1st june,2015 daily global rice e newsletter by riceplus magazine

Daily Global Rice E-Newsletter Daily Global Rice e-Newsletter www.ricepluss.com www.riceplusmagazine.blogspot.com

June 1 ,2015 Vol 5,Issue VI

VASWANIS GET BILLIONS ON JONATHAN’S LAST DAY IN OFFICE Category: Lead stories Published on Tuesday, 02 June 2015 04:01 Written by Nuruddeen M. Abdallah

A new import quota for rice millers under the National Rice Development Policy was approved by former President Goodluck Jonathan on Thursday last week, his last full day in office in order to help the Stallion Group to evade paying billions of naira in import duty, Daily Trust learnt from informed sources in Abuja yesterday.

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Daily Global Rice e-Newsletter The Stallion Group, which is owned by the controversial businessmen Vaswani Brothers, have been fighting since late last year to evade paying N17 billion in import duty slapped on them by the Nigeria Customs Service [NCS] for exceeding their 2014 rice import quota.Former Minister of State for Finance Ambassador Bashir Yuguda conveyed Jonathan‘s approval of the new 2015 quotas to NCS in a letter with reference F.4569\Vol V\295 dated May 28, 2015.

Yuguda said the approval ―was based on the recommendation of the inter-ministerial committee set up to review the policy. ‖ The inter-ministerial committee itself was hastily set up by former Vice President Mohammed Namadi Sambo in mid-May following strong lobby by the Vaswanis to evade payment of the higher duty rate slapped on them by the Customs for exceeding their rice import quota under the dual tariff regime.The committee met under Sambo‘s chairmanship on May 14. Those who attended included then Finance Minister Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, then Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment Olusegun Aganga, then Minister of National Planning Dr. Abubakar Sulaiman, Bureau for Public Enterprises‘ director general Benjamin Dikki and permanent secretary in the Agriculture Ministry Arch. S. T. Echono. Within a matter of days this committee adopted a new ―national rice supply gap‖ of 782,000 metric tonnes. It then proceeded to allocate new quotas to 16 ―existing millers with expanding operations‖ and four ―new investors‖ in rice milling.

The former group included Mascot Agro, a new company said to have been hurriedly registered

by Stallion Group as a new rice importer since their main company Popular Foods was already enmeshed in a struggle with the Customs. NCS even shut the company‘s warehouses over nonpayment of the excess duty but were ordered by the presidency to reopen them pending the resolution of the case. Mascot Agro got a new quota of 100,000 tonnes under the preferential tariff regime.Trouble had started for Stallion Group late last year when NCS calculated that it imported 475,000 metric tonnes of rice over and above its 2014 quota of 89,939 MT. NCS determined that this excess rice import is not covered by the preferential rate of 10 percent duty and 20 percent levy.

Since the national rice policy approved by Jonathan in May last year prescribed 20 percent duty and 60 percent levy for any excess imports, Customs calculated Stallion‘s indebtedness at N15 billion. This increased to N17 billion when the group imported another 54,000 tonnes of rice through its Mascot Agro, which was not a recognised rice miller and had no quota allocations in 2014. Since then, Daily Trust learnt that the Vaswani Brothers pulled all available strings in the Federal Government to dodge paying the duty. Incidentally, three companies that also exceeded their import quotas, Kereksuk Farms, Atafi Rice Industries and Arewa Rice Mill quietly paid the higher charge slapped on them by NCS. The new, hurriedly done 2015 quota allocations were conveyed by then Vice President Sambo to Jonathan in a letter SH/VP/FMARD/01 dated May 26, this year. Jonathan approved it the next day and his approval was conveyed to Sambo in a letter PRES/143/VP/748 dated May 27, 2015.

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Daily Global Rice e-Newsletter It was signed by Matt Aikhionbare, Senior Special Assistant to the President, Admin. Sambo then sent it to Yuguda who ordered the Customs Service to comply in a letter dated May 28, the administration‘s last full day in office.With this last minute ―parting gift‖, an authoritative National Assembly source told Daily Trust that Stallion Group will now use the additional quotas granted to Mascot Agro to evade payment of billions of naira in Customs duty even though the imports were illegally made in the first place.

The source also said this massive import by Stallion Group far above its quota has already created a glut of parboiled rice in the local market and has totally defeated the aims of the National Rice Development Policy which is to encourage the import of husky brown rice that requires local milling.The source said the relevant National Assembly committee will draw President Muhammadu Buhari‘s attention to the hurriedly done quotas which merely helped Stallion Group to dodge paying duties. http://www.dailytrust.com.ng/daily/index.php/top-stories/56181-vaswanis-get-billions-onjonathan-s-last-day-in-office

Senator Wicker Addresses 80th Annual Delta Council Meeting Senator Roger Wicker

CLEVELAND, MS -- Roger Wicker, U.S. Senator for Mississippi delivered the keynote address at the 80th Annual Delta Council meeting here on May 29. Wicker praised the Delta Council for the broad scope of their activities and the impact the organization has had in the region, and reaffirmed his commitment to Mississippi's agriculture industry which is deeply rooted in the Delta. The annual event is widely attended and sponsored by a variety of agricultural organizations including the Mississippi Rice Promotion Board.Members of Delta 1000 also heard from Jere Nash and Andy Taggart, co-authors of Mississippi Politics: The Struggle for Power, 1976-2006, who offered a "Red-Blue Review" of the 2015 campaign for state positions in Mississippi as a possible harbinger for the national elections in 2016.

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USA Rice Federation Chairman Dow Brantley attended along with USA Rice staff and was impressed with the large crowd and high level of participation from key Mississippi leaders.Brantley said, "This was my first Delta Council meeting and it was great to see all the rice grower leadership, and learn about the good work Delta Council does each and every year serving farmers and the community."

Contact: Ben Mosely (703) 236-1471

Procurement Gathers Pace in Kalahandi

By Express News Service Published: 30th May 2015 06:00 AM Last Updated: 30th May 2015 07:36 AM

BHAWANIPATNA:Paddy procurement is on in full swing in Kalahandi district. While procurement started on May 20, the Kalahandi administration has so far procured 79,925 quintals of paddy through mandis.The district administration has decided to procure 1,05,304 tonnes of paddy through 55 Primary Agriculture Cooperative Societies (PACS). Of these, 46 are located in Indravati area.Sources said 33 rice millers have been engaged to lift the paddy and squads formed to ensure hassle-free procurement. Nodal Officer for Paddy Procurement, Mahendra Behera said of the 55 paddy procurement centres, 17 do not have permanent sheds to store paddy.Meanwhile, rice millers have already delivered 75 per cent of the costumed milled rice of Kharif crop to the district administration.

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Daily Global Rice e-Newsletter http://www.newindianexpress.com/states/odisha/Procurement-Gathers-Pace-inKalahandi/2015/05/30/article2840354.ece

Crop Progress: 2015 Crop 96 Percent Planted WASHINGTON, DC -- Ninety-six percent of the nation's 2015 rice acreage is planted, according to today's U.S. Department of Agriculture's Crop Progress Report.

Rice Planted, Selected States Week Ending May 31, 2014

State

May 24, 2015

May 31, 2015

2010-2014 average

Percent Arkansas

98

92

96

97

California

94

98

99

94

Louisiana

100

99

100

100

Mississippi

92

94

95

95

Missouri

98

78

87

97

Texas

99

84

85

99

Six States

99

93

96

98

CME Group/Closing Rough Rice Futures CME Group (Preliminary): Closing Rough Rice Futures for June 1 Month

Price

Net Change

July 2015

$9.650

+ $0.140

September 2015

$9.925

+ $0.140

November 2015

$10.200

+ $0.135

January 2016

$10.455

+ $0.135

March 2016

$10.635

+ $0.130

May 2016

$10.635

+ $0.130

July 2016

$10.635

+ $0.130

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Daily Global Rice e-Newsletter Usa rice federation

Satellite imagery to enable large-scale monitoring of Asia’s rice areas

By International Rice Research Institute May 29, 2015 | 3:20 pm EDT Information derived from satellite images can soon be made available to governments to help guide policy related to food security and sustainable development, particularly in rice-growing areas.The European Space Agency (ESA) satellite, Sentinel-1A, launched in 2014 can provide regular ‛snapshots‘ of Asia as often as every 12 days. The imagery is derived from synthetic aperture radar (SAR) systems that can monitor the earth‘s surface day and night, even through rain or cloud cover—hence, images even during the monsoon season—making the tool perfect for rice crop monitoring.As a demonstration of the potential of the Sentinel program, sarmap and heInternational Rice Research Institute (IRRI) have generated mosaics, composed from several Sentinel-1A images that cover 7 million square kilometers of South and Southeast Asia.

These cloud-free mosaics show detailed SAR imagery for accurate monitoring of agricultural activity and of the state of natural resources across Asia.SAR-based monitoring has never before been possible at such large scale, mainly due to the cost and challenge of processing so much imagery automatically. Fortunately, Sentinel-1A imagery is available for free and sarmap has developed automated processing chains, hosted on cloud computing facilities provided by Amazon Web Services to handle this vast amount of data. The rice crop can then be monitored on a regular basis through the season.This kind of monitoring can support a data revolution, leading to better and more timely information on crop production.Rice is one of the most important crops for global food security, and 90%—or about 140 million hectares—of the world‘s rice-growing area is in Asia. The crop is regularly exposed to the risk of damage from drought, flooding, and tropical storms. Timely and accurate information on rice, i.e., crop area, crop growth, and losses due to calamities) is thus very important to rice-growing and -consuming nations.

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The lower Mekong River Delta, viewed with as a SAR imagery. (SAR imagery from ESA: Sentinel-1A. Background from Google Earth, Google Inc.) IRRI and sarmap are working, with many other partners, on two major projects that use SAR imagery: One is the Remote Sensing-based Information and Insurance for Crops in Emerging economies (RIICE) project, which has already used SAR images to monitor rice-growing areas in 13 test sites in Cambodia, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam. The second phase of the RIICE project starts in May 2015 and aims to develop in-country capacity to help partner governments fully benefit from the technology.The other is the Philippine Rice Information System (PRiSM) project, the development of which was funded by the Philippine Department of Agriculture.

The PRiSM project has identified SAR-based rice monitoring as one of the technologies to be used for delivering better rice crop information."Our aim is to work with partners in Asia to ensure that this technology is incorporated into national systems," said Andrew Nelson, project lead at IRRI and head of IRRI‘s Geographic Information Systems laboratory. "Such information can better support decision-making, targeting of resources, crop insurance, and disaster mitigation and response systems in both public and private sectors.

"What do the images show? SAR imagery must be interpreted differently from imagery commonly available through Google Maps and other mapping services. In the SAR mosaics, we have processed images taken between 21 February and 10 March 2015 such that dark blue represents water or other flat surfaces such as airport runways, orange and white represent built up areas and human settlements, light blue represents bare soil, while brown and green show

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Daily Global Rice e-Newsletter vegetation at different stages of growth. SAR imagery from Sentinel-1A enables tracking of changes in vegetation and water through the seasons, which changes the way crops are monitored from space in monsoon conditions.The following image, for example, of the lower Mekong Delta—one of the most important rice-growing regions in the world—clearly shows how SAR imagery can capture differences in vegetation and water.

The irrigation network and the various stages of the rice crop across the delta are visible as well as other features such as cities (e.g., Ho Chi Minh at top right of the image) and aquaculture in coastal areas. The image is a snapshot of the earth‘s surface, but Sentinel-1A will continue to capture images as often as every 12 days over the region, and these images will become increasingly useful as they reveal the progress of the rice crop over time, season after season.This work has been conducted for the RIICE project funded by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and for the PRiSM project funded by the Bureau of Agricultural Research of the Philippine Department of Agriculture (DA-BAR). It is also supported by the Global Rice Science Partnership (GRISP). http://www.agprofessional.com/news/satellite-imagery-enable-large-scale-monitoring-asia%E2%80%99srice-areas

Thai rice stocks could help market keep El Niño in check

By RJ Whitehead , 29-May-2015

Current weather patterns in Southeast Asia reinforce meteorologists’ belief that a strong El Niño is already taking place, but still the rice market is indifferent, says a leading rice researcher.

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Daily Global Rice e-Newsletter The severe and ongoing drought the weather event has brought has become evident in the dryseason rice crop in the Philippines and Thailand where, according to the Office of Agricultural Economics, it is expected to decline by 30%, or 2m tonnes of milled rice compared to last year‘s yield.Similarly, drought in the Western Visayas region of the Philippines, including Bohol province, has had some effect on the dry-season crop but, if the drought continues, the main cropping season that starts in May will also be affected.

Less supply but still prices remain weak ―So far, the market has been quite indifferent to the possibility of a strong El Niño this year, in which India is predicted to be hardest hit along with Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines,‖ writes Dr Sam Mohanty, head of the social sciences of the International Rice Research Institute (Irri) in the Philippines, on his blog.

