18th june ,2020 daily global regional and local rice e-newsletter

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Sindh Budget 2020-21:Govt employee salariesraised
in Rs1,241 billionbudget
Last Updated On 17 June,2020 09:08 pm
The budget of the health department has been increased by 16.1pc to Rs139 billion
KARACHI (Dunya News) – Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah has
presented the budget 2020-21 in the Sindh Assembly with a total outlay of Rs1241
billion on Wednesday.
The budget session began under Speaker Assembly Agha Siraj Durrani, where
Shah, who also holds the portfolio for provincial finance minister, presented the
outlay. In his speech, the CM said that he is honoured to present the budget for the
eighth time.He said that despite difficult circumstances, he is presenting the budget
for the financial year 2020-20, adding that the COVID-19 is primarily a threat to
the existing health system.

He said that the province is in dire straits due to coronavirus pandemic and locusts
attacks, adding that the budget has been prepared keeping in view the plight of the
people of Sindh.
Murad Ali Shah said that the Sindh budget for 2020-2021 is estimated at Rs1241
billion and the total deficit of budget 2020-21 is 18.38 billion.
―The provincial government has formed a Rs3 billion CoronaEmergency Fund and
Sindh took the initiative for the lockdown and the other provinces followed suit,‖
he said and added from the Rs3 billion, the provincial government paid Rs1.3
billion while Rs1.7billion were given by the provincial employees.
The budget of the health department has been increased by 16.1pc to Rs139 billion
to deal with epidemics and contagious diseases, he said.
The CM said that basic salary Health Risk Allowance will be provided to all health
personnel including postgraduates and house job officers working in COVID-19
cases applicable from March 2020.
Speaking about agriculture, Murad said the agriculture budget has been increased
by 40% to Rs.14.84 billion, due to agriculture supportfor small farmers. He said a
sum of Rs1 billion has been allocated to small farmers as a concessionfor quality
rice seeds, while Rs.20billion has been proposed forcash transfers to individuals
affected by COVID-19 under Sindh Peoples SupportProgram.
A total of Rs5 billion has been allocated for a Soft Loan Program for Small &
Medium Enterprises and Rs1.0 billion will be provided on account of Fertilizer
subsidy to the farmers with landholding of 25 acres or less, while Rs500 million is
proposedfor Livestock breeding.
He said that non-development expenditure is estimated at Rs986 billion, while
Sindh development expenditure is estimated at Rs232 billion and Capital
expenditure is estimated at Rs39 billion.
The chief minister said that no new tax has been introduced in Budget 21-2020. He
said, total receipts were estimated to be Rs1223 billion, including federal receipts
at Rs760.30 billion which accounts for 65 percent, provincial receipts at Rs313.39

billion or 26.8 percent, capital receipts at Rs25 billion i.e 2.1 percent and other
receipts at (FPA & PSDP) Rs69.05 billion (5.9 percent).
Regarding corona testing, Murad Ali Shah said that the capacity of corona testing
in the province has been increased to 11,450 daily, adding that 81 quarantine
centers with a capacity of 8266 beds have been set up in all the districts and this
capacity will be increased to 8616 by June 2020.A sum of Rs300 billion has been
earmarked for poverty alleviation programs for small businesses in urban areas,
while Rs200 billion proposedfor poverty alleviation program for small
workers/communities in rural areas informed CM.The budget of education
departments has been increased by 10.2pc to Rs243 billion for quality education
and to address post-epidemic education challenges.Sindh Chief Minister said grant
to local councils increased by 5pc to Rs78 billion.
He said that Sindh s agricultural economy accounts for 24% of GDP, adding that
Sindh s share in national production is 36% in rice, 29% in sugarcane, 34% in
cottonand 15% in wheat.
https://dunyanews.tv/en/Pakistan/550107-Sindh-Budget-2020-21-CM-Murad-
unveils-Rs1241-billion-budget

Pakistanneeds to find new markets for its agricultural
products
SAMAA | Samaa Money –
Posted:Jun 17, 2020 |
Photo:Online
Global coronavirus lockdowns anduncertainty have forced globaltrade
dislocations and Pakistanmust now find new markets for its exportable
agricultural products, including meat, fruit, vegetables andrice.
Disrupted agricultural production, global food supply chains and radical shifts in
consumer demand followed by historic employment shifts have reduced the FAO
food price index to a 17-month low. The FAO food price index is a measure of the
monthly change in international prices of a basket of food commodities.
According to an AKD Securities report, urea prices also receded in May. Cotton
prices underwent minor changes despite being burdened by weak fundamentals,
such as reduced demand, transport and labour issues.
The global situation is also weaker as economic activity took a backseatfollowing
unprecedented lockdowns to restrict the spread of COVID-19.
Intermittent lockdowns are expected to impact global growth over the medium
term and reports of a second wave and infection peak have increased uncertainty.
Energy commodity prices increased up by 57 to 60% month on month due to
OPEC and members complying with agreed cuts. Coal increased by 13% but the
average price is still down. This increase in the price of energy commodities will
have a negative impact on Pakistan.
https://www.samaa.tv/money/2020/06/pakistan-needs-to-find-new-markets-
for-its-agricultural-products/
Rice Price Spike Not Just Due to Pandemic
by Betsy Jibben
03:50PM Jun 16, 2020

Rice is one commodity which has seen increasing prices and demand throughout
COVID-19. The Wall Street Journal reporting rice prices for some futures
contracts are spiking to the highest levels since 2011. However, economists say the
price bump isn‘t just due to COVID-19. It also has to do with supply and trade.
National reporter Betsy Jibben talks with some growers and experts in Arkansas,
the heart of rice country to find out what‘s behind it. She talks with Kenneth
Graves, a rice farmer from De Witt, Arkansas and Alvaro Durand-Morat, an
agricultural economics professorat the University of Arkansas.
https://www.agweb.com/article/rice-price-spike-not-just-due-pandemic
33.9 C
Manila
Scrap planned rice importation, DAurged
ByEireene Jairee Gomez
June 17, 2020
The Federation of Free Farmers (FFF)is urging the Department of
Agriculture (DA) and the Philippine International Trading
Corporation (PITC)to abandon its plan to import 300,000 metric
tons of rice, citing lack of legal basis and funding. After conducting
a bidding for the government-to-government purchase, the PITC
decided to withhold the award of winning bids reportedly due to the lack of a
budgetary cover from the Department of Budget and Management (DBM). The
DBM said that there was no legal basis for the PITC importation and that funds
could not be released without a formal instruction from President Rodrigo Duterte.
FFF National Manager Raul Montemayor supports DBM‘s position that there was
no legal basis for the planned PITC imports. ―(Agriculture) Secretary (William)
Dar has insisted time and again that we have enough rice. Therefore, there is no
rice shortage and there is no reason why PITC should import rice. That is the law
and Secretary Dar, who has repeatedly referred to the RTL as ‗a good law,‘ should
be the first to follow it,‖ Montemayor said, referring to Republic Act 11203 or the
Rice Tariffication Law.

https://www.manilatimes.net/2020/06/17/business/scrap-planned-rice-importation-
da-
urged/732360/#:~:text=The%20Federation%20of%20Free%20Farmers,of%20legal
%20basis%20and%20funding.
China's province monitors rice farming with satellite
Source: Xinhua| 2020-06-17 11:22:24|Editor: huaxia
BEIJING, June 17 (Xinhua) -- Southwest China's Guizhou Province has started
using a satellite system that can monitor rice farming from space.
The system provides real-time data for planting, according to a report in Science
and Technology Daily.
As a smart manager of integrated big data, the system provides pictures of paddy
fields taken through remote sensing, visual monitoring and other means to help
professionals make decisions on planting, said the report.
Through real-time data, farmers could monitor crop areas, and detailed figures on
local meteorological and planting conditions, which helps them make decisions.
The Cengong County of Guizhou is a major rice-growing area with annual yield of
around 8 million kg of certified seeds.
The county introduced the system, developed by a research team of the University
of Electronic Science and Technology of China (UESTC) in Chengdu, southwest
China's Sichuan Province.
The UESTC research team developed the system using their self-designed core
algorithms as well as technologies such as satellite remote sensing, the Internet of
Things, and unmanned aerial vehicles. The system could then integrate data from
various sources and provide comprehensive and real-time monitoring of rice
production, according to the UESTC research team. Enditem
http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2020-
06/17/c_139145594.htm#:~:text=BEIJING%2C%20June%2017%20(Xinhua),in%
20Science%20and%20Technology%20Daily.
Indonesia to convert 1.4 million ha of peatlands into rice
fields to address food shortages

The Indonesian Government is pushing ahead with a plan to convert 1.4 million ha
of peat swamps into rice fields as the COVID-19 pandemic threatens to create food
shortages across the country, according to Coordinating Minister of Economy
Airlangga Hartarto.
VNA Wednesday, June 17, 2020 18:31
The Indonesian Government is pushing ahead with a plan to convert 1.4)
Jakarta (VNA) - The Indonesian Government is pushing ahead with a plan to
convert 1.4 million ha of peat swamps into rice fields as the COVID-19
pandemic threatens to create food shortages across the country, according to
Coordinating Minister of Economy Airlangga Hartarto.
The country is feeling the brunt of a food crisis as the coronavirus outbreak has
severely disrupted domestic cultivation and food supplies.

