11th january 2013 top international & local rice news rice plus magazine (www ricepluss com)

Internaional & Local Rice News News Highlights:  China may step up rice imports from India: US think-thank  PH may have enough rice to feed growing population  Thai finance minister rejects extra loans for rice pledging scheme  LT Foods seeks more time to ship rice to Indonesia  Nigeria to import 100 rice mills from China: official  Vietnamese succeeds in making cosmetics materials from rice bran

NEWS DETAILS: China may step up rice imports from India: US think-thank 11 JAN, 2013, 04.25PM IST, PTI

"China's total rice import was 2-3 million tonnes from Vietnam and India last year. I can't say how much rice has been imported from India but definetly some quantity has been

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imported for the first time after a gap of many years," US- based International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) Director General Shenggen Fan said at an event here.

NEW DELHI: China may enhance rice import from India in coming years in the wake of rise in cost of farm production, an expert said today.

"China's total rice import was 2-3 million tonnes fromVietnam and India last year. I can't say how much rice has been imported from India but definetly some quantity has been imported for the first time after a gap of many years," US- based International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) Director General Shenggen Fan said at an event here. India emerged as the world's largest rice exporter in 2012 beating its Asian counterpart Thailand with shipment of around 10 million tonnes. "It is just a beginning and China's rice import from India could enhance in the coming years with cost of labour, water and land increasing. Also, it is cheaper to import foodgrains from India instead of providing subsidies to farmers," he said. As far as wheat is concerned, the country is buying largely from the US, Canada and Australia and not from India. "However, there is scope for import as India has a massive stocks of rice and wheat," he said on the sidelines of a function here.

India has sufficient rice and wheat stocks due to bumper production. Last year, rice and wheat output was at record 104.32 million tonnes and 93.90 million tonnes, respectively. On poverty level in Asian countries like India and China, Fan said, "The region as a whole is not on track in meeting the millennium development goal (MDG) of cutting the rate of undernourishment by half between 1990 and 2015." Only in the southeastern Asia, the trend is on the MDG target, he said, adding that food and nutrition insecurity continues to be an

important challenge in Asia.

"India accounts for some 217 million or a quarter of all undernourished people globally. As a result, India is likely to miss the MDG target," he said. Innovations in agri-technologies, institutions and policy are to be improved to address the challenges of food and nutritional insecurity in Asia, he added. Emphasising that investment in agri-research have substantially reduced rural poverty by stimulating farm growth and reducing food prices, Fan said: "The research finding shows that for every rupee invested in agri-research in India, Rs 13.5 is returned.

"Therefore, Indian government should increase investment in agriculture, rural infrastructure and education as these have high payoffs in terms of raising smallholder farmers' productivity and incomes," he added.

Doubling investment in agriculture research and output maximising scenario results in 261 million people moving out of poverty globally by 2025, IFPRI observed.

PH may have enough rice to feed growing population Written by James Konstantin Galvez Published on 12 January 2013

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The government is currently pushing for a review of its rice sufficiency data, citing that the expected recordhigh palay (unmilled rice) production in 2012 is “already enough” to cover consumption requirements of the 95.8 million Filipinos.

Dante Delima, Department of Agriculture assistant secretary and National Rice Program coordinator, said that they would start by February 2013 the review of rice sufficiency targets in line with the latest population and per capita consumption data provided by the National Statistics Office.

For 2012, Delima said that palay production is likely to reach 18.03 million metric tons (MT) to 18.05 million metric tons, higher than 17.98 million MT forecast of the Bureau of Agricultural Statistics. Meanwhile, the total population of the Philippines as of May 10, 2010 was placed around 92.337 million based on the 2010 Census of Population and Housing. The census counts up to the barangay level were made official with the signing by President Benigno Aquino 3rd of Proclamation No.362 in March 2012.With a 1.90-percent annual growth rate, the country’s total population is now estimated at about 95.8 million with per capita rice consumption placed at 115 kilos. At this rate, annual rice consumption is pegged at 11.02 million MT, he added.“If we compare the population rate with our production of 18.03 million MT, minus the 351,763MT seed requirement for planting, our total rice equivalent at 65 percent recovery rate is around 11.492 million MT… more than enough to supply our food requirement,” Delima said.