Despite such possibilities, rice prices continue to remain weak on the back of surplus Thai and Indian rice in the market. Last year‘s forecast of a strong El Niño, which did not materialise, has been playing on the minds of many in the rice market. ―The comfortable level of nearly 100m tonnes in global rice stocks, including 9m tonnes of Thai stocks (based on USDA data), has been acting as a buffer against any irrational market sentiment and speculation. ―This does not mean that market sentiment will not change in the coming weeks as we draw closer to the advent of the monsoon and main cropping season in many rice-growing countries.‖ India wields a mighty influence on rest of world Of the various factors that can influence the market, writes Mohanty, India‘s monsoon situation will be the key in the coming weeks, Mohanty adds. India‘s influence on the rice market has never been greater than what it is now, with 7m tonnes of non-basmati and 3-4m tonnes of basmati exports. In case of a drought, non-basmati exports will be the target of policymakers to ensure domestic food security. Indian public-sector rice procurement stocks through the Food Corporation of India and state agencies are at a level much higher than the strategic stock requirement, but the level of current procurement stocks is much lower than what it was during the same time last year. Based on the data available on the FCI website, total rice stocks at the start of May stood at 22.35m tonnes, compared to 28.6m tonnes at the same time last year, and 34.7m tonnes the year before.Mohanty says the market is poised to remain rational and driven by market fundamentals as long as exporting countries remain open for business and refrain from making unilateral decisions to restrict rice trade flows and importing countries refrain from panic buying for domestic stockpiles. ―The major worry for the market is the countries in the El Niño watch, which include the secondlargest exporter, India, and three large importers, Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines. ―If these countries are affected by drought in the coming season, this could spell trouble for the market. On the one hand, India will be pulling out of the non-basmati market to meet the local shortfall and, on the other hand, demand from importing countries will be rising. ―If this happens, the 9m tonnes of Thai rice stocks could come in very handy in keeping the market in check and ensuring that importers not resort to panic buying.‖

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Rice Rocks Riverfest Riverfest rice swag

LITTLE ROCK, AR -- The Arkansas Rice Council represented the rice industry as a sponsor of the annual Riverfest celebration held here over Memorial Day Weekend.

Riverfest, the largest family festival held in Little Rock, served as an ideal platform to encourage the public to get rice on their minds -- and on their plates. More than 250,000 people attended the festival, and the Arkansas Rice Council booth was a popular destination. As an event sponsor, the Arkansas Rice Council was able to communicate how important the rice industry is to the state of Arkansas. They shared Arkansas rice facts and hosted interactive games that allowed participants to win freebies like koozies, sunscreen, bumper stickers, and sunglasses holders.

"People know we grow a lot of rice in Arkansas, but they're usually surprised to learn it's more than half of all the rice grown in the U.S." said Tisha Gribble who represented the Arkansas Rice Council at the event. "And when I tell them that it's around 1.3 million acres, provides 25,000 jobs to Arkansans in rural areas of our state, and generates around six billion dollars for our state each year...their minds are blown!"

Contact: Colleen Klemczewski (703) 236-1446

Rice Quality Concerns Create Hurdles For Industry

by Rick Fahr

on Monday, Jun. 1, 2015 12:00 am

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A rice field near Stuttgart (Jason Burt)

Jim Mead, owner of Delta Grains, a seed and grain brokerage business near Jonesboro, was part of the vanguard in seed technology. In the 1980s, he was an integral part of Eagle Seed Co. in Weiner, a small but innovative company that developed new rice and soybean varieties. Now, he views the seed business from both sides.He doesn‘t like some of what he sees.―Back in the day, 120-bushel [to the acre] rice was good. Today, we are 160-bushel farmers, but we also hit a plateau here,‖ he said. Starting in 2006 with Bayer [Crop Science], that was the downfall of U.S. rice.

The quality was starting to decrease.‖In 2006, it became known that Bayer, one of the major seed players, had allowed genetically modified (GMO) rice to get into the state‘s rice seed stock.

GMO crops are not welcome in many markets, and the ripple effects from the Bayer incident reached far beyond the state‘s borders, ultimately leading to lawsuits settled for hundreds of millions of dollars.But beyond the Bayer situation, Mead said the state‘s rice industry faces large hurdles, many of them self-inflicted.He recounted how seed varieties have forfeited milling quality for short-growing season traits.For many years, Weiner has hosted the Arkansas Rice Festival on the second weekend in October. A generation ago, many farmers could not attend because they were still harvesting their crop. That‘s not true today.―Breeders started focusing on early, early high-yield, and now, if you are not finished cutting by the Rice Festival, you are not a very good farmer,‖ Mead said.―Breeders have gotten the yield up. They have gotten the earliness in there, but now we have a quality issue.

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Daily Global Rice e-Newsletter We used to be known as the No. 1 quality rice in the world. Now, we can‘t hardly give it away.

We just don‘t have the quality anymore that we used to have. We are not known as the qualityproducing country anymore.‖That‘s not a sentiment likely to find its way into rice marketing materials, but increasingly industry trade groups are acknowledging the issue.―U.S. Long-Grain Rice Industry: At a Crucial Crossroads‖ by Karen Ott Mayer delves in depth into the quality issues facing the nation‘s rice industry and the international competitors filling that void.Underlining the importance of the subject, the piece is found on www.usriceproducers.com, not exactly an outfit that benefits from U.S. rice defects. Dating to 2013, Delta Farm Press, arguably agriculture‘s most prominent voice, has raised alarms regarding quality issues, too http://www.arkansasbusiness.com/article/105193/rice-quality-concerns-create-hurdles-for-industry

At World's Fair In Italy, The Future Of Food Is On The Table MAY 31, 2015 7:34 AM ET SYLVIA POGGIOLI Carlo Ratti of MIT designed this "supermarket of the future" exhibit. If you move a hand close to a product, a digital display lights up, providing information on origin, nutritional value and carbon footprint.

Courtesy of COOP Italia

For the next six months, Italy is hosting a dinner party — and the entire world is invited to attend.The event, called Expo Milano 2015, is the latest World's Fair. This year's theme is "feeding the planet, energy for life." The global population is projected to pass 9 billion by 2050, and Expo organizers want to start a global conversation now about sustainability, biodiversity and food security.With exhibits from 145 countries over a 12million-square-foot area, the expo is a showcase for the many cultures of food and environmental technology. Some pavilions have vertical farms. Brazil has transplanted a tropical forest. And some countries are exhibiting jointly their staple products— such as rice, coffee and cocoa.World-famous architects have designed many of the pavilions — most of which will be dismantled when the Expo shuts down.One of the more low-key pavilions belongs to the Italian-born Slow Food movement. Since it was founded in the mid-1980s, Slow Food has contributed to a growing worldwide appreciation of artisanal food products and local food production.

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This vertical farm is part of the American pavilion.

Sylvia Poggioli/NPR

Slow Food is also a strong voice against big agro-industries, whose low prices it blames for pushing small farmers out of the market. Lorenzo Berlandis, vice president of Slow Food Italy, says the world must change its mindset about food production and the culture of waste."We hope that at the end of this event, we can reach a new vision and new perspective in food production — how can human beings feed the planet, feed humanity respecting biodiversity. [It's] the only chance we have for the future," Berlandis says.One pavilion challenging visitors on consumer responsibility is Switzerland's. It features four silo-like towers filled with Swiss food products.

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Daily Global Rice e-Newsletter Pavilion director Manuel Salchli says the towers will not be re-filled."People are invited to take as much as they want to take, but they are also reminded of the fact that after them, we expect another 2 million visitors," he explains. "So think of what you take and what you leave for others to come."So far, Salsli says, visitors are not stuffing their pockets with freebies.Near the USA Pavilion is Food Truck Nation, serving a variety of American dishes.

Mario Lobbia, supplier of food appliances to the Expo, is sampling an American classic: a double hamburger.

A man serves hamburgers at the USA Pavilion's food truck at Expo 2015 in Rho, near Milan, Italy. The Food Truck Nation exhibit highlights America's urban food truck trend.

Luca Bruno/AP "Umm, very good, really," he says after a bite. Lobbia says Italians need to be a little more adventurous in their food tastes. "Always pasta, vegetables, and so on. We start getting boring.

Sometimes, you need these kind of things."That's what Mitchell Davis, chief creative officer of

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Daily Global Rice e-Newsletter the American pavilion, likes to hear."Whether it's food trucks on the street, whether it's artisans baking bread, making wine, making cheese, or chefs at the finest level, the idea was to present America as diversity," Davis says.Expo Milano is filled with eco-friendly architecture. One of the most striking pavilions is that of the United Arab Emirates. Designed by British architecture firm Foster + Partners, the pavilion features nearly 40-foot-high walls that ripple like waves of sand and weave from big to small walkways, symbolizing a canyon.Peter Higgins, who designed the exhibit inside, says without a lake or a river, the Emirates have virtually no agriculture.

"So we just introduce you to stories about sustainability, about desalination, about the legacy and the history of the Emirates, where they have learned to live with very little," he says.Visitors get more practical experience at the high-tech supermarket of the future — where they can already do their shopping.Carlo Ratti, who teaches urban innovation at MIT, joined forces with an Italian supermarket company and put the consumer at the heart of the food chain.

If you move a hand close to a product, a digital display lights up, providing information on origin, nutritional value and carbon footprint.Ratti was inspired by the novel Palomar, by Italian writer Italo Calvino. In it, Mr. Palomar visits a cheese shop in Paris. As Ratti recounts the scene: "He thinks he is at the Louvre, that every product, every piece of cheese, tells him a story, about a different pasture, under a different sun. We wanted to take inspiration from Calvino and make sure the products can tell us their story."And when they're not shopping, visitors can chose among some 150 restaurants and sample a cornucopia of food cultures from across the planet. http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/05/31/410074678/at-worlds-fair-in-italy-the-future-of-food-ison-the-table

APEDA NEWS (INDIA) Market Watch Commodity-wise, Market-wise Daily Price on 29-05-2015 Domestic Prices

Unit Price : Rs per Qty

Product

Market Center

Variety

Min Price

Max Price

1

Cachar (Assam)

Other

2000

2500

2

Chala (Kerala)

Other

2450

3000

3

Bargarh (Orissa)

Other

2100

2300

1

Dhing (Assam)

Other

1450

1700

2

Amirgadh (Gujarat)

Other

1250

1750

3

Bonai(Orissa)

Other

1450

1600

1

Bonai (Orissa)

Other

1000

2000

2

Zira(Punjab)

Other

2800

3200

3

Mechua(West Bengal)

Other

1400

1700

Rice

Wheat

Mango

Cauliflower

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Daily Global Rice e-Newsletter 1

Bonai (Orissa)

Other

2000

2000

2

Aroor (Kerala)

Other

3200

3400

3

Gumla(Jharkhand)

Other

1300

2000

Source:agra-net

For more info

Egg

Rs per 100 No Price on 30-05-2015 Product

Market Center

Price

1

Pune

285

2

Nagapur

241

3

Namakkal

280

Source: e2necc.com

Other International Prices

Unit Price : US$ per package Price on 29-05-2015

Product

Market Center

Origin

Variety

Low

Onions Dry

High Package: 50 lb sacks

1

Baltimore

Arizona

Yellow

21

22

2

Dallas

Mexico

Yellow

16.75

18.50

3

Detroit

California

Yellow

15.50

Carrots

17 Package: 30 1-lb film bags

1

Baltimore

California

Baby Peeled

24

25

2

Chicago

California

Baby Peeled

22

23.50

3

New York

Arizona

Baby Peeled

22

22

1

Baltimore

California

Red

28

28

2

New York

Texas

Red

16

16

3

Philadelphia

California

Red

17.50

18

Grapefruit

Package: 7/10 bushel cartons

Source:USDA

India reaches the pinnacle in rice exports Written by Samarendu Mohanty.

India has come a long way in the past 5 decades from a country with a severe food deficit to being a major grain exporter. The frequent food shortages in the 1950s and 60s and large-scale U.S. food grain assistance, especially wheat through the PL-480 program, seem to be a distant memory now. Growing up in the eastern state of Odisha, I vividly remember women and children lining up in front of my grandfather‘s house with a bowl in their hands to receive PL480 wheat porridge for breakfast and lunch.The Bihar famine in the mid-60s is regarded as a turning point for India‘s food production. As described in The famine that India did not waste, an article published in Business & Economy, then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi realized the link between food sovereignty and independence in foreign affairs as the U.S. used its PL-480 food aid release to influence India‘s stance on American policy toward Vietnam.

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Lester Brown, cofounder and president of the Earth Policy Institute in Washington, D.C., has a different take of the event. In U.S.-India: Dealing with monsoon failure, he says the U.S. used the release of food aid during the Bihar famine to force the country to reform its food policy that served the urban population through a price ceiling to guarantee a floor price for farmers to encourage food production. The U.S. President at that time, Lyndon Johnson, was worried that India was neglecting its agriculture and becoming too dependent on U.S. food aid to overcome its deficit.Whatever the motive was, the end result has been more than satisfactory. Indian rice and wheat production in the past 5 decades rose by more than three- and eightfold, respectively.

During this period, per capita availability increased by more than 10 kilograms for rice and 50 kilograms for wheat. The rise in grain production eventually transformed India from a grain importer to an exporter in the mid-90s (Fig. 1).

Since then, grain exports (rice, wheat, and maize) have steadily increased, reaching 24 million tons by 2012-13. The transformation of the rice sector was even more startling, with India dethroning Thailand to become the largest exporter of rice in 2012. The Thai rice pledging scheme implemented in late 2011 definitely boosted India‘s rise to the top of the export chart, but India has continued to export in excess of 10 million tons even after the pledging scheme was removed in early 2014. Thailand edged past India in 2014 by exporting 10.97 million tons of rice after stopping the pledging scheme in 2014 as compared to 10.9 million tons for India (source: PSD, USDA).