The Government is set to expand rice farming areas through a peatland-to-ricefield
project in Kalimantan. The initial goal of establishing about 900,000 ha of rice
fields in the peatlands has been raised to 1.4 million ha, Hartarto said.
It is carefully looking into the plan, since only 90,000 out of the 1.4-million-ha
peatland have irrigation systems. Most peatlands suitable for converting into rice
fields are located in the districts of Pulang Pisau, Kapuas, and South Barito on
Kalimantan.
Agricultural restructuring is among the national programmes prioritised by
President Joko Widodo to bridge development gaps and improve living standards./.
https://en.vietnamplus.vn/indonesia-to-convert-14-million-ha-of-peatlands-into-
rice-fields-to-address-food-shortages/175039.vnp
Cambodia's rice exports expected to hit 800,000 tonnes in
2020
 ASEANPLUS NEWS
 Wednesday, 17 Jun 2020
5:12 PM MYT
A vendor piles sacksofrice for sale in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, on May 13,
2020. - AP
PHNOM PENH (Xinhua): Cambodia's milled rice exports to the international
market are expected to reach 800,000 tonnes in 2020, an estimated rise of 29 per
cent from 620,106 tonnes last year, a senior agriculture official said on Wednesday
(June 17).
Ngin Chhay, director-general of agriculture at the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry
and Fisheries, said the kingdom had seen a remarkable increase in rice exports in
the first five months of this year due to high demand from the international market
as a result of the Coivid-19 pandemic.He said the Southeast Asian nation exported
a total of 356,097 tonnes of milled rice to 54 countries and regions during the
January-May period this year, up 42 per cent over the same period last year.

China and Europe were the biggest buyers of Cambodia's milled rice during the
first five months of this year, the official said, adding that the country shipped
136,825 tonnes of milled rice to China, up 25 per cent, and 122,010 tonnes to
Europe, up 51 per cent.
"Based on the figures in the first five months of this year, we expect that
Cambodia's milled rice exports to the international market will hit at least 800,000
tonnes in 2020," Chhay said in a press conference in Phnom Penh.
Cambodia produced about 10 million tonnes of paddy rice last year, according to
the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. With this amount, the kingdom
saw paddyrice surplus of about 5.6 million tonnes in equivalent to 3.5 million
tonnes of milled rice. - Xinhua
https://www.thestar.com.my/aseanplus/aseanplus-news/2020/06/17/cambodia039s-
rice-exports-expected-to-hit-800000-tonnes-in-2020
Businessmen paint rosy scenario for Kingdom and South Korea
post-FTA
Thou Vireak | Publication date 16 June 2020 | 20:56 ICT
Cambodia Rice Federation secretary-general Lun Yeng says the start of FTA
negotiations will pave the way for a new market for the Kingdom‘s rice
sector. Hong Menea
The Cambodia Business Association is optimistic that the South Korean market
will absorb more Cambodian products after a free trade agreement (FTA) is
established, as officials from both countries prepare for the first round of
negotiations next month.
The two countries signed a joint feasibility study agreement on a potential FTA in
November aiming to expand bilateral investment volume.
It was signed by Cambodian Minister of Commerce Pan Sorasak and South Korean
Minister of Trade, Industry and Energy Yoo Myung-hee during the two-day
Asean-Republic of Korea Commemorative Summit in the South Korean port city
of Busan.

Cambodia Rice Federation secretary-general Lun Yeng told The Poston Tuesday
that although the Kingdom has yet to export rice to South Korea, the start of FTA
negotiations will pave the way for a new market for the Kingdom‘s rice sector.
―I think our milled rice will have a new destination if both sides are open to the
free market, and if Korea provides a special quota for Cambodian rice exports –
somewhere in the range of 30,000 to 50,000 tonnes, given how large the Korean
market is.
―Even if the Koreans don‘tconsume our rice, some 50,000-60,000 Cambodian
workers [there] will,‖ he said.
Cambodia Chamber of Commerce vice-president Lim Heng told The Postthat the
start of FTA negotiations was part of the government‘s strategy to invigorate the
Kingdom‘s economic growth.
―This is a promising omen. If we clinch an FTA with Korea, we will draw in more
Korean investors to set up factories in Cambodia to producegoods for export,‖ he
said.
Ministry of Commerce spokesmanSeang Thai told The Postthat the two countries
had completed the joint feasibility study and had agreed to go through with the
internal procedures to start negotiations next month.
The talks will be held via video conferencing due to the Covid-19 pandemic, he
said.
Cambodia has the potential to export garments, footwear and leather goods as well
as agricultural products to the Korean market, while it would import products such
as machinery, computers and electronic devices, he said.
In addition, the FTA will encourage further investment between the two countries,
he said.
―The study found that there are mutual benefits – we have our own respective
economic potential. If we agree a bilateral FTA, the strengths of each country will
be driving catalysts for mutual economic growth,‖ said Thai.
The ministry said there are currently eight working groups responsible for studying
and negotiating FTAs as well as formulating the Kingdom‘s FTA strategy.
China is the first country to negotiate an FTA with Cambodia. With the third round
of talks closing earlier this month, the deal is expected to be finalised by the end of
this year.
Another working group is in preliminary negotiations with the Eurasian Economic
Union which is made up of five member countries – Belarus, Armenia, Russia,
Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.

It released a report on the results of its assessment of the potential FTA deal in
December.
The remaining five working groups target FTAs with the UK, the US, Japan,
Mongolia and India. All are currently in preliminary engineering phases.
During a visit to South Korea in February, Prime Minister Hun Sen said bilateral
trade between Cambodia and South Korea reached over $1 billion last year, up
more than 36 per cent from $756 million in 2018.
The Kingdom exported $335 million in goods and imported $696 million last year,
he said, noting that exports to South Korea mostly comprised of clothes, shoes,
travel goods products,beverage, components for electronic equipment, rubber,
medical and agricultural products.
Meanwhile, he said, Cambodia mainly imports vehicles, beverages, electronic
equipment, home appliances, medical and plastic products.
Contact author: Thou Vireak
https://www.phnompenhpost.com/business/businessmen-paint-rosy-scenario-
kingdom-and-south-korea-post-
fta?__cf_chl_jschl_tk__=0ebfb7c331abecc3fe94536d40e1e5ea96c7f023-
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UO1w
Iran: Rice Price Rises Dramatically
Published: Tuesday, 16 June 2020
On June 15, Iran‘s state-run media reported that the rice price has skyrocketed in
recent weeks. ―Rice, being the main dish for many Iranians, saw prices rise in the
weeks following the holy month of Ramadan.

