter O’Neill to keep the “status quo” on tuna imports to the Philippines.

President Rodrigo Roa Duterte greets Papua New Guinea Prime Minister Peter O’Neill prior to their bilateral meeting at the Premier Village in Da Nang, Vietnam on November 9, 2017.

(ALBERT ALCAIN/PRESIDENTIAL PHOTO / MANILA BULLETIN) Rice and tuna trade relations were among the topics discussed by the two leaders on the sidelines of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Da Nang, Vietnam. “We were talking of trade relations. It’s a huge land Papua New Guinea and they need to work up on their lands. They’re importing rice. But it’s a big country and I think the soil is compatible with rice and they are asking our expertise,” Duterte told Manila-based reporters in an interview on Thursday night here. “We have been a rice-producing country for so long and we have the IRRI, the IRRI who can help them. And I’m sending a promise to send a team from the Department of Agriculture to help them out,” he added.

The IRRI is considered the world’s premier research organization on rice science, developing advanced rice varieties that yield more grain and withstand pests, diseases and other climate

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change effects. The President also raised the country’s concern about its tuna imports from Papua New Guinea during his meeting with O’Neill. Papua New Guinea, home to around 18 percent of the world’s tuna stock, reportedly wants to require 100 percent of tuna caught within its waters to be processed locally. This was part of its government plans to become a major downstream player in the global tuna market.

Duterte said he asked Papua New Guinea to continue to allow the country to import tuna despite its plans to focus on developing the processing side of its fisheries industry. “We were also talking about the import of tuna, which is plentiful in that area but it appears because of the many countries dipping their fingers there in fishing, including Australia. They have reached a point of just allocating everybody a share,” he said.

“But I asked the Prime Minister if he could consider maintaining the status quo and the number of tons that we are importing in the Philippines which is mainly dropped at General Santos City, I think,” he added. At present, around 40 percent of the Philippines’ tuna catch comes from Papua New Guinea. Presidential spokesman Harry Roque said Papua New Guinea promised it

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Daily Global, Regional and Local Rice E-Newsletter will be “very fair” in the tuna trade, adding it was only requiring its canning facility to process the tuna sourced from its seas. “Hindi naman nila pinagbabawal na yung sobra mapadala sa Pilipinas, sa iba pang parts ng daigdig (They are not disallowing the tuna trade to the Philippines, other parts of the world),” he said. https://news.mb.com.ph/2017/11/10/irri-team-to-be-deployed-to-papua-new-guinea-to-trainfarmers-on-sustainable-rice-production/

University of Arkansas System notebook

By Aziza Musa This article was published today at 2:03 a.m.

UALR to extend its campus footprint The University of Arkansas at Little Rock is extending its footprint in its campus master plan.

The metropolitan university currently extends through 28th Street in the capital city, and it got approval to move through 32nd Street. The extension means the university can buy up properties in that area when they become available. UALR, like other campuses, will still need approval from the University of Arkansas System board of trustees to purchase properties.

Steve McClellan, UALR's vice chancellor of finance and administration, said the move could help the university attract more students. Showing a photograph of an entrance from 32nd Street to the trustees, McClellan said, "If you're looking at your picture, you see to your left, which is to the west, you see a manicured campus ... but as those people approach our campus, they have these less favorable properties, and that's part of our sell."

"We think we owe it to our students and to our donors to try to improve the image of that street," he said.

The area currently includes a convenience store, which the university doesn't think will be up for sale, and houses, in which students live, he said. Moving the school's footprint will also give those students cleaner and safer access to UALR, he said.

UA trustees give OK to buying 615 acres University of Arkansas System trustees on Friday gave the green light for its Division of Agriculture to purchase two tracts of land in Poinsett County.

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Daily Global, Regional and Local Rice E-Newsletter The land -- about 615 acres, both along Arkansas 1 -- is for the development of a new rice research and extension center run by the Division of Agriculture. One property of 22.47 acres will be sold by Rusty Cartillar for $150,000, while the other property of 591.53 acres will be sold

by R.B. Spencer Farms for about $3.5 million.

Funds for the purchase will come from the Arkansas Rice Research and Promotion Board. The University of Arkansas board approved the purchase of the two parcels Thursday.

The rice and UA boards entered into an agreement in July, which in part gave the Agriculture Division funds to pay for the new farm, said Mark Cochran, the vice president for Agriculture Division. The division is expecting more gifts for construction of a facility on the new farmland, along with an endowment to help with the division's operating costs there, he said.

State archeological survey to raise fees The Arkansas Archeological Survey is raising its curation fees for the first time in nearly two decades.

The survey, a part of the University of Arkansas System, is one of the largest in Arkansas and is home to archaeological materials from prehistoric and historic sites across the state. It also houses the University of Arkansas museum collections, which include archaeological materials, university history materials and a "substantial natural history collection," the survey's director George Sabo said.