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Within rice, the biggest success has been the transformation of the basmati industry. Up until the early 1990s, Pakistan dominated the basmati market, but the rapid development of milling, processing, and packaging in the Indian basmati industry has made it the market leader today. In 2013-14, India exported around 3.76 million tons of basmati compared with 0.75 million tons of exports by Pakistan and earned a foreign exchange of nearly USD4.8 billion (source: Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority or APEDA). During the same period, India exported 7.13 million tons of nonbasmati rice, primarily broken and parboiled rice, earning an additional foreign exchange of USD2.9 billion (source: APEDA).

The rising cost of success There is no such thing as a free lunch. India spends billions of dollars on supporting its agricultural sector. The suite of policies it started in the mid- 60s, that is, a minimum support price and input subsidies (for fertilizer, seed, water, electricity, machinery, among other inputs) for farmers and a food subsidy for the poor remain in place. These policies, without any doubt, played a key role in improving India‘s food security both nationally and at the household level but, at the same time, these policies have become a serious burden to the Indian exchequer. For the fiscal year 2015-16 (April-March), the central budget earmarked around USD20 billion for food subsidy and USD12 billion for fertilizer subsidy. On top of that, a few additional billions are spent on subsidizing credit, machinery, irrigation, power, and seed. These subsidies will continue to grow in the future if continued in its present form.

Another serious problem facing Indian rice production is the declining groundwater in its many rice-growing belts. In rice-growing states such as Punjab, Haryana, and Tamil Nadu, the free electricity and the diesel subsidy have made the excessive withdrawal of groundwater worse. An article in National Geographic stated that the water table in India is dropping at an average of 1.4

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Daily Global Rice e-Newsletter meter per year. If this trend continues, India‘s food security will be seriously affected in the future. Given the growing water problem in the country, Indian exports of 40 trillion liters of precious water annually—in the form of 10 to 11 million tons of rice—raises an important question of overproduction of rice in the country. On top of that, the 7 million tons of nonbasmati rice are normally exported at a price that hardly covers the true cost of production if you take into account the input subsidies (for fertilizer, electricity, seed, machinery, etc.) provided to the farmers.

What needs to be done?

The reform of these subsidies, particularly for fertilizer and food, is long overdue. The current government clearly intends to tackle this ―800-pound gorilla‖ that is so deeply rooted in the system. The government is seriously considering the recommendations of the Shanta Kumar Panel to deregulate the fertilizer sector and provide a cash subsidy of INR7,000 (around USD110) per hectare to farmers. Similarly, the government is also looking into the panel recommendation to reform the grain subsidy program by implementing cash transfers in cities with a population of more than 1 million in grain-surplus states and an option for cash or physical grains in grain-deficit states.

In an attempt to reverse the increasing ground water depletion in major rice-surplus states such as Punjab and Haryana, and reduce pressure on these states to meet the country‘s food need, the government rolled out programs such as the National Food Security Mission and Bringing Green Revolution to Eastern India to improve the productivity of rice in eastern India. These efforts have resulted in some sizable increases in rice production in the eastern states in the past decade.

The average yield of seven eastern states increased by more than 40% between 2004-05 and 2012-13 and production increased by 16 million tons (Fig. 2). During that same period, the rice area in Punjab and Haryana also increased slightly from 3.68 million hectares in 2004-05 to 3.87 million hectares in 2012-13, with production increasing by one million tons.

The recent trend suggests that the paddy yields in the eastern states will continue to rise in the future with greater use of quality seeds, flood- and drought-tolerant varieties, and improved production practices. There are no indications of shifting from rice in Punjab and Haryana into less water-intensive crops. The shift will not happen unless the government removes the minimum support price for rice or provides an assured price for alternate crops that will be equally or more profitable than rice in the region.No one can deny India‘s success in food grain production and its transformation from a food-deficit country to a major grain exporter in the world. What India did to achieve this milestone was to meet the need of the hour to spare millions from starvation and poverty. But, the time has come to think beyond just the quantity of grain production and more along the line of sustainability of the production system, including the cost of subsidies. Reforms of food and input subsidies will not be easy but this needs to be done at the earliest. As eastern India expands its rice production to take care of the country‘s food needs, the state governments in Punjab and Haryana, with the help of the central government, should devise a strategy to reduce their area under rice, particularly nonbasmati rice, to relieve the pressure on groundwater. _________________________________________

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Dr. Mohanty is the head of the Social Sciences Division and program leader (Targetting and policy) at the International Rice Research Institute.

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Averting hunger in Ebola-hit countries Written by Savitri Mohapatra.

April is the cruelest month,‖ wrote T.S. Eliot in The Waste Land. It was as if he were voicing the sentiments of the farming communities in Ebola affected countries—Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea. Though the time for planting has come, there is a desperate lack of labor and inputs, particularly seed, as hungry rice farmers ate the seeds they would have normally stored for planting in April.Although there are signs that the Ebola epidemic is being contained in the three countries, a major food crisis is looming unless urgent steps are taken to tackle food security concerns, according to 2014 reports by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP).According to their estimates, the Ebola virus outbreak left slightly more than half a million people in the three countries ―severely food insecure‖—120,000 in Sierra Leone, 170,000 in Liberia, and 230,000 in Guinea.

The total number of affected people could double to one million in a few months unless urgent measures are taken to significantly enhance access to food and safeguard crop and livestock production in these countries, they warned.The crisis has been further aggravated because

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Liberia and Sierra Leone were still recovering from prolonged civil wars while Guinea was still transitioning from military rule when Ebola struck.In December 2014, the government of Sierra Leone banned all public celebrations, including Christmas and New Year, to prevent Ebola from spreading further. Similarly, Guinea, where the latest Ebola outbreak started recently, declared a 45-day ―health emergency‖ in five regions in the western and southwestern parts of the country.

Shock to food and agricultural sectors FAO and WFP stated that the Ebola epidemic had caused a significant shock to the food and agricultural sectors in the affected countries, where two-thirds of the people depend on agriculture for their livelihood. A number of interrelated factors, including quarantines, disruptions in transportation and trade, and rising food prices were triggering the food crisis.Experts participating in the Global Rice Market and Trade Summit organized by the International Rice Research Institute in Thailand in October 2014 remarked that there was a noticeable rise in local rice prices in the affected countries, although the Ebola crisis was not expected to have a major impact on the global rice market.The virus killed many productive farmers and many others abandoned their fields and harvests out of fear. In Sierra Leone, for instance, up to 40% of the farms in the worst affected areas were reported abandoned.

Impacts on the rice sector Rice is the most important staple in the three countries and its price and accessibility directly influence social stability. Annual per capita consumption of rice (about 100 kg) is among the

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Daily Global Rice e-Newsletter highest in sub-Saharan Africa. However, all three countries are net importers of rice as demand is much higher than local production.

Promoting domestic rice production is therefore important in the national rice development strategy developed by each of these countries under the Coalition for African Rice Developmentframework.The national programs of these countries are involved in many joint projects with the Africa Rice Center (AfricaRice) and have identified Rice Sector Development Hubs. A rice hub is a mechanism introduced by AfricaRice across sub-Saharan Africa to concentrate R&D efforts and connect partners along the rice value chain to achieve greater impact.

In the past few years, AfricaRice has been providing targeted support to Liberia and Sierra Leone

at their request to revive their respective rice sectors, under the World Bank-fundedWest Africa Agricultural Productivity Program (WAAPP). The main focus of this support is to make improved seed and technologies available to farmers, enhance rice quality, and develop a critical mass of scientists, technicians, extension workers, and seed producers.Unfortunately, the Ebola crisis threatens to undo the progress made in all these areas.

According to FAO, 2014 rice production was expected to decline by 12% in Liberia, 8% in Sierra Leone, and 4% in Guinea. But, there are big disparities within the region: production is down by 20% in Liberia‘s Lofa District, which is the main rice-producing region and is considered as Liberia‘s breadbasket, and by 17% in the hardest hit parts of Sierra Leone.―The Ebola outbreak in Liberia is a complete setback to our achievements,‖ said AfricaRice scientist Inoussa Akintayo, who is coordinating a World Bank-supported emergency rice project in Lofa

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Daily Global Rice e-Newsletter and Bong districts in Liberia.In August 2014, for reasons of safety, senior management of AfricaRice decided to pull out its regional and international researchers from Liberia and Sierra Leone. ―This has affected the implementation of the planned activities,‖ said AfricaRice scientist Bert Meertens, who is assisting the Sierra Leone Agricultural Research Institute in WAAPP activities.

A call for urgent action Aside from controlling Ebola, FAO and WFP called for urgent action to re-establish farming systems in the three countries. Measures should enable the most vulnerable people to access agricultural inputs, such as seeds and fertilizers, and adopt improved technology to overcome labor shortages.AfricaRice has been actively involved in discussing and planning strategies to make improved rice seed available to farmers with strong support from donors as well as the Economic Community of West African States.In December 2014, the Center participated in Seeds for Agriculture in Ebola-affected Countries, a workshop organized by the African Development Bank in Abidjan, Côte d‘Ivoire.

The Center has been invited by the World Bank to join its efforts in providing rice seed to farmers in Ebola-hit countries in time for the 2015 planting season.A USAID-AfricaRice initiative aims to provide technical support to the seed sector in selected countries, including Liberia. With support from the Government of Japan, AfricaRice is launching an emergency project to tackle the problem of insufficiency of rice seed in Guinea because of the Ebola crisis.Meanwhile, remembering the quiet heroism of scientists in these countries, AfricaRice economist Ali Toure, who was working in Sierra Leone, remarked, ―We are praying for the safety of our brave colleagues, who are continuing their work under very difficult and even dangerous situations.‖As of 15 March 2015, 24,700 cases and 10,195 deaths had been reported worldwide, most of them in these three countries. The World Bank estimates that the regional economic toll could reach USD32 billion by the end of 2015. _________________________________________ Ms. Mohapatra is the head of Marketing and Communications at AfricaRice. http://irri.org/rice-today/averting-hunger-in-ebola-hitcountries?utm_source=IRRI+email+subscriptions&utm_campaign=c05e452278RiceToday_Weekly6_01_2015&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c803adc7cf-c05e452278-40925885

Rice scientists from India helping Africa Written by Savitri Mohapatra.

Venuprasad Ramaiah: A passion for rice genetics and breeding Like many of his classmates, Venuprasad Ramaiah was planning to become an engineer. But, during his first year of bachelor‘s degree studies at the University of Agricultural Sciences in Bangalore, India, a course in plant genetics taught by an inspiring teacher, Ms. Savithri Amma, marked a turning point in his life.―For me, that was a ‗wow‘ moment,‖ said Dr. Ramaiah, a scientist at the Africa Rice Center(AfricaRice).

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―It sparked a passion in me for research in this field. There has been no looking back since then.‖After completing his PhD in genetics of grain yield and root length under drought stress in rice, which he pursued at the same university and at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in the Philippines, Dr. Ramaiah obtained a postdoctoral fellowship at IRRI and, later, at The World Vegetable Center in Taiwan. He then took up the position of a project scientist in the groundnut breeding unit of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi- Arid Tropics, in Hyderabad, India, in 2009.

However, since he was keen to return to rice research, he decided to join AfricaRice as a lowland-rice breeder in 2010.―My family friends and colleagues thought I was crazy for leaving an attractive position in India, but I am passionate about rice research,‖ Dr. Ramaiah remarked. ―I also strongly believe that the real need is in Africa, where even small contributions can have more impact on the livelihoods of farmers than in Asia.‖At AfricaRice, Dr. Ramaiah works on rice breeding for the rainfed lowland ecosystem with national programs under the Africa-wide rice breeding task force, which covers about 30 countries, and with international organizations, particularly IRRI. He is also closely involved in training research staff and students.

His team has successfully transferred the SUB1 submergence-tolerance gene–identified by IRRI scientist David Mackill and U.C. Davis researcher Pamela Ronald–into two important rice varieties in West Africa (WITA4 and NERICA L-19) that are susceptible to flooding. These Sub1 varieties will be disseminated to rice farmers in flood-prone areas in Africa.Building on his successful work on drought tolerance at IRRI, Dr. Ramaiah is coordinating an important project at AfricaRice to identify genes for drought tolerance, anaerobic germination, and iron toxicity.

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Daily Global Rice e-Newsletter The project is done in partnership with Cornell University, IRRI, and theNational Institute of Agrobiological Sciences in Japan and with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Dr. Ramaiah's pioneering work has already led to the identification of extremely promising material among the more than 2,000 accessions in AfricaRice's genebank.These efforts are expected to deliver better stress-tolerant varieties to small and poor African rice farmers in rainfed areas. These varieties will help make the farmers‘ yield and income stable as well as protect them from the threats of climate change.―Despite all the challenges in Africa, it is most rewarding for me and my team to see the results to products and feel that we are a part of it,‖ said Dr. Ramaiah. ―We feel immensely proud that, with proper resources, we can do research on a par with the best organizations in the world.‖

Senthilkumar Kalimuthu: A stargazer with feet firmly planted on the ground Senthilkumar Kalimuthu loves astronomy and space science and named his son Majoris, after one of the largest stars known to mankind. Yet, as a systems agronomist at the Africa Rice Center (AfricaRice), he has his feet firmly planted on the ground.Born to a farming family in Ramanathapuram District in Tamil Nadu in southern India, Dr. Kalimuthu vividly remembers his school holidays, which he spent helping his mother on their farm. He recollects the anxiety of farmers in his village as they prayed for rain.―When rain didn‘t come, our rice plants failed to flower and often we had to harvest feed for cattle instead of food for us,‖ he said.This experience led him to take up agriculture during his undergraduate studies and focus on water-saving rice cultivation technologies as the topic for his MSc and PhD research so that he could help such farmers.Dr. Kalimuthu is justifiably proud that not only did he receive the Thirumathi K. Rangammal Award for his MSc research from the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, but also

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Daily Global Rice e-Newsletter because his findings were later disseminated to more than a million farmers in Tamil Nadu through the Department of Agriculture.His work was so much appreciated that he was able to receive initial funding from the Dutch government for his doctoral research at Wageningen University in The Netherlands. On completion, he became a postdoctoral researcher at Wageningen University and later in theFrench National Institute of Agricultural Research in France.Since he was keen to help rice farmers and make an impact on the ground, Dr. Kalimuthu joined AfricaRice in 2012 as a systems agronomist at the Center‘s regional station in Tanzania.

