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2nd December,2013 Daily International Rice E-Newsletter by Riceplus Magazine

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    Daily Rice E-Newsletter by Rice Plus Magazine www.ricepluss.com News and R&D Section [email protected] Cell # 92 321 369 2874

    2nd December , 2013

    TOP Contents - Tailored for YOU

    Latest News Headlines

    TRO on rice permits bucked Nigeria: Price of Rice Goes Up, Scarcity Looms As Poor Quality

    Floods Market Researchers: Too Much White Rice Can Lead to Diabetes FAO urges global rice supply strategy

    Rice researchers to discuss how to tackle BB disease Web tool helps raise rice yield and income

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    NEWS DETAILS:

    TRO on rice permits buckedTH E B UREAU of Customs (BoC) has moved for the dissolu tion of a stayorder preventing the National F ood Authori ty (NF A) f rom requir in g importpermits for i nbound shi pments of r ice.

    In a statement over the weekend, the Finance department said the BoC last Nov. 25 filed an Urgent Motion toDissolve Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) and Opposition to Application for Writ of Preliminary Injunctionregarding the stay order issued by Judge Eutiquio L. Quitain, presiding judge of the Regional Trial Court inLemery, Batangas, Branch 5.The TRO in question stops the NFA from requiring traders to secure an import

    permit for their rice imports, pursuant to NFA Memorandum Circular No. AO-2K13-03-003.

    The TRO likewise prevents the BoC from seizing, alerting and/or holding rice shipments without the requiredimport permits.The order, issued by Mr. Quitain last Nov. 15, is effective for a period of 20 days or until Dec.5.The TRO was issued in the action for declaratory relief filed by Ivy M. Souza, doing business under the nameand style Bold Bidder Marketing and General Merchandise."Ms. Souza is asking the court to declare that the

    NFA does not have the authority to require the import permits as a requirement for importing rice," the Financedepartment said."She cites the alleged expiration of the special treatment provision in the World TradeOrganization-General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (WTO-GATT) as basis for her case," it added.Thecountry, under the WTO-GATT, was allowed to impose quantitative restrictions (QR) on rice imports.Thisallows the Philippines to impose higher tariff on importations of the commodity beyond a certainvolume.Imports within the minimum access volume of 350,000 metric tons are subject to the 40% duty. Importsin excess are subjected to a 50% rate.The QR on rice, granted by the WTO in 2006, lapsed last June 30, 2012.The country, however, wants this special treatment on rice extended to 2017.The government had formally filedwith the WTO in November 2011 its intent to start talks on the extension. Negotiations are still ongoing, with adecision expected by March next year.

    SUMMARY HEARINGThe BoC, in its motion, noted that following the rulings of the Supreme Court, Mr. Quitain could not haveissued the TRO without first conducting a summary hearing where all the parties, including the government,should have been heard."The BoC also argued that Ms. Souza failed to clearly establish her right under current

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    Daily Rice E-Newsletter by Rice Plus Magazine www.ricepluss.com News and R&D Section [email protected] Cell # 92 321 369 2874

    laws. It asserted that existing laws impose restrictions on rice importation and, in particular, authorize the NFAto require a rice importer to secure an import permit as a pre-condition for rice importation," the departmentsaid.These laws are under Republic Act No. 8178 or the "Agricultural Tarrification Act" and PresidentialDecree No. 4 or the "National Grains Authority Act." Given this situation, the BoC asserted that Ms. Souza hadno right to invoke the WTO-GATT," it said.

    The department added that Ms. Souza, based on Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) records, had not filed anyincome tax returns for her firm, except for the year 2012."Peculiarly, the tax return filed for the year 2012shows that Bold Bidder Marketing and General Merchand ise had no operations ," it said. Philippines iscurrently the largest importer of rice in the world, importing around 2.4 million metric tons (MT) of rice in2010.Since then the Department of Agriculture (DA) has steadily reduced it to only 1.1 million MT in 2011,688,559 MT in 2012, and 208,600 MT as of July 18, 2013, government records show.The DA said there waszero importation by the private sector from January to July 18, 2013.At the same time, the department saidPhilippine palay production went up by 5.78% to 16.7 million MT in 2011 from 15.8 million MT in 2010.Palay

    production rose further by 8.08% to 18 million MT in 2012, which is considered as the highest ever annual palay production in the Philippines, the department said. -- Bettina Faye V. Roc

    Nigeria: Price of Rice Goes Up, Scarcity Looms As Poor Quality FloodsMarketBY SUNNY IKHIOYA AND GODWINE ORITSE, 2 DECEMBER 2013

    Price of rice has hit the roof and low quality brand has flooded the market just as farmers have threatened to

    stop rice cultivation according to Tunji Owoeye, Chairman of RIMIDAN (Rice Millers Importers Associationof Nigeria).He said that farmers have threatened to stop production of rice as the Millers/ Processors are nolonger buying from them. The Processors stopped buying because they could not compete with the smuggledimported rice.