"By agreement with the campus, the Arkansas Archeological Survey brings into its session all of collections that state and federal agencies and private archeological contracting agencies wish us to take care of over the long term," he said. "And so, to defray our hard costs to keep the collection safe and secure and in a good environment, also to defray our costs for materials to rebox the collections so that they're all in archived quality materials, we assess a curation fee."

Under the new fees -- approved by the University of Arkansas System board of trustees -- the survey will charge $350 per cubic foot for curation, $175 for curating a collection and $25 per linear inch for long-term curation of documents.

Metro on 11/11/2017 http://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2017/nov/11/ualr-to-extend-its-campus-footprint-ua/?f=news-arkansas

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Daily Global, Regional and Local Rice E-Newsletter PM s statement prior to his departure to philippines Following is the text of the Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s departure statement prior to his visit to Philippines. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I will be in Manila on a three-day visit starting 12th November. This will be my first bilateral visit to the Philippines where I will also participate in the ASEAN-India and East Asia Summits.

My participation in them symbolises India's commitment to continue deepening relationship with ASEAN Member States, in particular, and with the Indo-Pacific region, in general, within the framework of my Government's Act East Policy.

Besides these Summits, I would also participate in Special Celebrations of the 50th anniversary of ASEAN, Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) Leaders' Meeting and ASEAN Business and Investment Summit.

The ASEAN Business and Investment Summit will boost our close cooperation to further enhance our trade ties with ASEAN member-states, which constitutes a significant 10.85% of our overall trade.

During my first visit to the Philippines, I look forward to have a bilateral meeting with President of the Philippines HE Mr. Rodrigo Duterte. I will also have interactions with other ASEAN and East Asia Summit Leaders.

I also look forward to connecting with the Indian community in Philippines. During my stay in Manila, I shall also visit the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) and Mahavir Philippines Foundation Inc. (MPFI).

International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) through Scientific Research and Development has developed better quality of rice seed and helped the global community in addressing food scarcity issues. A large number of Indian scientists are working in IRRI and contributing to R&D in this field. My cabinet approved on 12 July 2017 a proposal for IRRI to set up its South Asia Regional Centre at Varanasi. This will be the first Research Centre by IRRI outside its headquarters in the Philippines. The Varanasi Centre would help increase farmers' income by enhancing and supporting rice productivity, reducing cost of production, value addition, diversification and enhancement of farmers' skills.

My visit to Mahavir Philippines Foundation Inc. (MPFI) will demonstrate India's support for its activities in distributing free prosthesis "Jaipur Foot" among the needy amputees. Since its establishment in 1989, MPFI has fitted nearly 15,000 amputees in the Philippines with Jaipur Foot making them capable of living a new life. Government of India is making a modest contribution to the Foundation to support its noble humanitarian activities.

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Daily Global, Regional and Local Rice E-Newsletter I am confident that my visit to Manila will give a new boost to India's bilateral relations with the Philippines and also further strengthen the politico-security, economic and socio-cultural pillars of our engagement with ASEAN.” https://www.narendramodi.in/pm-s-statement-prior-to-his-departure-to-philippines-537762

Water is Scarce in Egypt; so are Research Funds Tarek Abd El-Galil / 10 Nov 2017 El Ibrahimiya Canal, Egypt's largest irrigation canal, depends on water from the Nile. (Photo by Tarek Abd Elgalil) ASSIUT, Egypt—Egyptian researchers are exploring innovative solutions to some aspects of the country’s water-scarcity problem, including projects that seek to make the use of water in agriculture more efficient, to devise affordable ways of desalinating brackish water, and to recycle the “gray water” produced by laundries. But weak public funding for these projects makes it difficult to carry them out.

One promising new project aims to cut in half the amount of water needed to cultivate rice—a significant issue as rice crops now consume more than 10 billion cubic meters of water a year, or one-fifth of the 55.5 billion cubic meters of water that Egypt claims as its annual share of the Nile River’s flow. But that claim is coming under pressure as disputes intensify between Egypt and other nations that share the Nile and its headwaters.

Egypt’s economy, especially agriculture, depends almost entirely on water from the Nile. Even with its current allotment, Egypt faces a deficit between available water resources and current uses. Its per-capita water resources—about 660 cubic meters per person per year, according to a 2014 report—are already below the global “water poverty” line and approaching the threshold the United Nations defines as “absolute scarcity.”

The water politics of the region and the heavy use of water in growing rice underscore the importance of projects like one led by Mohamed El-Sayed El-Hagarey. El-Hagarey, a researcher at the Desert Research Center of Egypt’s Ministry of Agriculture, was honored last year by the International Commission on Irrigation and Drainage, an international organization based in New Delhi, for devising a plow and planting technique that can save about half the amount of irrigation water needed to grow rice.