Explaining the potential impact of research in Africa, he said, ―Through agronomy, it is possible to double the national average rice yield in Tanzania to 4 tons per hectare. This ‗potential‘ is what drives me to work in and for Africa.‖ Senthilkumar is coordinating the activities of the Agronomy and Mechanization Task Forcesconvened by AfricaRice in Eastern and Southern Africa. He is also monitoring rice R&D activities in 12 rice sector development hubs across Tanzania, Uganda, Madagascar, Rwanda, and Ethiopia, where he has trained more than 200 rice researchers and 350 rice farmers in rice agronomy, of which 40% are women. He is also supervising students, research assistants, and some researchers.His studies and experience are helping him to realize his dream of becoming an eminent agronomist. Importantly, the lessons that he learned during his childhood from his mother on their farm are continuing to guide his footsteps.Recounting one such lesson, he said that, when he was walking on their farm with his mother, his feet would press on roots of rice plants. He was worried that he was damaging the plants. But his mother assured him that destroying rice roots a little would produce more tillers and more yield. ―I didn‘t understand at that time. But now, through my experiments, I see how the roots get pruned by mechanical weeding. This helps increase rice tillering and yield. _________________________________________ Ms. Mohapatra is the head of Marketing and Communications at AfricaRice. http://irri.org/rice-today/rice-scientists-from-india-helpingafrica?utm_source=IRRI+email+subscriptions&utm_campaign=c05e452278RiceToday_Weekly6_01_2015&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c803adc7cf-c05e452278-40925885

Delta needs clear zoning, rice brand CAN THO (VNS) — Growing areas should be clearly zoned and a national brand should be developed to promote rice from the Mekong Delta, a conference heard in Can Tho on Wednesday.Pham Van Du, deputy chief of the agriculture ministry's Cultivation Department, told the conference on large-scale field production in the delta that improving the incomes of farmers and rice-trading businesses was among important measures to promote rice production.Nguyen Quoc Viet, deputy head of the Steering Board for the Mekong Delta, said the new large-scale field rice production model was first introduced in the Mekong Delta in 2011, and the area under it had risen from 7,800 hectares in the beginning to 290,000ha by the end of 2014. It had also

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Daily Global Rice e-Newsletter helped improve the quality of the grains and value addition to make them more competitive in the domestic and overseas markets, he said.The impact of the new model should be assessed and its likely challenges identified in the era of integration, he said.The Government issued a decision in 2013 to encourage a switch to it.

During last year's summer-autumn rice crop, 101 rice trading companies from 13 Mekong provinces signed deals with 88 co-operatives to buy rice grown on 42,605ha under the new model.The deputy head of the department, Pham Van Du, said: "The co-operatives established for the large-scale field production model are of great importance. They supply farmers with seeds, fertilisers and agricultural chemicals."Nguyen Tri Ngoc, secretary of the Association of Agricultural Production and Rural Development, said despite a trade surplus in 2014, the country's agriculture had showed weaknesses."Its growth rates went down and the prices of its produce plunged, with the prices of some Vietnamese produce ranking seventh or ninth behind those from other countries.To make the large-scale model more profitable, farmers must use rice varieties confirmed by trading businesses, he said.— VNS http://vietnamnews.vn/society/271058/delta-needs-clear-zoning-rice-brand.html

Rice scope expands for jute Pinak Ghosh Calcutta, May 31: The Bengal jute mill industry, suffering from a lack of demand, expects orders to improve once the state government starts procuring paddy directly from farmers from October and use jute bags to pack the rice.The optimism follows the Centre's move to shelve over a decadeold practice of "levy rice". Under this mechanism, rice millers had to compulsorily supply up to 25 per cent of their annual produce for public distribution at a rate set by the government.The system was flawed as there was no mechanism to check whether the millers were paying the minimum support price (MSP) to the farmers and not diverting the better quality grain to the open market.Among the major rice producing states, Punjab and Haryana have already abolished the levy rice system, but it is still prevalent in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Bengal.

The Bengal government is sourcing levy rice from about 1,200 millers for sale through ration shops. The Centre now wants the state government agencies to purchase the paddy directly from farmers by paying MSP, to plug the leakages.Jute bags are the key source of packing rice. Hence, mill owners are hopeful that the direct purchase will translate into greater demand for bags and discourage packaging in used and illegally imported jute bags from Bangladesh.In a meeting with the members of Indian Jute Mills Association (Ijma) earlier this month, the state government had decided to pack 70 per cent of the rice

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Daily Global Rice e-Newsletter produced in the state in new jute bags.Another meeting is scheduled for June 1 to discuss the modalities of sourcing the new bags.Under the new system, the jute mills will be given a requisition from the jute commissioner and, accordingly, bags for packing rice will be supplied to the millers.However, mill owners are in favour of procurement either through the directorategeneral of supplies and disposal or through state government agencies rather than directly supplying to the millers.Ijma members said the mills in Bengal were suffering on account of a shortage of orders and around 15 units have suspended production."The average capacity utilisation level of the mills still in operation is around 50 per cent. This, however, can go up by at least 5-6 per cent once the government orders start coming in," said a jute mill owner. http://www.telegraphindia.com/1150601/jsp/business/story_23205.jsp#.VW2KDM9Viko

Roi Et rice traders convince Singaporean importers of high quality Thai rice Date : 30 พฤษภาคม 2558

ROI ET, 30 May 2015 (NNT) - Jasmine rice suppliers in Roi Et, led by provincial governor Somsak Changtragul, had a meeting with the manager of Yijia Import And Export Co., Ltd., a Singaporean rice importer as the latter visited the province on Saturday. Mr.Somsak said that Thai entrepreneurs had convinced Singaporean importers of the quality of Roi Et Jasmine rice.

The visit followed a roadshow to Singapore that the Thai government conducted on 16-17 May 2015. "I believe that business matching between Roi Et rice traders and Singapore importers will happen very soon, possibly in November this year," said Mr.Somsak. Roi Et Province has so far been successful in growing Jasmine rice particularly at the once-barren zone known as Thung Kula Rong Hai. The area currently becomes the best zone for growing Jasmine rice. http://thainews.prd.go.th/CenterWeb/NewsEN/NewsDetail?NT01_NewsID=WNECO5805310010001#sth ash.UU5gM30u.dpuf

Revolutionary instant rice from Sri Lankan entrepreneur

By Quintus Perera

View(s): 547

Hey presto – ‗Instant Rice‘.Giving meaning to the adage ‗failures are the pillars of success‘, a Sri Lankan entrepreneur is aiming to headline the world with a revolutionary ‗instant rice‘ product.

Waffle cone in the making How is it produced? Just boil it for five minutes and a plate of delicious fried rice is ready be it with prawns, cuttlefish, vegetable or fish. It comes in a pack branded as ‗CanMo‘.Young entrepreneur Chathuranga Kariawasam from Pelawatte Road, Nugegoda spoke to the Business Times (BT) seated on one of their ‗Roots‘ fresh fruit juice parlours at Nawala Road, Nugegoda and explained the invention and the approach to the world market of ‗CanMo‘

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Daily Global Rice e-Newsletter In 1993, though successful at the GCE A‘ Level the marks were not enough to enter the university, he said. In response to an advertisement by Sri Jayawardenapura University for external degress, he became an external student, is already a graduate in entrepreneurship and hopes to qualify with a Masters Diploma in another two months.

Ineligible for university straight after A‘ Levels, he joined Richard Pieris Ltd as a Management Trainee and started researching on preserving fruit salad for six months for export with technical assistance from ITI researchers with Rs. 2.6 million granted by the Sri Lanka Agribusiness Council. When the ITI researchers migrated to Australia half-way through his product development, Mr. Kariawasam struggled for eight years using his own funds but the product failed miserably.

Instant rice being packed His father, Asoka Kariawasam along with a friend, Rienzie Fernando in 1997 pioneered making fresh fruit juice with the establishment of ‗Roots‘. They made juice from the fresh fruit rather than keeping the prepared juice in the refrigerator, a pioneering effort, now with 20 fresh juice outlets and a market leader in this trade segment.

He said that the failed fruit salad preservation project discouraged him but due to the lecturers‘ persistence in urging students to innovate, he thought of giving it another try.Since the family is in the ice cream business too, he got an idea to make waffle ice cream cones that would be cheap and durable.

After eight months of research, he developed a novel waffle ice cream cone that has a 6-month shelf life and is cheap.Branded as ‗Waffle Boy‘, he manufactures 200,000 per month and the product is available in all supermarkets, star-class hotels and reputed outlets. Last week his company began exporting the cones to Maldives and hopes to export to other countries as well.The instant rice idea came to him in 2007. When he saw on TV in 2009, soldiers eating noodles in the battlefield on the run he was determined to make it a reality as he thought the soldiers would have preferred rice, if available.

Chathuranga Kariawasam

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Daily Global Rice e-Newsletter Research was carried out with technical assistance by Janitha Liyanage, a lecturer in the Sabaragamuwa University and joined by another undergraduate, Ms. H. F. Risna, now a BSc graduate specialised in Food Science and Technology. The trio succeeded with this world class invention.‗CanMo‘ Instant Fried Rice with prawns, fish, vegetable and fish in three different packs targets different consumer segments – one with a bowl that could be used in the microwave oven aimed at the high end consumer and priced at Rs 220; the sachet pack priced at Rs. 100 and another pack aimed at low income segment at Rs. 80. All what one has to do is to open the sachet, put the contents into a pan, either add two cups of boiling water or boil for five minutes and a sumptuous plate of fried rice of ‗your‘ choice is on the table to eat The factory is in production at Mirihana .

The product would be available in supermarkets and other reputed outlets.Some 10,000 packs with bowls are produced per month, and around 100,000 sachet packs are produced per day.They have tested the market and hope to reach the entire country. His main target however is exports, he said, adding that they need large quantities for export.The latest fried rice product should be protected by the concerned state agencies and financial backing should also be provided, he said.Mr. Kariawasam has a dream: ―I want to present my case to the government and to the world, I want to be financially stable and recognised. If I am not well protected and backed by finance, it would take a long time to fully realise my dream.‖ Mr. Kariawasam could be contacted on waffleboysrilanka@gmail.com. http://www.sundaytimes.lk/150531/business-times/revolutionary-instant-rice-from-sri-lankanentrepreneur-150964.html

Midsayap irrigators laud DA for increased rice production June 01, 2015

KORONADAL CITY, South Cotabato, June 1 (PIA) -- In the past, rice growers in Midsayap, North Cotabato would be satisfied if they harvested 80 sacks from each hectare.But this, changed lately, according these farmers, after the Department of Agriculture poured in several interventions to the town‘s irrigators‘ associations. Dante Cudal, president of the Midsayap – Pigcawayan – Libungan – Kabuntalan Federation of Irrigators‘ Association (MPLKIA), said since 2013 when DA 12 started implementing projects , they have been enjoying harvest of up to 140 sacks per hectare ―MPLKIA received P17.4-M worth of projects from DA 12 from 2011 to 2014.

The biggest project given to us was the P16-M Rice Processing Center (RPC( II,‖ Cudal disclosed. Besides the state-of-the-art rice processing facility, the IA federation also received four-wheel drive tractor (P1.3-M);, flatbed dryer (P506, 000), and hand tractor (P106, 000).

Another farmer-leader Danilo Tacan, president of Libris 5 Chrislam Irrigators‘ Association of Barangay San Isidro also lauded DA‘s farm mechanization program, which he added has resulted in 110-140 cavans per hectare being enjoyed by their members. Each cavan weighs 55 kilograms.―We received hand tractor with trailer (P106, 000) and one floating tiller (P88,

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Daily Global Rice e-Newsletter 000) from DA 12,‖ Tacan said.Similar increase in rice production was also recorded by rice grower-members of Settlers IA (SIA) of Barangay Lower Katingawan after being granted with almost P1-M worth of farm machines and postharvest facility from the Department.

Meanwhile, Wilson Macoy, president of SIA, acknowledged DA 12 for giving them flatbed dryer (P625, 000), rice thresher (P 95, 000), and power tiller (P93, 000) which they have been utilizing in bolstering their farms‘ productivity.―These farm machines such as floating tiller shortened the time spent for land preparation‖ Tacan remarked.These farmer associatons also attributed the increase in rice production in the improvement of their farm-to-market road for a more convenient and faster transportation of products to the town‘s market.Better and quality road also reduced our transportation costs and improved our mobility and even motivated us to increase our palay production which gives us bigger incomes,‖ Cudal commented.

