SumSam
April 18th, 2008, 07:11 AM
Maybe it's just me not noticing it before - but there seems to be a whole slew of farming related news these days from every corner of the world. And I'm not talking about news items like the World Bank and UN warnings about food shortage. I'm talking specific farming news stories from all continents.
Australia:
Wheat changes will spell ruin for farmers (http://www.livenews.com.au/Articles/2008/03/27/Wheat_exports_destroying_farming_industry)
27/03/2008 10:28:00 AM.
A Senate committee is being warned deregulating the wheat export industry will drive up suicide rates among farmers and destroy rural communities.
India:
The vanishing food stock (http://www.rediff.com/news/2008/apr/17flip.htm)
April 17, 2008
When did India's Green Revolution turn a dusty brown? Is the country's hard-earned food security in danger of vanishing as the Manmohan Singh [Images] government fiddles with quotas and nuclear deals rather than concentrate on daal-roti?
Argentina:
Argentine Farmers Suspend National Strike for 30 Days (Update2) (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601086&sid=a29YTK.NXKA8&refer=latin_america)
April 2 (Bloomberg) -- Argentine farm groups, seeking to resume talks with the government over tax increases, suspended a three-week national strike that has caused food shortages and disrupted exports.
The strike caused food shortages in supermarkets and led grain exporters such as Bunge Ltd. to invoke a contractual provision called force majeure, which allows companies to cancel shipments without financial penalties because of events outside their control.
Philippines:
Philippines pushes hybrid rice to solve soaring food prices (http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5jUYf9CdEqZmJ7zCvKRQze52yJk9Q)
MANILA (AFP) — Farmers will be encouraged to shift to hybrid varieties of rice as the Philippines attempts to copy the China model for rice self-sufficiency, the agriculture department said Friday.
Though Philippine rice production reached an all-time high of 16.24 million tonnes last year, Manila has been scrambling to boost stocks and raise yields to avoid the sort of food riots that has hit other countries.
The price of the grain, the staple food for 90 million Filipinos as well as half of humanity, has nearly doubled amid rising global demand and weather-related production setbacks.
Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap said he is to ask President Gloria Arroyo to approve a subsidy programme to promote higher-yielding hybrid seeds as part of government efforts to attain rice self-sufficiency by 2010.
Manila now imports about eight percent of the country's daily consumption requirement of 33,000 tonnes.
Africa:
Africa: Farming Fails to Reach Potential (http://allafrica.com/stories/200804150731.html)
United Nations Environment Program (Nairobi)
PRESS RELEASE
15 April 2008
Posted to the web 15 April 2008
Nairobi
Agricultural output in Africa south of the Sahara will not produce larger harvests without greater use of fertilisers, says a report commissioned by the World Bank and the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation. Agriculture accounts for an average of 32% of the region's GDP, but overall per capita yields declined from 1970 to 1980 and since then have stagnated. Soil moisture stress affects more than 80% of Africa's agricultural land, limiting nutrient uptake. So both water and soil organic matter need to be conserved together.
China:
China's grain supply: The ravening hoards (http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11058402)
Apr 17th 2008 | BEIJING
From The Economist print edition
No need for alarm; but some Chinese ring bells anyway
“WITH grain in our hands there is no need to panic,” according to China's prime minister, Wen Jiabao. But officials worry about how to keep China near self-sufficiency in grain and sheltered from rising world prices. Mr Wen's remarks during a farm tour in Hebei in the north were meant to calm public anxieties about food-price inflation elsewhere in the world. Chinese food prices have been rising fast too in recent months, but the main impact has been on meat. Rice- and wheat-price increases have been modest, except for high-quality imports, a small share of domestic consumption. China produces more than 90% of the grain it consumes.
With global grain markets so jittery, officials are rather smug about having so long stressed the need for self-sufficiency. It has enabled the government to keep the domestic market relatively calm. Early this year, to control demand, it began curbing grain exports through quotas and taxes. It promised continuing supplies to Hong Kong. But now grain importers there have had to pledge that they will not re-export. Diplomats say that China's caution has even affected the flow of food to North Korea, an old ally heavily reliant on shipments from abroad. Aid workers say North Korea is facing its worst food-supply crisis since a famine in the late 1990s.
South Africa
'Food price crisis needs moral leadership' (http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=594&art_id=nw20080418121916791C320756)
The lack of action by government regarding high food prices has left poor consumers stranded, the National Consumer Forum (NCF) said on Friday.
"It is the democratic responsibility of government, and the moral responsibility of the private sector, to work with civil society and find solutions to this crisis," said NCF chairperson Thami Bolani.
He said government needed to do more to guarantee food security for the majority of consumers.
"It is not enough just to keep collecting statistics about a crisis as it develops - government needs to be making plans and acting on them, to ensure that the country can afford to feed itself."
He said there was also not enough support to farmers, in particular emerging farmers, from government institutions like the Land Bank.
"We also need more investment in rural areas. Much has been said about cooperatives, but there are few success stories."