“Rice needs to be continuously immersed with water until it reaches 10 to 15 centimeters above the soil surface,” said el-Hagarey. “This causes significant loss of water and fertilizers.”

El-Hagarey’s new plow forms V-shaped trenches in the soil, and a seeding tray that follows the plow deposits rice seedlings into the furrows. The trenches are then filled with the water necessary for the plants’ growth. This amount is much less than the irrigation water used in traditional rice cultivation, in which the entire field is flooded.

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Daily Global, Regional and Local Rice E-Newsletter The new technique was tested in a field in Kafr El-Sheikh, a governorate famous for rice cultivation in Egypt. “The results were satisfactory, with the crop increasing by 4.6 percent and the use of water decreased by 50 percent,” said el-Hagarey.

Egypt’s concerns over its water resources have increased since 2011, when Ethiopia began building its Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on the Blue Nile River, a major tributary of the Nile. The new dam, now nearing completion, will create a reservoir that ultimately is expected to hold more than 60 billion cubic meters of water. It will take years to fill the reservoir, and that process threatens to reduce the flow of fresh water downstream to Sudan and Egypt.

“This will cause the desertification of three million acres of land in Egypt,” said Nader Noureddine, a professor of water resources and land reclamation at Cairo University. That’s an area equivalent to 51 percent of the country’s agricultural land, he said, and its loss would worsen the nation’s food gap.

Other Sources of Fresh Water Another option for providing fresh water is desalination, but that technology typically has been considered too slow and expensive for widespread adoption.

At Alexandria University, researchers are testing a technique that they believe can filter and desalinate highly saline water in a short time and at a reasonable cost. The new technique relies on “membrane evaporation,” a process in which water is filtered through a membrane to remove large particles and then heated. The evaporating steam is condensed to remove small impurities before collecting the clean water.

“The membrane can be easily made using cheap components, which makes it an excellent choice in Egypt,” said Ahmed El-Shafe’i, an assistant professor of agricultural engineering and biosystems at the University of Alexandria and one of the researchers involved in testing the technique.“This method can be applied in remote areas because it only requires providing membranes for the filtration process and then the heat to evaporate the filtered water,” said elShafe’i.Other scientists are working on projects for treating and reusing “gray water,” which includes the wastewater from commercial laundries as well as from domestic bathtubs and washing machines, and even the runoff from washing cars.

Egypt produces about 10 billion cubic meters of gray water per year, says Wael Abdel Mo’ez, a professor of chemical engineering at Minia University who has developed a device for cleansing it of chemicals that can damage sewage networks.

The device separates oil and grease from the water, then uses a chemical treatment to remove any industrial detergents, heavy materials and other residues. Finally it performs a sterilization

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Daily Global, Regional and Local Rice E-Newsletter process to eliminate bacteria and other biological contaminants, so the water can be recycled for industrial or agricultural use.

“In this way, 80 percent of the water can be restored to be used in washing, provided there are underground tanks in the laundries to collect the outgoing water after cleaning,” Abdel Mo’ez said.

The new Assiut Barrage on the Nile, which provides irrigation water for 1.6 million acres in Upper Egypt.

Financial and Logistical Hurdles Despite the diversity of projects seeking solutions to the water-scarcity problem in Egypt, putting them into practice has been hampered lack of funding and other problems.

El-Hagarey, the researcher whose plow project won an international award, financed his research at his own expense, but needs more money to develop the machine. “The cost of the machine is 100,000 Egyptian pounds — about 5,000 U.S. dollars,” he said. “But I am seeking greater funding from the government to develop it and make it suitable for commercial use.”

Abdel Mo’ez needs more than money to see his gray-water purification project succeed on a large scale. “Besides funding, the government must pass legislation that forces building owners to allocate separate gray-water drainage,” he said.

Hossam Abu El-Nasr, a professor of agriculture at Assiut University, says he believes that researchers have developed models that can reduce waste, reuse water, and manage water resources better. But research alone is useless, he said.

“There is no real encouragement from government institutions, which invariably argue that there is no funding budget, even though the water crisis is worsening one day after another,” he said.

The problem has worsened in recent years as the government has cut its investment in research and adopted austerity measures in response to an economic crisis that now grips the country.

The ministry of agriculture’s budget amounts to 545 million Egyptian pounds ($30.8 million) for the 2016-17 fiscal year. But the Agricultural Research Center’s budget was reduced sharply this year, to 3 million Egyptian pounds ($170,000), compared to 70 million pounds (about $4 million) the previous year. The Desert Research Center’s budget was reduced from 32 million Egyptian pounds ($1.8 million) to 4 million pounds ($226,000).

