A couple of press clippings:
Thailand's Nation newspaper goes overboard this Monday (11 January 2010) to announce that Thailand's dominance in the export market is to end. The culprit: Jazzman. A great name for what US hope's will lead to the aforementioned change. It sounds ever so similar to Jasmine and as it's being developed by Lousiana's State University Agcenter the connection between that and jazz is obvious. And it can outperform Jasmine rice threefold.
Even if that claim would be true (there are no comparative trials), Jazzman is intentionally meant to compete with Jasmine rice, or as the Agcenter says to compete with foreign imports. That would be correctly phrased if the US were not an exporter. Most probably the intention is hack into Thailand's export potential, not now but in the future.
So is Thailand worried?
Not really ('The Rice Department has expressed little concern over the new American aromatic rice called Jazzman developed to compete with the Kingdom's premium grade jasmine rice'), they believe in their own superiority ('Thai agriculturalists say that the new American rice strain is of a lower quality than Thai jasmine rice and in their ability to play the markets.( 'Chookiat Ophaswongse, president of the Thai Rice Exporters Association, said exporters were not worried about the innovative rice in the short term as most consumers still favour Thai jasmine rice, categorised as the highest grade of rice'). But maybe they should be more worried. Yields are triple and consumers will hardly perceive the difference. Rice 1 is expensive, rice 2 is cheap. Which will I choose?
The relevance to Cambodia is that much of what is produced in west Cambodia finds it's way to Thailand. Though with the advent of ASEAN opening it's markets further (resulting in 0% tariffs for Thai exports to selected countries) much has been made of blocking Cambodian rice imports it remains to be seen what this would mean in future. However what if something like Jazzman is grown here?
BTW more discussion on Jasmine and Hom Mali on Thailand Forum. It seems that even what Thailand produces isn't Jasmine.
As ever the press is getting things confused. Or not? Xinhua.net announces that Cambodia's food security will be bolstered by an investment of $21 million to boost rice yields. That's great, but as Cambodia produces a good surplus, I doubt whether food security is an issue which can be resolved by increased rice yields. Furtheron the article mentions that the majority will be used for 'developing' hybrids. Wonder how that will pan out? There's hardly any public research on rice hybrids worldwide so either it's not true (rather the money will be used to purchase seeds) or something other hybrids are meant.
And then I have comments on a study in the Philippines which themselves have been commented by the IRRI. The comments seem too good to be tru,e but good that IRRI at least takes time to respond.
Thailand's Nation newspaper goes overboard this Monday (11 January 2010) to announce that Thailand's dominance in the export market is to end. The culprit: Jazzman. A great name for what US hope's will lead to the aforementioned change. It sounds ever so similar to Jasmine and as it's being developed by Lousiana's State University Agcenter the connection between that and jazz is obvious. And it can outperform Jasmine rice threefold.
Even if that claim would be true (there are no comparative trials), Jazzman is intentionally meant to compete with Jasmine rice, or as the Agcenter says to compete with foreign imports. That would be correctly phrased if the US were not an exporter. Most probably the intention is hack into Thailand's export potential, not now but in the future.
So is Thailand worried?
Not really ('The Rice Department has expressed little concern over the new American aromatic rice called Jazzman developed to compete with the Kingdom's premium grade jasmine rice'), they believe in their own superiority ('Thai agriculturalists say that the new American rice strain is of a lower quality than Thai jasmine rice and in their ability to play the markets.( 'Chookiat Ophaswongse, president of the Thai Rice Exporters Association, said exporters were not worried about the innovative rice in the short term as most consumers still favour Thai jasmine rice, categorised as the highest grade of rice'). But maybe they should be more worried. Yields are triple and consumers will hardly perceive the difference. Rice 1 is expensive, rice 2 is cheap. Which will I choose?
The relevance to Cambodia is that much of what is produced in west Cambodia finds it's way to Thailand. Though with the advent of ASEAN opening it's markets further (resulting in 0% tariffs for Thai exports to selected countries) much has been made of blocking Cambodian rice imports it remains to be seen what this would mean in future. However what if something like Jazzman is grown here?
BTW more discussion on Jasmine and Hom Mali on Thailand Forum. It seems that even what Thailand produces isn't Jasmine.
As ever the press is getting things confused. Or not? Xinhua.net announces that Cambodia's food security will be bolstered by an investment of $21 million to boost rice yields. That's great, but as Cambodia produces a good surplus, I doubt whether food security is an issue which can be resolved by increased rice yields. Furtheron the article mentions that the majority will be used for 'developing' hybrids. Wonder how that will pan out? There's hardly any public research on rice hybrids worldwide so either it's not true (rather the money will be used to purchase seeds) or something other hybrids are meant.
And then I have comments on a study in the Philippines which themselves have been commented by the IRRI. The comments seem too good to be tru,e but good that IRRI at least takes time to respond.
