rice

The International Grains Council said its forecast of a record-large global rice crop "is tentative, especially given uncertainty about the impact of El Nino on crops in Asia."

Rice, one of the world's staple foods, feeds hundreds of millions of people daily. It's also high in starch, "which turns to sugar, and often thereafter body fat," says the Washington Post.

Researchers at the Philippine Rice Research Institute have identified 25 new breeding lines of rice that tolerate higher temperatures than are considered ideal for current varieties.

A surge in rice consumption will pull down stockpiles to a five-year low, a reduction of 8 percent that will be felt the most in major exporters Thailand and India, said the International Grains Council in its monthly Grain Market Report.

Back as the No 1 rice exporter in the world, Thailand will export a record 11 million tonnes of rice during 2015 due in part to higher demand from Indonesia, whose population is growing more rapidly than rice production, said the Agriculture Department in...

Vietnam has muscled into the top tier of rice exporters and produces vast amounts of shrimp from man-made ponds across the Mekong Delta, bringing prosperity to its farmers, says the Guardian.

The world's largest rice grower and consumer, China, renewed the biosafety certificates for five additional years for two varieties of genetically engineered rice developed within the country, says Reuters.

Consumer Reports released consumption guidelines for consumer who want to reduce their exposure to inorganic arsenic in rice and again urged FDA to set standards for arsenic in rice-based foods.

New and more sustainable varieties of the three major food crops of the world, corn, rice and wheat, are needed to supply world food needs while conserving natural resources and withstanding climate change, said the UN Food and Agriculture Organization.

While U.S. rice production is zooming, California will see its smallest crop in 16 years, said USDA in its Rice Outlook report. The harvest was forecast at 36.4 million hundredweight, down 24 percent due to drought that restricted plantings.

The Chinese government has launched a campaign on TV, newspapers and the Internet to build public support for genetically engineered crops, says Reuters.

Corn, long-grain rice and sorghum are the most likely of the crops in the farm program to generate a subsidy payment because of low market prices, say economists Carl Zulauf of Ohio State University and Gary Schnitkey of U-Illinois. "Payments are far from certain," they write at farmdoc daily, "if prices strengthen due to lower production or higher demand." Their calculations, an update of an earlier blog, are based on USDA's estimates of season-average prices and yields nationwide. The new Agriculture Risk Coverage plan is more likely to trigger a payment than the Price Loss Coverage plan PLC allows large payouts.

Researchers at the University of Delaware are looking at soil bacteria as a defense against arsenic build-up in rice, one of the leading food crops globally, says the New York Times. Long-term exposure to arsenic can be damaging to human health. One bacterium, Pantoa agglomerans, seems to reduce arsenic in the stems of rice plants to one-eighth of former levels, says scientist Harsh Bais in the Times article, which says it is the first microbe shown to reduce arsenic in rice. Research is now looking at whether the change affects rice quality.

Rice growers in drought-baked California expect twice the reduction in their crop than does USDA. An official with the California Rice Commission told CBS Sacramento that rice plantings and harvest area will be about 420,000 acres this year, down 25 percent from 2013. California is the largest grower of short- and medium-grain rice, the types used in sushi. The rice crop is worth $5 billion, so the smaller crop could mean $1 billion less in rice revenue.

Farmers around the world are boosting corn production by 12 percent, or 112 million tonnes, since drought-hit 2012, says the International Grains Council. Larger corn crops are the major reason for the surge in global grain production notwithstanding a record-large wheat crop this season, forecast for 713 million tonnes. IGC, based in London, estimated the global corn crop at 973 million tonnes this year, led by 355 million tonnes in the United States, more than a third of the world total. China is the second-largest grower, with 22 percent of the world crop.

China's Agriculture Ministry decided not to renew permits that allowed development of three varieties of genetically engineered rice and corn, a decision that...

Commodity prices are down sharply this year for major crops yet wheat and soybeans may not trigger subsidies under the new farm law, says economist Carl Zulauf of Ohio State University in a blog.

China's agriculture ministry "vowed zero tolerance and harsh punishments for illegal sales and growing of genetically modified (GM) crops days after media exposure of GM rice on sale at a supermarket in central China," says China Daily. Biotech rice is not approved for use in the country.