Apart from the aforementioned, members of these farmer associations have also been recipients of certified seeds from DA 12, which they agreed has also boosted their production capacity that they added could greatly contribute to the achievement of the rice self-sufficiency goal of the national government.With these bountiful harvests, farmermembers of the associations are more confident they could send their children to college and provide for the basic needs of their respective families.In their words, these farmer-leaders have expressed their heartfelt gratitude to the Department of Agriculture led by Secretary Proceso Alcala, and Regional Executive Director Amalia Jayag-Datukan for addressing the needs of the farmers engaged in rice farming.―I hope the DA will continue its undying service to the rice farmers,‖ Cudal said challenging his fellow farmers to be proactive in submitting proposals for their desired projects to the DA.Cudal also added that ―Department of Agriculture will always be our number one partner towards community development.‖ (CRMatullano/LMSalvo-DA-RAFIS/DEDoguiles-PIA 12) http://news.pia.gov.ph/article/view/1611433138045/midsayap-irrigators-laud-da-for-increased-riceproduction#sthash.aBMmbmtt.dpuf

Synthetic rice issue aimed at hampering development of analog rice: Economic expert The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | National | Sun, May 31 2015, 2:02 PM

National News Institute for Development of Economics and Finance (INDEF) economist Enny Sri Hartati has said the synthetic rice issue is just part of an effort to impede the development of analog rice."Currently, a number of research institutes and universities are developing analog rice in an effort to increase food diversity in Indonesia,‖ said Enny as quoted byAntara in Jakarta on Sunday.The expert said analog rice was a food commodity that looked like normal rice but was made from all kinds of tubers, making it suitable and safe for consumption.If the research is successful and can be done on a large scale, it could support national food needs, she said.Enny went on to say that she doubted the synthetic rice issue was driven by economics, since plastic production cost more than rice production.

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Daily Global Rice e-Newsletter ―If it is based on certain economic motives, the synthetic rice should have been distributed at a higher price because according to economic principles, we want to buy goods as cheaply as possible and sell them at a higher price. But this did not happen with what was rumored to be ‗synthetic rice‘. Thus, it is likely that there are other motives behind the synthetic rice issue,‖ she said.The INDEF economist said a number of parties had reportedly attempted to hamper the development of analog rice as they were concerned the newly discovered staple food would disrupt consumers‘ dependence on rice.―Once analog rice enters markets, people‘s dependency on rice will be disrupted. This poses a challenge to certain parties. With the current synthetic rice issue, people are really worried.

What happens now is that people cannot differentiate between synthetic rice and analog rice,‖ said Enny.She said once the synthetic rice issue contaminated the mindset of consumers, it would be difficult for researchers or any parties supporting the development of analog rice to introduce their discovery to the people.―In such situations, people will just keep it in their minds that analog rice is not ‗original‘ rice. They will not pay attention to whether or not analog rice is suitable and safe for consumption,‖ said Enny. (ebf) http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2015/05/31/synthetic-rice-issue-aimed-hampering-development-analog-riceeconomic-expert.html#sthash.ZPl6Hx0w.dpuf

Famed rice terraces face modern threats

By Karl Malakunas, Agence France-Presse Posted at 05/31/2015 12:32 PM In this photo taken on April 28, 2015 shows houses sitting amid rice terraces on a mountainside in Mayoyao, Ifugao. Photo by Karl Malakunas, Agence France-Presse

MAYOYAO -- It is fiesta time in the famed rice terraces of northern Luzon, and young men in colorful tribal clothing pound ancient rhythms on brass gongs as wild boars squeal ahead of slaughter.The annual festivals, held in remote mountain communities after the planting of the rice that is at the core of their existence, are a vital way of passing centuries-old customs to the new generation.Those traditions are the soul of the Cordillera ranges, one of the Philippines' most spectacular regions where Ifugao tribespeople are custodians of World Heritage-listed rice terraces.

But the stepped paddy fields, built 2,000 years ago and the highest in Asia, as well as the Ifugao's traditional lifestyles, are facing unprecedented threats amid the relentless forces of modernity."There is a danger of these beautiful areas turning into urban jungles," Edison

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Daily Global Rice e-Newsletter Molanida, World Heritage sites manager for the national government's culture commission, told AFP."One of the main threats is the rapid pace of development in the area. And by rapid pace, we mean unmanaged development."In its description justifying World Heritage status, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) describes the region as "a living cultural landscape of unparalleled beauty."On misty mornings, when the first rays of pale orange sunshine fall across the stone walls that follow the mountains' contours, the terraces look like giant staircases climbing to the heavens.

UNESCO also praises the Ifugao people for having remained in harmony with nature for so long, such as by using herbs instead of pesticides, eschewing fertilizers and generally showing great care for limited natural resources.The irrigation system, which taps water from mountaintop forests and shares it equitably throughout the communities, is hailed as a "mastery of engineering".A generation or two ago, many of the Ifugao villages and the lifestyles of the people who lived in them largely resembled those of centuries ago.Large areas of the five listed districts, home to roughly 100,000 people and a day's drive from the capital Manila, today retain many of the aspects celebrated by UNESCO. Change afoot But radical change is underway.Once picturesque villages are acquiring the chaotic trappings of typical poor towns, including ugly multi-storey buildings made of cheap concrete, polluting diesel vehicles and ramshackle tin-roofed shanties.Introduced pests, including giant Indonesian earthworms, are causing major damage to the structures of the terraces, causing some to collapse.In Mayoyao, one of the region's most scenic villages, local officials say the worms, as well as snails originally brought in as a food for protein, are the biggest dangers to the terraces.Television and the Internet are similarly eroding traditional work ethics, which are vital to maintaining the labor-intensive terraces.

"When our parents told us to go and work, we'd obey," Margaret Licnachan, 38, a rice farmer and mother-of-four, told AFP as she sat in the stone courtyard of her Mayoyao home. "But today, our children refuse to go and work in the terraces. They are lazy."Molanida, the World Heritage sites manager, described the "abandonment of the rice growing culture" by significant numbers of Ifugao as one of the biggest dangers for the region."If the younger generation are no longer interested in the rice culture and move to cities, or adopt modern lifestyles, who will be left to tend to the terraces?"

Locals optimistic In a lengthy interview from his mountaintop office overlooking the terraces, Mayoyao vice mayor Jimmy Padchanan insisted local elders were working hard and successfully to control the march of modernity."We can not deny the effects of modernization on our culture," Padchanan said. "But it is not all bad. We are blending old societies with the new, while maintaining many of our values."Padchanan said he was confident the rice terraces and ancient traditions could survive the onslaught of the 21st century."The Mayoyao rice terraces will continue to be handed down from generation to generation. The rice terraces shall endure for as long as the Mayoyao are here," he said.

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Daily Global Rice e-Newsletter Locals also pointed out they had a right to develop and enjoy modern society, and should not have to live in fossilized communities.Standing in traditional tribal clothes during a recent festival, Mayoyao elder and rice farmer Mario Lachaona spoke passionately about preserving customs but cautioned against over-romanticizing the old days."Life before was so hard," said Lachaona, 68, a wiry father of six and grandfather of 18. "Education was not good. There were no roads here so we had to walk long distances to buy foods. We could not survive on just the rice we grew."Lachaona said his grandchildren had much better nutrition and education than his generation, while their opportunities to find work other than subsistence farming were much greater."Life is a lot easier now," Lachaona said.

The expected paving in the next few years of the only road to Mayoyao will make life easier again in many ways.Padchanan, the vice mayor, said there were plans to sell vegetables in far away towns, providing a welcome source of extra income for rice farmers.Only a few hundred foreign tourists visit a year, and the paved road would hopefully bring a lot more.However Molanida said he feared those sorts of developments would not be managed well."It is up to the Ifugao people to decide if they want to fight harder to conserve their culture and prevent chaotic development," he said."Otherwise the rice terraces may become grass terraces." http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/focus/05/31/15/famed-rice-terraces-face-modern-threats

LSU AgCenter holding several rice field days The LSU AgCenter will hold a series of rice field days across Louisiana during the growing season.Topics will include variety development updates, control of weeds, insects and disease, fertilization and soybean production.

JUNE 9: Evangeline Parish Rice Field Day; Joey Hebert Farm on Bieber Road about 4 miles west of Mamou.

JUNE 16: Acadia Parish Rice Field Day, the South Farm of the Rice Research Station in Crowley, off La. 13; registration is at 8:30 a.m. and the program at 9 a.m.

JULY 1: Rice Research Station in Crowley; field tours begin at 7:15 a.m.

JULY 21: Northeast Louisiana Rice Field Day, Woodsland Plantation in Richland Parish 4 miles west of the intersection of La. 15 and La. 133; 9 a.m. to 11 a.m., then the event reconvenes at the Rayville Civic Center.

A St. Landry Parish Rice Field Day also will be held, but details are pending. http://theadvocate.com/news/business/12476084-123/business-briefs-for-may-31

City residents drive rice bran oil demand Badrul Ahsan

Demand for antioxidant-rich rice bran oil is gradually rising among the health conscious city dwellers, which may reduce dependence on imported soybean oil, industry insiders said.According to wholesalers and retailers, after an intense awareness campaign, particularly

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Daily Global Rice e-Newsletter among housewives, demand for the rice bran oil increased from 15-20 tonnes a day in 2012 to 70-100 tonnes now.Demand for the rice bran oil has been rising by around 20 per cent for the last couple of years, they added.

The oil is extracted from husking the hard, brown outer layer of rice.Leading consumer goods companies including ACI, City Group and Emerald Oil Industries Ltd have introduced branded rice bran oil due to the increasing demand. "Rice bran oil is rapidly replacing other oil. Almost all the grocery shops across the city are now selling the oil which would rarely seen in such stores reflecting the steady rise in demand for the item," Moinur Rahman, manager of ACI Consumer Brands that markets rice bran oil under the name of 'Nutrilife' told the FE.But it was not all plain sailing. Introduced in Bangladesh in 2011, the cooking oil had to get past plenty of misconceptions.

"We had faced a lot of difficulties during the initial days-- people were not aware of the existence of rice bran oil and its health benefits. Many even perceived it to be engine oil," said Mazharul Islam, a manager of Emerald Oil Industries Ltd (EOIL).One reason for rice bran oil's rising popularity is the reduction in its prices.The price of each litre of rice bran oil was Tk 40 higher than soybean oil during the initial days. But the gap has now come down to Tk 20 each litre, said Mr Rahman.He noted that rice bran oil's growing demand has also helped bring down the country's import dependency for cooking oil especially on soybean oil.At present, the country spends over Tk 100 billion (10,000 crore) a year to import 1.4 million-1.5 million tonnes of edible oil against the domestic demand of 1.8 million tonnes, according to Bangladesh Bank and industry estimates.

"The rice bran oil holds a very good market potential. We have the raw materials and there are many rice mills that can supply it," the ACI official said.The country produces more than 50 million tonnes of paddy a year, which yields 4.0 million tonnes of rice bran, according to estimates by agricultural scientists.ACI entered this segment of cooking oil market in 2012 when only EOIL and Rashid Oil Mills had started extracting oil by using locally available rice bran.

Now, there are around eight firms, including Bangladesh Edible Oil Ltd. City Group of Industries, a leading cooking oil processor and marketer, is also set to make its entry to this segment of cooking oil.Biswajit Das, general manager of City Group, said the company has already set up machinery for the plant."The number of health conscious buyers is rising day by day -- that's why we are also interested in expanding our business into this sub sector."The existing players too have expanded their production capacity on the back of the rising popularity.EOIL, now listed on the bourses, increased its processing capacity last year and began production of its expanded unit in November 2013. Currently, its total production capacity stands at 48 tonnes a day.Mr Islam said the company now produces around 40 tonnes of rice bran oil a day. badrulahsan71@gmail.com http://www.thefinancialexpress-bd.com/2015/05/31/94772

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Daily Global Rice e-Newsletter Rainy, cloudy weather not good for growing rice in Louisiana Posted: Monday, June 1, 2015 11:30 am

Recent weather has not been ideal for growing rice because of frequent rainy and cloudy weather, LSU AgCenter experts told farmers at field days on May 28 in Jefferson Davis and Vermilion parishes.Cloudy weather reduces sunlight needed for photosynthesis, said Steve Linscombe, LSU AgCenter rice breeder. But,he said, the rice crop looks better than he expected.

The reduced sunshine while the rice is now in the vegetative stage is less harmful than when the plants move into the reproductive stage and start grain filling.Dustin Harrell, AgCenter rice specialist, said the LSU AgCenter Rice Research Station usually gets 26 inches of rain between March 1 and the end of July, but the total so far is 24 inches.

He said the station has had 43 days of measurable rainfall since March 1 and more cloudy days when it hasn‘t rained.This is the first time in a long time that we have sunshine,‖ Harrell said at the Vermilion Parish event.Harrell said midseason fertilizer applications have been complicated by the wet ground that prevents airplanes from using airstrips. Instead, pilots have been forced to use paved runways that are often distant from fields, resulting in higher costs for aerial applications.He said waiting seven to 10 days for a midseason fertilizer application should not make a significant difference in a crop.Don Groth, LSU AgCenter plant pathologist, told farmers that they should be on the lookout for disease. ―This is disease weather.‖He said leaf blast will be a problem for farmers if water accidentally drains from a field, but restoring a flood will likely reduce the disease severity.Groth said fungicide-resistant sheath blight has spread this year, with some reported south of Lacassine and in east Evangeline Parish, increasing the likelihood that the fungicide Sercadis will be needed by more farmers.The news was worse for soybeans. Ron Levy, LSU AgCenter soybean specialist, said the wet weather has forced him to delay planting for many of his variety trials, and many farmers are close to deciding not to plant a soybean crop.―It‘s probably getting to a point where we won‘t see many soybeans planted in south Louisiana,‖ Levy said.