At present, the National Rice Program is using 119 kilos per capita under its rice self-sufficiency roadmap. But even at the current consumption rate, Delima said that the country still have a surplus in rice production as compared to the actual population.

Delima, however, said that consumption requirement excludes the rice wastage and use in other purpose other than food, saying that the review will confirm their estimates.“That is why is important that we conduct

a review of all the figures/data with regard to our consumption. This will confirm that we are already sufficient in our rice production,” he said.

The DA official said that the government may still import about 100,000MT of rice this year to be used as buffer stock, noting that the government needs to secure at least a 90-day rice supply to ensure stable prices.“Traditionally, we are only required to have at least 30-day buffer stock. But for security proposes, we have hiked our rice stock requirement to about 90 days. This will help the National Food Authority [NFA] to stabilize prices and ensure that we have enough supply of rice should there be calamities,” he said.

As of December 2012, the BAS said that country’s rice stock inventory was pegged at 2.61 million metric tons, enough for the next three months.It added that the household stocks would last for 39 days, while stocks in commercial warehouses would last for 20 days and those in NFA depositories would be good for 18 days.

Thai finance minister rejects extra loans for rice pledging scheme Friday, 11 January 2013By MCOT

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BANGKOK, Jan 10 – Deputy Prime Minister/Finance Minister Kittiratt Na-Ranong has stood firm that the government’s loan ceiling of Bt150 billion for the highly-criticised rice pledging scheme and the Bt480 billion loan limits for state enterprises will not be expanded.

He said the rice pledging scheme has used up the available loans and the government disagreed with some state enterprises seeking additional loans to finance the programme. The state enterprises’ Bt480 billion in loans represent 20 per cent of the national expenditure – the maximum permitted by law.

Urging a speedy release of rice under the plan to enable cash flow, Mr Kittiratt said government agencies responsible for the rice pledging scheme should effectively manage revenue and expense under the government-approved Bt240 billion fund for the 2012/2013 harvest year.

The Bank of Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives (BAAC) said it has issued Bt113 billion loans for the purchase of 7.5 million tonnes of rice in the 2012/2013 harvest year as it awaits a new injection of Bt150 billion from the Finance Ministry.Wanchai Siriwatanatrakul, director of the BAAC State Policy Department, said the Finance Ministry has so far forwarded Bt55 billion loans to the BAAC for the rice programme and the balance will be gradually handed over to the BAAC.

He said the Commerce Ministry has informed the BAAC that it will pay Bt20 billion to the bank soon, adding that a total of Bt85 billion should be fully paid to the bank by the end of this year .

LT Foods seeks more time to ship rice to Indonesia NEW DELHI, JAN. 10:

LT Foods Ltd has sought more time from Indonesian Government agency Bulog to deliver rice shipments.The company had bagged a deal from Bulog in October to supply 30,000 tonnes of rice by December 25 but couldn’t execute the shipments in time due to lengthy procedures in awarding the contract.

The Indian rice exporter has already shipped out 21,000 tonnes to Indonesia and the remaining 9,000 tonnes are lying at the Kandla Port.“We have sought an extension in the contract till end-January to deliver the shipment,” said S. Venkatesh, Head of International Business at LT Foods Ltd. The exporter has nominated vessels to carry the rice cargo and is waiting for Bulog to approve them.Though the tender was awarded in October-end, other formalities such as the verification of stocks by Bulog at the exporter’s warehouses, issue of contract letter and opening of line of credit took another month, leaving less time for the shipments. LT Foods has raised this issue through the Governments and trade channels both in Indonesia and India.

In 2012, the company shipped 3.2 lakh tonnes of rice to customers in Russia, South Africa, East Africa and Indonesia.

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LT Foods’ stock ended about a per cent lower at Rs 60.10 on the Bombay Stock Exchange on Wednesday.

Nigeria to import 100 rice mills from China: official 14:20 January 11, 2013

The Nigerian Ministry of Agriculture is to import 100 rice mills from China, having signed an agreement with the Nigerian Export and Import Bank as well as the Central Bank of Nigeria, an official said on Friday.

