10th July, 2014 Daily Global Rice E-Newsletter by Riceplus Magazine

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TOP Contents - Tailored for YOU
Latest News Headlines
Export of Pakistani basmati rice increased by 16%
Philippines abandons timeframe for rice self-sufficiency
THE RUBE GOLDBERG OF RICE
Ministry to release 18m tonnes of rice in next 3 years
UPDATE 1-Thai commerce ministry to sell rice stocks again from August
TABLE-India Grain Prices - Delhi - Jul 10
Poor monsoon threatens first drought in five years
Bring down quantity of parboiled rice
Nigeria Slashes Levy On Rice Importation To 20%
NCPO to revive state rice sales
Growing more rice 'unviable' in water-short Pakistan
Slow march of 'biofortified' GM food
Ancient Silk Town Paves Way for Japans Lost Rice Fields

News Detail
Export of Pakistani basmati rice increased by 16%


July 10th, 2014 by Maleeha Tareen | No Comment |
Pakistan rice exporters earned $1.9 billions from July 2013 to 30 June 2014 from the export of basmati and non-
basmati rice with an increase of 16% in the export of basmati rice. Pakistani basmati rice is being exported at
35% higher price than the competitors. The former chairman of Rice Exporters Association of Pakistan and
chairman of the Standing Committee of FPCCI Javed Ali Ghorion Wednesday said that Pakistani basmati rice
due to its good quality gets 35% more price compared to Indian rice. He said that there was price increase of
13% for non-basmati rice whereas the volume decreased by 8% during the last fiscal year. Javed Ali Ghori said
Pakistan rice exports are expected to increase during the current fiscal year that will bring in large amount of
foreign exchange in the country. Ghori said that Pakistani rice exporters are focusing on value addition that is
enabling them to sell the basmati rice at higher export prices. He further said that Pakistan exported brown rice
worth $192.4 million during last year.
Philippines abandons timeframe for rice self-sufficiency
(Reuters) - The Philippines has shifted away from setting a target date for its plan to be completely self-
sufficient in the production of rice, a senior government official said, likely keeping its doors open to imports
beyond the current goal of 2016.That will be welcomed by key supplier Vietnam, which is looking to follow up
on a string of deals to ship a total of 1.5 million tonnes of rice to Southeast Asia's biggest importer of the staple
grain.It could also be good news for Thailand, which wants to offload rice from a controversial stockpiling
scheme at the heart of political turmoil in the country this year.
"I'm happy with 90- to 95-percent self-sufficiency (in 2016) and then we import the rest," said Francis
Pangilinan, head of food security for the Philippines.Pangilinan, appointed two months ago by President
Benigno Aquino, added in an interview with Reuters that no new timeframe would be introduced for 100-
percent self-sufficiency.Critics have long said the Philippines' rice self-sufficiency goal, earlier set for 2013,
was unrealistic. The target seemed even more remote after swathes of paddy were hit by drought or ravaged by
typhoons, including last year's Haiyan.While bumper harvests in other countries have stoked a global rice glut,
prices in the Philippines have been pushed to record levels by the typhoons and as the government clamps down
on smugglers looking to avoid hefty taxes.
"Part of the reason for the spike in (local rice) prices was precisely because we missed our sufficiency targets,"
said Pangilinan, with the official title of Presidential Assistant for Food Security."There was this tendency to
downplay our import requirements, and therefore we did not import as much as we ought to, which created a
tightening of supply."The country's agriculture secretary has said the country achieved around 97 percent self-


sufficiency in 2013, but many observers are sceptical of that figure.The Philippines was Asia's fourth-biggest
rice importer in 2013, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and was the world's eighth-largest.
ANY MORE?
Pangilinan said the country could buy more rice this year in the wake of its deals with Vietnam.A government
panel will meet on July 16 to discuss local rice supply and whether more imports will be needed, he said. The
panel will factor in the possible return of the El Nino weather phenomenon in the third quarter, which in the
Philippines could mean drought followed by strong typhoons.Pangilinan made a surprise announcement last
month that the Philippines would import an additional 200,000 tonnes of rice from Vietnam to boost thin state
stockpiles and stabilise retail prices that have fanned inflation pressures.
The National Food Authority, under Pangilinan's remit, has doubled the amount of cheap rice it is releasing into
local markets to stabilise prices, and this will continue during the lean production season from July to
September, he said.
And the country will likely buy rice early for next year."Before the end of the year, we should be able to discuss
... and look at initial numbers in terms of our requirements for 2015," he said.Pangilinan wants the private sector
to take the lead next year in importing rice, but he said the NFA would keep shipping in to bolster buffer
stocks.The Philippines will loosen restrictions on rice imports starting next year by reducing tariffs and
increasing the volume the private sector is allowed to buy overseas.He also said he was open to scrapping a
price subsidy scheme for local rice farmers and would propose that the government absorb the NFA's estimated
$3.7 billion debt, part of a set of reforms he would like to introduce in the next two years.A huge chunk of the
NFA's debt is money borrowed to pay for rice imports."I am open to the proposal to remove the price subsidies,
but the government should still help farmers bring down the cost of production," Pangilinan said.
THE RUBE GOLDBERG OF RICE
In the unlikely event that you successfully grow and harvest rice in New York City, a much larger challenge
awaits: How do you remove the hard shell, called a hull or husk, that surrounds each grain?
According to Nick Storrs, who, as the manager of Randalls Island
Urban Farm, is responsible for all five of New York Citys rice
paddies, This is the stumbling block. Forget climate, land