Those farmers able to plant in March on raised beds on sugarcane ground, and in the eastern part of the state, have good crops, he said, but they are the exception.Levy said some beans will survive flooding, but high water followed by hot sun will scald the young plants.Louisiana soybeans have had record yields the past three years, and had the highest state yield in the US in 2014. ―This year it appears we‘re not in for a record-breaking year,‖ Levy said. Linscombe told farmers he is working on developing varieties for use with the herbicide-resistant Provisia rice system, and 12 lines are being grown at the Jimmy Hoppe farm near Fenton, where the Jefferson Davis Parish field day was held. Provisia will be a good complement to Clearfield rice in controlling red rice with a different mode of action, he said.He said the LSU AgCenter‘s winter nursery in Puerto Rico allowed the breeding process to be accelerated, and it‘s possible that a

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Daily Global Rice e-Newsletter limited commercial release of Provisia would be available in 2017. ―I want to stress that‘s a best case scenario,‖ he told farmers at the Vermilion Parish event.

Harrell said a second-crop rice yield can be increased by mowing or rolling the stubble after the first crop harvest. Either option will delay maturity by about two weeks, he said, so it‘s not a recommended practice if the first crop is harvested after Aug. 15.Excess fertilizer also will delay maturity, he said.Andrew Granger, LSU AgCenter county agent in Vermilion Parish, said the price outlook for rice is not good. An abundant carryover from last year‘s good harvest has depressed prices, he said.Mike Stout, LSU AgCenter entomologist, said he has a test at the Lounsberry farm where the field day was held for Vermilion Parish, to determine which of nine varieties have resistance to rice water weevils. So far, he said, Jupiter has the most susceptibility and Jefferson has shown resistance. http://www.hannapub.com/ouachitacitizen/news/local_state_headlines/rainy-cloudy-weather-not-goodfor-growing-rice-in-louisiana/article_8f7ee448-087b-11e5-95be-2ba7ec572d3f.html

Sans Backup Strategies, Vazhakkulam Pineapple Price Suffers Downslide

By Rajesh Abraham Published: 02nd June 2015 06:05 AM Last Updated: 02nd June 2015 06:05 AM

KOCHI: For Augustine M V, who moved from Vazhakulam to Vashi, Mumbai, about 15 years ago for pineapple trading business at APMC Wholesale Market at Vashi, this year has been pretty bad. ―Pineapple, which is available at `17-18/kg at Vazhakulam is sold here in Vashi at `12-13/kg. There are days when even 100 loads of Vazhakulam pineapple are unloaded here.

We are incurring about `40,000 loss per load,‖ he says over phone from Mumbai.The pineapple prices have fallen by 74 per cent, from `50/kg in 2013 to `13 in 2015, causing heavy losses to growers back in his hometown.Vazhakulam pineapple, which was accorded the Geographical Indication tag (GI) in 2009, undoubtedly has better aroma, flavour and sweetness compared to the pineapple cultivated anywhere else in the country. But lack of effort to market the GI-tag has resulted in farmers or traders getting no premium on the fruit even after the prestigious label.The fate of other GI-tagged agri-commodities from Kerala, is unfortunately, no different. Kaipad rice, Malabar pepper, Alleppey Green cardamom, Palakkad Matta rice, Pokkali rice, Gandhakasala and Jeerakasala rice of Wayanad and Palakkad‘s Njavara, all enjoy GI-label but no visible benefit to farmers.

A similar result awaits Chengazhikodan Nendran banana, which received the prestigious GI tag last month, say experts.Dr Leena Kumari, head of Rice Research Station, Mankombu, says

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Daily Global Rice e-Newsletter there‘s no backup efforts on the part of the government or farmer societies to cash-in on the GItag to boost demand, especially in export markets.―In principle, GI-tag should help farmers as the label ensures higher quality on the agri-commodity compared to their peers. But, there has not been any extra efforts to push these products,‖ she laments.According to her, the government procures the pokkali rice seeds at `50/kg, much higher compared to the market rate of Rs 38.

A similar way of procurement at high prices should be done for pokkali rice too, she recommends, adding that with proper branding and marketing the GI-tagged agri-produce could fetch better prices in both local and export markets.Dr P Indira Devi of Kerala Agricultural University says the benefits of GI tag should be made available to both farmers and customers.―There has not been enough efforts made to publicise the benefits of commodities which have the GI-label,‖ she notes.―Nobody actually cares about GI-tag, as most of the pineapple sold in the country are from Vazhakulam,‖ says Augustine.Baby John of Pineapple Farmers Association, says for perishable agri-products (Vazhakulam pineapple or Chengazhikodan Nendran banana), the key is to preserve them using technology. ―The GI tag has no meaning if you have a glut. When you know the product will perish in 15 days, the option before the farmers is distress sale. This is what‘s happening on Vazhakulam pineapple now,‖ he sums up. http://www.newindianexpress.com/cities/kochi/Sans-Backup-Strategies-Vazhakkulam-Pineapple-PriceSuffers-Downslide/2015/06/02/article2844868.ece

Myanmar works for formulating policy framework for foreign investment in agriculture 2015-05-31 10:41:54

YANGON, May 31 (Xinhua) -- Myanmar government is working closely with the 34-nation Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to formulate a policy framework to boost foreign investment in the agricultural sector, official media reported Sunday.

OCED officials were quoted as saying that allowing foreign ownership of land and creating a legal framework to encourage contract farming will attract foreign direct investment in Myanmar 's agricultural sector.The OECD held a workshop in Yangon on Saturday on modernizing Myanmar's economic building on a strong agricultural sector.

According to official statistics, Myanmar's agricultural sector ranked the 9th out of 11 sectors in terms of foreign direct investment with approved capital of 242.686 million U.S. dollars as of March 2015 since late 1988 when the country started to open to foreign investment.Meanwhile, the International Fund for Agriculture Development ( IFAD) offered aid to Myanmar to carry out project for agricultural development which lasted from 2013 to 2015 covering three villages in central Magway region.The International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) also helped the country grow rice under Myanmar Rice Sector Development Strategy and Program. http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2015-05/31/c_134284673.htm

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On the ground in Vietnam, with rice, not bullets Submitted by admin on Sun, 05/31/2015 - 12:00am By: Erin Hinrichs

Calvin Kellerman visits with a Vietnamese farmer as she manually harvests rice. Kellerman helped introduce a new heartier variety of rice seed that allowed locals to harvest higher yields. (submitted photo)

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Daily Global Rice e-Newsletter

Kellerman’s translator, Ong Chuan, interprets for him at a gathering that includes the Tan An agricultural director, on Kellerman’s other side. The group took in a sewing demonstration in October 1968. While doing agriculture extension work, Kellerman was also involved in setting up activities like this, meant to emulate 4-H. (submitted photo)

At the Wentworth Library, in West St. Paul, Calvin Kellerman, 89, displays the parting gift he received from local farmers he advised in Vietnam — a figure of a Vietnamese farmer they apparently melted down from spent shell casings. (Erin Hinrichs/Review)

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Calvin Kellerman (right) shakes hands with U.S. Secretary of Agriculture and former Minnesota Gov. Orville Freeman prior to Kellerman’s departure for Vietnam. (submitted photo)

Calvin Kellerman advised civilians on agriculture Calvin Kellerman, 89, keeps a small brass statue of an aged Vietnamese man hauling a load of firewood for cooking on display at his residence in Mendota Heights. He's not sure who made it, but he speculates it's made of artillery shells that had been fired by U.S. soldiers — collected, melted down, and turned into a gift given to him by the local farmers he advised. A World War II veteran, Kellerman signed up in 1966 to serve during the Vietnam War as a civilian agricultural advisor.Employed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. State Department — which had teamed up to launch an aid mission in the midst of the unpopular war — he spent six years introducing an improved variety of rice in Long An, Da Nang and Can Tho provinces.It was a lifesaving effort.

In the mid-1960s, no matter how far they were from the battle lines, Vietnamese families were struggling. Having just emerged from a rice famine during World War II that extended into the postwar years, both north and south portions of the country faced shortages due to the conflict. If one area's crops flooded or were ravaged by rats, there might be no safe routes to travel to another or bring sustenance in.In a country where every meal is said to be "rice and something else," this was a crisis."When we got to Vietnam, they were not able to provide enough rice for themselves," Kellerman says. "[Today] they have enough rice where they can feed all the people who live there and they have enough to export it."

From delta to delta Born a farmer in the delta lands of the Red River Valley in North Dakota, Kellerman joined the Navy in 1944 as an apprentice seaman. He later served in Okinawa as a Seabee — the Navy's term for the initials of Construction Battalion — constructing a hospital with concrete made of coral, he says, until the atomic bomb brought that project to a halt.After completing his service, he studied agriculture at North Dakota State University and got a job teaching farm management to other World War II veterans who were looking to regain their footing back in America's heartland. He later joined the U.S. Soil Conservation Service (later renamed the Natural Resources Conservation Service).

By the time the Vietnam War had begun, he was married and had two daughters. Given the groundswell of anti-war sentiments that marked America's involvement in Vietnam — combined with his own distaste for the war — he could have stayed on the sidelines. But he couldn't resist one last call to duty.Only this time, Kellerman says, it came in the form of a guy at the North Dakota Winter Show shouting out to passersby, "Hey folks, we need ag people in

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Daily Global Rice e-Newsletter Vietnam!"Curious, he followed up on the position and quickly found himself on a plane to Washington, D.C. to take a qualifying language test."The Vietnamese language is tonal. It has five different tones and if you don't understand the tone, you'll never understand the language," he says of the dialect spoken in the south.He passed the test and started training in January 1967 near the Everglades in Florida, where he and his colleagues studied Vietnamese language in the morning and tropical agriculture in the afternoons.

'We're moving where?'

His eldest daughter, Renee Trier, remembers being completely shocked when Kellerman first sprang the news on the family. Looking, back, however, she can see how the career move was in character."He's always been someone who's enjoyed teaching and education. He loves the land.

He loves farming," Trier says. "He presented it for his family as 'This is an opportunity for you to learn about new cultures and new things.'"Kellerman's insight helped the family view the challenge differently, and his prediction was correct, she says."He was right. It definitely opened all of our eyes.

"Trier, her mother and sister moved to the Philippines, where Kellerman could visit them on occasion.For the most part, though, he was off the grid, traveling from village to village in the MeKong delta to help sow more-productive rice — and goodwill. Those he met were torn between the fears that they wouldn't be able to make a living on next season's harvest — or, in the immediate term, even live to work another day."I was born and raised as a Christian," Kellerman says simply. "They teach you that you take care of other people."That had never left my mind. Those people were not only being taken care of badly, but were being shot at at the same time."

Staying clear of the crossfire Based near an American military camp in Tan An for his first four years of service, Kellerman saw many farmers abandoning their traditional livelihoods in hopes of finding more secure futures in the city."At that time, the initiative of the Vietnamese local people was stifled because every time you went on the road, you might get shot at," he says.The threat was so constant, he says, that many families slept under their beds at night — in trenches they'd dug to try to avoid indiscriminate bullets.

Despite the constant risk of being caught in crossfire, Kellerman says he never hesitated to check in on the local farmers he was working with. His translator, Ong Chuan, accompanied him almost everywhere he went and kept Kellerman out of harm's way.On a typical outreach mission, Kellerman — accompanied by the local agriculture chief and Ong Chuan — would fly by helicopter to a farming village and introduce the new rice seed, which they distributed at no cost.The visits, heralded by the unmistakable noise of the "chopper," brought everyone in the village out to see what was happening."Whenever we got there, we'd find the place full of people," Kellerman says, paging through a scrapbook with black and white photos of curious Vietnamese children.

Above water, away from rats

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Daily Global Rice e-Newsletter The new seeds came from the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines, which had been established to develop a more hardy, dependable rice for Southeast Asia.The "miracle rice" the IRRI developed in the early '60s was a hybrid type that grew up stiff and short, making the plants better suited for the conditions in southern Vietnam. When it came to increasing crop yields, these two modifications made a huge difference."When I got to Long An, the rice would grow 4 to 6 feet high in the rainy season, [then] fall down into the water.

The rats would get it and the yields would be very low," Kellerman recalls. The seed was cutting-edge, but it adapted just fine to the centuries-old method of cultivation: plows pulled by water buffalo. And farmers saw results.According to a record preserved in Kellerman's scrapbook, farmers in the Long An province produced a record-setting 233,000 metric tons of rice under his guidance.As he recalls, only seven others of the country's 44 provinces produced more than 100,000 tons."I'm proud of the work that he did to enable those Vietnamese farmers to improve their life and their families' lives by increasing their crop yields and the quality of their food," Trier says. "And to do it during a time of war, I give him a lot of credit for being willing to do that."

Post-war struggle Returning Stateside in Jan. 1973, Kellerman found he was the one struggling to make a living.Even though he hadn't been engaged in the war, most employers wouldn't give his applications a second look.The man who was praised by the Secretary of Agriculture and was flown around Southeast Asia to educate people on rice harvests eventually got a job grating grain at a facility in Texas. The company issued him an orange jumpsuit so he'd be easier to spot in case a grain elevator collapsed or a fire started — a common hazard due to the grain dust that built up in the workroom.

