Rice

[kowloonboy]

Speedy Chef in Shenyang, Liaoning China, can stir fry two fried rice/ noodle within one minute

He can also cook many dish at the same time. Even while singing. He has been cooking for over twenty years.

His top record was to cook 12 dishes at the same time. He could cook over 200 dishes within 2 hours. Therefore the average per minute is 2 dishes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1dvtN0MRQ8&feature=related

[David Jamieson]

I wonder how the taste is.

[GeneChing]

Because of course, Japan would have rice masters. :rolleyes:


Japanese rice master: Beijing demonstration falls short but provides morale boost (http://ajw.asahi.com/article/cool_japan/style/AJ201602140015)
February 14, 2016
By JUNJI MURAKAMI/ Staff Writer

SAKAI--Tsutomu Murashima said his rice-cooking demonstration in China was only “60 percent successful,” despite the accolades that poured in from audience members who sampled his concoction.

Murashima, 85, returned to Japan on Jan. 13, a day after the event in Beijing organized by a Chinese government group that is trying to improve the quality of products sold in China.

During the Jan. 12 demonstration, Murashima mixed 10 types of rice from across China using bottled water from a retailer in the country. He cooked 150 servings of rice in three pots on a stage.

About 180 people in various fields, from influential business people and food critics, tried the rice. The reviews were overwhelmingly favorable, including, “The rice made by the master is sweet and tasty.”

However, Murashima had difficulty adjusting the gap between the pot and the heat.

“Although I did my best, the stickiness, luster and flavor of the rice were different from what I usually make,” he said.

“The rice was 60 percent successful,” he said.

But he said he felt motivated by the compliments he received for the rice.

“I felt that food has no borders," he said. "I want to try again.”

His rice was quickly gobbled down, as well as the 3 kilograms of “shiokonbu” (thin strips of kelp cooked in soy sauce), a local specialty Murashima brought from Sakai, served as an accompanying dish.

His “onigiri” rice balls went down particularly well among the audience members, bringing smiles to their faces while they ate.

For more than half a century, Murashima has cooked rice at the Ginshari-ya Gekotei eatery that he opened in 1963 in Sakai. He became widely known in China after a Chinese blogger who visited Gekotei posted an article that described Murashima as “the wizard of rice cooking in Sakai.”

Murashima was also featured on television programs.

The rice-cooking demonstration was arranged by an organization from China’s Ministry of Commerce that has been planning a “highest-quality mark” for products sold in China.

The Chinese organizers invited Murashima as an “ambassador of rice culture” to learn his methods and attitude toward rice cooking as part of the Beijing’s quality-improvement efforts.

The organizers asked for Murashima’s participation through the Sakai city government, saying, “Mr. Murashima’s bowl of rice is the very thing that warms and bridges the hearts of Japan and China.”

On Jan. 7, Murashima flew to Beijing with his favorite pots. Having never before cooked rice in China, he studied the right amount of water and heat level through trial and error before the Jan. 12 event.

On Jan. 16, Murashima reopened Gekotei.

“I really appreciate that Chinese visitors said ‘delicious’ to my rice,” he said. “I will go back to square one and keep trying.”

By JUNJI MURAKAMI/ Staff Writer


Why is this in the Southern Chinese Kung Fu forum again?
I'm so hijacking this thread. I'll move it to the OT forum soon. :p

[GeneChing]

If you're a facebook (https://www.facebook.com/Kung-Fu-Tai-Chi-Magazine-135964689362/)er, you've probably seen that trending Audi with a rice-cooker. It was actually an April Fools prank from 2015 (http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/04/01/national/media-automakers-offer-gags-galore-as-april-fools-catches-on-in-japan/#.Vsd9RPkrKUl), but that's facebook for you. And to think that fb is having such an effect on our Presidential election this year...:rolleyes:


Audi Japan debuts special edition A8 featuring a rice cooker (http://www.audi.jp/rice/)

http://www.audi.jp/rice/images/main01.gif
http://www.audi.jp/rice/images/ap_pr01.jpg
http://www.audi.jp/rice/images/ap_pr02.jpg
http://www.audi.jp/rice/images/ap_pr03.jpg

Exclusive only for Japan, The Audi A8 5.5
“Vorsprung durch Technik” advances to a whole new level
Audi premiered their flagship car, Audi A8 in 2014 to achieve mature market excellence of Japan’s import automobile industry. In addition to the lineup of A8 3.0/4.0, Audi debuts the “5.5” model limited only in Japan. To respond to the high demands of our customers, Audi A8 5.5 strived to aim for the most satisfying model using world class, advanced technologies. The model name 5.5 was inspired from 5(five) Go and 0.5(half) Han, coming from the term gohan, which means rice in Japanese.
From the console, shines the pure-white perfection.
In honor of the Japanese rice-eating culture, the Audi A8 5.5 features the world’s first rice cooker in the rear sheet console. The rice cooker is exclusively designed on the basis of the unique performance of Audi A8's 435PS／600Nm. From the intense heat convection inside the broad-brimmed Japanese rice cooking pot called, Hagama, it can generate heat directly from the core, cooking the perfect rice ever.
Innovated gourmet food technology in a sophisticated style.
With the touch screen menu panel, owners can select multiple cooking options. Through Audi’s refined, innovative technology, each and every owner can now customize any rice to their own taste of preference.
The one and only fine quality of soft rush grass (rice straw) selected carefully will grasp the owner’s heart instantly.
Audi’s innovative aesthetics creates the most comfortable atmosphere fitted for the Japanese climate. The 2,990mm long wheelbase interior is designed with tatami made out of the finest rush suitable for high temperature and the humidity in Japan. Enjoy the aesthetic features of Japanese culture with the new Audi A8 5.5
Audi A8 5.5 debut.
100 Years of Audi History. Today is April 1st.



Present
Audi April Fools' Day gift 「Audi original rice paddle」

http://www.audi.jp/rice/images/syamoji02.jpg

For customers who contact their local Audi dealer regarding the Audi A8 5.5, will receive a special gift based on first come first serve basis.

Please click here to contact your local dealer.
Please note that distribution of gift will be finished upon stock availability.
The Gift will be distributed only on April 1, 2015. Dealers which close on April 1st will distribute it the next business day.
Please note that some of dealers will not distribute the gift.
This exclusive campaign is conducted only in Japan.

[GeneChing]

CHINA RICE MUSEUM CELEBRATES THE GRAIN (http://www.newsweek.com/china-rice-museum-celebrates-grain-469603)
BY ELISABETH PERLMAN ON 6/13/16 AT 8:25 AM

The world’s first museum dedicated to rice has opened in China, The Times reported.

Based in Changsha, the capital of central China’s Hunan province, Longping Rice Museum pays homage to Yuan Longping, otherwise known as the “father of hybrid rice,” for his contribution to increasing rice yields throughout the country. Longping, a Chinese agricultural scientist and educator developed the first hybrid varieties of rice in the 1970s.

Museum visitors are invited to walk inside a collection of buildings shaped like rice kernels, while reflecting on China’s historical relationship with the grain.
http://s.newsweek.com/sites/www.newsweek.com/files/styles/full/public/2016/06/13/rice-museum.jpg
The world's first rice museum, named after Chinese agricultural scientist Yuan Longping, in Changsha, the capital of China’s Hunan province, May 17.
@XHNEWS/TWITTER

“Good rice is so tasty that you don’t need anything else, you can have a meal just of rice,” said Professor Zhu Zhiwei, an analyst at China’s National Rice Research Institute, founded in 1981 and based in the eastern province of Hangzhou. Professor Zhiwei heads a team of six Chinese government officials who try 30 different types of rice every day. The different varieties are then rated on a scale of one to 100 based on texture, flavor, color, smell and aftertaste.