The reduction in research funds “is very large and unjustified, especially with our urgent need to increase agricultural production amid droughts, climate change and the shortage and pollution of

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Daily Global, Regional and Local Rice E-Newsletter Egyptian water resources,” said Noureddine, the professor of water resources and land reclamation at Cairo University.

Others called for more cooperation between government and academic research centers. “Every ministry has research centers that work separately from other centers, and there is no coordination with university research centers,” said Ali el-Bahrawi, a professor at the department of irrigation and hydraulics at Ain Shams University’s college of engineering. “Efforts to carry out research and cooperate in their implementation must be consolidated.”

Hani el-Nazir, the former head of the Academy of Scientific Research and Technology, a nonprofit organization affiliated with Egypt’s ministry of higher education, agrees with elBahrawi that research successes in Egypt are mostly individual and lack governmental support and institutional cooperation. “Government spending is very weak on research,” he said. “The efforts of institutions to conduct real research at a large level must be combined.”

“This article is part of the science journalism project “Schreiben über Wissenschaft of the Goethe-Institut and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), supported by the German Federal Foreign Office. More information can be found at https://www.goethe.de/egypt.” https://www.al-fanarmedia.org/2017/11/water-scarce-egypt-research-funds/

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Daily Global, Regional and Local Rice E-Newsletter Yolo County’s first woman rice miller calls for more women

Christine Ponce is the first female and Hispanic rice miller in Yolo County. Ponce worked at Farmer’s Rice in West Sacramento for 27 years. She shows a photo one of her three daughters, Izabelle, standing next to Former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. JENICE TUPOLO — DAILY DEMOCRAT

By Jenice Tupolo, jtupolo@dailydemocrat.com, @jaytupolo on Twitter 11/10/17, 6:45 PM PST |

Yolo County’s first Hispanic woman rice miller, Christine Ponce, gives a tour of a six-story West Sacramento rice mill. Ponce worked at Farmer’s Rice for 27 years and is a Woodland native.Courtesy of Izabelle Ponce

Women are missing in industrial professions, according to Christine Ponce — Yolo County’s first Hispanic woman rice miller.

“It’d be nice to have programs to train women to be forklift drivers,” she said, explaining drawbacks for women in her field. “Or teach them about machines. Those types of trainings can open positions elsewhere. It’s a shame there aren’t more classes for women.”

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Daily Global, Regional and Local Rice E-Newsletter Ponce was recognized at the Women of the Year awards, presented by Congressman John Garamendi Oct. 19, for her dedicated work. Until she was awarded, Ponce was unaware she was the first woman rice miller in Yolo County.The Woodland native spent 27 years working at Farmer’s Rice — a West Sacramento rice mill — where she started as a cleaner and climbed to head rice miller.“It’s hard to explain to people what a miller does other than ‘I process rice,’” she said, laughing in the living room of her Woodland home. “But there’s no way to tell them I also work on machinery too.”

Ponce, 72, stands a little above five-foot-two with short and curly copper-brown hair. Though her stature isn’t large, she’s stronger than her three daughters who “didn’t understand how I could open a fright elevator more than 30 times a day,” she said, recalling when her daughters toured the mill.She can do every job in her field, from starting up Farmer’s Rice’s six-story mill to shutting it down. What distinguishes her position from others is experience. Ponce was so in tune with the mill’s hundreds of machines, that when work lines were disrupted, she knew what machine broke by its sound.

Her schedule required seven days a week, working eight-hour sifts; sometimes working 12-hour shifts if another worker failed to show up. She credits her success as a miller to Farmer’s Rice and the era when she hired in, when certifications and regulations weren’t as heavily enforced.

Ponce believes these two combinations provided an easier introduction into a male dominated profession.

“It was a different time back then,” she said, remembering the ‘90s and her second day at the mill. “They needed a forklift driver and I said ‘if you train me, then I’ll do it.’ After they put me on a forklift, I kept on driving for 27 years.”Any person wanting to fill a forklift driving position now, would need a license and certified training, she added.As a widowed mother, Ponce is proud of affording an education for her daughters and always keeping them fed. Her sense of hard-work started with her grandparents who raised her. She recalls seeing them work at their Main Street Mexican restaurant as a child.“I used to help them and watch them work in the restaurant they opened in 1935,” Ponce said. “We didn’t have a babysitter, so wherever my grandparents went, I went with them.”

Now two years into retirement, Ponce spends her days taking care of her two dogs, cat and bird.

She takes cake decorating classes and hits the gym regularly, since she’s no longer walking through a six-story rice mill.“This type of work meant success and having a roof for my daughters. For them to learn and have a college degree,” Ponce explained. “It meant not starving or having to ask for a ride because you have your own car. I truly loved going to work, every day.”Contact Jenice Tupolo at 530-4066239.http://www.thereporter.com/article/NG/20171110/FEATURES/171119983

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