www.asianfarmers.org

PHNOM PENH, 26 August 2010 (IRIN) – Late rains and record low water levels in Cambodia’s two main fresh water systems will affect food security and the livelihoods of millions, government officials and NGOs warn.

“We expect the impact to be very strong,” said Nao Thuok, director of the Fisheries Administration, adding that low water levels along the Mekong and Tonle Sap rivers were already limiting fish production and migration.

Crucial spawning grounds in floodplains along the rivers remained dry. “The places where the fish usually lay their eggs do not have much water so the fish population will decrease a lot,” he warned.

Approximately six million Cambodians or 45 percent of the population depend on fishing in the Mekong and Tonle Sap basins, the government’s Inland Fisheries Research and Development Institute, reports.

Read the full story at IRIN

It is an idea that has attracted global interest – a robotic suit that helps elderly Japanese farmers – but it is one that has also highlighted the problems of an ageing rural population.

The exoskeleten can be strapped-on to farm workers and helps reduce the strain of more physically demanding tasks.

Most of Japan’s farmers are over the age of 60 and many people fear it is a profession that is completely dying out.

Presenter: Helene Hofman
Speaker: Takeo Ogawa, professor at Kumamoto Gakuen University and trustee of the Asian Aging Business Center; Masayoshi Honma, professor of Agricultural and Resource Economics at the University of Tokyo; Mika Iba, Network for a Safe and Secure Food Environment

Get the full story at Radio Australia

VietNamNet Bridge – Though Vietnam is an agricultural country with 70 percent of its population living in rural areas, agriculture insurance has not developed. Phung Dac Loc, Secretary General of the Vietnam Insurance Association, talks about the issue.

Thoi Bao Kinh Te Saigon: Could you please tell us about the proportion of agriculture insurance in the non-life insurance sector in Vietnam?

Phung Dac Loc: Agriculture insurance premiums in Vietnam are inconsiderable compared with total non-life insurance premiums. The premiums in 2009 were modest at 1.7 billion dong, while total non-life insurance premiums were 13,644 billion dong. The figure was 958 million dong in the first half of 2010 vs. 8241 billion dong.

Get the full story at Vietnam Net Bridge

DUBLIN–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/44cce8/japan_agribusiness) has announced the addition of the “Japan Agribusiness Report Q1 2009″ report to their offering.

Japan Agribusiness service provides proprietary medium term price forecasts for key commodities, including corn, wheat, rice, sugar, cocoa, coffee, soy and milk; in addition to newly-researched competitive intelligence on leading agribusiness producers, traders and suppliers; in-depth analysis of latest industry developments; and essential industry context on Japan’s agribusiness service.

Despite having an advanced level of mechanisation and high yields, Japanese agriculture is largely unprofitable and is able to supply less than 40% of the country’s food needs. In this new Japan Agribusiness Report for Q1 2009, we examine the challenges that the agriculture sector in Japan faces over the coming years.

Between 1960 and 2005 Japan’s food self sufficiency in a calorie basis fell from 73% to 40%. Over the same period, the share of agriculture as a proportion of GDP dropped from 9% to 1% and the area of agricultural land fell from 6.09mn hectares (ha) to 4.60mn ha.

While Japanese agriculture has enjoyed some successes, such as achieving self sufficiency in milk and rice production, farming has never really been profitable without protection from imports and heavy government support in the form of subsidies and price supports. Even production of the key staple rice has fallen over the last two decades as consumption has dropped.

Read the full story at Business Wire

Manual labor is becoming more and more difficult for Japan’s aging farmers, prompting a Tokyo professor to devise a high-tech solution: mechanize the bodies of the farmers themselves.

Prof. Shigeki Toyama of Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology’s Graduate School of Engineering is close to perfecting a robot suit that could considerably reduce the physical burden of farmwork on elderly farmers.

People aged 65 and older are a key pillar of the agricultural work force, accounting for about 60 percent of the agricultural population in Japan. Development of the robot suit may come as welcome news to such elderly farmers.

While agricultural machines such as tractors and rice planters have reduced farmers’ physical burdens, many kinds of work still depend on manual labor, such as harvesting fruits and vegetables or pruning the branches of fruit-bearing trees.

Read the full story at Psyorg.com

In what is being described as a landmark case, a Taiwanese owned manufacturer has made an out of court settlement with thousands of Vietnamese farmers who claim pollution caused by the firm significantly effected their livelihoods.

Vedan Vietnam, which makes food additives including monosodium glutamate (known as MSG), reportedly discharged waste water in such quantities into the local river that it killed the ecosystem. Thousands of fish and shrimp farmers claimed the toxic waters killed their catch and ruined farmland along the river’s banks. Vedan has admitted responsibility and offered compensation worth US$11.5 million to farmers in three provinces.

Presenter: Bo Hill
Speakers: Huang, Vietnam Farmers Union; Le Viet Hung, director, Natural Resources and Environment Department, Dong Nai, Vietnam

Get the full story at Radio Australia

Since the food crisis of 2008, food justice activists have warned that governments in concert with multinational corporations have accelerated a worldwide “land grab” to buy up vast swaths of arable land in poor countries. According to The Economist magazine, between 37 to 49 million acres of farmland were put up for sale in deals involving foreign nationals between 2006 and mid-2009. [includes rush transcript]

Read the full story at Democracy Now

VietNamNet Bridge – Vietnamese coffee producers apply different standards that are not applied throughout the world. As a result, Vietnamese coffee exporters suffer from a competitive disadvantage in the world market.

Numerous meetings and workshops discussing Vietnamese coffee standards on coffee export products have been organized over the last ten years. However, the problems still persist.

The Vietnam Coffee and Cocoa Association (Vicofa) has just organized one more workshop on the issue. The association once again called for the application of international standards for coffee exports.

Read the full story at Vietnam Bridge

Free trade is not always beneficial

Korea’s middle class is in danger. Each round of new statistics reports more Koreans falling into the lower classes. With unemployment on a persistent rise, households are struggling to get by. At the same time, the country’s conglomerates are reporting record profits. Incomes at the top are growing while opportunities for job seekers are shrinking. The gap between rich and poor is growing. If some factions of the Korean government and business community have their way, this growing in inequality may accelerate to an unprecedented level.

A high ranking Korean diplomat told the Chinese press that the two countries will likely begin negotiations on a free trade agreement in 2011. Korea wants a free trade agreement to compete for the Chinese market in semi-conductors and electronics with Taiwan, after the Taiwanese signed the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement with the mainland in June.

The bill will face opposition from small and medium-sized manufacturing firms, as well as farmers and fishermen. A free trade agreement that would expose Korean firms to low Chinese labor costs. Cheap imports would be disastrous for domestic industry. If workers in these sectors lose their ability to compete, they will struggle to earn a living in an economy that demands education and specialized skills. Even well educated candidates are struggling in the current job market.

Read the full story at JoongAng Daily

Jakarta. Indonesia has been experiencing its most extreme weather conditions in recorded history, meteorologists warned on Wednesday as torrential rains continued to pound the capital.

All regions across the archipelago have been experiencing abnormal and often catastrophic weather, an official from the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) said.

“We have reached a super-extreme level of weather this year, the first time in our history, and this is much worse than what we experienced back in 1998, when the La Nina caused extreme weather in the country,” Edvin Aldrian warned.

Read the full story at Jakarta Globe