Just months after listing the potato as China’s fourth crop staple, Beijing planners have announced a raft of production goals in a bid to promote sustainability and improve land use through to 2020.
Reliable information based on satellite data and ground observations can help the Philippines prepare for and mitigate the effect of recurring disasters, such as typhoons and El Niño on rice areas in Mindanao.
Specialty rice producer Amira sees significant potential for Basmati to win the hearts of Americans, who lately have been flirting more with Indian food and ancient grains.
Current weather patterns in Southeast Asia reinforce meteorologists’ belief that a strong El Niño is already taking place, but still the rice market is indifferent, says a leading rice researcher.
At the time of establishing the International Rice Research Institute (Irri) in 1960, Dr Sterling Wortman of the Rockefeller Foundation seriously considered India as a potential location for the institute. However, Los Baños in Laguna, Philippines, was...
Rice Bran Technologies (RIBT) is close to market with a new rice protein offering that will benefit from a ‘made in USA’ clean sourcing message. The protein’s debut awaited modifications to the company’s Montana production facility, work that was completed...
A novel cooking and cooling process for rice could help slash the number of calories absorbed by the body by more than half by increasing levels of resistant starch, say researchers.
With its rice industry going through salad days, Cambodia is nevertheless at a crossroads. While on the international front, it is shipping more rice overseas than ever before; domestically, there is still a number issues for producers and exporters to...
In spite of fears that El Niño will deliver a possible monsoon failure in India and Southeast Asia, the fate of existing rice stocks have failed to perturb the market.
The International Rice Research Institute is marking the 150th harvest of its Long-Term Continuous Cropping Experiment (LTCCE), the world's longest-running rice research project.
A slowdown in global packaged food markets is expected over the next five years as supply in developed countries reaches saturation point combined with insufficient opportunities elsewhere, but health and Asia offer hope.
Last year, the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) and its partners released 44 new and improved rice varieties, taking the number to around a thousand since it was launched in 1960.
Scientists in the Far East have discovered a rice gene that in preliminary testing increased production by 13-36% in modern long-grain indica rice varieties—the world’s most widely grown types of rice.
While the scale of destruction in the wake of Typhoon Haiyan constitutes a major humanitarian crisis, its impact on rice production in the worst-affected Filipino provinces is yet to be fully understood.
Shinmei Co. Ltd is investing more than $10m in a rice processing facility in California to produce a gluten-free ‘Rice Bun’, an alternative to the burger bun, in the US.
IRRI rice guru Sam Mohanty has shed some light on China’s cryptic rice position while at the same time asking even more questions regarding this potentially troubling situation.
China’s rice production is proving to be a conundrum for analysts and food organisations the world over. The simple fact is, nobody knows with any degree of certainty what’s happening there, and what little that can be divined is nothing short of puzzling.
Australia’s newly appointed representative on the board of the International Rice Research Institute said she would use her role to seek ways to grow rice as a means to combat world food shortages.
A newly developed strain of rice tolerant to levels of salt found in seawater might become available to farmers in the next four to five years, and its impact on food security could be massive.
Raising further concerns over China’s long-term food security, the production of corn in the country overtook that of rice for the first time last year, according to a report by the Chinese Academy for Social Sciences.
Researchers in Vietnam claim to have invented technology that can be used to mass-produce Gamma Oryzanol from rice bran at a far lower cost than by current techniques.
India’s newfound position as the world’s leading rice exporter has not escaped the attention of China, which may look to its western neighbour for increasingly greater rice supplies over the coming years.
“Human guinea pigs”, “gambling with health” and “shadowy research project”—the terms came thick and fast in Greenpeace’s revelation about Golden Rice earlier this year.
Food major Future Group has announced that it has inked a deal with rice processor LT Foods that includes the setting up of the latter’s new facility at the group’s new food park.
Genetic modification is an on-going problem in Asia’s basmati rice network and it is a problem that importers need to be vigilant in curbing, according to an industry expert.
A new report from the Center for Food Safety in Hong Kong has revealed almost half of food samples contain inorganic arsenic – but not in amounts sufficient to pose serious threats to health.
Unregulated insecticide marketing in Asia is driving overuse and misuse by farmers leading to widespread pest infestations and damaging millions of tonnes of rice each year, according to industry experts.
An international system has been launched that will establish environmental standards for sustainable rice production in a bid to increase rice yields.
Global spice and flavour giant McCormick has signed a joint venture contract with India’s leading basmati rice production company Kohinoor Foods, forming a new company in India.
Singapore’s National Research Foundation (NRF) has said it will invest $8.2m in a joint research program that aims to ensure food security and future rice demands are met throughout Asia.
In the wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, Japanese scientists from the Fukushima Agricultural Technology Centre are working towards a potential solution for the future of Japanese rice farmers – a strain of rice resilient to cesium absorption.
Improving rice yields is a major challenge in India today but a high quality grain needs to be a key focus of rice breeding efforts, according to a spokesperson at Bayer CropScience.
Independent Japanese inspectors have found the first case of radioactive contamination in a sample of rice since the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant accident five months ago, on March 11.
India-based rice exporter Kohinoor Foods Ltd has formed a joint venture with US-based spice maker McCormick for the marketing of basmati rice and other food products in India.
Immature rice grains may contain ‘a remarkable amount of bioactive compounds’, giving them great potential for applications in nutraceutical foods, according to new research.
The International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) has announced a $30m collaborative project which aims to boost South Asian cereal production by five million tonnes a year.
NutraCea has announced plans to construct the largest rice bran oil
refinery in the world, a move that comes just months after the firm
entered the edible oil market.
Nutracea announced it has received an opening purchase order from
network marketing company the Cosway Corporation for launch of its
stabilized rice bran in Southeast Asia.
The Philippines may have to import more rice than it has for seven
years if a prevailing drought cuts rice production as feared,
suggested a senior agricultural official.
The Vietnam Food Association says that in 2005 turnover in rice
exports is expected to reach $1 billion, but with no plans to
increase crop growing areas, the target may well prove difficult to
reach.