    The price of rice is soaring at a very alarming rate. Presently, a good brand costs N13, 000 and above. The fearis that prices of rice will further go up as Christmas and New Year festivities approach. While smuggledimported rice cost about N10, 000 in the open market locally produced rice cost as much as N13, 000. Thequality of the smuggled rice is of low grade.According to Financial Vanguard market survey since the importedrice in the market do not go through official channels like the Customs and Standard Organisation of Nigeria(SON), all imaginable types are now smuggled in. It is a situation of "anything goes"that is available in themarkets place now; most of them are re-bagged in Nigeria and of very low quality standards. A lady, Mrs.Toyin Adegbenro, who does her shopping at Agege market axis, complained that rice in the market has becometasteless, no matter how well the stew or soup is prepared. The fall out of current policy on rice policy thereforeis an influx of sub standard rice into the Nigerian market and this is very dangerous to the health and well beingof the Nigerian consumers.

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    FG to rethink policy THERE is however strong indication that the Federal Government may have a rethink about the high tariff onrice. This indication was given by the Chairman, Presidential Committee on Trade Malpractice, Alhaji DahiruAdo-Kurawa, who said Government would soon review tariff on rice, to tackle smuggling and revenue

    loss.Ado-Kurawa said in Lagos that the planned downward review was aimed at reducing the level ofsmuggling of the commodity from Benin Republic. He observed that the Federal Government introduced therice policy of 110 per cent duty and levy in January, to boost local rice production."The Federal Governmentwill likely adjust the policy because it has escalated the influx of smuggled rice from neighbouring countries.Benin Republic is one of the highest importers of parboiled rice, the country that ordinarily imports about230,000 tonnes per annum now imports about 2 million tonnes. The two-million-tonne parboiled rice imported

    by Benin is all smuggled into Nigeria," the chairman said.

    Researchers: Too Much White Rice Can Lead to Diabetes

    Removing white rice from your meals can help decrease the chance ofdeveloping type 2 diabetes, said researchers at the Harvard School of PublicHealth. This discovery is vital because over the past thirty years the intake ofwhite rice has grown immensely in spite of public health warnings and morethan 19 million people in the U.S. currently living with type 2diabetes.According to the Harvard study, replacing white rice with at least two

    portions of brown rice appears to ward off chances of becoming a type 2diabetic. Nevertheless, researchers say, consuming at least five portions of white rice every seven days is relatedto greater risk. Qi Sun, medical doctor, currently teaching medicine at Brigham and Women s Hospital, andassociates at Harvard calculate that removing fifty grams every day of white rice could reduce the chances ofdeveloping type 2 diabetes at least 16 percent. The report is printed in the online publication Archives ofInternal Medicine.

    FAO urges global rice supply strategyBy Ronnel W. Domingo Philippine Daily Inquirer 10:07 pm | Sunday, December 1st, 2013

    The Food and Agriculture Organization is crafting a strategy on rice, the consumption of which has beenincreasing while resources related to its production are dwindling.The FAO, an agency of the United Nations,has called on an external rice advisory group for recommendations for such a strategy, focused mainly on the

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    Asia-Pacific region where 90 percent of global supply is grown.According to FAO assistant director generalHiroyuki Konuma, Asia s share of rice exports accounts for about 80 percent of global rice trade.Rice is themost important commodity for the economy, food security and the livelihoods of the people in Asia, sai dKonuma, who is also representative of FAO s regional office for Asia and the Pacific based in Bangkok. In a

    statement sent out from the Thai capital, the FAO warned that the growth of rice production is under threat onmany fronts, with farmers getting older amid scarce resources and the adverse effects of climatechange.Related data from the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), which is based in Laguna, show thatalmost half of the world s population of 7.16 billion people depend on rice. At the same time, the total area of

    productive land that is cultivated for rice is receding and currently pegged at 8.54 billion hectares. By IRRI sreckoning, a hectare of rice land is lost every seven or eight seconds. Within the same moment, about 20humans are born.