The price rise began with imported rice, mainly exported to Iran from the Indian
subcontinent, and continued with domestic rice,‖ the Eghtesad News website
wrote.
According to the rates announced by the Consumers and Producers Protection
Organization [CCPO], over the past month, the price of Iranian rice has increased
about 15 cents per kilogram and the price of imported rice, including Pakistani-
Indian and Thai rice, increased at least 16.6 cents per kilogram. However,
eyewitnesses and field observations from the markets and rice sales centers in the
Iranian capital Tehran say the price hikes are far higher.
Based on its statistics, the CCPO announced that about a month ago Pakistan's
Basmati rice was sold at an average price of 66 cents per kilogram. However, this
type of rice was sold at an average of 70 to 85 cents per kilogram. Meanwhile, the
price of a variety of Indian rice has reached an average of about 45 cents per
kilogram.
It is worth noting that the price of domestic rice has increased by an average of 15
cents per kilogram prior to Iran‘s harvest season. In reality, Iran‘s rice productions
have been hampered by the price shock after Ramadan and the increase in the
average price of foreign rice.
The CCPO, as one of the authorities involved in determining and announcing the
prices of essential goods, registered the prices of various types of Iranian rice from
$0.85 to $1.30 per kilogram in April. However, according to the same
organization, the price of each kilogram of domestic rice reached $0.90 to $1.40
per kilogram on the first day of June. Also, on June 14, the CCPO announced the
price of each kilogram of various types of domestic rice at $0.92 to $1.40 per
kilogram.
―Referring to some supply centers of Iranian rice in Tehran, the price of consumed
domestic rice, such as Tarom and all kinds of domestic rice, is about $1.40 to $1.83
per kilogram. Also, imported rice, including highly popular brands such as
Pakistani rice and Indian rice, can no longer be found in large stores,‖ according to
a report wired by the Shahrvand news agency on June 14.
Notably, foreign rice, which has a lower price than Iranian brands, is welcomed by
many in Iran‘s lower and middle classes. However, each kilogram of foreign rice is
sold at different prices, ranging from about $0.66 to $1.10. Of course, only where
traces of these rice can still be found.
Mohammad Reza Kalami, Deputy Minister of Industry, Mine and Trade, explained
the increasing price of rice. ―Among 100 essential items, 41 have faced a price

hike between one to five percent. For instance, the price of domestic rice has risen
due to the end of the harvest season and the supply of rice last year, as well as the
impact of change in the foreign exchange rate of imported rice against the price of
Iranian rice,‖ he said.
Notably, on April 14, in the 2019 budget reported provided by the Audit chief Adel
Azar, more than $4.8 billion of the $32-billion budget allocated to importing
essential goods went missing.
In response to remarks made by Kalami, Abbas Ghobadi, head of the Market
Regulation Headquarters, acknowledged that an adopted resolution is set to deter
future price hikes. ―The Foreign Currency Exchange Committee is tasked to
facilitate purchasing rice with the previous dollar exchange rate,‖ Ghobadi claimed
according to the mentioned resolution.
However, despite these reactions and comments, there is still no tangible result in
the prices of Iranian and foreign rice at the market.
On the other hand, rice sellers point out systematic corruption and a market based
on brokerage. ―This price hike should be sought in techniques of brokers, those
who buy a brand of rice at the price of about $0.45 and go on to sell it to us in the
market at a price of $1.15,‖ a rice seller said.
―Brokers also raise and lower the price of Iranian rice at dollar exchange rate …
Currently, shopkeepers‘ sales have decreased by more than 50 percent,‖ he added.
On the other hand, an official in the Agriculture Ministry attempted to cease the
people‘s concerns about the rising prices of rice. ―About 2.5 million tons of rice,
equivalent to 83 percent of the country's needs this year, will be provided for,‖ said
Aziz Karimi, director-general of the Ministry of Agriculture‘s Office of Cereals
and Basic Products.
However, besides comments by rice retailers and determining the role of brokers in
determining the price of rice, it seems that the systematic mafia that dominates all
of Iran‘s industrial and agricultural sectors are depriving the Iranian people from
basic necessities. In this respect, in recent months the regime has silently increased
the price of bread and electricity. Previously, the administration Iranian regime
President Hassan Rouhani announced a gasoline price hikes off in November 2019,
all under the supervision of the regime‘s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
In response to the gas price hikes, hundreds of thousands of Iranian citizens
flooded the streets in protests. However, the regime launched a brutal crackdown
against empty-handed protesters. As a result, the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC),
along with the state security forces, killed at least 1,500 demonstrators with

snipers, heavy machine guns, armored vehicles, and helicopters. The fate of over
12,000 detainees remains still unclear.
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00:50 - 16 Dec 2019
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In this regard, the Iranian regime faces a massive budget deficit and is scrambling
to compensate for it at the expense of ordinary people. Meanwhile, it is possible
that public ire will ignite at any moment. Officials are frequently warning about the
next round of protests. However, regime authorities have been stuck in a tough
dilemma, which will definitely be the end to their detriment.
https://irannewsupdate.com/36-economy/7165-iran-rice-price-rises-
dramatically.html
Soil bacterialcommunities in three rice-based
croppingsystems differing in productivity
Abstract
Soil microorganisms play an important role in determining productivity of agro-
ecosystems. This study was conducted to compare diversity, richness, and structure
(relative abundance at the phylum level) of soil bacterial communities among three
rice-based cropping systems, namely, a winter fallow-rice-rice (FRR), green
manure (Chinese milk vetch)-rice-rice (MRR), and oilseed rape-rice-rice (ORR), in
which MRR and ORR had significantly higher productivity than FRR. A 16S
rRNA gene sequence analysis showed that no significant differences were

observed in diversity and richness indices (observed species, Shannon, Simpson,
Chao1, abundance-based coverage estimators, and phylogeny-based metrics) of
soil bacterial communities among the three cropping systems. However, relative
abundances of dominant phyla in soil bacterial communities, including
Proteobacteria, Acidobacteria, Nitrospirae, Gemmatimonadetes, and
Verrucomicrobia, were significantly different among the three cropping systems.
In particular, a significant reduction in the relative abundance of Nitrospirae was
observed in both MRR and ORR compared with FRR. These results indicate that
bacterial community structure was affected by cropping systems in the tested
paddysoils. Based on the results of our studies and existing knowledge bases, we
speculate that benefits to rice yield may be obtained by reducing the relative
abundance of Nitrospirae and increasing the ratio of abundances of
Proteobacteria/Acidobacteria in paddysoils.
Introduction
Rice is the major staple food crop for many populations in the world, especially in
Asia where production and consumption accounts for more than 90% of the rice
worldwide1. The intensification of rice cropping systems has contributed greatly to
ensuring food security in Asia2, and a further increase in cropping intensity is an
important approachto achieving greater food security in the future3. However, the
long-term continuous rice cropping systems have posed a challenge to sustainable
land productivity4,
5.
Well-planned cropping systems are expected to promote effective use of natural
resources and maintain land productivity in the long-term to achieve greater crop
yields and sustainability of cropping systems6. In recent years, the role of soil
microorganisms in improving productivity of agro-ecosystems has gained more
attention7, and more recent evidence indicates that cropping systems influence rice
yield by altering soil bacterial communities8.
Double-season rice cropping system is a major intensive cropping system in China.
In the double-seasonrice cropping regions, farmers are strongly recommended to
grow green manure or oilseed rape in the winter seasonto improve rice yields. Our
recent study also supports this recommendation9. Here, we hypothesized that
growing green manure and oilseed rape in the winter seasonwould alter soil
bacterial communities in double-season rice paddies. To test this hypothesis, we

collected soil samples from the experimental field of Huang et al.9. to determine
cropping system effects on diversity, richness, and structure (relative abundance at
phylum level) of the soil bacterial communities.
Results and Discussion
There were no significant differences within each diversity and richness index
among soil bacterial communities of the FRR, MRR, and ORR cropping systems
(p > 0.05; Table 1). Thus, diversity and richness of the soil bacterial communities
were not significantly affected by cropping systems in this study. This finding,
though unexpected, may be explained by a previous study by Xuan et al.8. They
observed that the effects of cropping systems (rice-rice-rice, rice-maize-rice, rice-
mungbean-rice, and rice-mungbean-maize) on bacterial community diversity and
richness in a paddy soil differed between sampling times; cropping systems
significantly affected Shannon and Chao1 indices of soil bacterial communities
from soils sampled mid-season of a crop rotation but not those of soils sampled
after rice harvest. In our study, the tested soils unaffected by cropping system were
sampled after rice harvest. This suggests that further investigations are required to
determine the effects of cropping systems on dynamic changes in diversity and
richness of bacterial communities in paddy soils.
Table 1 Bacterialcommunity diversity and richness in subtropical paddy soils
sampled from three cropping systems.
Full size table
The top 10 phyla of bacterial communities according to their relative abundances
in the soil across three cropping systems were Proteobacteria, Acidobacteria,
Nitrospirae, Chloroflexi, Gemmatimonadetes, Bacteroidetes, Actinobacteria,
Firmicutes, Verrucomicrobia, and Crenarchaeota (Fig. 1). Previous studies also
reported eight of our top 10 phyla (the exceptions were Gemmatimonadetes and
Crenarchaeota) in their top 10 phyla of bacterial communities in paddy soils of
rice-rice-rice, rice-maize-rice, rice-mungbean-rice, rice-mungbean-maize, and FRR
cropping systems8,
10. This indicates that the dominant phyla of bacterial
communities are relatively stable in paddy soils across cropping systems.
Figure 1