shortages, lack of rice-growing experience, or any of the other reasons that you might hesitate before trying to
grow rice in the citythe real problem is that rice is literally super-hard.Large-scale Californian and
Arkansan growers have a machine that takes care of this. Rice-A-Ronis workers are not pounding each kernel
by hand; indeed, they havent had to since the invention of the Engelberg huller, in 1888.
The problem is that these industrial rice-processing machines are built to process thousands of pounds an hour,
and cost upwards of twenty thousand dollars.The tough light-brown shells that protect rice kernels from water
damage, pests, and fungal diseases are both much harder and more indigestible to humans than their wheat,
spelt, and barley chaff equivalents. Rice hulls are unique in nature, made of a silica structure
thatagronomists describe as a biogenic opala plant-made mineral that stands between a rice kernel and its
would-be consumer. I did not yet know this when Storrs gave me a handful of unhulled paddy rice from the
2013 harvest and I nearly chipped a tooth.
Randalls Island Urban Farm offers its Edible Education program to three thousand students from the Bronx and
East Harlem each year. Like most of the citys community gardens, the one-acre farm started out growing
tomatoes, squash, strawberries, and chickensthe perennial favorites of urban agriculture, prized for their
relative ease of cultivation and instant rewards. Unlike rice and other grains, the students can enjoy most of the
delicious produce they grow and harvest right then and there, with little or nothing in the way of processing
necessary.Nonetheless, in early 2011, EunYoung Sebazco, Randall Islands assistant horticulture manager,
noticed that Hokkaido, the traditional northern limit of rice growing in Japan, was two full degrees of latitude
farther north than New York City.
In the United States, rice is only cultivated commercially in southern states, but, inspired by the northern rice
she saw in Japan, Sebazco began researching the feasibility of growing rice on Randalls Island. Meanwhile,
Storrs began to realize that for much of the demographic that the farm serveschildren whose families
immigrated from the Dominican Republic, Latin America, and Jamaicarice is a traditional staple. Yet most of
the kidsindeed, most North Americanshave never seen a rice plant.So, with Sebazcos grandmother
offering advice by phone from Korea, the farms volunteers built a tiny test paddy from used bricks and a
painters tarp from Home Depot. Plastic and cinder-block foundations aside, the paddy was designed to
resemble a traditional Japanese Edo-period rice field as closely as possible, with a carefully engineered
irrigation system and a handful of complementary plants, including morning-glory vines, added for good
measure. To deal with the Northeasts shorter growing season, Storrs and his students germinated Koshihikari


(a premium sushi-grade rice) seedlings in a greenhouse before transplanting them to the paddy, where they
threw in some pet-store goldfish as a scaled-down substitute for the larger tilapia that Sebazcos grandmother
recommended.
To everyone but Storrs and Sebazcos disbelief, at the end of the season, New York Citys first rice paddy
yielded a bumper harvest of fifteen pounds. And then they had to hull it.As Sara Pitzer, the author of the small-
scale grain growers bible Homegrown Whole Grains, writes, even gardeners most lyrical about the joys of
growing rice admit that hulling is nothing but pure chore. Fortunately, Storrs had access to a ready supply of
child labor, and shifts of New York City schoolchildren were soon happily pounding rice grains with a pestle
and mortar, then tossing them in the air in front of a fan to winnow the chaff.Smashing and throwing rice is
good fun, but inefficient: the loss rate from the overly enthusiastic rice tossing was large, and, Storrs admitted,
Our first batch of cooked rice, while delicious, was extremely crunchy, thanks to all the unhulled kernels that
slipped through.
.Intrigued by this early success, and looking for tips on tackling the hulling challenge, Storrs and Sebazco
starting looking for fellow small-scale rice farmers online, and quickly realized that while they were the only
ones growing rice in New York City, they had somehow joined the leading edge of a new agricultural
movement: Ecological Rice Farming in the Northeastern USA.Supported by an innovation grant from
the U.S.D.A.s Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education fund, Linda and Takeshi Akaogi had begun
experimenting with rice cultivation on a wet patch of their Vermont farm in 2006. With the help of Cornell
Universitys McCouch RiceLab, they eventually produced more than two tons per acrea commercially
acceptable yieldand shared their success with thirty others at the ambitiously named First Annual Northeast
USA Rice Conference, in 2009.
Vermont now produces several thousand of pounds of rice per year at a handful of farms, and more than a
hundred people attended the 2013 conference, including curious farmers from as far north as Nova Scotia.This
burgeoning Northeastern rice-growing community is itself part of a larger trend toward local grains of all sorts.
Having impressed upon chefs and consumers the importance of eating locally produced fruit, vegetables, eggs,
and dairy, phase two of the locavore movement aims to do the same with the less glamorous commodity crops,
such as wheat and rice.


