Targets

Behind

A couple of seemingly non-related articles once again featuring the curse of company politics forcing lab developed foods on consumers. With too many unknowns concerning the outcome. Other than lining the pockets of whom we already know (thanks to Thomas Piketty): the rich getting richer ...

It all seems innocent.

While sceptics are holding the fort in Europe, the US is still full steam ahead for GM crops. Or so it seems. The latest are potatoes. The New York Times (Nov. 7):

'A potato genetically engineered to reduce the amounts of a potentially harmful ingredient in French fries and potato chips has been approved for commercial planting, the Department of Agriculture announced on Friday.

The potato’s DNA has been altered so that less of a chemical called acrylamide, which is suspected of causing cancer in people, is produced when the potato is fried.

...

But the approval comes as some consumers are questioning the safety of genetically engineered crops and demanding that the foods made from them be labeled. Ballot initiatives calling for labeling were rejected by voters in Oregon and Colorado this week, after food and seed companies poured millions of dollars into campaigns to defeat the measures.

...

Genetically modified potatoes failed once before. In the late 1990s, Monsanto began selling potatoes genetically engineered to resist the Colorado potato beetle. But the market collapsed after big potato users, fearing consumer resistance, told farmers not to grow them. Simplot itself, after hearing from its fast-food chain customers, instructed its farmers to stop growing the Monsanto potatoes.

This time around could be different, however, because the potato promises at least potential health benefits to consumers. And unlike Monsanto, Simplot is a long-established power in the potato business and presumably has been clearing the way for acceptance of the product from its customers'.

All-in-all a not so positive article for GM proponents. But then again they have the approval in the bag. 

The same innocence applies to this article concerning GM eggplant in Bangladesh (CGIAR, Oct. 10):

'Any day now, a hundred Bangladeshi smallholder farmers will be planting their annual aubergine crop.  But this year this select band will not be planting their usual seeds of the crop they call brinjal and many know as the eggplant.
These family farmers, chosen by the country’s agricultural researchers, will be growing a genetically modified (GM) variety.  Bt brinjal has been developed by crop scientists in Bangladesh and neighbouring India to fight off insects that often halve yields and force farmers into daily spraying with dangerous pesticides.
...
For many, that is a much bigger and more immediate issue, especially with key GM technologies dominated by a handful of companies — most notably, and most notoriously, Monsanto. But do we have to translate a fear of big bad agribusiness into a fear of GMs?  Why, to put it another way, should the devil have all the best tunes?  If our main problem with the technology is who owns it, then let’s liberate it for the common good.
...
Yes, the technique is owned by Monsanto.  And the company got a lot of stick for initially charging high prices for Bt cotton, when it was first introduced in India two decades ago to fight bollworm.  But Monsanto doesn’t see any profits in a crop like brinjal.  Though one of South Asia’s most popular vegetables, it is mostly grown by poor smallholders.  So a decade ago, the company gave local scientists free use of the gene to put into brinjal and other local crops, such as chickpeas.
...
Now you might see Monsanto’s free licensing of their technology for brinjal as a Trojan Horse to get GMs into potentially big seed markets like India.  You might be right.  But surely it is also a chance to take a valuable new technology out of the hands of its rich owners and use it in the service of family farmers'.

The author also gets some stick from respondents as he seemingly avoids some of the more contentious issues. One response laid to rest our distrust of Monsanto's ulterior interests:

'You forgot to mention that Mahyco, the Indian seed company who developed Bt Brinjal is 26% owned by Monsanto?
You also forgot to mention that Mahyco Mahyco became India’s first commercial entity to be accused of bio-piracy, or misappropriation, of local germplasm'.

The author also forgot that the seemingly public good of helping farmers also has a distinct private interest: getting consumers used to GM foods. Bangladesh can hardly be an example of consumer protection. Even China, which has invested heavily on hybrid rice, will seek to avoid GM foods from being imported.

And thus we come to the rhetoric concerning Golden Rice: GM rice, again very innocently engineered to pursue a public good (higher vit. A) intake, but to opponents just the next step with which private companies will assault public consumption.

Once again IRRI, the globe's biggest rice research center for public good has given it's support to the development of Golden Rice (Oct. 30):

'“No farmer must be left behind” was the challenge addressed to 1,500 scientists and delegates, hailing from 69 countries, who are here in Bangkok to attend the 4th International Rice Congress (IRC2014).
“This call to action adds all the more to our resolve to continue the research on Golden Rice, a potential new food-based approach to help fight vitamin A deficiency (VAD), a form of hidden hunger,” said Dr. Violeta Villegas, Golden Rice project coordinator at IRRI'.

It again questions it's distracters and emphasises it's public good. 
But fails to see how the introduction of Golden Rice is paving the way for private companies to do likewise, but with the potential profit not being dedicated to a public good, but to private investors ...

