GM Rice Export Rejection + Non-GMO Crop Index + Bio-fuel & IFPRI + Agri Issues

[Guest guest]

In This NEWS Bulletin******************************** 1. Exporters worried over GM rice rejection2. Diapason starts commodity index tracking prices of non-GM crops 3. Govts need to push green fuels to match demand : IFPRI Other Agri Issues & Farmers' Suicides & SEZs----- 4. Centre seeks UNDP, World Bank help to strengthen panchayats (local village governments)5. Special Economic Zone (SEZ) status for mega food parks on the anvil.6. Plan panel fine-tuning Rs 60,000 million package to mitigate farmers' disterss and suicides7. Tax sops to SEZs to cost Rs 1,000,000 million by 2009-10-------------------------- Exporters worried over GM rice rejection http://www.financialexpress.com/fe_full_story.php?content_id=147469 ASHOK B SHARMA Posted

online: Tuesday, November 28, 2006 at 0000 hours IST NEW DELHI, NOV 27: Indian rice exporters are concerned over the growing rejection of genetically modified (GM) across the world. Recently producers in major rice exporting countries - Thailand and Vietnam -signed agreement to keep GM rice out of cultivation. The All India Rice Exporters Association (AIREA) has woken up to the situation and have asked the government not to allow any field trials or commercial cultivation of GM rice in the country. They say that the retention of the country’s image as producer of non-GM foods would largely boost the prospects of rice exports. “Country earns millions of

dollars in foreign exchange due to export of rice. India’s long grain aromatic rice - basmati has a premium market abroad,” said RS Seshadri of Tilda Riceland - a major exporter of basmati rice. AIREA chief Anil Adlakha has already expressed his concern over the possible contamination of long grain non-GM rice if GM rice trials were allowed to be conducted in the country. Seshadri said “We must learn lessons from the recent contamination of food chain by GM rice under field trials in the US and China. The profitability of US rice industry has declined as many countries began rejecting the US shipments of contaminated rice.” He said recently on November 16 in the Rice Exporters Association of Thailand and the Vietnam Food Association signed an accord in Bangkok to keep off GM rice. This accord was signed in presence of senior officials and ministers of both the countries. He said that this is a wake up call for India too.---- Diapason starts commodity index tracking prices of non-GM crops http://www.financialexpress.com/fe_full_story.php?content_id=147470 Posted online: Tuesday, November 28, 2006 at 0000 hours IST NOV 27: Diapason Commodities Management SA, a fund manager with $5 billion in assets, started an index that tracks prices for non-genetically modified crops. The Diapason Commodity Agriculture Non-GMO Index was introduced on Monday and is published in the US dollars, the company, based in London and Lausanne, Switzerland, said in an e-mailed statement. The index only includes commodities whose exports represent more than 0.1% of global world trade, Diapason said. The commodities must also have a combined market value and open interest that average more than $10 million. Open interest is contracts that haven’t been closed,

liquidated, or delivered. More than half of the European Union’s 450 million consumers consider genetically engineered foods to be dangerous, according to a June 2005 EU poll. Diapason was set up three years ago by James Rogers, who co-founded the Quantum hedge fund with George Soros in 1970. Five futures contracts currently qualify for Diapason’s index: non-GMO soybeans, which are traded on the Tokyo Grain Exchange; and milling wheat, feed wheat, corn and rapeseed, which are listed on Euronext, Diapason

said. Funds that track commodity indexes expose investors to gains and declines in the prices of a selection of raw materials without owning the assets. Futures are contracts for delivery of a security at a specified time in the future at an agreed price. In February, Diapason and UBS AG, Europe’s biggest bank by assets, introduced the world’s first biofuels index, which tracks prices for commodities used to produce ethanol and biodiesel. Diapason also started the Diapason Commodities Index in June. —Bloomberg ------------------------------ Govts need to push green fuels to match demand : IFPRI http://www.financialexpress.com/fe_full_story.php?content_id=147397 ASHOK B SHARMA Posted online: Monday, November 27, 2006 at 0051 hours IST NEW DELHI, NOV 26: Bio-fuel production needs more investments and policy support from governments to help meet the growing demand for energy, a study done by the US-based International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) has recommended. It said that bio-fuel production would make “a difference in the lives of the poor as both energy producers and consumers.” The study jointly authored by IFPRI director-general, Joachim von Braun and noted global environmentalist, RK Pachauri brushed aside what they called skeptics’ argument that bio-fuel production would threaten food supplies for the poor and fail to achieve the claimed environmental benefits. IFPRI researchers have used their International Model for Policy Analysis of Agricultural Commodities and Trade (IMPACT) to determine how a scenario of aggressive growth in bio-fuel production could effect food