According to its supporters, the benefits of smaller-scale, regional grain production are myriad: shortened,
more resilient supply chains and fresher products, the opportunity to grow heirloom or custom-bred grains that
are better-suited to local conditions and offer consumers a new taste of place, and the ecological advantages of
biodiverse agriculture. Rice, in particular, offers Northeastern farmers the opportunity to maintain
environmentally important wetlands productively, rather than losing money by leaving them fallow or draining
them to grow something else. Unsurprisingly, these small-scale rice-growing pioneers all found themselves
running into the same problem that Storrs had faced: How could they hull their rice?
Enter Don Brill, the undisputed star of the 2013 Northeast USA Rice Conference. Brills day job is as a
microscopist at DuPont, but he is known within the Northeastern rice community as the rice engineeran
open-source, proto-John Deere for commercially neglected urban and smaller-scale rice farmers. His hand-built
rice processors incorporate vacuum cleaners, kitchen utensils, and car parts, process up to sixty pounds of rice
per hour, and cost well under a thousand dollars, with delivery and setup included. (Brill gives away the plans
on his Web site for free, and has even compiled a helpful shopping list at McMaster-Carr.)Earlier this year,
Randalls Island Urban Farm ran a successful Kickstarter campaign to raise seven hundred and fifty dollars to
acquire one of Brills bicycle-powered hullers.
On a sunny Saturday a few weeks ago, I biked out to Randalls Island to witness its delivery.As it turned out,
Brill, his wife, and I were early, so I had a chance to ask how a middle-aged research associate at a giant
pharmaceutical company with a degree in history became the Rube Goldberg of rice. A few years ago, my son
called and said, Dad, I got a problem, Brill told me. Josh, as Brill, Jr., is called, had grown a couple hundred
pounds of rice in Vermont, but when he looked around online for information about how to hull it, he saw that
even the cheapest, most basic machine cost six thousand dollars.I told him I would get to within ten per cent of
that, and then I searched for something to copy, Brill continued. And there was nothing.That winter, he
turned our basement into a shop full of failed rice hullers, Brills wife, who had joined him for the trip to New
York City, said.
There was a lot of trial and a lot of error, Brill said. It took two years for him to crack the huller, during which
time he developed a custom spoke mechanism, found exactly the right foam pad in a boat-supply store, and
cannibalized various home appliances for parts. He now offers designs for a table-top huller, capable of milling
four pounds per hour; a bike-powered version, which can process up to twenty pounds; and a larger one,
powered by the motor from a clothes dryer, on which his son was eventually able to process six hundred


pounds.Still, Brills machines are far from a finished product. He told me that he had made and delivered three
bike-powered hullers thus far, and all were different. Its iterative, he said, standing back to appraise the
thigh-high chipboard contraption he had built for Randalls Island Urban Farm.
But this one is pretty slick.At this point, Storrs arrived, with a small pink bike in tow, and the talk turned
technical. Storrs, an open-faced young man in a floppy straw hat, was visibly excited. This is freaking
amazing, he kept saying, with an enormous smile on his face. Brill, meanwhile, tensed up ever so slightly
during the setup and adjustment, tweaking chains, rubber bands, and bolts to fit the bike height to the roller
mechanism. You want to make the gap between the rollers a little too wide at the start, to sneak up on the
rice, he instructed Storrs.Finally, Storrs produced a bag of last years paddy, or unprocessed, rice, poured it
into the hopper at the top of the machine, and climbed aboard the pink bike. Brill kneeled on the ground, glasses
pressed up against the Perspex-sided roller mechanism.
Is there a particular speed Im aiming for? Storrs asked. Just pedal, Brill replied, and Storrs did, his knees
splayed sideways on the undersized frame. I realized that I was holding my breath.Would you look at that!
Brill exclaimed. A hundred-per-cent hull rate! The rollers had removed the hulls from every single grain of
rice the first time. The mood quickly became celebratory, and we each took a turn on the bike. Storrs asked
whether it might be possible to attach an odometer so that students can see how far they need to ride to hull each
pound of rice. Brill dispensed maintenance tips, I discussed sightseeing plans with his wife, and, all the while,
freshly milled kernels of New York Citys only truly local rice poured into a beige plastic bus tray.
This is actually easier than growing it! Storrs exclaimed, delighted.As we put the huller and bike away, to
await this falls rice harvest, Brill took one last look at his machine. You know, next time Im going to try an
adjustable slope for the flow-in, he said, talking to no one in particular.
Nicola Twilley is the author of Edible Geography, a blog that looks at food from all sorts of unlikely angles. She
is currently working on a book about artificial refrigeration.
Photograph by Nicola Twilley.
Ministry to release 18m tonnes of rice in next 3 years


Petchanet Pratruangkrai
The Nation July 11, 2014 1:00 am
Panadda
The Commerce Ministry will soon start the gradual release of 18 million
tonnes of government rice over three years.Duangporn Rodphaya, acting
director-general of the Foreign Trade Department, said yesterday that the
junta is considering the methods and plans for selling rice very carefully, as
it does not want to upset market prices while farmers are getting no
subsidies from the government.However, this government does not need to
accelerate sales of rice from its inventory - like the previous government did
- because there is no pressure to generate revenue to make overdue
payments to farmers, as that has already been done. Some of the stored rice
could also be kept as security or buffer stocks, as the current government
has no policy to subsidise rice or purchase rice in the market.Under the rice-release plan, the department will
not have to wait for the completion of rice stock inspections. The department is negotiating with trading
partners and rice traders to sell rice under many methods.It will continue selling rice through government-to-
government (G-to-G) arrangements, the futures market and the Agriculture Futures Exchange of Thailand.
It will also open public bidding to foreign and local traders, exporters and small traders.Thailand has a sales
contract with China for 1 million tonnes of rice. The ministry has already shipped about 100,000 tonnes under
the contract. The government will continue supplying rice to China under this contract, while negotiating with
other countries to sell more rice from stockpiles.After suspending rice release when the National Council for
Peace and Order assumed control of the country, the department is set to restart the programme next month. It
plans to sell about 500,000-600,000 tonnes of rice a month during this half of the year.The government is
confident that Thailand can ship out about 8 million to 10 million tonnes of rice this year.
Thailand exported 5.35 million tonnes worth US$2.7 billion during the first half, which was an increase of 50
per cent in volume and 19 per cent in value.The department will meet buyers and agencies in Asia and Africa
starting late this month. It is focusing on these two markets as they account for 60 per cent of the country's rice
export volume.The department will try many methods under a transparent process to allow every trader to join
the rice sales of the government. There would be no bribery or under-the-table payments to officials."Every
baht from rice sales will be returned to the government. Traders can quote the highest price they can, as there
will be no additional cost for them," she said.
However, the government will need to face losses from selling rice, as the pledging price was high. But thinking
positively, the government needs to sell rice at the market price in a bid to minimise operating expenses,
including stocking and warehousing costs.The government may also not get good prices, as some of the rice
may not meet standards because some stocks have not been kept in good condition and some have deteriorated
in quality. But some stocks follow standards and are still stored in good condition.Consumers and foreign


