Australia urged to help rice crisis
Updated
Australia is being asked to provide further assistance to avert a crisis in rice supplies as the price for the grain hits record highs. The head of the International Rice Research Institute is in the nation's capital lobbying government and non-government organisations to try and get authorities to help in putting together a credible response to the problem
Presenter: Michael Cavanagh
Speaker: The head of the International Rice Research Institute, Dr Robert Zeigler.
CAVANAGH: The cost of products in general have been steadily rising.
Of the staples, the price of rice has skyrocketed.
Three factors population growth, China and India's increased demand for cereals and its rising popularity as a food in Africa has fueled the increase.
The International Rice Research Institute calculates of the 1.1 billion people around the world with an income of less than a dollar a day 700 million of these live in the rice growing nations of Asia.
Those labelled as poor by the institute spend between 30 and 40 per cent of their earnings on rice.
The price for the popular Thai rice hit one thousand dollars a ton earlier this year last December it was was 362 dollars a ton.
Despite a slight easing in the price of some rice, Dr Ziegler doesn't see too much relief.
ZIEGLER: Price spike is a recent event but the underlying trend of increasing rice prices has been going on for five years so this is a trend that we do not see reversing in the near term.
CAVANAGH: Dr Ziegler who is located in the Philipines is in Australia trying to gain support from the government and also non-government aid organisations to try and put together an effective response to the problem.
ZIEGLER: "We need to reverse the effects of the complacency that has set in over the 20 years of cheap and abundant rice. We have to recognise that rice is a strategic commodity for the world. Its essential for economic growth political stability over a very large swathe of the world and therefore we have to make the investments to ensure that we preserve future rice supplies and those include vinvestments in infrastructure such as irrigation which has been seriously neglected over the last 20 to 25 years.
We have to invest in research and development so that the declining resource base that we have continues to increase productivity so that we will have enough rice in the future. We need to make sure that we have a cadre of scientists and extension workers in ythe developing world and the developed world that can concentrate on developing new high productive technology and we need to have policies in place that will be favourable to the farm sector and make rice farming an attractive undertaking so that the people will continue to grow the rice we need."
CAVANAGH: Dr Ziegler met Australia's Agriculture Minister Tony Bourke and briefed him on the institute's work and presented him with a plan.
The Minister along with his ASEAN counterparts will consider the plan in October.
Presently Australia provides around 750 thousand dollars in core funding to the institute and makes further grants of up to one million dollars for specific projects.
Dr Ziegler says the minister was also positive in looking at further funding of the centre's research in the Philipines -- this includes developing rice in hot house conditions which may then be applied to practical farming elswehere in the region.
While Dr Ziegler may be hoping for assistance Australian rice growers won't be making an immediate contribution by increasing its rice exports.
Production is at an eighty year low with the country gripped by drought -- this has led to a dramtic reduction in the water available to irrigators who produce the bulk of Australia's rice.
Despite this Les Gordon the President of the Australian rice growers association which represents the country's rice farmers is optimistic.
GORDON: It's certainly at an all time low but we recognise these droughts have come and gone in the past and this one will go at some stage and once it goes we really are about positioning ourselves to make most efficient use of the water we can get to produce as much food as we can.
CAVANAGH: So while there may be no immediate lift in Australian rice production which would help stabilise the price -- there is the possibility of further funding to help alleviate the problem in the long term.