The major rice growing regions in China are based in the country’s northeast provinces of Jiangsu and Ningxia. The Chinese population is on course to consume a record 145 million tonnes of rice this year, which amounts to approximately 30 per cent of global demand, The Times reported. Despite high yields, the only country boasting national rice tasting standards is Japan, which remains the dominant global authority when it comes to rice.

Every time I get a rice or noodles news story, I think about splitting this thread. Then I read through the beginning and decide it's too funny to split. But some day I will....maybe.

[PalmStriker]

:) I've been eating way more rice than noodles over the last few weeks, a major craving. Must be some logical explanation besides the way rice can be more filling and last longer to curb hunger. Of course the taste is unique. Rice stands alone in that way.

[GeneChing]

The posts above are poached from the Noodles-or-Rice (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?14230-Noodles-or-Rice) thread.

I don't know why this amuses me. Maybe because I've been in Chinese kitchens and seen bugs? :eek:


China Agency to inspect basmati rice production facilities for insects (http://www.business-standard.com/article/economy-policy/chinese-agency-to-inspect-basmati-rice-production-facilities-for-insects-116090700378_1.html)
No commitment to open the door for imports; trade in non-basmati rice out of question
Sanjeeb Mukherjee | New Delhi
September 7, 2016 Last Updated at 12:42 IST

http://bsmedia.business-standard.com/_media/bs/img/article/2015-10/06/full/1444078695-1602.jpg

India’s basmati rice harvest, which has been facing headwinds of late due to quarantine issues, could find a new market as China’s plant quarantine and inspection body has agreed to undertake a survey of all the 19 rice mills registered with India’s National Plant Protection Organisation (NPPO).

The inspections will be for presence of ‘khapra’ beetle in Indian basmati rice.

However, inspection does not mean that China has opened the doors for import of basmati rice from India.

These mills are situated in states such as Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, among others.

On basmati rice, traders and senior officials said the inspection is not related to its exports as China’s has its own rice variety which is similar to India’s and whatever shortfall it faces is compensated by imports from Pakistan.

“There is no question of China allowing imports of non-basmati rice as it already has its own varieties and as far as allowing imports of basmati rice is concerned, yes they have agreed to inspect our facilities, but there is no commitment that it will materialise into firm export orders,” Rajen Sundaresan, Executive Director, All India Rice Exporters Association (AIREA) told Business Standard.

The NPPO will assist its Chinese counterpart AQSIQ during the inspection from September 19-28 for pest risk analysis and plant quarantine purposes to ensure that the non-basmati consignments from India will be pest-free, safe and of good quality.

Agricultural & Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA), which is part of the Indian commerce ministry, is also involved in the process.

India had earlier sent the information sought by AQSIQ regarding the quality protocol and standard operating procedures.

India accounts for over 70% of the world's basmati rice production. However, it constitutes a small portion of the total rice produced in India. By volume, the share of basmati rice was around 6% in India’s total rice production in 2014-15. By volume, however, basmati rice exports accounted for 57% of India's total rice exports in 2014-15.

Studies show that basmati rice exports have increased at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 27% from Rs 28.24 billion in 2004-05 to Rs 275.98 billion in 2014-15.

The proportion of basmati rice exports in India's total exports has increased from around 0.6% to around 1.3% during the last one decade.

While basmati rice is consumed across the globe, West Asian countries account for 75% of Indian basmati rice exports in 2014-15.

Within West Asia, Iran and Saudi Arabia are the two largest buyers, together accounting for over 50 per cent of basmati rice exports from India.

India’s goods trade deficit with China has surged from $1.1 billion in 2003-04 to $52.7 billion in 2015-16.

