Oryza Shares - Opinion from Acting Secretary General of Cambodia Rice Federation
We heard repeatedly since last year some Southern European countries like Spain and Italy leading the pack expressing concern over a sudden increase of Cambodian rice imports into EU that as claimed by them had distorted the market thus creating unfair practice for those countries to export their rice to other European buyers. Again recently Italy came back to the forefront making noise and pleading for EU to revoke EBA scheme for Cambodia. The Italian concern has been so far picked up by the media but has yet to be officially lodged with the EU in Brussels. It would be good for all parties including EU to have a clear perspective of what transcended as facts.
1.The general rice imports into EU have not increased that much as per official EU statistics for full year 2013. Cambodian origin rice did see an increase but other origins like Thailand and others for instance have also decreased thereby still balancing out and the market was far from being distorted as claimed by some Southern European countries. , ad EU statistics confirm that . EU as a market has to import rice annually since the balance between consumption and the local crops produced factually shown about 1 million tons or a bit more to be imported each year.
2.There are some varieties that cannot be grown in EU and one of them is Jasmine rice. I think that variety should not be included in any complain that Cambodian rice is hurting the Italian rice growers and millers. The only "jasmine type " variety grown in Italy does produce a very small crop of few hundred tons a year which is negligible.
3. The Managing Director (MD) of Ente Nazionale Risi, the National Agency for Rice (NAR), Italy, has slammed the new Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) for European Union (EU) member states saying it is not protecting Italian and other European rice farmers from global competition, according to local sources. The ENR MD has noted that the intervention price, the price at which the European Commission (EC) buys rice from farmers, set at €150 (around $205) per ton under the new CAP is very low and does not cover the production costs, which are around €320- €330 (around $438 - $451) per ton. As the EC initiates intervention between April 1 to July 31 of a marketing year (September 1 to August 31) when need arises, he says the intervention price was not used appropriately since its introduction. Also the EC has specified that it may increase the intervention price if the quality of rice procured is different from the specified quality, but has not mentioned any cap for it. I can imagine that the resistance from Italian rice industry against Cambodian (soon Myanmar rice) rice, can be supported by new EU policy towards farmers, i.e. CAP. The CAP reform is changing the structure of EU support to the farmers, and in case of Italian rice farmers, that means that they will have less funds per hectare compared to previous scheme. So that can also create the tension against more competitive Cambodian Long Grain rice.
4. It would not be fair for the Italian rice industry to lobby against access of the competition to EU market, when Italian rice farmers obtained heavy government subsidies by the hundreds of Euros per hectare via the EU support in cash annually for keeping the production of paddy and rice fields in operation. These very Italian rice farmers are lobbying against Cambodian rice, which is not subsidized in any way by the Cambodian government through any yearly cash allowance to rice farmers neither did the Cambodian government subsidize in any way the credit system to finance new crops, nor provided subsidies for the cost of agricultural machinery and equipment. To their credit, the Cambodian government has only intervened to help bring down some logistics and documentation cost to increase competitiveness for the local rice industry.
5. Italian farmers are complaining on one product that they cannot compete against Cambodia which is Long Grain White Rice (and soon perhaps Parboiled, but still long grain rice). It is worth to notice that they were quiet on other rice varieties that they have been selling successfully to EU markets and even exporting overseas, namely Arborio, medium grain varieties, round grain varieties (in general Japonica type rice) . They are being very quiet on this as Cambodia offered no competition threat in this sector of rice industry (while in short perspective of 1-2-3 years, Myanmar will export more of japonica varieties to EU and then Italians will surely raise concern again).
6. According to World Bank’s monitoring note on Cambodian Rice Industry carried out in 2013, Rice production accounted for 15 percent of agricultural value added and paddy occupied 75 percent of the cultivated land. Rice production, processing, and marketing were estimated to employ 3 million people, more than one-fifth of the country’s population. In the last decade, half of the poverty incidence’s reduction has been driven by the increase of rice production, higher rice prices, and higher farm wages. The poverty incidence was estimated to have declined from 53.2 percent in 2004 to 20.5 percent in 2011. That is the essence of the EBA Scheme granted by EU, eradicating poverty and improving farmers’ standard of living. EU granted the EBA benefits to Cambodia for a free access to EU market. So far Cambodia is strictly adhering to the terms and conditions of such agreement and is expecting EU to continue to reciprocate so long Cambodia is still within the LDC status.
VAN Vichet (David)
Acting Secretary General CAMBODIA RICE FEDERATION
- See more at: http://oryza.com/op-ed/oryza-shares-opinion-acting-secretary-general-cambodia-rice-federation#sthash.JP20G5C4.dpuf
No comments:
Post a Comment