www.asianfarmers.org

Ms. Kate Jang, Coordinator for Munhwa Broadcasting Corp (MBC), and their documentary production crew, visited the AFA office today to discuss the arrangements for a visit to rice farmers with Ms. Esther Penunia, AFA Secretary General, and KM staff Ms. Lina Tinamisan.

MBC, which is one of the top 3 TV companies in Korea, is in the Philippines for another documentary on the rice farmers and the rampant land conversion in the country.

Recently, the company also did a documentary on the worldwide food crisis, featuring the rice crisis in the Philippines. It was shown in the program “W” (Wold Wide Weekly) last April 25, which airs every Friday at 11:50 PM on MBC channel in Korea. AFA also facilitated their interviews and field visits at that time. (Photo taken by Shui Tsai)

By Bill Quigley
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 20:03:00 05/03/2008
VIOLENT PROTESTS IGNITED BY SOARING FOOD PRICES TOPPLED ON APRIL 12 PRIME MINISTER Jacques Edouard Alexis of Haiti, the poorest country in the Americas. It was the first government in the world that fell victim to angry people suffering from high food costs due to rising fuel prices, weather problems, increased demand in China and India, low global stocks, the use of crops to create biofuels and commodity speculation.

Food riots have also erupted in more than a dozen countries.

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Philippine Daily Inquirer, Posted date: May 06, 2008

SYDNEY—From the rice paddies of Asia to the wheat fields of Australia, the soaring price of food is breaking the budgets of the poor and raising the specters of hunger and unrest.

A billion people in Asia are seriously affected by the surging costs of daily staples such as rice and bread, according to Rajat Nag, director general of the Asian Development Bank (ADB).

“This includes roughly about 600 million people who live on just under a dollar a day, which is the definition of poverty, and another 400 million who are just above that borderline,” he said.

The World Bank last month estimated that 33 countries were threatened with political and social unrest because of the skyrocketing costs of food and energy.

Across Asia, workers made a campaign against high food prices their May Day battle cry last week in marches through cities including the capitals of the Philippines, Indonesia and Thailand.

While the demonstrations were mainly peaceful, concern is growing over the potential for political instability and unrest if high prices persist.

“Once people get hungry they start also getting quite desperate and take desperate measures,” Damien Kingsbury of Australia’s Deakin University told Agence France Presse.

Read the full article here

Mr. Kim Gwan Bae of the Korean Advanced Farmers’ Federation (KAFF) and Ms. Park of the Women’s Adanced Farmers’ Federation visited the AFA office today. They met the AFA Secretary General Esther Penunia, Technical Assistant Shui Tsai, and Admin Officer Agnes Ramos. Taking the picture is AFA Operations Officer Jun Virola. Mr. Kim and Ms. Park came to the Philippines for their wedding honeymoon.

They took the opportunity to visit the AFA office as part of the activities to further strengthen the relationship between AFA members and the Secretariat. The partners shared some Filipino food and exchanged some gifts.

In an expression of support and continuing partnership with AFA, leaders of the Asian Partnership for the Development of Human Resources in Rural Asia (AsiaDHRRA) visited the AFA office today and met the secretariat staff.

Dr. Sung Lee of KoDHRRA and Dr. Wenchi Huang of TaiwanDHRRA, who are both members of AsiaDHRRA’s Execom, took the time to make the visit after the conclusion of AsiaDHRRA’s Execom Meeting in the Philippines.

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Rice price storm over
09:05′ 29/04/2008 (GMT+7)

VietNamNet Bridge – The rice price began decreasing on the afternoon of April 28 after the Government made a strong commitment to provide enough rice to people and threatened to punish speculators. Read more

Rice fever to be stamped out in some days
19:13′ 28/04/2008 (GMT+7)

VietNamNet Bridge – Rice trading companies are bringing rice to HCM City in an effort to stamp out the rice price fever, according to Nguyen Thi Nguyet, Secretary General of the Vietnam Food Association (VFA). Read more

Rushing to buy rice, prices skyrocketing
10:33′ 28/04/2008 (GMT+7)

VietNamNet Bridge – The subsidisation period, supposedly a thing of the past, is being remembered these days as Saigonese are rushing to buy rice in anticipation of a serious food shortage. Read more

While the multi-billion additional funding for rice and several other crops is a welcome development, we disagree with how the government plans to spend it. Going through the components of the package, dubbed FIELDS, it is clear that the intention is to increase the hectarage devoted to hybrid rice production, with an allocation of P2.7 billion until 2010. We find this difficult to understand given the poor performance of the hybrid rice program and the many issues that have been raised against it over the years.

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PRESS RELEASE issued at the Press Conference in IWPC in Delhi on April 24, 2008  
Farmers under the banner of Bharatiya Krishak Samaj has decided to launch a 8-day long Kisan Yatra on April 26, 2008  in protest against the anti-farmer policies of the government and the deliberate move by the Haryana government to grab fertile farmland from farmers at a platter for setting up of SEZs. The Yatra will be flagged off from village Pelpa near Badli in  Rohtak district in Haryana at 10.00 am on April 26 by the president of Bharatiya Krishak Samaj, Dr Krishan Bir Chaudhary.

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 (The following are the data from Dr. Wenchi Huang of TaiwanDHRRA in response to a survey questionnaire sent by WRF on the food crisis and the situation of farmers in Asia.)

With regard to the food price issues, here is the answer to the following questions for Taiwan.

The information is based on the recently released statistics by various government agencies (the statistical data are available from the website of the COA):

(1) The Consumer Price Index (CPI) is from the “Price Statistics Monthly in Taiwan Area, R.O.C.,” Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS), Executive Yuan.  

(2) For the rice price information is from the Agriculture and Food Agency of the Council of Agriculture (AFA of COA)

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The Hindu, April 25, 2008

PHNOM PENH (Xinhua): Cambodia expects to be able to export eight million tonnes of rice per year by 2015, Khmer-English language newspaper the Mekong Times on Friday quoted Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries Chan Sarun as saying.

“We will encourage farmers to crop twice or three times a year and further strengthen irrigation systems in order to increase rice production,” the minister told an exhibition of natural agricultural products held on Thursday in Kampong Chhnang province, stressing that the country has three million hectares of agricultural land.

Yang Saing Koma, executive director of the Cambodian Center for Study and Development in Agriculture, agreed that the harvest could be boosted.

In fact, he said, the kingdom could produce up to 10 million tonnes of rice in the next four or five years.

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