Relative abundances of bacterial phyla in paddy soils from three cropping systems
FRR (fallow-rice-rice), MRR (green manure-rice-rice), and ORR (oilseed rape-
rice-rice). Data are means and SE (n = 4). Values above bars are p-values. Different
letters denote significant differences at p < 0.05 by multiple comparisons among
cropping systems.
Full size image
Rankings and relative abundances of the dominant phyla of soil bacterial
communities differed between findings of the present (Fig. 1) and previous
studies8,
10. For example, Nitropirae respectively ranked 8th and 3rd among soil
bacterial communities in this and Yin et al.‘s study10, and the respective average
relative abundances of Proteobacteria were 0.50 and 0.33 in this and Xuan et al.‘s
study8. Differences in environmental conditions (soil and climate) and crop
management practices may explain the inconsistencies in rank and abundances of
phyla11,
12, but the specific reasons are unclear.
Relative abundances of Proteobacteria, Acidobacteria, Nitrospirae,
Gemmatimonadetes, and Verrucomicrobia in soil bacterial communities were
significantly different among the FRR, MRR, and ORR cropping systems
(p < 0.05; Fig. 1). Compared with FRR, MRR had 11% lower relative abundance
of Nitrospirae and 18% higher relative abundance of Gemmatimonadetes; ORR
had 8–65% higher relative abundances of Proteobacteria and Verrucomicrobia and
11–17% lower relative abundances of Acidobacteria and Nitrospirae. These results
indicate that the structure of soil bacterial communities was significantly affected
by cropping systems in this study. Based on boththe abundance and diversity and
richness data, we suspectthat interspecific competition is likely responsible for the
insignificant effects of cropping systems on the diversity and richness of soil
bacterial communities.
In conclusion, this study determined altered soil bacterial community structure
among three rice-based cropping systems differing in productivity. Briefly,
compared with FRR, the higher rice yield in MRR was accompanied by a decrease
in relative abundance of Nitrospirae and an increase in relative abundance of
Gemmatimonadetes, while the higher rice yield in ORR was accompanied by
increases in relative abundances of Proteobacteria and Verrucomicrobia and
decreases in relative abundances of Acidobacteria and Nitrospirae. These findings

suggest that benefits to rice yield may be obtained by strategically shaping the soil
bacterial community structure.
Based on the results of our present and previous studies and those of others, we
speculate that reducing the relative abundance of Nitrospirae and increasing the
ratio of abundances of Proteobacteria/Acidobacteria in paddysoils may be
beneficial to improve rice yield. On one hand, a lower relative abundance of
Nitrospirae was observed in both MRR and ORR with higher rice yield than in
FRR with lower rice yield in our studies. Nitrospirae is a phylum of nitrification
bacteria in soils, which plays critical role in both the ammonia-oxidizing and
nitrite-oxidizing processes13. A reduction in Nitrospirae abundance in the soil may
reduce nitrification, and consequently increase availability of ammonia nitrogen
(the main nitrogen sourcefor rice) and decrease nitrogen loss through leaching and
denitrification14, and finally improve nitrogen uptake and grain yield in rice15. On
the other hand, abundances of Proteobacteria and Acidobacteria are related to the
nutrient status of soils, and high ratios of abundances of
Proteobacteria/Acidobacteria are indicative of copiotrophic soils16. In the present
study, the significantly higher abundance of Proteobacteria or significantly lower
abundance of Acidobacteria resulted in a significantly higher ratio of abundances
of Proteobacteria/Acidobacteria in both MRR and ORR than in FRR
(Figs. 1 and 2), suggesting that the soil nutrient status was improved in both MRR
and ORR with higher rice yield compared to FRR with lower rice yield. In this
regard, it has been documented that growing green manure of Chinese milkvetch
can improve nitrogen recovery and conservation in the rice paddy soil17, while
growing oilseed rape can increase soil organic matter and nitrogen (especially the
available nitrogen) contents18. In addition, chemical fertilizers (120 kg N ha−1
,
67.5 kg P2O5 ha−1
, and 120 kg K2O ha−1
) were applied to the oilseed rape crop in
ORR9, which might also affect the nutrient status of soils and the growth and
productivity of subsequent rice crops. Theresults of our studies highlight that
further investigations are needed to gain a greater fundamental understanding of
relationships among the structure of soil bacterial communities, soil nutrient status,
and crop physiological processesin rice paddies. Such investigations will provide
useful information to identify the specific soil microorganisms responsible for the
high productivity of rice paddies.
Figure 2

Ratios of abundances of Proteobacteria/Acidobacteria in paddy soils from three
cropping systems FRR (fallow-rice-rice), MRR (green manure-rice-rice), and ORR
(oilseed rape-rice-rice). Ratios were calculated by dividing the relative abundance
of Proteobacteria by the relative abundance of Acidobacteria. Data are means and
SE (n = 4). Different letters denote significant differences at p < 0.05 by multiple
comparisons among cropping systems.
Full size image
Methods
Soil sampling
The experimental field of Huang et al.9 is located at Hengyang (26°53′ N, 112°28′
E), Hunan Province, China. Three rice-based cropping systems were established in
the experimental field from 2014 to 2019 where two seasons of rice crops were
preceded by a winter seasonof either a (1) fallow field (winter fallow-rice-rice,
FRR), (2) crop of green manure of Chinese milkvetch (green manure-rice-rice,
MRR), or (3) crop of oilseed rape (oilseed rape-rice-rice, ORR)in each cropping
cycle. The cropping systems were laid out in a randomized complete-block design
with four replications and a plot size of 45 m2
. Averaged rice yield across cropping
cycles was significantly higher in MRR and ORR than in FRR. The detailed
information of the experiment and yield data can be found in Huang et al.9
At seven days after the second-seasonrice harvest in 2019, fifteen points were
randomly selected in each plot to collect soil samples from the upper 20-cm layer
with a flame-sterilized soil corer (inner diameter = 2 cm). The soil samples from
each plot were composited after removing visible plant residues and gravel. All
composited soil samples were placed in sterilized sealed bags, brought to the
laboratory in an ice box, and stored in an ultra-cold freezer at –70 °C until assayed.
Bacterial community assay
A 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis was conducted to assay bacterial
communities of each soil sample. DNA extraction and 16 S rRNA gene sequencing
were performed according to the procedures described by Yin et al.10. Quality-
filtered and non-chimeric sequences were clustered to generate operational
taxonomic units (OTUs) at a similarity level of 97% using UPARSE

(v7.0.1090)19. Taxonomic information of OTUs was annotated against the
GreenGene Database20 using the RDP classifier algorithm (v2.2)21.
Bacterial community diversity and richness indices, including observed species,
Shannon, Simpson, Chao1, abundance-based coverage estimators (ACE), and
phylogeny-based metrics (PD whole tree), were calculated using QIIME
(v1.9.1)22. Relative abundance of each phylum was calculated by dividing the
number of OTUs affiliated with a phylum by the total number of OTUs.
Statistical analysis
Data were analysed by analysis of variance (ANOVA) using Statistix 8.0 analytical
software (Tallahassee, FL, USA). The statistical significance level of ANOVA was
set at p < 0.05. The variables with significant differences were subjected to
multiple comparisons using the least significant difference (LSD) test at p < 0.05.
Data availability
All data generated or analysed during this study are included in the article.
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Delgado-Baquerizo, M. et al. Carboncontent and climate variability drive
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Norton, J. M. Nitrification in agricultural soils in Nitrogen in agricultural
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Norton, J. & Ouyang, Y. Controls and adaptive management of nitrification
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Huang, M., Yang, L., Qin, H. & Jiang, L. Fertilizer nitrogen uptake by rice
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Smit, E. et al. Diversity and seasonal fluctuations of the dominant members
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Xie, Z. et al. Chinese milk vetch improves plant growth, development
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Huang, M. et al. Increased soil fertility in a long-term rice oilseed rape
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DeSantis, T. Z. et al. Greengenes, a chimera-checked 16S rRNA gene
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Acknowledgements
We thank those who have been at the forefront of the fight against the 2019 novel
coronavirus for allowing us to have peace of mind to concentrate on writing this
paper. This work was supported by the National Key R&D Program of China
(2017YFD0301503).
Author information
Affiliations
1. Crop and Environment ResearchCenter, CollegeofAgronomy, Hunan
Agricultural University, Changsha, 410128, China
Min Huang, Alin Tian, Jiana Chen & Fangbo Cao
2. Department of Crop Cultivation, Hengyang Academy of Agricultural
Sciences, Hengyang, 421101, China
Yumei Chen & Longsheng Liu
Contributions
M.H. conceived the study. A.T., J.C., F.C., Y.C. and L.L. performed the
experiment. M.H. analysed the data and wrote the manuscript. All authors have
read and approved the final manuscript.