Interesting in this is the blog post by Sally Brooks from June last year, referring to a UK government standpoint (hoping for more GM). She replies:

'This is not the first time that the specific case of the Golden Rice project has been deployed as the lynchpin of an argument for policy and regulatory changes to accelerate the commercialisation on GM crops in general. This is problematic for a number of reasons which I have set out in a new article
...
As well as bringing more heat than light to an already overheated debate, the deployment of Golden Rice as ‘poster child’ in the GM crop debate has had serious consequences for the way the research has been carried out ‘on the ground’ over the years. In research stations in Southeast Asia, the pressure cooker environment surrounding the project has not been conducive to the kind of open discussion and debate – among crop scientists, nutritionists, public health experts, and others – that an ambitious research effort such as this warrants and requires. Unfortunately, too much hype ‘upstream’ has tended to close down opportunities for open scientific enquiry and debate ‘downstream’, just where it is most needed '.

With the outcome yet to take place, debate could at least take a backseat until the pro's (and cons0 have been able to prove their case. In real terms.

No surprises

While we're on institutional nonsense let's bring ADB's most recent nonsense on Cambodia. The Phnom Penh Post (Oct. 30) has an article on an ADB report:

'Cambodia's rice industry remains hindered by the size of cultivation land and an absence of domestic milling facilities as well as irrigation, according to an Asia Development Bank (ADB) report launched this week.

The ADB’s study, released Tuesday and titled Improving Rice Production and Commercialization in Cambodia, states that Cambodia’s average rice yield ranks the lowest among almost all Southeast Asian nations.

...

The study concludes that agricultural productivity in Cambodia would increase with strengthened land titling and skills development efforts from the Cambodian government, and improved access to finance, which in turn could prompt investment in irrigation and domestic milling.

...

Srey Chanthy, independent economist, said the ADB report’s findings were not surprising and represent the same issues that have been plaguing Cambodia’s rice industry for almost two decades.

“If we thought we had all the answers, then why is the issue still there? We have to ask how policy is being implemented,” Chanthy said, adding that little domestic revenue is spent on strengthening the agriculture sector.

Chanthy said improving knowledge and skills in farming should be the first priority for the Cambodian government. He called for commercial banks and microfinance institutions to increase the amount of credit available to the fledgling industry from an estimated $800 million to more than $1 billion'.

It is hardly revealing, wonder how much the study cost. It also means questioning the data itself. Thailand is a no. 1 country in export but has a very low productivity, comparable to Cambodia ....

Other rice news from Cambodia. The Phnom Penh Post (Oct. 6):

'The latest rice export figures have disappointed industry representatives with a lower-than-expected increase over the first nine months.

A report from the Cambodian Ministry of Agriculture published Saturday shows that from January to September, the Kingdom exported about 270,000 tonnes of rice, up 1.2 per cent from the same nine-month period last year'.

Out of touch

Phnom Penh Post (Oct. 24) with the latest on it's cassava industry:

'Cassava industry officials have brushed off concerns over an industry-wide slowdown amid the release of third-quarter export data.

The latest figures from the Ministry of Agriculture show that from January to September, Cambodia exported about 1.2 million tonnes of cassava. The third-quarter figure is equal to just 62 per cent of last year’s annual export total of more than 2 million tonnes'.

The same source (Oct. 17) has an interesting interview with Chan Sophal (an independent agriculture economist) concerning growing of vegetables. The background:

'But despite agriculture sustaining the livelihoods of the vast majority of the country, Cambodia still imports a large portion of its vegetables from neighbouring countries – Vietnam and Thailand – just to meet domestic demand.' 

One of the reasons, the interview emphasizes, is that Cambodia doesn't have the correct techniques. However much of what is imported are vegetables which can't grow in Cambodia, climatically. 

It is a strange interview as Chan Sophal seems to be out of touch with how to grow vegetables: 

'Vegetable growing is far more different and requires a new set of skills, compared to rice where you simply sow the seed and leave it there. Our farmers do not have this vegetable growing attitude as it requires so much attention and farming technique. The big issues are capital and skill. To start a commercial vegetable plantation, farmers need at least half a hectare to a hectare of land area and at least $5,000 to $10,000 to invest in irrigation systems, which reduce labour costs and ensure high yields. Only farmers with adequate capital will be able to run this kind of plantation'. 

In my experience vegetable growing is an ideal way to generate income for often resource poor farmers, simply because capital is not required, there's little risk and the market easily can absorb what's produced.

In other vegetable news we witnessed a knee-jerk reaction. Phnom Penh Post reports (Oct. 14): 

'Cambodian authorities are stepping up inspection efforts of vegetable imports along the border after Vietnamese produce shipped to the European Union was found to contain harmful bacteria, an official from the Kingdoms import inspection unit said yesterday'. 