News items related to food shortages outnumber farming related news items maybe 5 to 1. But it sure looks like the world is taking note of its' farming communities. They sure could use some attention I guess!
Australia:
Wheat changes will spell ruin for farmers (http://www.livenews.com.au/Articles/2008/03/27/Wheat_exports_destroying_farming_industry)
27/03/2008 10:28:00 AM.
A Senate committee is being warned deregulating the wheat export industry will drive up suicide rates among farmers and destroy rural communities.
India:
The vanishing food stock (http://www.rediff.com/news/2008/apr/17flip.htm)
April 17, 2008
When did India's Green Revolution turn a dusty brown? Is the country's hard-earned food security in danger of vanishing as the Manmohan Singh [Images] government fiddles with quotas and nuclear deals rather than concentrate on daal-roti?
Argentina:
Argentine Farmers Suspend National Strike for 30 Days (Update2) (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601086&sid=a29YTK.NXKA8&refer=latin_america)
April 2 (Bloomberg) -- Argentine farm groups, seeking to resume talks with the government over tax increases, suspended a three-week national strike that has caused food shortages and disrupted exports.
The strike caused food shortages in supermarkets and led grain exporters such as Bunge Ltd. to invoke a contractual provision called force majeure, which allows companies to cancel shipments without financial penalties because of events outside their control.
Philippines:
Philippines pushes hybrid rice to solve soaring food prices (http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5jUYf9CdEqZmJ7zCvKRQze52yJk9Q)
MANILA (AFP) — Farmers will be encouraged to shift to hybrid varieties of rice as the Philippines attempts to copy the China model for rice self-sufficiency, the agriculture department said Friday.
Though Philippine rice production reached an all-time high of 16.24 million tonnes last year, Manila has been scrambling to boost stocks and raise yields to avoid the sort of food riots that has hit other countries.
The price of the grain, the staple food for 90 million Filipinos as well as half of humanity, has nearly doubled amid rising global demand and weather-related production setbacks.
Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap said he is to ask President Gloria Arroyo to approve a subsidy programme to promote higher-yielding hybrid seeds as part of government efforts to attain rice self-sufficiency by 2010.
Manila now imports about eight percent of the country's daily consumption requirement of 33,000 tonnes.
Africa:
Africa: Farming Fails to Reach Potential (http://allafrica.com/stories/200804150731.html)
United Nations Environment Program (Nairobi)
PRESS RELEASE
15 April 2008
Posted to the web 15 April 2008
Nairobi
Agricultural output in Africa south of the Sahara will not produce larger harvests without greater use of fertilisers, says a report commissioned by the World Bank and the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation. Agriculture accounts for an average of 32% of the region's GDP, but overall per capita yields declined from 1970 to 1980 and since then have stagnated. Soil moisture stress affects more than 80% of Africa's agricultural land, limiting nutrient uptake. So both water and soil organic matter need to be conserved together.
China:
China's grain supply: The ravening hoards (http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11058402)
Apr 17th 2008 | BEIJING
From The Economist print edition
No need for alarm; but some Chinese ring bells anyway
“WITH grain in our hands there is no need to panic,” according to China's prime minister, Wen Jiabao. But officials worry about how to keep China near self-sufficiency in grain and sheltered from rising world prices. Mr Wen's remarks during a farm tour in Hebei in the north were meant to calm public anxieties about food-price inflation elsewhere in the world. Chinese food prices have been rising fast too in recent months, but the main impact has been on meat. Rice- and wheat-price increases have been modest, except for high-quality imports, a small share of domestic consumption. China produces more than 90% of the grain it consumes.
With global grain markets so jittery, officials are rather smug about having so long stressed the need for self-sufficiency. It has enabled the government to keep the domestic market relatively calm. Early this year, to control demand, it began curbing grain exports through quotas and taxes. It promised continuing supplies to Hong Kong. But now grain importers there have had to pledge that they will not re-export. Diplomats say that China's caution has even affected the flow of food to North Korea, an old ally heavily reliant on shipments from abroad. Aid workers say North Korea is facing its worst food-supply crisis since a famine in the late 1990s.
South Africa
'Food price crisis needs moral leadership' (http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=594&art_id=nw20080418121916791C320756)
The lack of action by government regarding high food prices has left poor consumers stranded, the National Consumer Forum (NCF) said on Friday.
"It is the democratic responsibility of government, and the moral responsibility of the private sector, to work with civil society and find solutions to this crisis," said NCF chairperson Thami Bolani.
He said government needed to do more to guarantee food security for the majority of consumers.
"It is not enough just to keep collecting statistics about a crisis as it develops - government needs to be making plans and acting on them, to ensure that the country can afford to feed itself."
He said there was also not enough support to farmers, in particular emerging farmers, from government institutions like the Land Bank.
"We also need more investment in rural areas. Much has been said about cooperatives, but there are few success stories."
News items related to food shortages outnumber farming related news items maybe 5 to 1. But it sure looks like the world is taking note of its' farming communities. They sure could use some attention I guess!