Researchers Look To Grow Basmati Rice

By Pich Samnang, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
11 November 2009

Cambodian farmers already grow 37 different types of rice, but starting next year they may add another, to please the palates of buyers in the Middle East.

Ouk Makara, director of the Cambodian Agricultural Research and Development Institute, said researchers will try planting basmati rice, a species that is less sticky than typical Cambodian rice, and less suited to Cambodia’s environment.

Government agricultural researchers will work with the International Rice Research Institute, with support from the Australian government, to find ways to grow basmati rice.

The attempt follows a recent visit by high-level officials from the United Arab Emirates, who wanted to see basmati exported to the Persian Gulf, Ouk Makara said.

Basmati rice is typically grown in the Punjab region of India and Pakistan, and its cultivation was tried and abandoned for poor yields in Cambodia in the 1990s.

However, with Cambodia producing just 7 million tons of rice last year, and only 3 million tons for export, and with food demand increasing in places like the Middle East, Cambodian farmers may try again.

Pou Puy, president of the Cambodian Federation of Rice Miller Association, said some Middle Eastern countries may also need other high-quality Cambodian rice. In 2010 Cambodia will be able to meet their needs, he said.

VN encourages Viet companies to lease land, grow rice in Cambodia, and export it to VN

Farmers, wearing conical hats, place rice grain into sacks at Co Do farm in Can Tho Province

Vietnam to halt rice exports until July as sales exceed target

Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Thanh Nien News (Hanoi)

Vietnam, the world’s second-biggest rice shipper, will not sign export contracts for delivery until June, after shipments in the first half of the year beat the target, according to the Vietnam Food Association.

The association will only register contracts for delivery between July and September, according to a statement on its website. Export volumes for the first half were not provided.

“We don’t want to be in a situation where we export too much in the first half and not have enough rice for contracts after that,” Huynh Minh Hue, the association’s acting general secretary, said by telephone from Ho Chi Minh City. “It is important to balance shipments throughout the year.”

Vietnam plans to raise rice exports in 2009 by 6.4 percent to five million tons as favorable weather aids the nation’s largest harvest of the year and adequate reserves enable increased sales, Deputy Minister of Agriculture Diep Kinh Tan said on February 11.

More than five million tons of rice will be harvested this month and in March in half of the 1.8 million hectares (4.44 million acres) of paddy fields in the Mekong Delta, agriculture minister Cao Duc Phat said on February 10.

The country also plans to lease land to grow rice in Cambodia to counter smuggling of the grain across the border, Tuoi Tre newspaper reported, citing a report by Doan Ngoc Pha, deputy director of the Agriculture and Rural Development Department of An Giang Province.

Vietnamese companies will be encouraged to lease land in Cambodia and will be allowed to export rice to Vietnam, he said in the report.

Smugglers bring in hundreds of metric tons of rice each day from Cambodia, the newspaper reported without giving details.

Rice planting season in Takeo

Farmers plant rice seedlings in a paddy field in Takeo province, 80 km (50 miles) south of Phnom Penh May 31, 2008. Cambodia on Monday lifted a ban on rice shipments that it imposed two months ago, the first major Asian exporter to roll back curbs that have been put in place to protect domestic supplies in the face of soaring international prices. REUTERS/Chor Sokunthea
Farmers plant rice seedlings in a paddy field in Takeo province, 80 km (50 miles) south of Phnom Penh May 31, 2008. Cambodia on Monday lifted a ban on rice shipments that it imposed two months ago, the first major Asian exporter to roll back curbs that have been put in place to protect domestic supplies in the face of soaring international prices. REUTERS/Chor Sokunthea
Farmers plant rice seedlings in a paddy field in Takeo province, 80 km (50 miles) south of Phnom Penh May 31, 2008. Cambodia on Monday lifted a ban on rice shipments that it imposed two months ago, the first major Asian exporter to roll back curbs that have been put in place to protect domestic supplies in the face of soaring international prices. REUTERS/Chor Sokunthea

Rice planting season in Cambodia

Cambodian farmers take off seedlings from the ground at a rice field in Baseth village, Kandal province, some 20 kilometers (13 miles) north Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Friday, July 6, 2007. Cambodia is an agricultural country, over 80 percent of the population are farmers. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)

A Cambodian girl cleans mud from the rice near their ox-cart at a rice field in Baseth village, Kandal province, some 20 kilometers (13 miles) north Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Friday, July 6, 2007. Cambodia is an agricultural country, over 80 percent of the population are farmers. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)

Cambodian girl cleans mud from the rice at rice field in Baseth village, Kandal province, some 20 kilometers (13 miles) north Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Friday, July 6, 2007. Cambodia is an agricultural country, over 80 percent of the population are farmers. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)