www.asianfarmers.org

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

Jakarta. Local flour prices could see increases as steep as 20 percent due to supply shortages from Russia and Turkey, the Indonesian Association of Sugar and Flour Traders (Apegti) has predicted.

“Prices have gone up 10 percent due to increasing demand during Ramadan and are likely to rise 20 percent after the festivities as Russia and Turkey are cutting back on exports,” Apegti chairman Natsir Mansyur said on Sunday.

He said Russia, the world’s third-largest wheat exporter, had cut exports because bad weather had disrupted production.

Read the full story at Jakarta Globe

HA NOI — Rice exporters are facing difficulties negotiating export prices due to domestic rice price increases, said the Viet Nam Food Association.

The association said this increase had made farmers happy but brought concerns to exporters. The exporters would have more difficulty in confirming export contracts because they could not compete with rival countries.

Over the last two weeks, rice prices have risen by VND500-1,000 per kilo to VND4,100-4,400 for low-quality rice, VND4,800 per kilo for medium-quality rice, and VND5,500 per kilo for high-quality rice.

Read the full story at Viet Nam news

Each year, Vietnam produces 180,000 tonnes of tea including 130,000 tonnes for export, earning US$79 million. Currently, it ranks fifth in the world in both production and export volume.

Over the past 15 years, the tea sector has surpassed its set targets for cultivated acreage, productivity and export volume. But export tea prices are lower than those in other countries such as India, Sri Lanka, and Kenya.

Vietnam has a total area of 120,000 hectares of tea grown in 34 provinces, mostly in the northern mountainous and central highland regions.

In 2009, the average price of tea in those countries was US$2.43 per kilo while Vietnamese tea stood at US$1.23 per kilo.

Between 1998 and this year, the world’s average tea price increased by 18 percent while Vietnam’s tea price fell by 20 percent.

Red the full story at VOV News

The signing of the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) this summer has opened the door for Taiwan’s agricultural and fishery exports and energized the government.

At the same time, however, the Chinese government is setting up “innovation parks for Taiwanese farmers” and “experimental areas for cross-strait agricultural cooperation” with the intention of attracting skilled personnel, animal and plant species, technology and capital in an attempt to emulate the Taiwanese experience.

The resulting agricultural products would have the advantages of Taiwanese species, realistic pricing and stable supply. They would attract Chinese consumers far more than agricultural products from Taiwan, and the negative impact on Taiwanese farmers would by far surpass the advantages that would come from the import tax exemptions offered on 18 products.

Read the full story at Taipei Times

OFFICIALS in Battambang province’s Samlot district met yesterday with local military officers to ask that around 20 families be allowed to resume farming on land that in recent months has been the subject of a violent dispute.

Deputy district governor In Savrith said that officers from Royal Cambodian Armed Forces Military Region 5 had allowed 21 families to resume cultivating their crops yesterday, though a final agreement would not be reached until later this week.

“I don’t think there will be a problem because Military Region 5 has already agreed to accept the return of another group of farmers,” he said.

On July 8, 58 families were given permission to resume farming on a 390-hectare plot in Samlot’s Kampong Lpov commune.

A total of 78 families claim that they have farmed the land since 2005, and that since 2009 soldiers from Military Region 5 have been trying to force them off the land.

Read the full story at The Phnom Penh Post

[Authors note: Dr Philip Revatha (Ray) Wijewardene, who passed away on August 18 aged 86, spent a lifetime being unpigeonholeable – which won him many admirers and a few detractors. Despite being an accomplished engineer, aviator, inventor and Olympian, he chose to introduce himself as a farmer and mechanic ‘who still got his hands dirty’. Unpretentious and always enthusiastic, he was one man who somehow managed to have his head (literally) in the clouds and his feet firmly on the ground.

Read the full story at Ground Views