[GeneChing]

When GMOs become an international incident. :rolleyes:


U.S. government worker pleads guilty in plot to steal rice for Chinese (http://www.metro.us/news/u-s-government-worker-pleads-guilty-in-plot-to-steal-rice-for-chinese/jZzpjz---aC70JWg8nytS5eNL4xubww/)
REUTERS

http://www.metro.us/_internal/gxml!0/r0dc21o2f3vste5s7ezej9x3a10rp3w$eloyyeeh18pwxo6qqv 1avx3p3m1zeun/LYNXNPEC9P1NL.jpeg

By Julia Edwards

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A geneticist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture pleaded guilty on Monday to making false statements to the Federal Bureau of Investigation when questioned about plans to send U.S. rice samples to China, the Justice Department said Wednesday.

Wengui Yan, 61, of Arkansas admitted that a group of Chinese tourists in 2013 told him of their plans to steal engineered U.S. rice samples, but he first told investigators he had no knowledge of the plan.

The number of international economic espionage cases referred to the FBI is rising, up 15 percent each year between 2009 and 2014 and up 53 percent in 2015, according to the FBI.

Agricultural espionage, like the case involving Yan, allows thieves to reproduce genetically modified plants in China, skipping years of research and millions of dollars typically invested in development of the highly resistant seeds.

The majority of economic espionage cases reported involve Chinese nationals, a law enforcement official said in April, shortly after a Chinese man named Mo Hailong pleaded guilty to sending hybrid corn seeds stolen from Iowa fields back to China.

Yan refused to give the group of Chinese visitors rice seeds they requested because they were protected, but he did travel with them to a rice farm where he "knew they would have an opportunity to steal seeds," the Justice Department said in a statement.

Under Yan's plea agreement, he faces up to 20 months in federal prison.

(Reporting by Julia Edwards; Editing by Sandra Maler)

[GeneChing]

I got a repub version and traced it back to this earlier article.


Use these four tricks to identify toxic plastic rice (http://www.hefty.co/plastic-rice-tricks/)

China remains the world's largest producer of rice. The Middle Kingdom harvests over 200 million tons per year and a large share of it gets exported all over the world. But cooks and diners alike should take care: not only are untold amounts of pesticides used in Chinese agriculture, but according to a report in The Korea Times rice is also now being manufactured artificially. Potato starch gets mixed with plastic (synthetic resin, for instance) and then formed into rice-shaped kernels. Finally the grains are steamed with a typical rice aroma. Doctors have emphatically warned against consuming the artificial product: three full portions apparently contain as much plastic as there is in a little plastic bag. That's alarming!

With these simple tricks you can test whether your rice is wholesome and plastic-free:

The Water Test

http://files.heftycdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/5dd4d664978ddd110f57064e355f47103-800x442.png
Youtube/Cartoons

Pour a tablespoon of uncooked rice into a glass with cold water and stir it vigorously. If the rice all sinks to the bottom of the glass, it's fine. If the grains float up to the surface, be careful!

The Fire Test

http://files.heftycdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/9cc5dc23284da657c50738f98c1169203-800x442.png
Youtube/Cartoons Mayank

Try setting a little bit of your rice on fire with a match or lighter. If it starts burning right away and smells like burning plastic, then you know what to do! (Do not eat it!)

The Mortar and Pestle Test

http://files.heftycdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/393e9e6f9c5edefd123d5e4c0c73e15b3-800x476.png
Youtube/Cartoons Mayank

When you crush a few grains of rice with a mortar and pestle they should be reduced to a fine, white, starchy powder. But with artificial rice, you will see a light yellow discoloration instead.

The Mold Test

http://files.heftycdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/dd5c35918969e2081f6a78655719ee5f3-800x409.png
Youtube/Cartoons Mayank

If you want to know for sure whether your cooked rice is quite safe, put a small quantity into an airtight container and leave it in a warm place. Within a couple of days it will have gotten moldy. Only fake rice stays mold-free.

Here's the video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elt-ME5UDG4

This is how to be on the safe side. Show these tricks to your rice-eating friends and that way no one will have to eat plastic for dinner!

[GeneChing]

I just can't wrap my head around this. Too weird.