availability and consumption at global and regional levels. The IFPRI model considered three possibilities and found food-versus-fuel trade-off would be possible only in cases where innovations and technology investment would be largely absent and where trade and subsidies would be flawed. The situation changes considerably when technological advances in bio-fuels and crop production are considered. However, in the first scenario of aggressive growth in bio-ethanol and bio-diesel production shows significant increases in world prices for various feedstock crops. If cassava is aggressively used as a feedstock, its prices will rise significantly causing sizable welfare losses to

the major consumers of this crop in sub-Saharan Africa. Saying so the researchers said : “It should be noted that past experiments with cassava-based bio-fuels in Brazil were not promising.” In the second possible scenario, the IFPRI model suggests that if cellulosic bio-fuel technologies which rely on by-products of food and feed and feedstock produced for non-food purposes on marginal lands, becomes commercially viable and widely adopted in about a decade, the impact on markets and food systems could be significantly mitigated. According to the third possible scenario suggested by the IFPRI, consumer-level impact can be mitigated through crop technology innovation at the farm level and investment in the bio-fuel industry and agriculture sector. The study assumes that rapid growth in demand for bio-ethanol all over the world and for bio-diesel in Europe together with continued high oil prices and rapid breakthrough in bio-fuel technology. It considered potential feedstock crops for bio-ethanol —maize, sugarcane, sugar beet, and wheat and for bio-diesel crops like oil seeds, including soybeans. According to the study, bio-fuels will account for 10% of transport fuel production by 2010, 15% by 2015

and 20% by 2020 in most parts of the world, except for adjustments in line with other projections for Brazil, the European Union and US. The projection for bio-diesel were limited in Europe because the EU-15 countries represent almost 90% of the world production by volume. The second generation cellulosic conversion technologies may come on line for large scale production by 2015 and this would help bio-fuel production from crops grown for non-food purposes on marginal lands. Centre seeks UNDP, World Bank help to strengthen panchayats (local village

governments) http://www.financialexpress.com/fe_full_story.php?content_id=147123 ASHOK B SHARMA ECONOMY BUREAU Posted online: Thursday, November 23, 2006 at 0217 hours IST NEW DELHI, NOV 22: The government has decided to ask the World Bank and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to assist it in the capacity building measure for panchayati raj institutions - village local governments. Briefing mediapersons in the Capital on Wednesday, the minister for panchayati raj institutions, Mani Shankar Aiyar said: "We have asked for assistance from the World Bank and the UNDP. The negotiations are at a preliminary stage. We are hopeful about the outcome." On the issue of weeding out several development schemes proposed by the Planning Commission, Aiyar

said "I am for rationalisation of the schemes and their convergence at the level of panchayats." On the state of the panchayats report, three volumes of which were released by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Aiyar said it was a mid-term review and an appraisal to help the policymakers and to further the cause of PRIs and devolution of power to the people.------------------------------- SEZ status for mega food parks on the anvil http://www.financialexpress.com/fe_full_story.php?content_id=147281 ASHOK B SHARMA

ECONOMY BUREAU Posted online: Saturday, November 25, 2006 at 0122 hours IST NEW DELHI, NOV 24: The ministry of food processing industries has moved a comprehensive proposal to give a special economic zone (SEZ) status to proposed mega food technology parks with a provision of 50% produce for domestic consumption and remaining 50% for exports. Announcing this at an Assocham summit on food processing on Friday, Subodh Kant Sahai, minster of state for food processing also said this proposal has been moved to a group of ministers (GoM), Planning Commission and NMCC and would also be shortly forwarded to the Cabinet for its consideration. The minimum and

