In an expression of support and continuing partnership with AFA, leaders of the Asian Partnership for the Development of Human Resources in Rural Asia (AsiaDHRRA) visited the AFA office today and met the secretariat staff.
Dr. Sung Lee of KoDHRRA and Dr. Wenchi Huang of TaiwanDHRRA, who are both members of AsiaDHRRA’s Execom, took the time to make the visit after the conclusion of AsiaDHRRA’s Execom Meeting in the Philippines.
Rice price storm over
09:05′ 29/04/2008 (GMT+7)
VietNamNet Bridge – The rice price began decreasing on the afternoon of April 28 after the Government made a strong commitment to provide enough rice to people and threatened to punish speculators. Read more
Rice fever to be stamped out in some days
19:13′ 28/04/2008 (GMT+7)
VietNamNet Bridge – Rice trading companies are bringing rice to HCM City in an effort to stamp out the rice price fever, according to Nguyen Thi Nguyet, Secretary General of the Vietnam Food Association (VFA). Read more
Rushing to buy rice, prices skyrocketing
10:33′ 28/04/2008 (GMT+7)
VietNamNet Bridge – The subsidisation period, supposedly a thing of the past, is being remembered these days as Saigonese are rushing to buy rice in anticipation of a serious food shortage. Read more
While the multi-billion additional funding for rice and several other crops is a welcome development, we disagree with how the government plans to spend it. Going through the components of the package, dubbed FIELDS, it is clear that the intention is to increase the hectarage devoted to hybrid rice production, with an allocation of P2.7 billion until 2010. We find this difficult to understand given the poor performance of the hybrid rice program and the many issues that have been raised against it over the years.
PRESS RELEASE issued at the Press Conference in IWPC in Delhi on April 24, 2008
Farmers under the banner of Bharatiya Krishak Samaj has decided to launch a 8-day long Kisan Yatra on April 26, 2008 in protest against the anti-farmer policies of the government and the deliberate move by the Haryana government to grab fertile farmland from farmers at a platter for setting up of SEZs. The Yatra will be flagged off from village Pelpa near Badli in Rohtak district in Haryana at 10.00 am on April 26 by the president of Bharatiya Krishak Samaj, Dr Krishan Bir Chaudhary.
(The following are the data from Dr. Wenchi Huang of TaiwanDHRRA in response to a survey questionnaire sent by WRF on the food crisis and the situation of farmers in Asia.)
With regard to the food price issues, here is the answer to the following questions for Taiwan.
The information is based on the recently released statistics by various government agencies (the statistical data are available from the website of the COA):
(1) The Consumer Price Index (CPI) is from the “Price Statistics Monthly in Taiwan Area, R.O.C.,” Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS), Executive Yuan.
(2) For the rice price information is from the Agriculture and Food Agency of the Council of Agriculture (AFA of COA)
The Hindu, April 25, 2008
PHNOM PENH (Xinhua): Cambodia expects to be able to export eight million tonnes of rice per year by 2015, Khmer-English language newspaper the Mekong Times on Friday quoted Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries Chan Sarun as saying.
“We will encourage farmers to crop twice or three times a year and further strengthen irrigation systems in order to increase rice production,” the minister told an exhibition of natural agricultural products held on Thursday in Kampong Chhnang province, stressing that the country has three million hectares of agricultural land.
Yang Saing Koma, executive director of the Cambodian Center for Study and Development in Agriculture, agreed that the harvest could be boosted.
“Cambodia has vast tracts of land and current rice output is still low. We believe that Cambodia can achieve the goal, ” he said, adding that the government must invest more in the agricultural sector so that farmers have resources and techniques to increase rice yields.
In fact, he said, the kingdom could produce up to 10 million tonnes of rice in the next four or five years.
By Stuart Biggs and Sachiko Sakamaki, Bloomberg
April 24 (Bloomberg) — Japan, the world’s biggest net food importer, will ask the World Trade Organization as early as next week to introduce rules to prevent countries from restricting exports of wheat, rice and other grains.
Countries such as Thailand, Vietnam and China have imposed export curbs on rice as shortages caused prices to double in the past year. Shortfalls in other staples are starting to bite in Japan, where a reliance on imports of cattle-feed led to a butter shortage and a gain in wheat costs pushed up bread prices 8 percent in December, the first increase in 17 years.
“Japan wants balanced rules for food exporters and importers,” Hiroaki Kojima, deputy director for international economic affairs at Japan’s Agriculture Ministry, said in a phone interview. “Food exporters can freely export or not, but importers are told to remove restrictions and lower tariffs.”
The Swazi Observer, April 26, 208
THE Taiwanese Agricultural Mission has introduced farmers in Mbekelweni to a new vegetable project aimed at enhancing the productivity of certain vegetables of Taiwanese origin.
The Republic of China on Taiwan’s agricultural mission, whose aim is to improve food security through assisting local smallholder farmers create sustainable income so as to ultimately reduce poverty, introduced the farmers to vegetables such as water spinach and sweet potato leaves.
They were also introduced to soya beans, which are said to be rich in nutrients, especially protein and have a high commercial potential.
The Korea Times, 04-25-2008 18:43, By Kim Yon-se, Staff Reporter,
The United States is seeking to prevent Asian countries from pushing for closer economic cooperation while excluding Washington, a senior U.S. government official suggested Thursday.
“We will not stand idly by while others talk about Asian economic groupings that would exclude the United States,” Alexander A. Arvizu, Deputy Assistant Secretary for East Asian and Pacific, said in a statement.
He stressed that the free trade agreement (FTA) with South Korea ? when it is ratified ? will play a significant role in hampering other countries’ movement toward an Asian economic bloc.
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Representatives of the Asian Farmers’ Association for Sustainable Rural Development (AFA) joined around 80 farmer leaders from around the world for the second global meeting of the Farmers’ Forum that took place on February 11-12, 2008 in conjunction with the thirty-first session of International Fund for Agricultural Development’s (IFAD) Governing Council.
(In the photo: AFA Secretary General Esther Penunia reads the synthesis of deliberations during the IFAD governing council meeting.)