Multiplealarm fire at Garwood rice dryer
Alesia Woolridge Editor@coloradocountycitizen.com
June 17, 2020 - 00:00

Courtesy | GVFD
Eleven firefighting agencies were in full response
mode Sunday, June 14 battling a fire at Stallman
Dryer on FM 1693 in the Garwood area.Units
from Columbus, Eagle Lake, Garwood, Sheridan,
RockIsland, and Weimar fire departments were
assisted by El Campo, Wharton, Glen Flora,
Midfield and Hungerford departments.
In addition to fire agencies, CCEMS Medic 3 was
on location. First responders received the call at
9:01 p.m. and had the fire stopped at 3:30 a.m.
Office of Emergency Management Coordinator
Chuck Rogers said water supply impacted
operations until enough tankers were brought into
rotation. Rogers also said that the ladder truck
from Columbus and an elevated water platform
from El Campo ―had a positive impact‖ on
operations.
Garwood VFD Fire Chief Todd Krenek said that
there were no injuries, the dryer (which was still in
operation) was empty and that the structure is a
complete loss.
Krenek said the loss is estimated to be in the $8-$10 million dollars range. The
suspected causeof the fire is either electrical or a lighting strike.
https://www.coloradocountycitizen.com/article/news/multiple-alarm-fire-garwood-
rice-dryer‘
Pabna rice procurementin limbo

12:00 AM, June 18, 2020 / LAST MODIFIED:01:53 AM, June 18, 2020
Prices at governmentpurchasecentres lower than market, saymillers, farmers
A good portion of the LSD godown in Pabna Sadar upazila lies empty as there is
very little responsefrom farmers and millers to sell paddy and rice to government-
run procurement centres in the district. Photo:Star
Ahmed Humayun Kabir Topu
When the government is planning to store sufficient food grains for ensuring
supportin the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, the rice procurement drive in Pabna
faces a hurdle due to alleged irregularities by a section of officials and 'low prices'
offered to millers and farmers.
The government's rice procurement programme started over a month late on June 8
in Ishwardi upazila, the biggest hub of rice mills in the district, due to the
irregularities in selecting suppliers.
This year Pabna food controller's office set a target to procure24,571 tonnes of rice
in the district, including 15,162 tonnes in Ishwardi, through 11 government-run
centres, and 681 rice millers including 425 in the upazila got contract for the
purpose.
"But dozens of closed mills, which abandoned husking paddyyears ago, were
included in the list of rice suppliers in exchange of bribe," Md Mizanur Rahman
Mahalder, owner of Redwan Enterprise in Ishwardi upazila, told The Daily Star.

Following his written allegation submitted to the Anti-Corruption Commission and
the Pabna deputy commissioner (DC) about the irregularities on May 3, the
authorities stopped procurement programme in the upazila for the sake of
investigation.
"After investigation we removed 45 mills from the previous list as they failed to
fulfil conditions. Then procurement drive started in Ishwardi upazila on June 8.
The upazila food officer was withdrawn due to the earlier fault in the list," said
Iqbal Bahar, district food controller.
"Most of the millers are not showing interest to supply rice to procurement centres
despite having contract for it. If any mill owner violates contract, we will take
action," he said.
Since start of the procurement drive on June 8, only 765 tonnes of rice has been
procured in Ishwardi.
Rice traders said they are not interested to supply rice to government centres due to
the poorprice.
"Government is paying Tk 36 for a kg of rice but our productioncostis Tk 39,"
Fozlu Malitha, president of upazila rice mill owners association.
Meanwhile, farmers have brought only 28 tonnes of paddy(rice before husking) to
government procurement centres in the district since the collection drive began on
April 26 with a target to procure6,695 tonnes of paddyin the district this season.
"Government price of paddyis Tk 26 per kg but it is selling for Tk 29 to Tk 30 in
the local market for the last few weeks," said Md Kamruzzaman, a farmer of
Durgapur village in Sujanagar upazila.
"I supplied paddy to a government's procurement centre last year but now I am not
interested to sell the crop there due to the low price.
"Besides employees at government centres often decline to receive paddydirectly
from us, claiming that it contains huge moisture. But the problem is solved if we
take the help of their brokers. Besides, the price money is not paid timely," he said.
Talked with The Daily Star, Pabna DC Kabir Mahamud said, "No irregularity will
be tolerated in government's food procurement programme. We will take action if
there is any specific allegation."
"The procurement is getting late as Pabna farmers harvested the crop late. We are
expecting fulfilment of the target," said the official, also president of district food
procurement committee.
https://www.thedailystar.net/country/news/pabna-rice-procurement-limbo-1916281

Rice deals in riel and yuan?
June 18, 2020
Sok Chan / Khmer Time
The Cambodia Rice Federation (CRF)and the National Bank of Cambodia (NBC)
discussed ways to use the Chinese Yuan and the riel in rice exports between China
and Cambodia.
CRF vice president Chan Sokheang told Khmer Times the CRF also talked with
the representative of the NBC to promote the local currency for domestic
consumption and transactions. He said all the transactions with the rice millers and
farmers will use riel.
All rice exporters may soonhave an alternative choice of payment either in US
dollars (the international currency of trade) or yuan. However, Sokheang said there
were barriers to using the yuan for cross-bordertransactions previously, therefore,
the discussions with the NBC were to resolve previous issues.
―The government as well as the National Bank of Cambodia are encouraging
transactions in either Chinese yuan or Khmer riel, but there are some conditions for
which the use of bothcurrencies is not easy, especially regarding the exchange rate
and the banks which play the role for the cashsettlement. Therefore, we proposed
these issues to the NBC for resolution,‖ Sokheang added. ―After there is a solution,
we will start piloting it,‖ he added.
China also has strict capital controls.
―If we can trade with Chinese yuan and Khmer riel, we will benefit from the
exchange rate risk. At present, exports of milled rice to China have been conducted
in US dollars, but when the buyers sold the products in the Chinese market they get
Chinese yuan. Then they exchange the Chinese yuan to US dollars to pay the
Cambodia sides. Therefore, there is a loss on the exchange rate,‖ he added.