buyers should feel confident about Thai rice quality. Most stocks were of good quality. Only less than 20 per
cent of the rice that was inspected by the special teams was found to have poor quality because they were not
kept in good conditions.Permanent secretary Chutima Bunyapraphasara said the ministry would drive export
growth to at least 3.5 per cent this year, while continuing to monitor the domestic market and ensure a low cost
of living.The ministry will try to boost export growth beyond 3.5 per cent this year. Although the European
Union suspended free-trade talks with Thailand, officials from both sides are still holding technical
discussions.The EU may not cut all of the generalised system of preferences for Thailand, while Thai operators
could adapt to changing circumstances.
Chutima vowed to manage the ministry with transparency and to speed up problem-solving to help facilitate
trade. The inspection of rice at warehouses nationwide bought from farmers by the now defunct government
under its rice-pledging scheme was expected to be wrapped up late next month, said Panadda Diskul, permanent
secretary of the Prime Minister's Office.All 100 rice inspection teams were exerting every effort to check stocks
at all granaries and silos.The findings will be submitted to General Prayuth Chan-ocha, Army chief and director
of the National Council for Peace and Order, before being announced to the public. The in-depth inspection of
rice quality was expected to be completed in September.Both the National Anti-Corruption Commission and
Public Sector Anti-Corruption Commission have the duty to take legal action against cabinet members in the
previous Yingluck Shinawatra government for alleged corruption, he said.His teams are responsible for
inspecting rice quality. It is not their duty to punish those involved with corruption in the rice-pledging
programme.

UPDATE 1-Thai commerce ministry to sell rice stocks again from
August
Thu Jul 10, 2014 2:16pm IST
(Adds detail and background)
(Reuters) - Thailand's commerce ministry said on Thursday it would start to sell rice stocks again next month after
the military government suspended sales shortly after seizing power in May."On the rice stocks, we will be able to
sell some starting in August," Duangporn Rodphaya, acting director-general of the ministry's foreign trade
department, told reporters. "There are many ways, including government-to-government deals. We do not have to
wait for the rice warehouse inspections to finish."The Thai junta launched a nation-wide inspection of rice
warehouses last week to work out how much grain was stockpiled by the government it ousted in May and to check
rice quality.Duangporn said the Ministry of Commerce estimated overall rice stocks in state warehouses at 18
million tonnes of milled rice.


That matched the forecast of the military's rice inspection committee."We would consider selling around 500,000-
600,000 tonnes of rice monthly. That would not be a very big amount so that the sales would not depress market
prices," she said, adding that the Commerce Ministry would take about three years to release the 18 tonnes of
stocks.Duangporn said the Thai rice stocks sale and expectation of the El Nino weather pattern that would cut rice
output in major producing nations, such as India, would help provide room for Thailand to export more rice of up to
10 million tonnes in 2014, up from 6.7 million tonnes in 2013.The forecast was close to record exports of 10.6
million tonnes in 2011.The Thai Rice Exporters Association, however, kept its 2014 Thai rice export forecast
unchanged at 9.0 million tonnes. (Reporting by Aukkarapon Niyomyat; Editing by Ron Popeski)
Thu Jul 10, 2014 3:55pm IST

Rates by Asian News International, New Delhi
Tel: 011 2619 1464
Indicative Previous
Grains opening close
(in rupees per 100 kg unless stated)
----------------------------------------------------------
Wheat Desi 2,050-3,050 2,000-3,000.
Wheat Dara 1,850-2,050 1,800-2,000
Roller Mill (per bag) 1,600-1,700 1,600-1,700.
Maida (per bag) 1,700-1,800 1,700-1,800.
Sooji (per bag) 1,800-2,000 1,800-2,000.
Rice Basmati(Common) 8,500-9,200 8,500-9,200.
Rice Permal 1,750-2,350 1,750-2,350.


Rice Sela 2,150-2,550 2,150-2,550.
I.R.-8 2,200-2,350 2,100-2,300.
Gram 3,275-3,475 3,255-3,455.
Peas Green 2,870-3,170 2,875-3,175.
Peas White 2,875-3,075 2,870-3,070.
Bajra 1,725-1,825 1,725-1,825.
Jowar white 1,625-1,725 1,625-1,725.
Maize 1,610-1,710 1,610-1,710.
Barley 1,500-1,800 1,500-1,800.

Source: Delhi grain market traders.
Poor monsoon threatens first drought in five years

BY RATNAJYOTI DUTTA
NEW DELHI Fri Jul 11, 2014 9:47am IST
CREDIT: REUTERS/AJAY VERMA
(Reuters) - Weak rainfall in India since the start last
month of the monsoon season, crucial to the country's
agricultural earnings, has raised concerns of a first
drought in five years, although weather experts are
hopeful rains will revive in the next week.A poor
monsoon cuts exports, stokes food inflation and leads
to lower demand for products ranging from cars to
consumer goods, while a slow start could delay
exports of somecrops and increase the need for
imports.Rains last week spread to soybean areas in
central parts of India and cane areas in the north, but overall rains stood at 43 percent below the seasonal
average, a weather office update showed.In 2009 the worst drought in nearly four decades forced India, the
world's top sugar consumer, to buy large quantities of the sweetener from top producer Brazil, driving
benchmark New York futures to a 30-year high.

