CEOs need to accelerate their action plans to safeguard the production of commodities critical to the global population and economy as heat stress and drought risk rise around the world, according to PwC's
Cyclone-hit Myanmar faces food shortages and may need to import rice if farmers in devastated areas do not get immediate help to plant a new crop, the UN food agency said on Thursday. Some 20 percent of rice fields in five declared disaster zones, including the Irrawaddy delta rice bowl, were damaged by the cyclone that killed up to 128,000 people, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said.
Burma's military rulers have appealed for international help to get the county's cyclone-hit Irrawaddy delta rice farmers back to their paddy fields, amid concerns about food shortages if they miss the planting season. The request came as Burma's state television yesterday said a military-sponsored constitution had won the support of 92.4 per cent of voters in a partial referendum on Saturday. A vote in cyclone-hit areas and Rangoon has been delayed until May 24.
Total paddy output this year is likely to go up by 2.3 per cent, hitting a new record of 666 million tonnes. This will take the per hectare output to 4.19 tonnes as against 3.90 tonnes in 1999 and 4.11 tonnes in 2007, according to the latest report from the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations. There has not been much change in acreage, from 157 million hectare in 1999 to 159 million hectare in 2008. Paddy output, though, has risen 8.82 per cent now, from the level of 612 million tonnes in 1999.
DHAKA, Bangladesh: Potatoes are not traditionally high on the menu for the 140 million people in Bangladesh, but a surge in rice and wheat prices has prompted the government to popularize the humble spud as a substitute food. "Think potato, grow potato and eat potato," was the main slogan of a three-day potato festival in Dhaka last week.
Farmers in Eastern Uttar Pradesh are increasingly choosing costlier mechanical ways of farming over less-expensive manual ways. Why? "Mechanical harvesting is easy and less time taking. At main harvesting time it's become very tough to get the labourers at right time. And if the harvesting process will get late it can harm our crops due to hailstorm and heavy rains. Due to these factors big and even small and marginal farmers are also moving towards mechanical harvesting" said a farmer living in eastern part of UP, Gyan Chand.
The biogas yield of rice straw during anaerobic digestion can be substantially increased through solid-state sodium hydroxide (NaOH) pretreatment. This study was conducted to explore the mechanisms of biogas yield enhancement.
Rice production in Asia, Africa and Latin America is forecast to reach a new record level in 2008, but world rice prices could remain high in the short term, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said Monday. However the destruction of Myanmar's food resources by a deadly cyclone could decrease national rice production and impair access to food, according to first FAO estimates. "World paddy production 2008 could grow by about 2.3 percent, reaching a new record level of 666 million tonnes, according to our preliminary forecasts," said FAO rice expert Concepcion Calpe.
World rice output is expected to hit a record high this year, but growing demand and export curbs should keep prices high, at least in the short term, the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organisation said on Monday. Rice prices have been surging as governments and importers rush to stock up, spurred by growing fears the food staple will be in short supply. "World paddy production in 2008 could grow by about 2.3 percent, reaching a new record level of 666 million tonnes, according to our preliminary forecasts," FAO rice expert Concepcion Calpe said in a statement on Monday.
India and Vietnam have indicated that their independent restrictions on the export of certain varieties of rice are "temporary, short-term management tools that they need for their own particular situations,' according to the Association of South East Asian Nations Secretary General, Surin Pitsuwan. India, a major dialogue partner of the ASEAN, and Vietnam, a member of the 10-nation group, rank next only to Thailand, another member of this association, as the world's three largest rice-exporters.
China, the world's biggest grower of rice, will start planting the grain in Tanzania next year as global food shortages create investment opportunities for the Asian country, a government report said. Chongqing Seed Corporation, a seed researcher and producer based in south-western Chongqing city, will plant its proprietary rice in a pilot project in the central African country, a report on China's ministry of commerce's website said.