Kellerman made it safely to retirement, but continued to deal with health complications that he says were caused by exposure to Agent Orange during his time in Vietnam. Although he's a World War II veteran, Kellerman is denied veterans' medical assistance for the defoliant's wellknown aftereffects because, technically, he was serving as a civilian during the later war.Nowadays, he splits the majority of his time between visting the Wentworth Library and playing cards at a local bridge club. On occasion, he makes it out to his black walnut grove in North Dakota to prune his trees.Every Thursday morning, he meets with a group of veterans who call themselves the "Grumpy Old Men" at the American Legion in Apple Valley."We have a cup of coffee and a donut for a buck and we sit and talk with each other. None of those folks ever knew anything about the ag in Vietnam," he says, proud to delve into a different side of the Vietnam experience.

"As far as I'm concerned, I accomplished something."

Erin Hinrichs can be reached at 651-748-7814 and ehinrichs@lillienews.com. Follow her at twitter.com/EHinrichsNews.

In early 1967, 43 agriculture advisors trained for a different type of service in Vietnam: a war on hunger.

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Daily Global Rice e-Newsletter Although the advisors’ mission was to help South Vietnamese farmers to increase their crop yields, these federally-employed volunteers were also prepared for the very real possibility that they could be caught in the crossfire.

Transcribed from a letter former agriculture advisor Calvin Kellerman saved, the following correspondence illustrates the risks these men took in the name of delivering aid during a time of war. The Review has used initials for last names.

Feb. 22, 1968 Dear Cal: Each of us in Agriculture is interested in what‘s happening to our friends, so thought I would write down those things that have come to my attention here in Saigon and suggest you let us know how you are and how the present situation is affecting you. Several of the PASA Agr. Adv. have written notes to me when sending in the T & A report, which I appreciate.

Following are comments as they have come to my attention: Ed F. — Slightly wounded in action at Phan Thiet. He is now in Nha Trang working as Fisheries Adv. Bob H. — His house was blown up a few days before Tet offensive. He was only slightly hurt.

Bill J. — Sr. Agr. Adv. I CORPS and Morgan Stickney Soil Fert. Adv. I CORPS evacuated B.T. (before Tet) because of infectious hepatitis. Bill is now in California and Morgan in P.I. Willie C. — Acting as Sr. Agr. Adv. TDY in Bill‘s place.

James M. — Assigned to DaNang to help with I CORPS Agr. program.

Tom R. — Missing in action at Hue. John R. — Resigned.

Ike H. — Recently assigned to Dalat, had his house blown up while he was on visitation at Bangkok.

Bob J. — Moving from Cam Ranh to Vung Tau as extension training advisor.

Grady M. — Bombed out twice from his house. Only item recovered was back of his wrist watch.

Peter W. — Leave without pay in U.S. Dallas B. — Resigned.

Dale S. — Not returning.

Charley B. — Moved from Dalat to Gia Dinh B.T. (before Tet).

Marvin B. — Wounded in action at Rach Gia and treated locally.

Jose R. — Moved from Kontum to Khanh Hoa after spending 6 days and nights in bunker, with pet monkey named ―Virgin.‖ I am sure there are many more happenings that we are not aware of yet and will be glad to write another letter to keep you up to date. I would appreciate hearing from you soon.

Sincerely yours, Andy Andersen USAID/AGR/Field Support Saigon http://www.lillienews.com/articles/2015/05/31/ground-vietnam-rice-notbullets#.VW2MN89Viko

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Daily Global Rice e-Newsletter U.N. warns of coming hunger in North Korea Sat May 30, 2015 7:03pm BST

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un gives field guidance at the 810 army unit‘s Salmon farms in this undated photo released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) in Pyongyang.

REUTERS/KCNA

A drought in North Korea could lead to huge food shortages this year, the top U.N. official in the country told Reuters in an interview.Rainfall in 2014, the lowest in records going back 30 years, was 40-60 percent below 2013 levels, and reservoirs are very low, said Ghulam Isaczai, the U.N. resident coordinator."We're extremely concerned with the impact of drought which will affect the crop this year severely. And we might be faced with another major incident of food availability or even hunger," said Isaczai. "It is going to create a huge deficit between the needs and what is available."If El Nino weather conditions bring more drought this year, the situation in 2016 could be even worse, he warned.

"This is currently the rice-planting season. Normally they submerge the land almost a week or two in advance. But this year, I've seen it myself – they're doing it in the dry, actually planting rice. So what we're hearing right now is that they're switching to maize and corn because that requires less water."Some farmers, already struggling with a shortage of fuel and equipment, have resorted to using buckets to water seedlings, he said. The effect of North Korea's lack of agricultural infrastructure such as irrigation systems was visible on the border, where "dry and

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Daily Global Rice e-Newsletter harsh" North Korean land met green fields in China.A famine in the 1990s killed as many as 1 million North Koreans but recently many international donors have been reluctant to help because of Pyongyang's restrictions on humanitarian workers and international concerns over its nuclear ambitions."Let's not make aid political," Isaczai said.

ELECTRICITY HIT The United Nations provides nutritional supplements to schools and hospitals but does not have the funds to supply rice for North Korea's 24.6 million population, 70 percent of whom are already classed as "food insecure"."How are they going to fill this gap? I think they have reached out to some countries - to India, to China, to Russia," Isaczai said.The lack of water has dried up rivers and streams and has also hit electricity supply, which was at its worst in winter when hydroelectric power was restricted to reserve water for the rice-planting season."What the government confirmed to me is that they're operating at 50 percent of capacity in terms of power generation.

A lot of it is now related to water," the U.N. official added.Blackouts in Pyongyang last anything from 8-9 hours to a whole 24 hours and many hospitals are unable to operate.Isaczai said he thought the food situation would not be as bad as in previous major droughts, since communities were now more resilient and might have some reserves.New farming rules - which allow smaller, family-sized teams to run farms - meant more efficiency and ownership, he said, with families allowed to keep livestock and farmers able to keep surplus crops."Also there are small markets emerging in rural areas, like kind of farmers' markets where people can barter or trade or sell things."Some people were also selling food on the street, which might be a few eggs or apples, enabling families to supplement the food they get from the national ration system.The reforms may not be fast or widespread, Isaczai said, and the impact may take three to five years to be felt.The government also set a target last year of building 20,000 greenhouses, he said, which would make more vegetables available and diversify diets, but the country needs help to build them.

(Reporting by Tom Miles; Editing by Pravin Char) http://uk.reuters.com/article/2015/05/30/uk-northkorea-drought-idUKKBN0OF0BP20150530

Water shortages mean less rice planted this year A partially flooded rice field seen along 7-Mile Lane in Chico on May 8. Bill Husa — Enterprise-Record

By Heather Hacking, Chico Enterprise-Record POSTED: 05/31/15, 8:10 PM PDT |

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A crop duster spreads rice seeds over the rice fields in Richvale on April 27. Emily Bertolino — Enterprise-Record

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Daily Global Rice e-Newsletter If this had been a normal year, it would have been a perfect season for planting rice — clear skies, not much wind and plenty of time to do things right.All of those things were true this year, except not as much land was planted due to lack of water.For the past several weeks, small airplanes could be spotted in the air along the Midway south of Durham and other areas where the predominant crop is rice.The crop dusters land on small landing strips alongside rice field.

The holding compartments of the planes are filled with soaked rice seed. Next the planes zoom over the field, flying low to distribute the seed into the water.

The peak of planting was about two weeks ago, said Craig Compton, owner of Avag Inc., an aerial application company with planes based in Richvale.As for planting, there was no big hurry this year, First off, less rice was planted. Many growers had their surface water amounts cut drastically, including water districts along the Feather River.Districts that are collectively known as the ―Joint Districts,‖ had their water reduced by 50 percent.However, with groundwater pumping, about 80 percent of the rice land in this area was planted, said Sean Earley, manager of Richvale Irrigation District.Along the Sacramento River, surface water allocations were also decreased. Some farmers received zero water, and farmers with senior water rights received 75 percent. Again, growers who had access to groundwater are using wells to add to their water supply.Earley noted that farmers are being super-vigilant about spills. ―Zero water is leaving the fields.‖Data on rice acreage has not yet been compiled, said Jim Morris, communication specialist with the California Rice Commission. Those numbers should arrive in the next couple of weeks after looking at land surveys and seed sales.Last year, rice planting was down 25 percent, he said, and will be even lower than that this year.The weather has been ideal for planting. The best weather for growing rice is 80-90 degrees, with no wind, Morris said.Compton of Avag aerial applicators, said there are years when all of the planting is pushed into a short time frame. This is usually due to rains at the time of field preparation or high winds, which can blow seed to one edge of the field rather than dropping to the bottom for cultivation http://www.chicoer.com/general-news/20150531/water-shortages-mean-less-rice-planted-this-year

Rains swamp Mid-South crops Jun 1, 2015Ed Phillips | Delta Farm Press

Don Groth, LSU AgCenter plant pathologist, tells farmers in Vermilion Parish about ways they can control diseases in rice this year. Heavy rainfall and cloudy weather have hampered this year‘s crop and created an ideal climate for disease to flourish. (Photo by Bruce Schultz, LSU AgCenter)

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Rain and more rain continue to dominate Mid-South agriculture with delayed and prevented planting, loss of quality in wheat, delays to fertilization and applications of herbicides. Here‘s a look at current conditions aross the region: Louisiana The LSU AgCenter Rice Research Station at Crowley, La., usually gets 26 inches of rain between March 1 and the end of July, but the total so far is 24 inches, according to Dustin Harrell, AgCenter rice specialist.Midseason fertilizer applications have been complicated by the wet ground that prevents airplanes from using airstrips, Harrell said. Instead, pilots have been forced to use paved runways that are often distant from fields, resulting in higher costs for aerial applications.He said waiting seven to 10 days for a midseason fertilizer application should not make a significant difference in a crop.

Don Groth, LSU AgCenter plant pathologist, told farmers that they should be on the lookout for disease. ―This is disease weather.‖He said leaf blast will be a problem for farmers if water accidentally drains from a field, but restoring a flood will likely reduce the disease severity.Groth said fungicide-resistant sheath blight has spread this year, with some reported south of Lacassine and in east Evangeline Parish, increasing the likelihood that the fungicide Sercadis will be needed by more farmers.• The news is worse for soybeans. Ron Levy, LSU AgCenter soybean specialist, said the wet weather has forced him to delay planting for many of his variety trials, and many farmers are close to deciding not to plant a soybean crop.―It‘s probably getting to a point where we won‘t see many soybeans planted in south Louisiana,‖ Levy said.

Read more at Rainy, cloudy weather not good for growing rice in Louisiana.

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Daily Global Rice e-Newsletter Arkansas • Wet weather continues to be the biggest issue for Arkansas corn, says Jason Kelley, Arkansas wheat and feed grains specialist. ―Many have and are still struggling getting herbicides and sidedress nitrogen applied. The earliest planted corn in far south Arkansas could be tasseling (the first week of June) and the other extreme is producers contemplating planting more corn to cover contracts. ―Corn is now rapidly growing and when it does stop raining I‘m afraid we are going to go from too wet to dry very quickly,‖ Kelley says.In Northeast Arkansas, ―the same weather pattern continues — we receive enough rain to limit field work,‖ says Stewart Runsick, Clay County Extension agent. ―Many corn fields are turning yellow in areas and need some nitrogen. Some applications of herbicide and fertilizer have gone out by air. Others are just putting out a little nitrogen trying to buy some time until it dries up. Most of the corn is V6 or bigger. We need a week of dry weather to get finished up.

• At the end of May, Arkansas producers had plenty of rice ready to go to flood. ―Once again rice is nearing the end of the nitrogen application window and we can‘t find dry ground to put it on,‖ says Jarrod Hardke, Extension rice specialist. In the latest Arkansas Rice Update, Hardke and Trent Roberts, fertility specialist, discuss how late is too late to plant rice and preflood nitrogen management issues.