The farm sector accounts for around 14 percent of India's nearly $2 trillion economy, and two-thirds of its 1.2
billionpopulation live in rural areas."The monsoon appears to be more unpredictable," Finance Minster Arun


Jaitley said, presenting his maiden budget onThursday.India, one of the world's top producers and consumers of
rice, corn, cooking oil, sugar and cotton, relies heavily on thesummer rains as nearly half its farmland lacks
irrigation.The lacklustre monsoon could push up edible oil imports bythe world's top palm oil buyer. That in
turn could underpin benchmark Malaysian prices of the tropical oil that have plunged more than a tenth this
year.
The monsoon this year arrived five days late on the southernKerala coast, and then covered half of India four
days laterthan the usual date of June 15. Usually, the monsoon covers theentire country around mid-July."The
water-stressed western region is expected to receive good rainfall next week as conditions have become
favourable for a revival," said M. Rajeevan, a senior meteorological scientistwith the ministry of earth sciences.

DROUGHT CONCERNS

Delayed progress of monsoon rains towards the grain belt of northwest India and oilseed-growing regions of
central and western India has prompted concerns about a shortfall in grains output, causing prices of some food
items to rise.Jaitley said last week there was no cause to panic about the possibility of higher inflation, after a
private forecasting agency said there was a 60 percent chance India would face a drought this year."Even if due
to inadequate rainfall there is a marginaldecline in agricultural production, stocks in the central poolare
adequate to meet any exigency (emergency)," Jaitley said.
India's government under new Prime Minister Narendra Modihas moved to ease market concerns over supply
shortages and price speculation with a number of steps, including raids against hoarders.Policy makers in New
Delhi fear a failure of this year's monsoon could push up retail food inflation by at least one percentage
point.Soaring prices of basic goods such as milk and potatoes lifted retail food inflation in May to 9.4 percent
and the poor monsoon has fanned fears of worse to come.

(Additional reporting by Manoj Kumar; editing by Keiron Henderson)
Image: A milkman rides a motorcycle during a heavy rain shower in Chandigarh July 2, 2014.

Bring down quantity of parboiled rice
Many residents of the region want the Food and Civil Supplies Department to bring down the quantity of the
parboiled rice that is being supplied at present. Accordingly, the department has recommended to the State
government to consider this demand.There are 2.04 lakh Below Poverty Line ration card holders in Dakshina
Kannada.The State government decided to provide these card holders since September last year with parboiled
rice, which is largely consumed in the region. Major part of 41,153 kg of parboiled rice required for the card
holders per month was procured from coastal areas in Andhra Pradesh.
Only 50,000 kg of local parboiled rice is available that has been collected in the form of levy from the local rice
mills.Deputy Director of Food and Civil Supplies C.S. Sharanabasappa said white parboiled rice from the
neighbouring State is hardly preferred. Unlike the local variety, the white parboiled rice had lesser shelf life.
They are not in a position to provide local parboiled rice as there is not enough stock available. We have


recommended the government to provide white parboiled rice and the raw rice at a 50:50 ratio to cardholders,
he said.
Nigeria Slashes Levy On Rice Importation To 20%
July 10, 2014 Fumnanya Agbugah AgriBusiness, Business

VENTURES AFRICA Nigeria has slashed the 100 percent levy it imposed on imported rice, in January 2013
to 20 percent and 60 percent for rice mill owners and traders following persistent pressure from stakeholders,
who said the country was not ripe enough for this move since it has not started producing enough to meet local
demand.
Importation of wholly milled rice or semi-milled rice and Husked Brown rice,
whether polished or graze or not by fully rice traders shall attract a levy of 60
percent plus import duty rate of 10 percent, while a levy of 20 percent and duty of
10 percent has been imposed on investors with rice milling capacity and verifiable
backward integration programme, the Policy stated.While Nigeria was waiting
for the announcement of the new policy, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo Iweala, the
coordinating minister for the economy and minister of finance, submitted a letter
to the Nigeria Customs Service instructing the body not charge demurrage to importers with shipload of rice at
the ports until the new levies have been passed.
According to industry experts, this new rate remains unfavourable to investors engaging in backward
integration, with neighbouring countries like Cameron, Benin Republic charging zero import duties on rice.
Rather, an increase in levy for wholly traders was advocated for. This will encourage local production and
discourage smuggling through neighbouring countries, experts explained.It is also expected that this policy will
reduce the price of rice in the Nigerian Market. Prior to the establishment of the levy, a bag of rice sold for an
average of N8000 ($50). But since 2013, prices have surged to N13,000 ($80), a 37 percent jump in less than
two years.The countrys ministry of agriculture placed importation at about 1.9 to 2 million metric tonnes per
annum.
NCPO to revive state rice sales

Aiming to clear out inventory in 3 years
Published: 11 Jul 2014 at 00.32 | Viewed: 1,032 | Comments: 2
Newspaper section: Business
Writer: Phusadee Arunmas


The military regime plans to restart sales of state rice stocks next month, vowing to move an average of 500,000
tonnes a month and dispose of the existing 18-million-tonne surplus within three years.