This thinking would imply that (hygiene) standards in Vietnam are worse than in Cambodia. At the very best these standards are equal ...

Over to the rubber front which has many similarities: an important crop for many farmers and high prices disappearing. 

Let's start off with Cambodian news on rubber.

Counting the losses
The Cambodian Daily (Oct. 16) reports on Asian wide measures to shore up the rubber market:

'Representatives from Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, India, Sri Lanka, the Philippines and Papua New Guinea met in Malaysia and agreed not to sell rubber below $1,500 per ton, said Men Sopheak, secretary-general of the Association for Rubber Development in Cambodia.

The move will hopefully give those in Cambodia’s rubber industry, which has seen many producers abandon the trade of late due to shrinking profits, more incentive to continue production, he said'.

The Cambodian Daily (Nov. 8) notes that after the agreement prices rose. But for how long?

More rubbery news partially from Cambodia. But it starts in Vietnam. Apparently Vietnam's drive to business success is once again driving corruption. This time round it's the state run Vietnam Rubber Group which has lost a couple of hundred million $ in the past 5 years. Thanhniennews (Nov. 10): 

'State inspectors have recommended penalties for rampant financial mismanagement at the state-owned Vietnam Rubber Group which lost nearly US$391 million over the course of six years

...

One major violation, according to the inspectors, was the group's significant investment in the Phu Rieng-Kratie Rubber Company which began cultivating rubber in Cambodia in 2007.

Mismanagement of the foreign subsidiary may have resulted in VND483 billion ($22.75 million) in losses, not to mention nearly $1.9 million in loans the company cannot pay back.

Much of this money was lost due to Phu Rieng-Kratie Rubber's investments in non-core businesses, the inspectors said'. 

Most though were investments outside rubber plantations which yielded nada. The Phnom Penh Post chimes in (Nov. 12):

'In 2011, VRG said it had invested $200 million in 100,000 hectares of plantations in Cambodia. Companies are legally allowed to own only 10,000 hectares in economic land concessions.

In February, Phu Rieng Kratie Co transferred 90 per cent of its shares to a Singapore-registered company called Kratie Plantations Holdings, owned by investor David Gardner [most probably website].

Gardner, who could not be reached by phone or email yesterday, is listed as director of Asian and African investments for Global Forest Partners, a multibillion-dollar US-based investment fund which has received money from the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation to conduct climate change mitigation programs.

In November last year, Gardner became director of the board of another VRG subsidiary with a 10,000-hectare rubber plantation in the same district.

According to a Global Witness report released last year, VRG has 161,344 hectares of rubber plantations in the Kingdom'. 

Obscuring the truth?

Over in Thailand, the Nation (Oct. 12) dedicates an article to the reverse side of the disappearing of subsidies for rubber farmers: 

'As rubber prices slump, hard-up farmers in Thailand -- the world's top producer of the commodity -- are appealing for a bailout, testing the junta's resolve to end populist policies and an entrenched subsidy culture.

...

With dawn creeping over his plantation in Pa Ko subdistrict of Phang Nga province, Jade Charongan said tapping his 500 trees for the once-lucrative sap yields around $130 a month.

Three years ago he earned five times that amount ...

...

Farmers’ groups are calling on the military government to guarantee the price at 80 baht a kilo.

They also want the suspension of a plan to release 210,000 tonnes of stockpiled -- but fast-degrading -- rubber to the market, fearing it will further depress prices.

Their disquiet threatens a fallout with the junta'.

The Nation (Oct. 19) follows up with a small article on how farmers are measuring up government price policies:

'Rubber farmers in Surat Thani said yesterday the government's goal to push for a price of Bt60 per kilogram while also providing farmers Bt1,000 per rai, for up to 15 rai as in a fertiliser subsidy, was acceptable'.

On the 29th the Nation notes the discontent.

'Leaders of rubber farmers in the South have expressed disappointment with the government subsidy of Bt1,000 per rai, limited to a maximum of 15 rai each.

Tossapol Kwanrod, chairman of the rubber and palm oil farmers' network in 16 southern provinces, said the government had ignored calls from the rubber farmers to offer sustainable solutions. It had opted to provide short-term remedies similar to those of previous governments'.

Counting the cost

The Bangkok Post has the inside story on the rice pledge scheme: 

'The government's rice stocks have been found to be in a very poor state, with as much as 90% classified as substandard — and the cost to the state could be 580-700 billion baht'. 

That would be 18-20 billion US$! It continues:

'On Tuesday, Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha revealed the outcome of a nationwide rice audit led by ML Panadda Diskul, permanent secretary for the Prime Minister's Office, that reported only 10% of the 18 million tonnes of rice was of good quality.

