Rice Crisis Alert - Prices Forecasted Higher

Click here to increase Philippine rice production with lower input costs and stop depending upon higher priced imported rice.

Philippines to Hasten Rice Imports on Concern Prices May Surge

Oct. 27 (Bloomberg) -- The Philippines, the world’s biggest rice buyer, plans to bring forward imports for 2010 to beat other nations to the market before prices surge and ensure stockpiles aren’t drained, the National Food Authority said.

“We need to prepare” for the shortfall, Jessup Navarro, administrator of the authority, said in an interview in Manila yesterday. “We need to bring in the rice we need right away.”

The Southeast Asian nation is rushing purchases on concern that drought in India and weather-related damage to crops in other parts of Asia may lead to a supply shortage, Navarro said.

“That could exert huge pressure on prices,” he said. “When there’s speculation, people are hoarding, other countries stop exports, while importing countries are trying to buy. Speculation, panic; you cannot control that,” he added, when asked if he see prices returning to record levels.

Rice futures surged to a record $25.07 per 100 pounds on the Chicago Board of Trade in April 2008 as exporters including India and Vietnam curbed overseas sales and importers such as the Philippines rushed to boost shipments to secure domestic supplies and cool inflation.

Rice for delivery in January gained 0.2 percent to $13.70 per 100 pounds as of 10:54 a.m. Singapore time.

“For record prices to be hit again, it wouldn’t take much,” Euben Paracuelles, an economist at Royal Bank of Scotland Plc said by phone from Singapore today. “The same sort of weather problems are hurting output of these big rice exporters.”

Tender Advanced

The National Food Authority, which manages the government’s grain stockpiles, has set its first tender for Nov. 4, when it plans to buy 250,000 metric tons of rice for delivery beginning January, more than a month ahead of the typical date. More tenders may be held this year, Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap said Oct. 23.

The impact of the storms that damaged crops in the Philippines will not be felt by the domestic market until June next year, when supplies from the October-December and March-May harvests begin to run out, he said. Harvests from other parts of the country that were spared by the storms have kept prices stable, he said.

About 13 percent of the 6.5 million metric ton fourth- quarter output forecast by the government in August was lost as Tropical Storm Ketsana and Typhoon Parma hit the nation’s biggest rice-producing regions, the Department of Agriculture said in a report released Oct. 13.

The Philippines is assessing the damage from the storms and the possibility of ramping up output in the first harvest of 2010 before setting the total volume of next year’s imports, Navarro said.

Click the links below to increase Philippine rice production with lower input costs, and stop depending upon imported rice with decreasing global supplies and increasing prices.

Click here to review Nutrplant AG Organic Fertilizer

Click here to review Nutriplant SD Organic Seed Germination Fertilizer

Click here to review Apsa80 Adjuvant to increase the efficacy of all your applied products

US Firms Explore Philippine AgriBusiness Opportunities

US agrifirms to explore business opportunities in RP Agri-Commodities industry.

A number of United States-based agribusinesses will arrive in the Philippines together with US Agriculture Secretary Thomas Vilsack on October 26 to explore business opportunities here.

The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) said over 20 agribusiness firms will meet with nearly 200 Philippine companies to develop “additional lines of commerce.”

“The [trade] mission’s goal is to promote trade and investment, particularly in the fisheries, biofuels, processed goods, beverages, meat and poultry, dairy products, agricultural machineries and equipment sectors,” said the USDA in a statement.

US companies are looking for opportunities to form partnerships and joint ventures with Philippine companies.

The USDA said Vilsack and representatives of US firms will be in the country until October 29.

The USDA noted that two-way trade of agricultural products between the Philippines and the US reached almost $3 billion in 2008.

Two-way trade between the Philippines and the US, the USDA noted, is 44 percent higher than the $2 billion registered in 2007. The US is a major market for the Philippines for farm and industrial products.

The US and Japan were the top two destinations for Philippine farm and industrial products in July, according to the National Statistics Office.