Nigeria's Rice Value Chain Team leader Olumuyiwa Osiname told reporters here that the mills will ensure local rice is processed to meet international standard and strategically made available in all the 36 states in the West African country, with each state getting at least two rice mills.

"The states with higher rice production would get more than two mills," he said, adding that the first 40 mills would be installed before mid-year.

"Most of them are not long grains and then, they are not being processed right," he said in reference to the types of rice and their processing.

"The manual processing like parboiling and soaking, sometimes give the rice odor, which many consumers do not like. There are technologies now that can process the rice the same way as they process in India or

Thailand. We will take the stones off, we will take the smell off, we will polish and repackage," he added.

Osiname said the Nigerian government had already provided farmers with improved seeds to boost rice production in the country, noting the seeds were distributed to farmers to ensure that paddy for the mills were of good quality. This would make the locally-grown rice to be globally accepted, he said further.

He said the total rice production expected under Nigeria's Agricultural Transformation Agenda (ATA) by 2015 was 5.1 million tons of milled rice. "When the 5.1 million tons is added to about 1.3 million tons being produced by farmers who did not join the ATA, the total national production of milled rice would amount to 6.4 million tons," he said.

Vietnamese succeeds in making cosmetics materials from rice bran VietNamNet Bridge – Nguyen Duc Tien, a scientist from the Agricultural Electromechanical Post-harvesting Technology Institute and his associates have successfully invented the technology to make Gamma Oryzanol

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from rice bran. Gamma Oryzanol can be used to make medicine, cosmetics and anti-aging supplements for women.

Collecting hundreds of micro-nutrients from bran It is estimated that the amount of rice bran discharged by the rice processing establishments in Vietnam is up to 45 million tons, which has been used as the animal feed. Since rice bran usually gets mold during the storage, its nutrients have not been fully exploited.

Besides the nutrients like protein, lipid, glucocide or vitamins, rice bran contains a very important substance – gamma orizanol, an important antioxidant collected from plants, which can help treat ulcers, particularly stomach ulcers, reducing the amount of fat in the blood, helps increase the blood circulation, reduce body fat, prevent the penetration of ultraviolet rays, preventing skin pigmentation.

Gamma Oryzanol from rice bran has been used widely in manufacturing medicine, cosmetics and anti-aging supplements for women, which are especially good to reduce the symptoms in women's menopause and postmenopause period. The products can also be used as supplements to help develop muscles in the body, increase strength.

Vietnam is a big rice producer and exporter. It has been throwing away big amounts of rice bran discharged from the rice processing, while it still has to import Gamma Oryzanol to make medicine and cosmetics.

There has been no production workshop in Vietnam which can make out Gamma Oryzanol product, while the Gamma Oryzanol put into production are the imports from Japan, China and some other countries.Having

realized the benefits of Gamma Oryzanol and the importance of the development of the technology to make Gamma Oryzanol, Tien and his colleagues have followed a research work relating to the issue and has build up the process of making Gamma Oryzanol from rice bran – a very cheap material.

By-products need to be fully exploited According to Tien, the process of making Gamma Oryzanol comprises of 12 steps. In the pilot production period, Tien and his colleagues could make 568 grams of Gamma Oryzanol products with the purification level of 68.5 percent from 120 kilos of rice bran.

They also collected 5.8 kilos of soap embryo, which is used to make soap, and then make 10 liters of herbal soap from 2 kilos of soap embryo.

Gamma Oryzanol has also been utilized in making supplement food and cosmetics, including lotion and hair cream.

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Regarding the production costs of Gamma Oryzanol, Tien said it costs VND1.9 million to churn out one kilo of Gamma Oryzanol which has the same quality with the Gamma Oryzanol now being sold at VND7 million in the market. The figures can prove the high economic efficiency of the production process.

In Vietnam, the exploitation of active biological substance from rice bran, the popular and easily found material, remains open.

The scientific research work by Tien and his associates has been applauded by scientists, because it allows making Gamma Oryzanol the demand for which has been increasing high from food processing, medicine and cosmetics production. The research work would pave the way for the development of the industry of exploiting biological active element from farm produce. After the pilot production period, Gamma Oryzanol would be manufactured in an industrial production scale.

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