Military personnel inspect rice at a state warehouse in Ayutthaya's Phachi district. The inspections, which began
earlier this month, have focused on rice amounts and grain quality.SUNTHORN PONGPAO
According to Duangporn Rodphaya, the newly appointed director-general
of the Foreign Trade Department, the state rice stocks will be sold mainly
through four channels: general auction, government-to-government, direct
sales and the Agricultural Futures Exchange of Thailand."With the rice
checks commissioned by the military government, we can now roughly
appraise the quality of rice and the amount of rice in state stocks," said Ms
Duangporn, who was appointed shortly after the junta named Chutima
Bunyapraphasara as the new commerce permanent secretary to replace
Srirat Rastapana.
Ms Duangporn is known to have expertise in the rice trade.The department is also committed to revising selling
conditions to make them flexible and based on the quality of rice grain and avoiding selling state stocks on a
whole-warehouse basis.In the event of a later dispute or questions about the quality of rice sold, buyers would
be allowed to negotiate with authorities.
Ms Duangporn said the rice checks have so far found that degraded or deteriorated rice makes up 20% of the
overall stockpile.Large-scale rice inspections, prompted by the former Yingluck Shinawatra government's failed
pledging scheme, began earlier this month.Following the directive of the National Council for Peace and Order
(NCPO), inspectors have divided into 100 teams, each of which consists of between six and 10 people chosen
from military and police units as well as agencies such as the Public Warehouse Organisation and the Bank for
Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives.They initially planned to finish inspecting 18 million tonnes of
pledged rice later this month, but it is likely they may not be able to complete the task in time with the current
number of inspectors.
Prime Minister's Office inspector-general Chirachai Munthong, who was assigned to help oversee the wide-
ranging inspections, said recently the deadline would be postponed to some time in August.Ms Duangporn
insisted the authorities would not hasten rice sales, given that the pressure is off for speeding up proceeds to pay
farmers owed under the rice-pledging scheme.Moreover, a possible widespread drought caused by the El Nino
weather phenomenon will accordingly reduce supply and offer a good opportunity for Thailand to sell a more
diverse selection of rice."Roughly, we aim to sell at least 500,000-600,000 tonnes a month, and we're upbeat
that Thailand can ship up to 10 million tonnes this year," said Ms Duangporn, adding that the Foreign Trade
Department also aims to sell the existing 18 million tonnes of rice stocks in three years.
Methods for disposing of the massive rice stocks will be presented at today's NCPO meeting.Ms Duangporn
said several countries have shown an interest in buying Thai rice, including China and various Middle Eastern,


Asian and African nations."The past experience in which the state sought to buy every single grain of rice from
farmers was a costly lesson," she said."The scheme not only undermined the overall rice market structure, but
also caused a lot of problems. To prevent any future losses, we must introduce a new mechanism in rice
management and monitor state rice stocks more closely and prudently.
"Ms Chutima, meanwhile, vowed yesterday to restore the Commerce Ministry's integrity and reputation.She
also pledged to amend any rules and regulations deemed as obstacles to trade or private-sector
investment."We've confirmed that under the military regime there will no longer be a rice-pledging programme
or farmer income guarantee," she said. "If necessary, we may need to intervene in the market to shore up
prices."
Growing more rice 'unviable' in water-short Pakistan

Source: Thomson Reuters Foundation - Thu, 10 Jul 2014 07:30 GMT
Author: Saleem Shaikh and Sughra TunioMore news from our correspondents

GHOTIKI, Pakistan (Thomson Reuters Foundation) In the northeast corner of Ghotki, a district in Pakistans
southern Sindh province, farmer Ali Usman switches on his diesel-powered pump to water his nine-hectare (22
acre) paddy rice field.
Until 2007, his fields were planted with cotton. But like
many farmers in the district - the second largest cotton
producing area in Sindh he has switched to rice,
convinced that it is more resilient to the countrys
increasing flooding and erratic rains.I grew cotton for almost 45
years and reaped good profits from it. In the past the crop survived
even drought-like conditions, poor rains or low irrigation supplies,
Usmani said.But over the last decade, heavy rains have damaged his
cotton, particularly when it was near harvest in October and
November. Shifting to rice has helped, he said.
But experts worry that a large-scale shift to rice in southern Pakistan could ultimately be a failed adaptation to
worsening climate impacts. The levels of underground aquifers that feed agricultural irrigation are dropping, as
is the flow of the Indus River, a lifeline for Pakistans agriculture.That is quickly turning Pakistan into one of
the worlds most water-stressed countries and a place where planting more water-hungry rice may not make
sense.


DISMAL FUTURE SCENARIO
Give the dismal future scenarios of water availability in the country, it will be unviable or very hard for
farmers to sustain rice, warned Pervaiz Amir, an agro-economist and water expert at the Pakistan Water
Partnership, a chapter of the Global Water Partnership.That message has not gotten through to farmers
Sanghar, the largest cotton growing area in Sindh province, at least for now."Almost half of the cotton area is
now under rice in Sanghar, where rice was unknown to farmers until 2008," Ali Nawaz Khan, Sindhs
agriculture minister, told Thomson Reuters Foundation in a telephone interview.
Saqib Ahmed Soomro, secretary of the agriculture department, said his department was deeply worried about
the shift, which had seen cotton acreage fall by 40 percent in Sanghar since 2010-2011, and overall losses of
25,000 hectares of cotton in the province.In Sindh, cotton is now sown on 600,000 to 650,000 hectares while
rice is sown on 700,000 to 750,000 hectares, according to the agriculture department, while four years ago the
situation was almost the reverse, Soomro said.
TWICE AS MUCH WATER
That is adding up to increased demand for water. Rice needs almost twice as much water per hectare to grow
effectively, agricultural experts say, something that is probably not sustainable.In 1945, the Indus River system
that feeds Pakistans agriculture flowed at 194 million acre-feet a year. Now that has dropped to 94 acre-feet a
year, Amir said, quoting reports of the Indus River System Authority in Lahore and senior officials in the
Federal Water and Power Ministry.Farmers, who use around almost 98 percent of the countrys fresh water, will
also have to increasingly share it with growing cities and industries, experts warned.That means growing rice in
Pakistan is going to get increasingly hard in the future, warned Qamar-uz-Zaman Chaudhry, vice president of
the World Meteorological Department for the Asia region.Erratic rainfall means underground aquifers will not
recharge effectively while they continue to be overused, he said.
And slowing river flows will put paddy farmers in particular and cotton, wheat, sugarcane and vegetable
farmers (also) in a quagmire and make cultivation of crops challenging, he said.Amir said adopting water-
smart farming techniques will be crucial to keeping harvests up in Pakistan.There is a pressing need to adopt
smart farming techniques which among other things stress water efficient farm technology to sow more
crops per cubic meter of water, he said. That will help cope with the emerging water scenario for Pakistan.
Saleem Shaikh and Sughra Tunio are climate change and development science correspondents based in
Islamabad, Pakistan.
Photo: A labourer harvests cotton in a flooded field on the outskirts of Ghotki district during Pakistan's 2010 devastating
floods. THOMSON REUTERS FOUNDATION/Saleem Shaikh.