Nigeria seizes smuggled plastic rice (https://www.yahoo.com/news/nigeria-seizes-smuggled-plastic-rice-160511058.html)
AFP December 21, 2016

https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/HpzV78tCRzF24PKE7Qsdkg--/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjtzbT0xO3c9MTAyNDtoPTY3MQ--/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/afp.com/6a9062085b7c4a03f9e9aaaee584a451719e1f21.jpg
Nigeria has seized over 100 bags of plastic rice smuggled into the country (AFP Photo/Tauseef Mustafa)

Lagos (AFP) - Nigeria has seized over 100 bags of plastic rice smuggled into the country, where prices of the staple food are rocketing ahead of the Christmas and New Year holidays.

A suspect has been arrested over the haul of 102 bags of the fake rice, which officials warned Wednesday was dangerous for human consumption.

They are suspected to have been smuggled or illegally shipped in from China through Lagos port, a senior customs official in Nigeria's commercial hub told AFP.

The 50-kilo bags, branded "Best Tomato Rice", had no date of manufacture and were intercepted Monday in the Ikeja area of the sprawling city, the official said on condition of anonymity.

"We have done a preliminary analysis of the plastic rice. After boiling, it was sticky and only God knows what would have happened if people consumed it," Ikeja area customs controller Mohammed Haruna was quoted as saying.

Nigeria has banned rice imports as it seeks to boost local production.

Haruna said the plastic rice was to be sold ahead of Christmas and New Year festivities, with the price for the popular Nigerian staple hitting the roof because of galloping inflation.

A 50-kilo bag now sells for around 20,000 naira (63 dollars), more than double the price in December last year.

Nigeria's inflation stood at 18.5 percent in November, its 13th consecutive monthly rise, driven by higher food prices.

The customs service has sent the fake rice to the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control for further analysis.

[GeneChing]

I'm not sure what the store owner hoped to achieve by this. Send a message to other rats? To me, it says 'My store has rats.' How does that sell rice?


Who ratted on him? Rodent is tied up and publicly shamed for 'stealing rice' in China (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4148092/Rat-tied-publicly-shamed-stealing-rice.html?ITO=applenews)

Pictures of the animal being punished on a road have emerged on social media
The rat is accused of stealing rice from a convenient store, claims the uploader
It is tied to what appears to be a trolley with a post-it note attached to the body
Owner of the store, Lai Tiancai, said the rat had been caught by his staff

By Tracy You For Mailonline
PUBLISHED: 09:01 EST, 23 January 2017 | UPDATED: 10:42 EST, 23 January 2017

China is famous for its ruthless public shaming on burglars, and the latest victim was apparently a rat.

Pictures spotted on Weibo, a Chinese micro-blogging platform, showed the rodent being tied up to what seemed to be a trolley.

A piece of paper attached to the animal's body explained that it had been caught stealing rice at a convenient store.

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/01/23/13/3C6CE42400000578-0-image-a-37_1485179567260.jpg
Shame on you: A convenient store owner in China has allegedly punished a rat for stealing rice
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/01/23/13/3C6CE3C800000578-0-image-a-36_1485179550547.jpg
'I dare not do it again!' The owner tied the rodent to a trolley and put notes on it in Heyuan city, according to a social media account

Two pictures were posted yesterday by a Weibo user with the screen name 'jiu lian shan she zhang'.

The post said: 'A friend of mine found a small rat in the warehouse of a convenient store.'

It carried on saying: 'After [it] was arrested, it was shamed by a poster. Poor rat! How could it spend the Lunar New Year?'

The uploader indicated that the two pictures had been taken at the Lianping County of Heyuan city in southern China's Guangdong Province.

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/01/23/13/3C6D841700000578-0-image-a-39_1485179585140.jpg
The post, which was up yesterday, claimed the pictures had been taken in Guangdong, China

In the first picture, a post-it note was attached to the rat. The note was written as if the rat had been complaining to the man who had caught it and shamed it.

The note read: 'Huh, is this the best you could do? Even if you beat me to death, I would not admit that the rice at your home had been stolen by me.'