maximum area prescribed for proposed mega food parks is between 10 and 100 hectares of land with adequate refinancing facilities from Nabard and a minimum central allocation of Rs 1 lakh crore, Sahai said. The minister said that the finance ministry has also agreed to make food processing industry a zero excise tax based industry by fiscal 2007-08 following recommendation from the food processing ministry. He added that in the last two and half years, excise taxation rates in the sector have been brought down to 8% from 32%, and by next fiscal, the taxation would be zero based with minimum possible local levies in view of growing significance of this sector. Sahai said the finance ministry would have to give tax concessions to mega food processing parks on the lines of an SEZ just as the concessions being made available to other sectors. The minister said the agri business cannot be made 100% export- oriented because the domestic requirement has also to be met through setting up of mega food parks. According to estimates of the ministry, a minimum of Rs 2.5 lakh crore would be needed for the processing sector of which, the central government will create refining facilities to the tune of Rs 1 lakh crore

through Nabard as most of other banks have failed to extend fiscal support to this sector.----------------------------Plan panel fine-tuning Rs 6k-cr aid for farmers http://www.financialexpress.com/fe_full_story.php?content_id=147282 ASHOK B SHARMA ECONOMY BUREAU Posted online: Saturday, November 25, 2006 at 0124 hours IST NEW DELHI, NOV 24: The Planning Commission is busy finalising a Rs 6000-crore (Rs 60,000 million) relief package to mitigate sufferings of farmers and preventing them from committing

suicide. There will be a statewise allocation of funds for the purpose. Minister of state for planning MV Rajasekharan, while speaking at the conclusion of the deliberations of a 3-day Assocham summit on second green revolution, assured that the proposed relief package would soon be unveiled. He said his ministry was giving final touches to state-wise allocations of funds, which would be announced immediately after the meeting of the National Development Council on December 9. The UPA government was concerned over the plight of farmers and particularly of those of who have committed suicide, the minister said. And, to put a curb on it, the allocation would shortly be made and

subsidies restored to farmers, he added. Rajasekharan said the government would be expediting the process of setting up 1 lakh E-chopals (electronic trading system) all over the country in consultation with all state governments to provide farmers with knowledge about information and communication technologies to increase produce. Similarly, the Centre will also issue necessary instructions to promote and integrate sericulture with agriculture so that India’s increased dependence on sericulture imports is curtailed to the optimum. In this connection, the Planning Commission would issue directives to the Central Silk Board so that necessary subsidies were given to promote

sericulture in the country, said Rajasekharan. It would be the effort of the government that agriculture received the maximum focus and attention of policy makers during the 11th Plan period to ensure that it grew at a minimum rate of 4% and all our farmers became an integral part of food processing industries and also have stakes in them, he said. Chairman of Assocham Knowledge Millennium Council KL Chugh recommended that agriculture be brought in the category of essential industries so that it got minimum 10 years of income-tax benefit with other tax incentives.-----------------------------Tax sops to SEZs to cost Rs 1,00,000 cr by 2009-10 http://www.financialexpress.com/fe_full_story.php?content_id=147284 Posted online: Saturday, November 25, 2006 at 0128 hours IST NEW DELHI, NOV 24: Tax holidays to Special Economic Zones (SEZs) are estimated to cause revenue loss of over Rs 1,00,000 crore (Rs 1,000,000 million) by 2009-10, Parliament was informed on Friday. Of the estimated revenue loss of Rs. 1,02,621 crore over the period of 2006-07 to 2009-10, direct taxes lost is estimated to be Rs 53,740 crore and indirect taxes Rs 48,881 crore, minister of state for finance SS Palanimanickam told Lok Sabha in a written reply. He said tax concessions to SEZ units went to the extent of eroding the legally defined tax base and the revenue loss was permanent. Meanwhile, replying to another question, he said the reported rise in cement prices cannot be attributed to excise duty as there has been no change in the levy since March 1, 2003 except for education cess. At present, the rate of basic excise duty is Rs 400 per metric tonne, he said, adding cement is a decontrolled commodity and prices are determined by market forces. At present, the general rate of basic excise duty on cement is Rs 400 per metric tonne, he has said, adding cement is a

decontrolled commodity and the prices are determined by market forces. Replying to another question, Palanimanickam said the Income Tax Employees Federation and the Income Tax Gazetted Officers Association had opposed outsourcing the job of accepting income tax returns to post offices. It had been decided to process these returns centrally, he said, adding it would facilitate issue of refunds quickly. As many as 4,12,278 tax returns had been received through the post offices in the country up to October 31 , he said. —PTI-------

Find out what India is talking about on - Answers India Send FREE SMS to your friend's mobile from Messenger Version 8. Get it NOW