Food & Beverages - Sector

Food Prices will decline

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In what should be a dampening effect on international food prices, the US department of agriculture, or USDA, has projected a bumper for the world’s major rice producing countries including India.
USDA has projected that the world will produce 432 million tonnes (mt) of rice this year, up from 429.5mt tonnes last year. The “Rice Outlook”, released by USDA on 15 September, has projected an increase of almost 1% from last year. However, it postulates a fall in rice trade and exports this year, a continuation of a trend that began last year.
Global prices of rice have witnessed a fall in preceding months, primarily due to a stronger dollar and lower global commodity prices. While India has remained out of the global rice market, the export price of rice from Thailand, the world’s biggest rice exporter, has seen a decline of almost $25-30 a tonne since August.
The Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) rice price index, which was placed at 322 points in May 2008, has fallen to 281 points in August and is expected to decline further in September.
The increase in estimate is primarily due to expected increased production in five countries, namely, India, Thailand, Pakistan, Japan and the US, while the Philippines and Iraq are projected to have lower production.
Gurdev Singh Khush, one of the pioneers of the rice revolution and World Food Prize recipient, describes the USDA report as “good news for food security”. It will certainly help stabilize the market price of rice in India, he said in an email response.
The USDA projection is similar to the fourth revised estimate of the Union agriculture ministry. The estimate has pegged the rice production in India at 96.4mt in 2007-08, up 0.9mt from the third estimate and much higher than the rice production of 93.4mt in 2006-07. USDA has projected the Indian production at 97mt, 0.6mt more than the Indian estimate. According to USDA, this higher output may not translate into more exports, because countries such as Egypt and India are unlikely to relax the export restrictions imposed in the wake of the sharp spurt in domestic prices. Global trade of rice in 2008 was 29.1mt, 9% less than 2007. In 2009, global rice trade is expected to be lower by another 3%.
The increase in production is primarily due to an increase in area under rice globally, which has touched 156 million ha. Production in Thailand is expected to be 19.5mt, while in Japan it would be 8mt. The US crop is pegged at 6.31mt. ...

Quality fears grip tea sector as exports

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Tea exports up to July this year have topped the 100 million kg (mkg) margin. In normal circumstances, the industry should be happy after shipments fell last year by 30 mkg to 178.75 mkg. But this time around, fear has gripped the sector on the sustainability of the export market, especially with rumours doing the rounds on the quality of exports.

“There are serious concerns over the quality and suspicion is that some consignments could be adulterated. The best thing the Centre can do is to make it mandatory for all tea exports to undergo inspection at least until June next year,” said Mr N. Sriram, Chief Executive Officer of Contemporary Tea Auctioneers Pvt Ltd.

“We have opted out of exports to Egypt since the margins are becoming thin and speculators have taken over,” said Mr N. Dharmaraj of Harrisons Malayalam Ltd.

Industry sources say prices of tea at the auctions have increased so sharply that to export tea at prices contracted a couple of months ago would be a loss-making proposition. “This is despite the fall in the rupee value against the dollar,” they said.

“After a very long time, we have resumed exports to Egypt. Last time, the African nation stopped our tea on quality grounds. We sincerely pray that such a thing will not happen again,” said Mr Sriram.

According to Tea Board data, exports up to July increased to 105.66 mkg, valued at Rs 1,096 crore. This is some 17 mkg and Rs 186 crore more than the same period a year ago. Exports to Egypt have increased by two mkg, while they have gained over one mkg to the UAE and Iraq. Currently, Pakistan has also begun to buy Indian tea heavily.

‘Scientific’ adulteration


What has shaken the industry badly is the Tea Board’s unearthing of a couple of units adulterating tea. In one of the cases, a firm, claiming to be Asia’s largest and a big exporter to Pakistan, was fould adulterating tea with orthodox tea wastes and a chemical. “The Central Food Technological Research Institute, Mysore, is yet to identify the chemical that was used for adulteration. The chemical is difficult to handle and dangerous to health. The unit even had a research and development lab to adulterate tea scientifically,” said Mr R.D. Nazeem, Executive Director of Tea Board. The other interesting aspect is that the unit, functioning in Coonoor, Tamil Nadu, employed non-Tamil speaking workers to ensure secrecy.

“The Tea Board has issued show cause notices to nine factories and 14 brokers on the quality isssue,” he said, during a presentation at the 115th annual conference of the United Planters’ Association of Southern India (Upasi) in Coonoor.

The reason why the plantation industry is more worried now is because prices for all sorts of tea have gone up sharply. Last week, even CTC (crushed, tear, curl) dusts touched Rs 100 a kg. “When prices go up so high, some unscrupulous elements could try to take advantage of the situation and indulge in adulteration,” the sources said.

The issue of adulteration was raised at Upasi’s conference during the “Commodity Outlook” session with Mr P.K. Chaudhery, Additional Secretary in the Ministry of Commerce, and Mr Basudeb Banerjee, Chairman of Tea Board.

“A mechanism may be required to ensure quality of exports, especially by merchant-exporters. But we will also have to ensure that it should not delay shipments. We have introduced the Tea Board logo scheme which has quality parameters that are above those of the US Food and Drug Administration,” Mr Banerjee said.

“The Centre is looking into the issue of quality of exports. We will have to work out a system that will be acceptable to all and will also ensure no delay in shipments.We should be able to find a way soon,” said Mr Chaudhery.
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buy buy buy

Posted by : samkrish

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Don't buy Uttam sugar, I am holding past 3+ yrs, Never went above 140+.. ...

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