By Business Mirror

Click the links below to increase your agribusiness harvests and lower your input costs, all naturally and organically.

Click here to review Nutrplant AG Organic Fertilizer

Click here to review Nutriplant SD Organic Seed Germination Fertilizer

Click here to review Apsa80 Adjuvant to increase the efficacy of all your applied products

Famous Investor Forecasts Higher Rice Prices

Famous Investor and Money Manager Jim Rogers Says Rice to Climb as FAO Sees Stockpile Drop

Declining global rice stockpiles and lower production in India will push prices higher, said investor Jim Rogers, chairman of Rogers Holdings.

“The world is very vulnerable to production problems,” Rogers, who predicted the start of commodities rally in 1999, said in an interview. “We’re already seeing it in India. That’s going to mean higher prices somewhere along the line.”

Rice stockpiles of the world’s five largest exporters are forecast to plunge by a third to the lowest level in five years, and below last year when prices surged, Concepcion Calpe, senior economist at the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, said at a conference in Bali today.

Global rice prices soared to a record $25.07 per 100 pounds in April 2008 on declining inventories, sparking concern over a global food crisis. This prompted exporters including India and Vietnam to curb sales, cutting supplies for countries like the Philippines, the biggest importer. Prices almost halved since then as farmers boosted production, replenishing stockpiles.

The contract for November delivery jumped 1.9 percent to $13.48 per 100 pounds yesterday on the Chicago Board of Trade, the steepest gain since Aug. 31, and was little changed at $13.495 at 2:42 p.m. in Singapore.

Total stockpiles held by Thailand, Vietnam, the U.S., Pakistan and India will fall to about 20 million metric tons at the end of the marketing year on Sept. 30, from 30 million tons a year earlier, on lower-than-forecast crops and rising demand for imports, Calpe said today.

Drought, Flood

The weakest monsoon in India since 1972 may cut the nation’s rice production by about 18 percent in the marketing year that began Oct. 1, Calpe said in an interview Oct. 7.

Floods now affecting the south of India will also reduce production, Junior Food Minister K.V. Thomas said Oct. 6. The flooding will cut production by at least 3 million tons, the Hindu Business Line reported today, citing N. Raghuveera Reddy, state farm minister for Andhra Pradesh.

The last time stockpiles of the five largest exporters fell by a third was in 2002-2003, when India “had a bad monsoon, and prices then were low,” Calpe said. Rough rice futures on the Chicago Board of Trade reached a low of $3.52 in April 2002.

Tropical Storm Ketsana and Typhoon Parma destroyed at least 7 percent of the Philippines fourth-quarter crop in the past week and wiped out inventories in parts of the country. The Philippines may import 2 million tons of rice in 2010 to cover losses from the storms, National Food Authority Assistant Administrator Jose Cordero, said in an interview in Bali today.

Shelving Exports

Indonesia state food company Bulog said Oct. 6 the country may shelve plans for its biggest rice exports in at least 50 years if dry weather caused by El Nino causes production to miss a state forecast of 40 million tons.

Rice production in Pakistan, the world’s fourth-largest exporter, is forecast to drop 4.8 percent this year from a year ago, Safder Hussain Mekhri, a vice-chairman with the Rice Exporters Association of Pakistan, which accounts for about 95 percent of the nation’s shipments, said in an interview.

Output may drop to 6 million tons this year from 6.3 million tons last year, he said, while exports may be little changed at 3.1 million tons, Mekhri said.
“Supply is going to get tighter,” Rogers said in an interview late yesterday. “Production is going down for a variety of reasons. Many farmers cannot get loans,” limiting their ability to raise yield and expand acreage, he said.

El Nino

Higher reserves in China, the world’s largest grower and consumer, may help slow the decline in total global stockpiles to 3 percent to 117.4 million tons, Calpe said.

Still, “we’ve not considered the flooding in the Philippines and El Nino in Indonesia because we did the estimate on Sept. 25,” Calpe said. “Next year, if there’s a bad year, then things are going to be more serious because then we’d have to work from much lower stocks.”