Slow march of 'biofortified' GM food
PARIS: In 1992, a pair of scientists had a brainwave: how about inserting genes into rice that would boost its
vitamin A content?
By doing so, tens of millions of poor people who depend on rice as a staple could get a vital nutrient, potentially
averting hundreds of thousands of cases of blindness each year.The idea for what came to be called golden
rice thus named for its bright yellow hue was proclaimed as a defining moment for genetically-modified
food.Backers said the initiative ushered in an era when GM crops would start to help the poor and
malnourished, rather than benefit only farmers and biotech firms.
Its a humanitarian project, Ingo Potrykus, professor emeritus at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology
(ETH), one of the co-inventors of golden rice, said in a recent interview.Yet the rice is still a long way from
appearing in food bowls 2016 has become the latest date sketched for commercialisation, provided the novel
product gets the go-ahead.With US$30mil (RM96mil) invested in it so far, the odyssey speaks tellingly of the
technical, regulatory and commercial hurdles that have beset the biofortified food dream.First, it took
scientists years to find and insert two genes that modified the metabolic pathway in rice to boost levels of beta-
carotene, the precursor to vitamin A.
After that came the biosafety phase, to see if the rice was safe for health and the environment and if beta-
carotene levels in lab plants were replicated in field trials in different soils and climates.There were also bio-
efficacy experiments to see whether the rice did indeed overcome vitamin deficiency, and whether volunteers
found the taste acceptable.These tests are still unfolding in the Philippines, Indonesia and Bangladesh, said
Bruce Tolentino, deputy director general of the Philippines-based International Rice Research Institute
(IRRI).We have been working on this for a long time and we would like to have this process completed as
soon as possible, he said.But it depends on the regulatory authorities.
That is not under our control.Antonio Alfonso at the Philippine Rice Research Institute, which partners IRRI
in the not-for-profit development of golden rice, said it will be two or three more years before we can apply for
commercialisation.The rices yield may also have to be tweaked to boost its appeal to farmers, whose buy-in is


essential, he said. Coming on the heels of golden rice is the super banana developed by the Queensland
University of Technology in Australia with the help of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Genetically designed, like golden rice, to be enriched with beta-carotene, the bananas were sent to the United
States in June for a six-week trial to measure by how much they lifted vitamin A levels in humans.If all goes
well, they will start to be grown commercially in Uganda in 2020.Other research into biofortified food has
looked at boosting levels of important micronutrients in cassava and corn, also called maize, but progress has
also been faltering.
It took 15 years of enclosed research in the lab for British scientists this year to decide to seek permission for
field trials of a plant called false flax (Latin name Camelina sativa).Engineered to create omega-3 fat, the plant
could be used as feed in fish farming. It would spare the worlds fish stocks, which provide food pellets for
captive salmon, trout and other high-value species.Environmental groups are defiant about GM-fortified foods.
Some have dubbed golden rice fools gold.Greenpeace, the most vocal and influential of the critics, says the
risks of GM contamination to other plants and impacts on health may not emerge for years. AFP
Ancient Silk Town Paves Way for Japans Lost Rice Fields

By Keiko Ujikane Jul 10, 2014 1:03 PM GMT+0500
Tomiyoshi Kurogoushi sighs as he looks over the terraced rice fields in the mountains of central Japan that
were tended by generations of his family. Most are now covered in weeds and silver grass.The area of land
Kurogoushi still farms inYabu, Hyogo prefecture, has shrunk to little more than a small plot around his house
where he and his wife Yoko grow potatoes, cabbages and carrots to feed themselves and his mother. Rather than
sow rice, the 66-year-old works at a ski resort as a general manager.Farmland is deteriorating as people here
are getting old, said Kurogoushi, whose two daughters married and moved away. Even though we have the
land for farming, we cant really keep doing it. Paddy fields have to be tilled or theyll be ruined.Across Japan
its the same story.
The area of abandoned arable land has almost doubled in the past 20 years as the population gets older and
young adults that grew up in rural areas like Yabu move to the big cities to find work. This sleepy community
was thrust into the national spotlight after being chosen in March by Prime Minister Shinzo Abes
administration as a test-bed for the revival of the nations declining provinces.Along with five other areas,