    The FAO notes that in the Asia-Pacific, rice production dominates the agricultural sector and is an important base of economies, the environment, culture as well as livelihoods for hundreds of millions of farmers.The rice- based economy is suffering from scarcity of resources particularly water and land while rice farming is also

    blamed for greenhouse gas emissions and degrading natural resources, the organization added.Even then, percapita consumption of rice in the region is slowing as incomes grow.Citing the 2012 Survey of Food Demandfor Agricultural Commodities in the Philippines, agriculture officials say Filipinos consumed an average ofabout 114.3 kilograms of rice last year.The number shrank from 128 kilos in 2008, 119.2 kilos in 2009, 114.8kilos in 2010 and 115.3 kilos in 2011.However, Konuma said consumption elsewhere in the globe particularlyAfrica is growing.He said rice is now the staple food in more than 10 countries in Africa, and is becoming anincreasingly crucial factor in food security not only in Asia but worldwide.Also in 2012, the FAO establishedthe external advisory group to provide advice on formulating the Asia rice strategy.Mankombu SambasivanSwaminathan, the Indian scientist credited for leading his country s Green Revolution, chairs the advisorygroup.

    Rice researchers to discuss how to tackle BB diseaseScientists and researchers from India and abroad will meet here for three days from tomorrow to discussBacterial Blight (BB), a serious disease which affects the rice crop world over. The 4th InternationalConference on Bacterial Blight of rice is being jointly organised by CSIR, Centre for Cellular and MolecularBiology (CCMB), the Directorate of Rice Research (DRR) and the Society for Advancement of RiceResearch. The meeting will be held at CCMB premises here, CCMB Director Ch Mohan Rao told reporterstoday. Bacterial blight is caused by the bacterial pathogen xanthomonas oryzae pv oryzae (Xoo) and it results inyield losses of up to 50 per cent. As effective chemicals are not available for controlling yield loss, developmentof a host plant (resistant) varieties is supposed to be the most effective way.

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    Stating that BB affects rice crop across the country, DRR Director B C Viraktamath said, "We must try toreduce the loss caused by this disease. It is a dangerous disease." CCMB and DRR together have produced avariety called 'Improved Samba Masuri', which has already been appreciated by farmers in Andhra Pradesh andTamil Nadu where BB is common. "Our rice production, compared to 1950s and 2000s, has gone up by 350 percent. Mind you, all this increase happened not because we increased agricultural land. Only 40 per cent of theextra area we covered for rice production. Yield has increased because of the newer research methods andtechnologies. We are second in rice production in the world," Rao said. Rice scientists from the United States,China, France and the Philippines would be attending the conference.

    Web tool helps raise rice yield and incomeCategory: Science 30 Nov 2013

    LAUNCHED on Thursday in the Philippines, Rice Crop Manager

    puts the power of technology into action to help farmers managetheir rice crops better and earn more. The use of the Rice CropManager will hopefully bring an increase in yield or productivity,and also raise the income of farmers by about P4,000 per crop perhectare, said Dr. Manny Regalado, acting deputy director forresearch at the Department of Agriculture-Philippine RiceResearch Institute (DA-PhilRice).Rice Crop Manager is anapplication that can be accessed via a smartphone or a computerwith Internet connection. It allows extension officers to givefarmers a specific recommendation on nutrient, pest, weed, or

    water management, depending on the specific variety they used, their yield from the previous season, and the

    site-specific conditions of their field.Rice Crop Manager can be accessed for free athttp://webapps.irri.org/ph/rcm. It can al so be downloaded for free as an app named RCM PH via the Google

    play store.

    It builds on the success of its predecessor, Nutrient Manager for Rice, which was only focused on nutrientmanagement advice.Through improved crop and nutrient management, Rice Crop Manager aims to add 300kilograms of unmilled rice to each crop per season, per hectare. This additional production for the countrywould amount to an extra 20,000 metric tons of milled rice for each 100,000 hectares of rice cultivation perseason. Using Rice Crop Manager, extension workers, who bring technical know-how and technologies tofarmers through the Food Staples Sufficiency Program, will be empowered to provide farmers intelligentrecommendations based on technical data on rice-crop manageme nt, Regalado explained.The IRRI

    [International Rice Research Institute] fully supports the provision of relevant technologies and decision supporttools, like Rice Crop Manager, that improve farm production and help the Philippines in its goal to be rice self-sufficient, said Julian Lapitan, head of Partnerships and the Philippine Desk at the IRRI.Rice Crop Manager iscurrently being field-tested in two municipalities in each of five provinces in the Philippines: Echague andCauayan in Isabela; Muoz and Talugtug in Nueva Ecija; Catubig and Las Navas, Northern Samar; Buenavista

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    and Jabonga in Agusan del Norte; and Calapan and Naujan in Oriental Mindoro. In each municipality, 20farmers are receiving recommendations via Rice Crop Manager.With the help of an extension officer, RiceCrop Manager provides advice after a farmer answers a series of questions. Then it allows an extension officerto save, print, or send the recommendations to the farmer s phone by e -mail or SMS.Rice Crop Manager was

    developed by the IRRI as a product of a research collaboration with the DA-PhilRice.

    In Photo: An extension officer interviews a Filipino farmer using the Rice Crop Manager via an Android device. (IRRI)

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