The impact of El Nino, which can delay rains in Asia and cause flooding in South America, may also push global production lower next year, forcing affected countries to draw down inventories, she said.

“Indonesia is especially at risk and Australia of course,” Calpe said, referring to El Nino. The weather phenomenon may also lower yields in South America “because if it’s cloudy, they won’t get the proper sun and that’s very important for yields.”

Typhoon Damage

While the slump in Indian production will drag total volume down, not all of the major exporters will see output and stockpiles drop, Calpe said.

Rice production in Vietnam, the world’s second-largest exporter, may climb to a record of between 37.9 million tons and 38.3 million tons in 2010, Pham Van Du, deputy director general of Vietnam’s Crop Production Department, said yesterday.

Typhoon Ketsana destroyed at least 100,000 tons of the Vietnamese rice crop, Pham said in an interview in Bali today. The losses are unlikely to lower significantly the nation’s rice output, he said. Production is forecast to reach a record 37 million tons this year, the USDA said in a report this week.

“At the moment, there is no evidence of supply shortages in the market,” Calpe said Oct. 7, adding that last year’s record prices were “not really triggered by shortages, it was an overreaction by governments and the market.”

Click the links below to increase rice crop production with lesser input costs naturally and organically.

Click here to review Nutrplant AG Organic Fertilizer

Click here to review Nutriplant SD Organic Seed Germination Fertilizer

Click here to review Apsa80 Adjuvant to increase the efficacy of all your applied products

P3B Investment Into Philippine Bioethanol Plants

2 firms keen on investing P3B to build bioethanol plants here

Two firms are keen on investing P3 billion to put up two facilities that will produce bioethanol.

Artech Inc. and local firm Eco Frontier are consulting with the Bureau of Agriculture Research (BAR) for technical support while scouting areas where they could plant sweet sorghum, the preferred feedstock of both companies.

“Eco Frontier and Artech are two of the major investors in sweet sorghum for bioethanol use,” BAR director Dr. Nicomedes Eleazar told reporters yesterday at the sidelines of the first national review of BAR-funded sweet sorghum projects held in Quezon City.

Eleazar noted there are still a number of small-scale companies that are also interested in propagating sweet sorghum for ethanol production.

Dr. Heraldo Layaoen, the national program coordinator for the sweet sorghum project, said investments will come on stream as soon as the government gives it full backing to the sweet sorghum initiative.

“We need government support as much as we need investments from the private sector. We cannot go ahead and implement the program on our own. The sheer magnitude of the investments required will need private-sector participation,” said Layaoen.

Other companies that are keen on sweet sorghum cultivation for ethanol use are Sweet Crystals, Gokongwei-owned Cagayan Sugar Co. and Ginebra San Miguel.

The Mariano Marcos State University (MMSU) in Ilocos Norte piloted the field trials of sorghum for various use, in particular for fuel. Currently, MMSU has a stock of 288 varieties of sorghum, of which 19 are said to be promising for ethanol manufacture.

Layaoen explained that compared with sugar cane, sweet sorghum is a more efficient feedstock for bioethanol production because it has higher yield per unit area per unit time for both sweet stalk and grain at 4:1 (sweet sorghum versus sugar cane).

Drought-tolerant, sweet sorghum’s seed crop matures in 100 to110 days versus sugar cane, which can be harvested after 300 to 330 days. A mature sweet sorghum plant can stand up to three ratooning, while the ratoon matures 85 to 95 days after cutting.

The surging cost of fossil fuel has compelled the government to produce fuel ethanol. The government is currently encouraging foreign firms to invest in bioethanol manufacture.

Most of the Philippines’ ethanol requirements are currently being supplied by Brazil and Australia.

By Business Mirror

Click the links below to increase your crop production with lesser input costs naturally and organically.

Click here to review Nutrplant AG Organic Fertilizer

Click here to review Nutriplant SD Organic Seed Germination Fertilizer

Click here to review Apsa80 Adjuvant to increase the efficacy of all your applied products