Sokheang said that for the first five months of the year Cambodia exported milled
rice to China at a total value of $71 million. Therefore, the use of yuan and riel for
the cross-bordertransactions will be beneficial for both traders – Cambodia and
China – and they also enable the expansion of Cambodian milled rice to the
Chinese market.
Long Vibunrith, deputy director of the Exchange Management Department at the
National Bank of Cambodia, thanked the CRF for supporting the mechanism to
conducttransactions in yuan for rice exports – a request from the Central Bank of
China.
Both parties agreed on the proposalto set up a memorandum of understanding
(MoU) to begin transactions in yuan and riel at the meeting attended by the
Chinese Central Bank, the Cambodia Central Bank (NBC) and commercial banks.
Vibunrith said that there might be an MoU signing ceremony during the Asia-
Europe Summit in November, when the leaders of Cambodia, Hun Sen, and China,
Xi Jinping, meet each other.
The Cambodia Rice Federation has also suggested to the NBC to fix the exchange
rate between riel and the yuan one month ahead of enacting the deals because it is
the main barrier for foreign trade.
In 2017, the NBC and the People‘s Bank of China (PBC) urged investors and
traders to use the yuan and the riel in transactions involving both nations. The
yuan-riel exchange rate was officially launched in September 2017 during the
China-Asean Expo in Nanning, Guangxi province. The initiative is widely
expected to bolster economic relations between both countries, improve efficiency
and security and save costs when exchanging currencies.
The Cambodia central bank also allows certain banks and financial institutions to
operate in yuan.
https://www.khmertimeskh.com/50735451/rice-deals-in-riel-and-yuan/
Australian-grown black rice could deliver a high value niche
crop for farmers

ABC Rural
/
By Kim Honan
Posted 6hhours ago, updated 6hhours ago
Tobias Kretzschmar is leading a project to determine the agronomic performance
of black rice.(Supplied:Southern Cross University)
Black rice is widely promoted as a superfood, and new research hopes to determine
if it can provide a niche market for Australian growers.
Key points:
 Black rice is gaining popularity as a superfood becauseof its health benefits
 Research is underway to develop black rice varieties for the Australian
environment

 Black rice could become a high value crop for Northern Rivers dryland rice
farmers
Southern Cross University scientists have begun research to try to discover if black
rice is suitable for growing in the local environment.
The three-year project, funded $600,000 by the Australian Research Council, will
identify drivers of nutritional quality of black rice and whether high UV levels
could boostits health compounds.
Project leader associate professorTobias Kretzschmar said that demand for
functional foods, like black rice, with health benefits was growing here and
overseas.
"Black rice, as opposed to white rice, contains a lot more micronutrients, but more
importantly that's what makes it black or purple," he said.
"It contains valuable anthocyanins and these anthocyanins have antioxidants and
inflammatory properties when eaten."
Southern Cross Plant Science has gained access to 300 lines of black rice from the
International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in the Philippines, home to a gene
bank with more than 100,000 types of rice.
Mr Kretzchmar, who worked at IRRI for seven years, said so far 256 lines
imported into Australia had been released from quarantine.
"We want to most of all focus on the characterisation of this resource looking at
how the genetics of that resource interact with the local environments to actually
drive the composition and content of those valuable secondarymetabolites (such as
anthocyanins)," he said.
Associate professorTobias Kretzschmar from Southern Cross Plant Science is
researching black rice.(ABC Rural:Kim Honan)
The varieties have already been grown from seed twice — once to pass biosecurity
and again in a polytunnel facility to check their agronomic performance.
"We're currently just characterising them for their nutrient content, that is taking
pictures of them and running them through lab equipment that will tell us exactly
what the composition of these grains is," he said.
The project will also investigate whether the Australian climate, and its high UV
levels, could offer an advantage for black rice productionhere.
"Australia is pretty high in UV radiation as compared to other countries, and whilst
that's a detriment for most of agronomy it could actually be of benefit for black rice

because these anthocyanins have been shown to be produced at higher
concentrations under high UV," he said.
"In fact, in tropical countries good black rice comes from mountainous regions
where the UV radiation is higher than in lowland regions."
If the black rice lines do not perform well in field trials, due to start later this year,
researchers will look at using them as parents in a breeding program.
Southern Cross Plant Science's Tobias Kretzschmar and Natural Rice Co's Steve
Rogers say black rice could be a successfulniche crop.(ABC Rural:Kim Honan)
High value opportunity
Most of the rice produced in Australia is grown under irrigation in the Riverina
region but in the Northern Rivers, where the industry is significantly smaller,
farmers rely on rainfall to feed their crops.

Local business Natural Rice Co buys the dryland brown rice from local growers
and packages it, as well as imported black rice, for sale in supermarket giant Aldi.
Operations manager Steve Rogers said that black rice was a high value crop and it
would provide a niche market for local growers.
"Technically it's really only around a 500 to 1000 tonne market, that's why other
rice players in Australia haven't really gone down that track, it's just easier to
import it," he said.
"But a 500 to 1000 tonne market is quite suitable for us, we can concentrate on that
and really give it a good chance of growing."
The Natural Rice Co's Steve Rogers says growers could expect to receive $600-
$700 per tonne for black rice.(ABC Rural:Kim Honan)
Mr Rogers could expect to receive a premium for the superfood with prices more
than $600 to $700 per tonne.
"So that's a very high value productopportunity for a grower to grow in a lowland
area," he said.

"They've now got the possibility of making up around $4,000 to $5,000 a hectare
off that."
Mr Rogers said that black rice was something that the local rice industry had been
murmuring about for a while.
"We'd like to fast track it, but we understand it all takes time and now we have this
great opportunity that's come upon us to actually try and kick-start something
going," he said.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2020-06-18/research-project-could-deliver-
australian-bred-black-rice/12358642
Dietary RNAis ripe for investigation
Kenneth Witwer says that RNA in food could have profound effects on the human
digestive system and on health more generally.
 By Kenneth Witwer on June 17, 2020
Credit: John Hopkins Medicine

In the mid-nineteenth century, German philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach reviewed a
monograph on the influence of food chemicals on the make-up and function of the
body. In his essay, he asserted that food affects even cognition, coining the phrase:
―you are what you eat‖. To change the world, give people better food, he said.
The study of nutrition has progressed substantially since then. How the body
extracts molecular building blocks and energy from food is well understood. But
could food be more than just fuel? In 2012, an article suggested just that: a dietary
component that interacts with the genetic code.
The authors of the study1
reported that short molecules of RNA called microRNAs
(miRNA) from rice accumulate in tissues, and regulate an important liver enzyme.
This regulation was so effective that, surprisingly, a plant-based diet seemed to
significantly boostlevels of circulating cholesterol in mice. This, and other reports
from the same group on dietary-RNA-containing particles, including extracellular
vesicles (EVs), generated considerable excitement.
But despite numerous replication and analysis studies, little or no systemic uptake
of dietary RNA has been observed. A faithful replication of the initial experiments,
but comparing mice given a nutritionally balanced ricebased diet with animals fed
just rice, showed that the cholesterol finding was not the result of miRNA transfer,
but rather a starvation responseto a nutritionally insufficient rice diet2
. In a study
this year in cows, researchers found that during the 24-hour window after birth in
which calves can absorb antibodies from their mother‘s milk, proteins and lipid
membranes transferred readily into the circulation—but RNA did not3
.
However, systemic transfer, which involves molecules crossing multiple barriers in
the body, is not the only way that dietary RNA could affect health beyond serving
as fuel4
. Dietary-RNA carriers have access to the epithelial and immune-
surveillance cells of the alimentary tract. They probably also interact with the
diverse species of the community of microorganisms that live in the gut.
Such interactions could be exploited to deliver therapeutic small RNA strands to
combat specific health conditions. Early evidence of the transfer of RNA from one
organism to another came from the finding that bacteria, given orally, could
transfer therapeutic RNA to human colorectal cancer cells transplanted into mice5
.
The bacteria don‘t need to replicate to have these effects, so bacterial EVs could be
a safer and highly scalable alternative to live organisms. And bacterial vesicles are
not the only possible delivery vehicles. Indeed, food plants, blended and broken up
into nanoparticles that resemble EVs, could deliver RNAs and small-molecule

