News about rice is all over the place; and your Eyewitness doesn’t mean just on the various news media platforms, but plain confusing!! He’s reading of a 725,282-tonne 2024 production – with an average national yield of 6.6 tonnes per hectare – the highest recorded in our history!! Of that, we exported some 425,490 metric tonnes (including by-products like bran) to 30 countries, earning some US$254,036,050.
That means the 750,000 of us in Mudland consumed a whopping 300,000 tonnes – almost .4 tonne for every man, woman, child and baby!!
More than anyone else on Planet Earth, we should know why they call rice a “staple” – and we shouldn’t feel insulted if people call us a “nation of rice eaters”!!
But also in the news, even as we more than pulled our weight on the rice front, were rising prices of the staple in the shops and markets – super or otherwise – even though farmers complained about pi55-poor prices ($4000 per bag??) paid for their paddy by millers.
So, what’s going on here?? Price gouging by the millers, who’re buying (paddy) low and selling (rice) high?? But then we hear that the exporters – who’re dominated by millers – are not getting good prices for their exports, cause the world market prices have been heading downwards to US$400/ tonne from US$600/tonne just a year ago.
What the heck’s going on?? The Government have been doing their bit for the sector, because we read about them removing VAT on rice-production inputs like machinery, equipment, fertilizers, and pesticides. Pressie has just announced that each farmer’s gonna be getting one bag of fertilizer for each acre of land being cultivated. It would cost the Government some $2 billion, but should further reduce production costs!! Drying floors and other facilities are already being constructed for the farmers’ paddy to be stored longer and earn them higher prices from the millers.
And it’s time we read about those millers – who’re not so often in the news, but are in a position where they always come out smelling roses! The farmers HAVE to sell their paddy to them; and because of this, the millers have them in a vice. Millers always hustle farmers on the GRADE and the weight of paddy; and when the paddy isn’t dried and can “go bad”, farmers are forced to take whatever they get from millers!!
Through the years, the Government tried various strategies and stratagems to level the playing field for rice farmers, but millers still find ways to get their way!!
What to do?? Well, just do what the US do for their paddy producers during price drops: introduce crop insurance and indemnify farmers, plus subsidise a minimum profitable paddy price!!
…Dragon
China boasts about not being transactional in its relations with other countries – always virtue signalling as to how it acts for the “greater good”. Well, looks like when the Chinese gotta put their money (Juan? Renminbi??) where their mouths are in the ongoing tariff war, their words come out from different sides of their mouths!! They just issued a WARNING to any country – like us! – that if they negotiate with the US to work out an arrangement, that’s gonna be deemed APPEASEMENT!!
What did the “unselfish” Chinese actually say?? According to one account: “China firmly opposes any party reaching a deal at the expense of China’s interests. Appeasement will not bring peace, and compromise will not be respected… To seek one’s own temporary selfish interests at the expense of others’ interests is to seek the skin of a tiger!!”
Evidently, the latter actual cryptic expression is: “to attempt the impossible that runs against the interests of opponent.”
In this case, the dragon is the tiger that won’t be skinned!!
…Kashmir
A Pakistani-based terrorist group shattered Kashmir’s calm – and incipient good relations between India and Pakistan – when they shot and killed 26 tourists!! Modi truncated his Saudi trip to spearhead the response – which must be condign.