• Steady rains over southeast Arkansas, combined with overflowing tributaries heading toward the Mississippi River, caused the northern portion of Chicot County to suffer severe flooding in the last week of May.Much of the northern quarter of the county was under 6 to 7 inches of water, said Gus Wilson, staff chair for the Chicot County Cooperative Extension Service office in Lake Village.The northern quarter of the county, he said, will likely suffer near-total crop loss due to the flooding and the timing of the weather events.He added that even if the area receives no more rains, it will probably be several weeks before fields are dry enough to begin replanting. http://deltafarmpress.com/rice/rains-swamp-mid-south-crops

Vietnam signs contracts to export 3.2 million ton rice Businesses have signed contracts to export over 3.28 million tons of rice this year, reported the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development yesterday.Many traders have temporarily stopped rice purchase in the Mekong Delta due to export difficulties (Photo: SGGP) Of these, 1.7 million tons worth US$738 million have been delivered, down 20 percent in value and 18 percent in volume over the same period last year.Rice export is now facing difficulties with few orders and low prices. Key export markets of Vietnam including China, Malaysia and Indonesia have halted import while the condition has not recovered in other markets.Businesses and traders have reduced or even stopped rice purchase in the Mekong Delta.According to the Cultivation Department, the Mekong Delta has sowed 1.66 million hectares of summer autumn rice this crop, down over 8,300 hectares over the same period last year. The reduction is attributed to unstable price which has caused farmers to convert rice crop into vegetable and fruit farming.Despite the department has advised rice growers to seed less than 10 percent of the IR

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Daily Global Rice e-Newsletter 50404 variety but the ratio has reached 24 percent. Many farmers have cultivated without consumption contracts or orders from businesses, signaling more difficulties in consumption in the upcoming time. http://www.saigon-gpdaily.com.vn/Business/2015/6/113949/

Rice Dept to unveil 7 new breeds of rice Saturday, 30 May 2015

By NNT

Thailand‘s Rice Department will celebrate this year‘s ―Rice and Farmer‘s Day‖ by unveiling seven new strains of rice.Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn will inaugurate this year‘s ceremony and the department will unveil seven newly approved breeds of rice. The new rice strains include indigenous breeds that will soon be certified with Geographical Indicators as well as fast-growing strains that can be utilized outside of the rainy season.The department revealed that June 5 of every year is ―Rice and Farmer‘s Day,‖ as well as the anniversary of the day when King Rama VIII, His Majesty King Ananda Mahidol, and King Rama IX, His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej, visited the rice farms of Bang Khen district and sowed rice seeds into the fields. It is an auspicious day for rice farming in Thailand and honors all rice farmers in the Kingdom.The department Secretary-General revealed that there are currently 60 million rai of rice paddies in the Kingdom, tended by approximately 17 million farmers. Rice exports have generated approximately 200 billion baht in annual revenue. http://www.pattayamail.com/news/rice-dept-to-unveil-7-new-breeds-of-rice47560#sthash.p89YDHMs.dpuf

Thai Commerce Min warns legal action against poor quality rice vendors

BY EDITOR ON 2015-06-01 THAILAND Min. of Commerce warns legal action against poor quality rice vendors

BANGKOK, 1 June 2015, (NNT) – The Ministry of Commerce warns legal action will be taken against vendors selling inferior quality rice.The warning was made by the ministry‘s InspectorGeneral Somchart Soithong, following recent complaints of mobile rice retailers cutting standard or good quality grains with low-grade stock.He asked the residents to alert the authorities, while strongly recommending they only buy rice from trusted wholesalers, who consistently offer quality grains.Meanwhile, President of the Swine Raisers Association of Thailand Surachai Suthitham stated that the average farmer‘s market price of pork from April to May has increased by four baht from 62-63 baht per kg to 66 – 67 baht per kg.He attributed the hike to the drought crisis, as well as a 30 percent drop in number of piglets. Several ranches at the beginning of the year suffered an outbreak of Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea (PED) Virus, especially in the

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Daily Global Rice e-Newsletter northeastern region.However, the Association President is convinced that pork prices would return to normal during the rainy season. http://news.thaivisa.com/thailand/thai-commerce-min-warns-legal-action-against-poor-quality-ricevendors/92647/

Paddy seed production provides supplementary income to farmers Seed production enhances returns for paddy cultivators in the wake of the growing demand for quality seeds, said scientists at a day-long training programme on ―production of quality paddy seeds‖ organised at Krishi Vigyan Kendra at Vamban near here on Saturday.They said that most farmers found it difficult to purchase quality seeds and, hence, production of seeds of highyielding varieties would go a long way in ensuring more returns.L. Nirmala, Programme Coordinator, said that farmers should be fully aware of the importance of season-specific demand for quality seeds.

For instance, during the forthcoming ‗kuruvai‘ season, the demand for quality Co-51 variety released by the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University would be on the rise. ―Being the short duration fine variety, ‗kuruvai‘ farmers will opt for this variety,‖ she said appealing to farmers to produce seeds for such varieties.M. Kathiravan, Assistant Professor Seed Sciences, in his powerpoint presentation, said seed production fetched more income for farmers. For instance, quality seeds would fetch a returns of up to Rs. 50,000 an acre.He said that April-May and DecemberJanuary were the two ideal ‗pattam‘ when farmers could go in for raising quality seeds.Selection of fields for raising paddy seeds was more important. Fields where the same paddy variety had been raised earlier would be more conducive. ―Fields where other varieties had been harvested earlier often cause variation in the characteristic and botanical behaviour of seeds, resulting in quality of seeds,‖ he warned. The fields should be free from weeds and pest attack.A question hour session was held in which farmers got their doubts clarified.

“Farmers should be fully aware of the importance of season-specific demand for quality seeds”

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/tamil-nadu/paddy-seed-production-provides-supplementaryincome-to-farmers/article7269660.ece

DA seeks P11-B budget for rice program

By Czeriza Valencia (The Philippine Star) | Updated June 2, 2015 - 12:00am

The DA rice program is the banner program of the government for increasing the production of the staple to self-sufficiency level. File photo MANILA, Philippines - The Department of Agriculture (DA) is seeking a significant increase in its budget for its rice program to sustain growth in production and step up climate change and disaster preparedness in the sector.The DA is asking the National Government for around P11 billion next year from the program‘s budget of P6.6 billion this year.―We are asking for an increase because this will address the issue of climate change, (production) competitiveness and

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Daily Global Rice e-Newsletter seed requirement,‖ said Edilberto de Luna, assistant secretary for field operations and head of the National Rice Program.The DA rice program is the banner program of the government for increasing the production of the staple to self-sufficiency level.

De Luna said the budgetary increase would be used to expand the scope of the Tier 1 of the national rice program which is focused on maintaining and sustaining the 2015 target output levels of 20.09 million metric tons (MT) and average yield of 4.09 metric tons per hectare.Tier 1 also supports strategic longer-term investments for continued growth through research and development, small-scale irrigation and extension capability building.

Business ( Article MRec ), pagematch: 1, sectionmatch: 1 Under the proposed program expansion dubbed as Tier 2, the National Rice Program would provide more interventions to ―attain substantial improvement on global competitiveness factors and for raising farmers‘ income.‖Under Tier 2, the National Rice Program aims to increase the resilience of the rice sector to climate change. As such, services and benefits would be extended to more rural groups and individuals.Proposed programs under Tier 2 includes the provision of enhanced production support services through the use of high-yielding hybrid seeds, high quality seeds and improved disaster risk reduction and management.Through its extension programs, the National Rice Program will also promote the use of yield and production enhancement technologies that promises increased yield of around 4.15 metric tons per hectare.

The department will likewise maintain support for irrigation and procurement of farm machineries and equipment through counterpart funding.―The Tier 2 proposal is primarily directed in addressing the low competitiveness of the local rice industry and the generally marginal income of farmers,‖ said de Luna.―Addressing these macro issue has become urgent relative to food security and poverty alleviation in the context of the Asean integration this 2015,‖ he added. http://www.philstar.com/business/2015/06/02/1461134/da-seeks-p11-b-budget-rice-program

India monsoon rains delayed, to arrive by June 5-weather office NEW DELHI, JUNE 1

This year's monsoon may arrive on India's southern Kerala coast in the next five days as the rains have missed their normal start date of June 1, weather officials said on Monday.The annual rainy season is vital for India as half its cropland lacks irrigation. The farm sector accounts for 15

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Daily Global Rice e-Newsletter percent of India's $2 trillion economy.The rains support two-thirds of India's 1.25 billion population who live in rural areas and rely on farming.After arriving over the Kerala coast, the monsoon starts its four-month long season."We hope conditions will become favourable for the monsoon onset over the Kerala coast on around June 5," said B.P. Yadav, director of the India Meteorological Department (IMD).Last month, the weather office had forecast that the monsoon would arrive on the Kerala coast on May 30, give or take four days.

The monsoon arrived last year on June 6, a day after the forecast and five days after the usual date, and the season ended with deficient rains that trimmed grain output.The farm ministry has put in place contingency plans for about 580 districts to meet any exigencies arising due to a delay in the annual rains.The monsoon typically covers half of the country by mid-June, and the entire country by mid-July, helping farmers to plant summer crops such as rice, soybean, cane and cotton."Contingency plans contain specific advisory to meet delay or deficiency in rains," said K.K. Singh, head of the agromet division of the weather office.In April, the weather office had forecast less than usual rainfall due to El Nino, an event marked by warming of the sea surface water in the Pacific Ocean that can lead to droughts in Asian countries like Australia and India.A research model of the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology predicts a delay in the advance of the rains towards soybean areas of central India by about a week due to the late start.

(Reporting by Ratnajyoti Dutta; Editing by Robert Birsel) http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/06/01/india-monsoon-idUSL3N0YN32U20150601

Paddy crop to be cultivated on more than 4.5m acres in Punjab Reported by: `Customs Today Report June 1, 2015

SIALKOT: The Punjab Agriculture Department has announced that the paddy crop will be cultivated on more than 4.5 million acres of land during ‗Kharif‘ season in the province.The department‘s officials said that paddy would be sown over 1.6 million acres of land in Gujranwala division while 352,000 acres land would be brought under the crop in Sialkot district. They said that in Sialkot district, the cultivation of paddy has been reduced by 40,000 acres of land as compared to previous year‘s target due to lack of interest of farmers and unfavourable weather conditions.The Agriculture department was making adequate efforts for creating awareness among the growers about use of recommended seed to attain better yield of the crop in the province, they added.The department has initiated a well-knitted training programme for the paddy growers on the preparation of nurseries and cultivation of paddy crop aimed at attaining the fixed target in Punjab.

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Daily Global Rice e-Newsletter http://www.customstoday.com.pk/paddy-crop-to-be-cultivated-on-more-than-4-5m-acres-in-punjab/

Iran denies plans to import rice 6/1/2015

Trend Daily Economic News

Baku, Azerbaijan, June 1

By Fatih Karimov - Trend: Iranian Deputy Agriculture Minister Abbas Keshavarz denied reports on importing rice after the fasting month of Ramadan (to start on June 18).Considering that sufficient amounts of rice have been stored, the importation of rice is still banned, Iran's IRIB quoted Keshavarz as saying June 1.The importation of rice was banned in the last month of the past Iranian fiscal year, ended on March 20, he noted.Deputy Head of Imports Commission of Iran's Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines and Agriculture Mohammad Reza Safa has said that the Iranian government has banned rice and sugar imports to support domestic producers.

"Iranian producers' production cannot meet domestic demands, and we need to import. But currently there is enough rice and sugar in the market, so we decided to banimports," he said.Based on statistics of the Iran Customs Administration, the country imported 1.077 million metric tons of rice, worth $1.293 billion, in the first 11 months of the past Iranian fiscal year.

Rice imports decreased by 39.7 percent in weight and 38.55 percent in value compared to the same period in the fiscal year, ended in March 2014.

Edited by CN http://www.world-grain.com/news/news%20home/LexisNexisArticle.aspx?articleid=2375612098

Midsayap irrigators laud DA for increased rice production June 01, 2015

KORONADAL CITY, South Cotabato, June 1 (PIA) -- In the past, rice growers in Midsayap, North Cotabato would be satisfied if they harvested 80 sacks from each hectare.But this, changed lately, according these farmers, after the Department of Agriculture poured in several interventions to the town‘s irrigators‘ associations.Dante Cudal, president of the Midsayap – Pigcawayan – Libungan – Kabuntalan Federation of Irrigators‘ Association (MPLKIA), said since 2013 when DA 12 started implementing projects , they have been enjoying harvest of up to 140 sacks per hectare―MPLKIA received P17.4-M worth of projects from DA 12 from 2011 to 2014.

The biggest project given to us was the P16-M Rice Processing Center (RPC( II,‖ Cudal disclosed.Besides the state-of-the-art rice processing facility, the IA federation also received

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Daily Global Rice e-Newsletter four-wheel drive tractor (P1.3-M);, flatbed dryer (P506, 000), and hand tractor (P106, 000).

Another farmer-leader Danilo Tacan, president of Libris 5 Chrislam Irrigators‘ Association of Barangay San Isidro also lauded DA‘s farm mechanization program, which he added has resulted in 110-140 cavans per hectare being enjoyed by their members. Each cavan weighs 55 kilograms.―We received hand tractor with trailer (P106, 000) and one floating tiller (P88, 000) from DA 12,‖ Tacan said.Similar increase in rice production was also recorded by rice grower-members of Settlers IA (SIA) of Barangay Lower Katingawan after being granted with almost P1-M worth of farm machines and postharvest facility from the Department.

Meanwhile, Wilson Macoy, president of SIA, acknowledged DA 12 for giving them flatbed dryer (P625, 000), rice thresher (P 95, 000), and power tiller (P93, 000) which they have been utilizing in bolstering their farms‘ productivity. These farm machines such as floating tiller shortened the time spent for land preparation‖ Tacan remarked. These farmer associatons also attributed the increase in rice production in the improvement of their farm-to-market road for a more convenient and faster transportation of products to the town‘s market.Better and quality road also reduced our transportation costs and improved our mobility and even motivated us to increase our palay production which gives us bigger incomes,‖ Cudal commented. Apart from the aforementioned, members of these farmer associations have also been recipients of certified seeds from DA 12, which they agreed has also boosted their production capacity that they added could greatly contribute to the achievement of the rice self-sufficiency goal of the national government.

With these bountiful harvests, farmer-members of the associations are more confident they could send their children to college and provide for the basic needs of their respective families.In their words, these farmer-leaders have expressed their heartfelt gratitude to the Department of Agriculture led by Secretary Proceso Alcala, and Regional Executive Director Amalia Jayag-Datukan for addressing the needs of the farmers engaged in rice farming.―I hope the DA will continue its undying service to the rice farmers,‖ Cudal said challenging his fellow farmers to be proactive in submitting proposals for their desired projects to the DA.Cudal also added that ―Department of Agriculture will always be our number one partner towards community development.‖ (CRMatullano/LMSalvo-DA-RAFIS/DEDoguiles-PIA 12)

http://news.pia.gov.ph/article/view/1611433138045/midsayap-irrigators-laud-da-for-increased-riceproduction#sthash.l6cSTMSn.dpuf

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