drugs to epithelial cells6
. Food-basedRNA-delivery strategies are likely to be very
low risk, because there is no evidence that dietary RNA is harmful.
Particles produced from these plant ‗smoothies‘ might affect the gut microbiome—
just as host epithelial EVs have been shown to do—and RNAs could play a part in
this phenomenon. Because the health of the microbiome is now a recognized factor
in conditions such as cancer and neurodegenerative disease, the effects of dietary
RNA and EVs should be investigated more intensively. Theoretically, dietary RNA
found in food or engineered RNA additives could attenuate or eliminate pathogens
by targeting essential genetic elements. It could also be used to fine-tune the
balance of microbes in the gut, because different RNA molecules exert different
effects across the diverse gut-microbe populations.
In his essay, Feuerbach opined that the uprising of the German people had failed
because they ate too many potatoes. A diet richer in beans, he thought, would have
brought about political change. Such a notion now seems quaint, and bolstering a
person‘s political activism through dietary microRNA is a far-fetched idea.
Nevertheless, opportunities abound to study whether dietary RNA is delivered to
the cells of the alimentary tract and the microbes that live there. But these
investigations must include appropriate controls to determine whether dietary
extracellular RNA is mostly a sourceof nutrition in the form of molecular building
blocks or whether specific RNA sequences are transferred into microbial or host
gut cells where they regulate other nucleic acids.
If the latter is true, researchers will need to determine whether native dietary RNA
is therapeutically effective, or if it is necessary to introduce vesicles loaded with
naturally occurring or synthetic RNA. Similarly, can a ‗smoothie‘, or even
unprocessed food, deliver RNA, or must EV-like particles be separated and
concentrated from these sources?
Finally, the mechanisms of delivery and the use of RNA in the recipient cell must
be unravelled. Knowing exactly how RNA is taken up and incorporated into
regulatory complexes will allow researchers to exploit and enhance these
pathways. Although it is not possible to predict how these experiments will turn
out, the findings could lead to the use of specific foods and methods of processing
as therapy or to enhance gut health.
Depending on the outcome, Feuerbach‘s ideas might turn out to be correct on a
molecular level he could not have anticipated.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/custom-media/nature-outlook-extracellular-
rna/dietary-rna-is-ripe-for-investigation/
Do the microRNAs we eat affect gene expression?
Studies have suggested that genetic material can be transferred from diet. But some
researchers have their doubts.
 By Kristina Campbell on June 17, 2020
Huang-Ge Zhang has shown that nanoparticles from grapes can deliver therapeutic
RNA. Credit: Univ. Louisville
Until September 2011, Janos Zempleni‘s main focus was working out how the
bodies of mammals use chemical compounds such as vitamins. But new research
published online at the time changed that.
Zempleni, a molecular nutritionist at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, like
many others in the field, was struck by the findings of an astonishing study
published in Cell Research suggesting that food could provide something other
than nutrients—information from ingested plants could switch mammalian genes
on and off1
. In the study, researchers reported that microRNAs (miRNAs)—very
short fragments of non-coding RNA molecules — originating from plants such as
rice had been found in the bloodstream of mice, cows and humans. And in a mouse
model, one particular rice-derived miRNA seemed to reach the liver, where it
directly inhibited the expression of a gene that normally serves to clear ‗bad‘ low-
density lipoprotein cholesterol from the blood. After learning about the work,
Zempleni was keen to follow up on the possible transfer of genetic material from
dietary components, and to determine how extensive this phenomenon might be.
When Kenneth Witwer, a molecular biologist at Johns Hopkins University School
of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland, read the paper, he immediately realized the
potential significance of the work. ―I thought, wow, this is amazing. I want to do
this, too.‖ He remembers thinking, ―maybe this is some evolutionarily conserved
way that we can extract something else from our food other than just nutrition.‖ He
corralled some of his lab‘s resources and set about trying to verify the findings in a
small animal study of his own.
But misgivings about the Cell Research study soonbegan to surface. Not only
were Witwer and several others unable to reproducethe findings, but some of its
basic premises were also called into question. Scientists doubted that diet-derived
miRNAs could make it into the systemic circulation of animal hosts at sufficient

levels to have a meaningful impact. Follow-up work2
also revealed the strong
possibility that the ‗diet-derived‘ miRNAs were actually the result of
contamination.
Initial excitement about the possiblehealth effects of rice-derived miRNAs
gradually tapered off. Some researchers, including Witwer, gave up studying it
altogether. But others persevered with the idea that what we eat can directly affect
gene expression. What‘s at stake is a clearer understanding of how humans relate
to, and derive benefit from, their food.
A tall glass ofexosomes
Zempleni, after a brief and disappointing spell looking for broccoli-specific
miRNAs in humans, turned his attention to miRNAs in milk. ―We settled on milk
because of the importance for infant nutrition and because Americans consume lots
of milk,‖ he says.
Zempleni wondered whether the miRNAs in milk go beyond the gastrointestinal
tract. But he quickly encountered a problem: the miRNA molecules themselves
rapidly degraded in the gut. ―Werealized what matters is really not just the
miRNAs,‖ Zempleni says. ―What‘s at least equally important is the shell in which
these miRNAs are packaged.‖ This shell is a bubble-like vessel called an exosome.
―In order for miRNAs to be bioavailable and to be absorbed from the gut, they
have to be encapsulated in these exosomes,‖Zempleni says. As others had shown,
fragile miRNAs need to be protected in these containers to be transported from cell
to cell.
The exosomes accounted for how the miRNAs could remain intact in the host‘s
digestive tract, but the next challenge was to work out how they end up in different
places in the body. As a way of testing whether the milk miRNAs could go beyond
the mouse gut, Zempleni and his colleagues devised a method for labelling the
miRNAs contained in cow‘s milk exosomes with fluorescent compounds.These
could then be tracked in animal models. ―This technology confirmed that these
microRNAs, if encapsulated in exosomes, accumulate in various tissues,‖ he
says—mainly the brain, liver and intestinal mucosa3
.
This established that the miRNAs could reach not just local sites (the gut wall), but
also distant ones. Turning, then, to the question of how the miRNA-containing
exosomes were affecting host health, Zempleni carried out various experiments in
which he gave mice a diet deficient in both free miRNAs and miRNA-containing

exosomes, and compared them with other mice consuming a diet that had normal
levels of each. He found a range of effects, including a decrease in the cognitive
performance4
of mice receiving the depleted diet, a decrease in fecundity5
and
changes in muscular growth6
.
Zempleni is now tackling the question of whether these health effects are conferred
by the dietary miRNAs or something else, suchas the entire exosome or a
component of the exosome besides miRNAs. He and his colleagues are looking at
a group of mice engineered to lack miRNAs in their milk. Initial unpublished
results show that their offspring, whose diet consists only of their mother‘s milk,
have numerous health and developmental problems. If confirmed, this would
specifically implicate the diet-derived miRNAs as major players in health—at
least, those in milk during early life.
Zempleni says that ―miRNAs and exosomes are way more bioavailable in milk
than in plants‖. He speculates that this might have evolutionary underpinnings:
―Nature may have made them to be bioavailable because of infant nutrition,‖ he
says. Zempleni is investigating other foods ofanimal origin, and, as part of an
ongoing study, he is looking at whether he can track how dietary chicken-egg
exosomes deliver miRNA cargo to mouse tissues.
A gut feeling
Some of Zempleni‘s animal-model work is based on the idea that exosomes
interact with the gut microbiota—the community of microorganisms involved in
the health effects conferred by a host‘s diet. This led to the hypothesis that the gut
microbiota might mediate cell-to-cell communication between milk exosomes and
mammalian hosts.
It‘s in this realm that Witwer predicts much of the progress in the field will occur
over the next few years. ―Wecan shift our focus from the circulation and the tissue
of the animal, to the gut,‖ says Witwer. He thinks that interactions of diet-derived
exosomes with gut epithelial cells or particular gut microbes hold promise.
The gut has also been a central focus for researchers studying the extra-nutritional
health effects of dietary plants. Immunologist Huang-Ge Zhang at the University
of Louisville in Kentucky is pursuing the question of how plant foods, suchas
grapefruit, carrots and mushrooms, might affect specific cells. He studies the plant
equivalent of exosomes, entities called exosome-like nanoparticles, which are
protective vesicles with similar precious cargo inside: protein, lipid and RNA. In