"The report shows 70% of the rice is tainted with a yellow colour, while the rest is in bad condition and not edible and should only be allocated for ethanol production," said Gen Prayut.

The inspection also found about 100,000 tonnes of rice missing.

...

A Commerce Ministry source said the figure of only 100,000 tonnes of rice missing from state stocks was quite insignificant compared with the 3 million tonnes reported missing in June 2013 by former deputy finance permanent secretary Supa Piyajitti, who chaired a subcommittee overseeing the accounts of the pledging scheme'.

Then later (Nov. 6) it reports losses might just reach 1 trillion Thai bhat (~30 billion $US). It's a very extensive account with lots of doomsday scenario's: it even emphasizes that the country will go broke if an elected (and democratic) government ever gets into power!

And on the thirteenth, Bangkok Post notes the following:

'More than a dozen rice-pledging schemes since 2004 have cost the country 682 billion baht, but about 76% of those losses were caused by the previous government’s four programmes, the Finance Ministry said'.

So what is the cost?

Ways forward

The Nation (Oct. 20) notes the new Thai government policy towards rice farmers:

'Rice farmers nationwide will today receive the government subsidy of Bt1,000 per rai - up to 15 rai - per household.

The registration period for the subsidy will continue until November 15'.

The Bangkok Post on the same day mentions that the first farmers already have the cash on their accounts.

But there are other ways to help poor people. Take this example (The Nation, November 5): 

'A large area of public land covering 5,000 plots in 22 provinces is set to be distributed by the middle of next year so poor and landless citizens around the country can rent areas to grow crops for at least five years, the Lands Department announced yesterday'. 

Farmers were not satisfied, they want to have something they can sell ...

The news follows Thai Prime Minister recent promise to help poor Thais regain happiness via the allocation of public land as a gift in the New Year.

The future for rice marketing may well be niche marketing. Bangkok Post (Oct. 29) has an interesting example of doing business via Facebook:

'Sirimanee Maneethapho, a new-generation farmer in tambon Tha Tarn of Bang Krathum district, said she and her friends had been contacted by a middleman to grow Hom Nil rice in the previous crop with a promise of getting 10,000 baht a tonne for unmilled rice. The group bought seed from the middleman, who said the rice would be sold to health-conscious consumers.

But after they harvested the rice, the middleman did not show up to buy the produce as promised. Ms Sirimanee said at that time she was in urgent need of money to care for her sick mother so she decided to try advertising Hom Nil rice on Facebook. To her surprise, the product received a warm welcome, so much so that she could sell almost five tonnes within three months at around 30,000 baht each. For the new crop, Ms Sirimanee has allowed pre-orders. She plans to grow riceberry — a crossbred variety between brownish purple and black aromatic rice — as well as white jasmine, fragrant and white rice'.

Manipulation

Bangkok Post (Oct. 9) mentions that now the rice pledging scheme has ended, the rice export market has returned to the old situation: Thailand returns to the no. 1 position. Excerpt:

'Two years after losing its place as the world's biggest rice exporter, Thailand has displaced India to return to the top spot, global-industry information firm IHS Inc said Thursday'.

It also mentions this sentence which seems to go beyond that of impartial reporting:

'Global buyers refused to buy it [rice pledged] in retaliation for Ms Yingluck's attempt to manipulate the market by hoarding grain'.

Bangkok Post (Oct. 29) in an unrelated article has these lines:

'Prices have dropped 19% this year, heading for the biggest loss since 2001 and helping keep a lid on global food costs that the United Nations said fell for a sixth month in September. The Bloomberg Agriculture Index of seven commodities slid the most last quarter since 2008 as the USDA projects combined global output of rice, corn, soybeans and wheat will advance to a record this season'.

Regional

The Laotian government announces more land deals with China, now also in the south of Laos. So reports the Vientiane Times (Oct. 29): 

'The project will cover an area of 10,000 hectares and the project activities will include rice plantations, irrigation systems, livestock husbandry, fruit tree plantations and modern processing factories'.

The Lao government hopes to increase production of rice for export (Vientiane Times, Oct. 10):

'The government is focusing on increasing rice production for export sales as the country has been growing enough to meet local demand for more than ten years.

In response to the recommendations of the government, farmers all around the country have been changing their growing methods by adopting new planting techniques and acquiring improved seeds.

A large number of farmers have shifted to a more automated form of ploughing and seeding for their rice planting and again at harvest time as the use of the machines speeds up the work and requires much less labour'.

Vietnamnet (Oct. 30) has an article on how subsidies on rice and rice growing work for Vietnam. They don't. 

'The policy on rice subsidy does not benefit Vietnamese farmers and consumers, as rice export prices are even lower than domestic prices'.

One way for a solution would be to remove VAT tax of 5% levied on domestic consumption.