Jamaica, Guyana row over rice

[evanovitch]

Re: Jamaica, Guyana row over rice

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: HemGee</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: evanovitch</div><div class="ubbcode-body">so rice gwine to be expensive given wat happening here wid dis source...so u can imagine the fight fi world source and the way said fight gwine to push up prices...dat is why Guyana want to not have to lock in promises wid dem rice supply...dem want to be able to sell to di highest bidder..an memba dat Guyana is not really Caribbean so dem nat Caricom really..dem is SA an ongle cause dem is di ongle English speaker on SA , why we always 'include' dem in di WI..so dem loyalty is really to demself
</div></div>

Caricom started in 72 and Guyana been a member since 73, so it's probably a little unjust to imply it's in Caricom caw the other member states sorry feet, no?

i think the jamaican government is being a little shortsighted in putting price over strategic partnership (if, in fact, price is the driving factor, i would hope its at least that and not some misguided effort to suck up to the states).

Caricom and the market interests of its individual states are better served by unity and not being picked off individually (divide and conquer). </div></div>

[img]/forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/blush.gif[/img]

[Blackstar*]

Re: Jamaica, Guyana row over rice

<span style="color: #336666"><span style='font-family: Arial Black'><span style='font-size: 11pt'> Guyanese cagey on rice contracts - Won't agree to long-term deals</span></span></span>
published: Wednesday | April 9, 2008

Richard Deane, Business Reporter


Stacks of packaged rice in a supermarket. - <span style='font-size: 8pt'>Rudolph Brown/Chief Photographer</span>

Already hit by steep increases in basic food prices, it appears that consumers could be further burdened by a spike in the price of rice - a popular staple in the diets of Jamaicans.

The imminence of the price spike has emerged as Guyanese suppliers, who provide over 40 per cent of the rice consumed in Jamaica, have refused to lock themselves into the usual half-year contracts, raising fears among Kingston's importers of escalating prices during the current crop.

"There has been a change in the way that they have approached the issue of supply," said Bruno Loffler, the CEO of Jamaica Rice Milling, a major importer and miller of Guyanese rice. "In this current crop the Guyanese are only committing one shipment at a time."

In the past the trade would be based on six-month forward supply contracts,but with world market price for the commodity fluctuating in recent times, the Guyanese apparently want to keep their options open.

"They are watching to see what will happen," Loffler told Wednesday Business.

Jamaica and Guyana are members of the 15-nation Caribbean Community (CARICOM), a trade and political organisation that has been attempting to harmonise into a single market.

<span style='font-family: Arial Black'>Strengths</span>

The arrangement provides Guyanese growers with an advantage in the Jamaican market, but their situation is further strengthened by two factors: increasing Jamaican demand and the upward swing, globally, in food prices.

During the first 11 months of last year, for instance, Jamaica's rice imports jumped seven per cent, to 93,000 tonnes, driven in part by mid-year storms that damaged domestic agriculture. During the period supplies from Guyana increased by 13 per cent, to 41,500 tonnes, compared to the same period in 2006.

Yet, Guyana, with other markets beckoning its suppliers couldn't meet all of Jamaica's demands, helping to drive up prices here. The retail price of rice jumped over 50 per cent.

<span style='font-family: Arial Black'>Increasing supplies</span>

Towards the end of last year Jamaican importers had predicted that projections of a good spring rice crop would not only ease supplies, but also moderate prices.

But a global spiral in the cost of the commodity, helped by bad weather in Asia, where supplies from countries such as Cambodia and China, appears to be undermining such analyses.

In the circumstance, Jamaica is hoping to increase supplies from the United States, where costs have increased by about 27 per cent over last year - from $1,950 to $2,475 per 45kg bag. Loffler hopes that the US suppliers, most of whom are locked in six-month contracts, will meet up to half of Jamaica's demand.

In the case of Guyana, their price has jumped approximately 33 per cent over last year, but at the current $2,375 per 45kg bag, it is still a little over four per cent cheaper than American rice.

Michael Stern, Jamaica's junior trade and commerce minister said he was aware of the rice supply situation and the fact that the Asian shortage was competition for the output from Guyana and Caricom's rice producer, Suriname.

Last year CARICOM agreed to Jamaica's request for a relaxation of trade rules to allow the island to buy more rice from outside the community. Stern said that the Jamaican Government was watching the current Guyana harvest before coming to a decision on whether to make another such request.

"This can top up demand but we are hoping for a bumper crop," Stern said.