Yabu, 600 kilometers west of Tokyo, was designated as a strategic special zone, with the promise to loosen
regulations in areas such as agriculture, medicine and labor. The idea is to create development blueprints as part
of Abes crusade to pull the country out of two decades of economic doldrums.
Dark Horse
While most of the other zones are well-known regional centers of industry, agriculture or tourism, Yabu is the
dark horse, a little-known semi-mountainous area with a varied past spanning silk farming, tin mining and rice
cultivation.Now is the last chance to revive agriculture, said Sakae Hirose, mayor of Yabu. In three to five
years, the old farmers will lay down their plows, the farmland will be left uncultivated and Yabu will fall into
decline. We have to create an environment where new entrants can easily come in.Like most provincial towns
in Japan, the twin forces of emigration and a falling birth rate have hollowed out the community. By 2060, the
government estimates four out of 10 people in Japan will be 65 or older, up from a quarter now.
In Yabu, its already a third, according to the 2010 census.Yabus selection as a special zone was prompted by
the determination of Hirose and his team to restructure farming practices to reverse that decline, said Heizo
Takenaka, a member of a government council on the zones and a professor at Keio University. The mayors
plans may include taking over authority for land sales from the farmer-run local agricultural committee.
Mountainous Merger
Were greatly impressed by Yabus enthusiasm and passion for reform, said Takenaka at a seminar in Tokyo
in April. The special zone probably wont be successful without this determination.Abes Chief Cabinet
Secretary Yoshihide Suga met Hirose and farmers in Yabu on July 5 and said the area could become a model
for other semi-mountainous regions in the country, the Yomiuri newspaper reported.Yabus municipal status
was upgraded in 2004, when it was merged with a series of towns strung out along the mountainous valleys of
the Maruyama River and its tributaries. Almost half of the nations municipal districts have vanished in the past
15 years because of such mergers, which are designed to cut administrative costs as the number of residents
dwindles.
The combined population of Yabus merged towns declined 41 percent to 26,501 in 2010, from 44,884 in
1960.It is a microcosm of many of the issues facing Japan, said Robert Feldman, head of Japan economic
research at Morgan Stanley MUFG in Tokyo. Yabu is an example of how a local initiative can fight against
vested interests and try to address the structural problems in the economy.


Ancient Silk
Records show the area was producing silk more than a thousand years ago. By the 19th century, sericulture, as
its known, was the key industry for the region. A book on the subject by local son Morikuni Uegaki was
translated and published in France and Italy in 1848 and is regarded as one of Japans first exports of
technology.For more than half a century after U.S. Commodore Matthew Perry opened Japan to trade in 1854,
the local silk-reeling factories boomed and raw silk was the countrys leading export as late as the 1930s.
The industry declined during and after World War II, under competition from new artificial fibers like nylon,
and the region turned to another resource: mining.Prospectors had sought gold in the hills for centuries around
the town of Sekinomiya. In 1909, miners found tin near the village of Akenobe, which soon became a
boomtown as the deposit became the biggest source of the metal in Japan.
Boom Town
Hiromasa Saito, who used to work as an electrical engineer at the mine, remembers the days when new movies
were played every week at the cinema, electricity and water were free, and the town attracted top artists
Chiyoko Shimakura, known as The Goddess of Enka, a traditional Japanese music style.Now Akenobe and
other towns around Yabu are disappearing, said Saito, 65. There are many marginal hamlets just like Akenobe.
Something has to be done, before its too late.Today the areas revenue is supplemented by tourism from the
ski resorts in Hachibuse, a high plateau west of Yabu, where stone tools and pottery have been found dating
back more than 10,000 years.
To stem the decline by going back to the land, Yabu needs to break free of the entrenched restrictions that
dominate Japans agriculture. Companies wanting to own farmland must set up agricultural corporations subject
to complex rules. The purchase of farmland must be approved by the farmers committee, providing a veto over
admitting outsiders. Farmers also back the Japan Agricultural Cooperatives group, a powerful lobby that largely
controls rice distribution and campaigns to maintain government price supports.
Value Chain
Yabus special-zone status clears the way to alter some of those restrictions and find a way to make the land
more profitable, switching from rice to higher-value produce and adding processing and packaging operations


to create employment.Its a good thing that the name of Yabu has become known nationwide, said Yukio
Umetani, 65, a full-time farmer who grows rice and a local specialty pepper called Asakura Sansho.
Young people have moved to bigger cities and only old people have stayed. Im all for it if new entrants work
out well with local people.About a third of Umetanis acre of farmland is untilled.Still, nervousness about an
influx of outsiders runs deep for locals like Yasunari Uegaki, a descendant of the silk pioneer Morikuni. At 48,
hes one of Yabus younger farmers. He breeds Tajima cattle, Japanese black calves raised to produce Kobe
beef, as well as organic rice. Ducks that swim in his rice paddies are processed into smoked meat that he sells
on the Internet.
Future Generations
The city administration is too far ahead on the special zone and is leaving farmers behind, Uegaki said. We
need to think about future generations, not just look at the next five or 10 years.Even before Yabu gained
special-zone status, one company has been using the town to test new agricultural methods. A unit of the real-
estate arm of ORIX Corp. (8591), a Tokyo-based financial services provider, converted an abandoned school
gymnasium to grow lettuces under artificial light.Plant Manager Hiroki Yoshida said hes hired 14 locals and
expects the special zone status to boost Yabus brand in Japan.If Yabu is successful in raising the living
standard and improving production, then that will be a shining example to other communities around the
country of how to make a major reform in the agricultural sector, said Morgan Stanleys Feldman.
It also will show people that you can raise the living standards and keep young people in the regional
cities.For residents like Kurogoushi, who worked for more than 40 years at the Yabu tourist office, while most
of his 6.5-hectares of terraces fell into disrepair, theres little choice.
Weve got to do something, he said. Its a ray of hope.

To contact the reporter on this story: Keiko Ujikane in Tokyo at kujikane@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Paul Panckhurst atppanckhurst@bloomberg.net; Adam
Majendie at adammajendie@bloomberg.net

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