2018, Zhang reported how ginger exosome-like nanoparticles are stable in the
intestine, and how they regulate gut bacterial composition7
.
According to Zhang, when introduced into mammals, exosome-like nanoparticles
can home in on different cells in the intestine with remarkable specificity. He has
shown, for example, that exosome-like nanoparticles from grapes are taken up by
gut stem cells8
, and that nanoparticles from grapes, ginger, carrots and grapefruit
target gut-associated macrophages9
.
Zhang‘s view is that the miRNAs in these exosome-like nanoparticles might have
been incorrectly singled out in earlier work as responsible for hosthealth effects.
Because exosome-like nanoparticles consist of numerous proteins, lipids, RNAs
and polysaccharides, says Zhang, they might do many things at once. ―Multiple
factors carried by a single nanovesicle can be taken up by the same cells,‖ he says.
―Therefore, we can see multiple molecules as regulating multiple pathways.‖
Zhang hopes that, by learning which host cells (in the gut and elsewhere)
preferentially take up different plant-derived exosome-like nanoparticles,
researchers could assemble new nanoparticles for use as drug-delivery vehicles to
very specific cell types in the body. Having abandoned his own studies on milk
exosomes around 2008, he says that plant nanoparticles have several distinct
advantages over exosomes of animal origin. Not only are exosome-like
nanoparticles safer because they avoid possible transfer of cow-derived pathogens,
but they are also more versatile—drug developers looking to target a particular cell
type can explore the exosome-like nanoparticles derived from thousands of
different types of plant, each with its own target in the host. Furthermore, Zhang
says, purification of milk exosomes is particularly challenging, and large quantities
of exosomes are more expensive to producethan are plant nanoparticles.
Molecular biologist Jiujiu Yu, also at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, became
interested in the therapeutic potential of plant-derived vesicles because they could
be extracted in large numbers from various plant foods. In particular, she wanted to
know how vesicles affected metabolic inflammation and obesity. Her lab
developed a cell-culture system to screen dietary exosome-like nanoparticles from
ginger or mushrooms to find out how they affected the cells implicated in
inflammatory processes related to metabolic disease.
Yu is focused on identifying the part of the exosome-like nanoparticle responsible
for anti-inflammatory effects. Her latest work, which has not yet been published,
has shown that only in rare cases is the RNA component necessary for the anti-
inflammatory effects of the vesicles. She wants to explore the possibility that, for a

given food, any part of the exosome-like nanoparticle could be responsible for a
health effect. ―People try to focus on miRNA because it‘s a new component,‖Yu
says. ―Protein and lipids are not that exciting. But we should try to study all these
components of the vesicles, not just focus on something that catches the eye.‖
Yu thinks there is much more still to learn before exosome-like nanoparticles from
plants are put to therapeutic use in humans. Her lab has found that ginger
purchased from different grocery stores contains different exosome-like
nanoparticles that yield different results10
. The vesicles can have strong or mild
anti-inflammatory effects, or even promote inflammation. ―There‘s inconsistency,
so we need to be very careful if we want to just use those dietary vesicles for
therapeutic use,‖ she says. ―I really want to identify the active molecule.‖
Zempleni, meanwhile, sees applications for milk exosomes on the horizon. ―If you
load milk exosomes with cancer drugs, you could deliver them to tumour sites in
cancer patients — even if the drugs themselves are not very bioavailable or not
very stable,‖ Zempleni says. ―That‘s a big story these days.‖ Indeed, Pure- Tech
Health of Boston, Massachusetts, in collaboration with pharmaceutical giant
Roche, is already working to advance technology that uses milk exosomes for drug
delivery.
The ultimate goal is to learn the language in which our food speaks to us—and to
discover whether miRNAs might serve as a Rosetta Stone.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/custom-media/nature-outlook-extracellular-
rna/do-the-micrornas-we-eat-affect-gene-expression/
Rules soon to block cheap imports from
China, others: Ram Vilas Paswan
New regulations being finalised to ensure imported products abide by Indian
norms for quality.
By HimangshuWatts,RiturajTiwari
, ET Bureau|
Last Updated: Jun 18, 2020, 08.39 AM IST

He said there was no need for people to buy
goods from the hostile neighbour.New
Delhi: The government will soonannounce
regulations to block imports of cheap, sub-
standard goods from China and other
countries, while people should themselves
boycottproducts shipped in from the hostile
neighbour, food and consumer affairs
minister Ram Vilas Paswan said.
People should boycottgoods from China because they must not take its aggression
and hostility lightly and they should remember that George Fernandes, former
defence minister in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government, had clearly named China
as India‘s enemy No 1, Paswan told ET in an interview.
He said there was no need for people to buy goods from the hostile neighbour. ―If
China has made such an attack, and our soldiers have been martyred, then at the
diplomatic level there are talks, but we can at least boycotttheir goods. Why
should it be that Ganeshji is worshipped in Indian homes, but Ganeshji travels to
India from China,‖ he said.
The minister said the government had strengthened the Bureau of Indian Standards
(BIS).
New rules and regulations are being finalised to make sure that imported products
abide by Indian norms for quality, he said. This will eliminate cheap, low-quality
imports that are often clandestinely shipped in, he said.
―In our Consumer Affairs Department, there is BIS which makes standards for
25,000 products. Now we have a new law. Its rules and regulations are in the last
stage. When our goods reach abroad, they are checked. Our Basmati rice exports

can get rejected, but when their goods cometo India, there is no strict quality
control. Once the regulations are strictly implemented, sub-standard goods will
stop coming in,‖ Paswan said.
He said the new rules and regulations on quality were ―almost ready‖ but other
sections of the government were also involved.
Apart from the minister, the Confederation of All India Traders has also called for
a boycottof Chinese goods, while Indian entrepreneurs are investing in sectors
dependent on Chinese imports. Industrialist Gautam Adani recently told ET in an
interview that after his group‘s investment in local solar equipment manufacturing,
Chinese imports, which have an overwhelming dominance in the sector, will be
virtually eliminated in a few years.
Paswan said that apart from boycotting Chinese products,Indian entrepreneurs also
need to ensure that locally made products are priced competitively and meet
quality standards. Asked about the impact of a boycotton small businessmen who
thrive on Chinese imports, the minister said: ―The nation comes first, organisations
come next and individual interests come after that.
On the broader strategy towards trade with China, Paswan said other wings of the
government such as the ministries of finance and commerce would take a call. ―I
can‘t say if under WTO rules we can stop imports or restrict the quantity of
imports, but when there is an awakening among the people, nobodycan force
people to buy imported products. In my own department, I don‘twant Chinese
goods to be purchased.‖
―In the current situation, the China issue should not be taken lightly…In many
cases, there may be Chinese money invested, but I think the regular things we buy
from the market, one should certainly make sure that we avoid Chinese products.‖

He said the prime minister‘s message for ‗Atmanirbhar Bharat‘ and make-in-India
campaign had the same message: ―Unless it is something absolutely essential,
avoid imported goods.‖
Every time they attack, capture some land, their confidence is increasing. They
have to be reined in. What is the way, I can‘t say but they can‘t be given a free
hand.‖
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/economy/policy/rules-soon-to-block-cheap-imports-from-
china-others/articleshow/76435345.cms
Government yet to deposit Rs 1,000 crore in bank accounts
of Telangana farmers
Roushan Ali | TNN | Updated: Jun 17, 2020, 09:37 IST
Representative image

HYDERABAD: The government is yet to deposit Rs 1,000 crore into the bank
accounts of thousands of farmers from whom paddywas procured for yasangi,
formerly known as rabi, crop. The procurement through the Telangana State Civil
Supplies Corporation (TSCSC)ended on Monday.
Officials said Rs 11,000 crore has already been deposited into the bank accounts of
farmers for the paddyprocured and added that the remaining Rs 1,000 crore would
be deposited in a couple of days. ―Thosefarmers who came with paddyat the last
moment are yet to get the amount. There is no problem with the money. Farmers
will get the deposits in their bank accounts soon,‖said an official.
The government has procured 65 lakh metric tonnes (MT) of paddy from the
farmers out of the total 1.05 crore MTs produced during yasangi.
Though 65 lakh MTs of paddyprocured is a little over 65% of the total paddyto be
procured, the government said it has to be assumed as 100% procurement.
Rythu Bandhu Samithi chairman Palla Rajeshwar Reddytold TOIthat of the total
1.05 crore MTs of paddyproduced in the rabi, 65 lakh MTs was procured by the
government, another 15 lakh MTs is kept by farmers for self-consumption and five
lakh MTs would be used as seed for next season. ―Over 20 lakh MTs of fine rice
variety will be sold to rice millers or private traders directly by the farmers at a
higher price,‖ he added.
TSCSC chairman Mareddy Srinivas Reddy said the government has procured 1.12
crore MTs of paddy from two crop seasons in 2019-20 from farmers at the rate of
65 lakh MTs in yasangi-2020 and the remaining in vanakalam-2019.
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/hyderabad/govt-yet-to-deposit-rs-1000cr-in-bank-accounts-of-
farmers/articleshow/76413345.cms#:~:text=HYDERABAD%3A%20The%20government%20is%20yet,(TSC
SC)%20ended%20on%20Monday.

18th june ,2020 daily global regional and local rice e-newsletter

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