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Copyright Jamaica-Gleaner.com

[evanovitch]

Re: Jamaica, Guyana row over rice

grain is di nex ting fi fight ovah so dem is kipping it close to dem chess...u cyan fault dem really....Ja can gwane kip eroding shoreline to dem chess...it wi pay dem di dividends dem deserve [img]/forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/rolleyes.gif[/img]

[bee_bop]

Re: Jamaica, Guyana row over rice

Good time to go back to; Yam, Coco, potato, and boiled bananas...
Rice has too much carbohydrates, and potatoes are the ideal substitute.
Maybe the increase in the price of rice is probably a blessing in disguise.

[evanovitch]

Asia rice panic should subside as farmers rush crops

Asia rice panic should subside as farmers rush crops

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - A global rush for rice that has heightened food security anxiety across Asia should slow in coming months, as consumer nations replenish lowly stocks, extra crops boost supplies and a sense of panic subsides.

Rice output is set to rise this year as major producers plant additional crops, likely slowing or halting a rally that has caused prices to more than double since January and added a new element of political risk to policymakers' inflation headache caused by the surge in global food prices.

Even before those fresh crops hit the market rice analysts and traders expect the frenzy of recent purchases to ebb as importers grow more confident on future supplies.

"Governments are desperate to build supplies before things worsen. They are now better positioned. This increases the likelihood that a crisis can be averted," Abah Ofon, a soft commodities analyst at Standard Chartered Bank, told Reuters.

The growing unease over rice supplies reached fever pitch in recent weeks as surging food inflation prompts some of the world's top suppliers to curb exports, hoping to tame prices at home -- while goading them higher abroad.

Benchmark Thai 100 percent parboiled rice soared from $500 a tonne in late February to a record of nearly $925 a tonne this week, even though prices normally start coming off as harvests peak from April to July.

There's a good argument for higher prices. Global stocks have fallen by half since their early 1980s peak as demand expanded faster than production, but benchmark prices had hovered around $400 a tonne or lower since the start of this decade.

Other grain prices have also doubled or more as competition for cropland intensifies, demand from increasingly wealthy emerging economies grows and biofuels suck up supplies.

But now, encouraged by high prices and strong demand, farmers in the world's two biggest exporters, Thailand and Vietnam -- which account for about half of world rice exports -- are working feverishly to plant more. The results of that effort should materialize more quickly than for other grains.

That in turn should help soothe the jangled nerves of politicians hyper-sensitive to any shortage of the staple food for Asia's 3 billion people, and already reeling from gains in the price of crude, metals and other commodities.

"When the market is this sensitive, fundamentals take a back seat. We will see the supply response coming in terms of increased yield and production, but it will take at least 12 months," Ofon said.

The Food and Agriculture Organization said this month that although global rice trade would fall by a marginal 3.5 percent this year due to export restrictions, production is expected to grow by 1.8 percent, assuming normal weather.

Only about 5 percent of the world's rice is freely traded, with huge consumers like China, Japan and India self-sufficient.

QUICK RESPONSE

Unlike many other crops that take a year or more to show the results of expansion, rice farmers can fit a third crop into their normal two-cycle year, and paddy fields often don't compete for arable land in the same way that corn, soy and wheat do.

On Tuesday the U.S. Department of Agriculture revised up its rice output estimate for the 2007/08 marketing year ending in May to 425.29 million tonnes, from an estimate of 422.94 million one month ago.

It also revised up the closing stocks estimate for 2007/08 to 77.09 million tonnes, from 75.17 million, reflecting a stockbuild in the Philippines and Indonesia.

But the effort to build up stocks drove up prices and stoked fears of a shortage, causing Vietnam to clamp down on fresh export contracts, India to ban all rice sales and top importer the Philippines to seek a government promise from Hanoi.

Analysts and traders said those measures only added to the market's panic, sending prices even higher and leading to hoarding, cancellations and defaults -- despite the fact that rice was still widely available, albeit at a higher price.

"For the Philippine market there is no shortage. For this year, there have been two biddings already in January and March and there are so many cargoes coming in from Vietnam and Thailand," said a Philippine trader.

The Philippines has said it could buy up to 2.2 million tonnes this year in what would be its biggest overseas purchase of the grain in a decade, and President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has taken a personal interest in rice supplies -- although she may be stoking a sense of scarcity at odds with market realities.

"To be honest, it kind of aggravates the situation," said a Manila trader. "If you are an ordinary Filipino, from the surface it seems like something is wrong, like we are running out. They are kind of fanning the fire."

Governments across Asia are likely to remain anxious for a while still given the importance of rice in the region.

Food accounts for almost 50 percent of the total expenditure for an average Indonesian citizen, while it's only 10 percent in developed countries such as the United States, Standard Chartered bank said in a research paper.

"We will see these measures on rice staying for a longer time. " said Sunil Patwari, general manager at Singapore-based grains traders Adani Global Pte Ltd. "Governments don't want to leave anything to chance."

(Additional reporting by Carmel Crimmins in Manila; Editing by Jonathan Leff)