In the second picture, the rat had a different post-it note attached to its body, which read: 'I dare not do it again!'

A person can be seen taking a picture of the rat and the note.

The trolley is believed to be transporting boxes of bin liners.

The account holder of 'jiu lian shan she zhang' confirmed to MailOnline that the rat had been caught at a shop in Zhuhai city, Guangdong Province, which was owned by his friend. The said that the notes had been written by staff at the store.

The man has not expected the pictures would draw so much attention on social media today.

He explained that many people had left comments under the pictures with different opinions.

He said: 'Some people pitied the rat, some people hated the rat, and some people found it to be funny.

'I pity the rat. It's just a small animal. It would almost certainly die being treated like this.'

The owner of the shop where the rat had been caught confirmed that the rat had been found by his staff.

The man, named Lai Tiancai, said 'it was just a rat' and this was a 'small incident'. The man added that the incident should not matter too much.

The uploader has called for attention from the Shenzhen Traffic Police through his post.

In response to the pictures, the Shenzhen Traffic Police posted three smiling face emojis on its official account on Weibo yesterday.

In January, 2016, a man and woman from China filmed themselves tying up a defenseless mouse and 'interrogating it' for allegedly stealing bananas.

[highlypotion]

All I know is rice is really good with Adobo (Filipino dish).

[GeneChing]

What an earworm of an article title...


http://www.sciencemag.org/sites/default/files/styles/inline__699w__no_aspect/public/DA718X_16x9.jpg?itok=jygeS5xw
MARKA/Alamy Stock Photo

Rice so nice it was domesticated thrice (http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/10/rice-so-nice-it-was-domesticated-thrice)
By Dennis NormileOct. 10, 2017 , 3:45 PM
Rice is unique among wild plants for having been domesticated independently on three continents: Asia, Africa, and now South America, researchers have discovered. The New World variety, tamed about 4000 years ago, apparently was abandoned after Europeans arrived. But its genetic legacy could potentially help improve Oryza sativa, the Asian rice species that is now a dietary staple for half the world’s population.

Despite widespread consumption of wild rice by indigenous peoples, scant evidence supported the grain’s domestication in the New World. But botanists have become increasingly adept at analyzing phytoliths, microscopic bits of silica drawn from the soil that accumulate in the tissues of plants as they grow. Phytoliths persist after the vegetation decays and scientists can decipher, from their shapes, the genus and sometimes the species of plant in which they formed and whether they came from the stalk, leaves, or seeds.

A group led by archaeobotanist José Iriarte of the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom examined 320 rice phytoliths recovered from a trench at Monte Castelo, an archaeological site in the southwestern Amazon basin in Brazil that was occupied for millennia: from more than 9000 years ago into the 14th century. The phytoliths increased in size and number from the oldest layers of the dig to the youngest, indicating that “wild rice was modified by human intervention to produce larger grains,” the authors conclude in a paper published online this week in Nature Ecology & Evolution. It’s “another proof of the ingenuity of Native American plant breeders,” Iriarte says.

“The paper is convincing,” says Charles Clement, a plant geneticist at the National Institute of Amazonian Research in Manaus, Brazil, who was not involved in the study. Previous investigators missed rice domestication in the region, he says, because phytolith analysis “has only started to be used to search for signs of domestication (in Amazonia) in the last decade.” “Whether in Asia, Africa, or South America, local populations recognized the great potential of the Oryza plants and made use of them, which finally led to the advent of domesticated rice,” adds Zhao Zhijun, an archaeobotanist at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences’s Institute of Archaeology in Beijing, who was not involved in the study.

http://www.sciencemag.org/sites/default/files/styles/inline__699w__no_aspect/public/cc_Monte-castelo_s.jpg?itok=seiQGEVm
Researchers collecting soil samples bearing rice phytoliths at the Monte Castelo archaeological site in Brazil.
Arqueotrop_University of São Paulo

The discovery “was a wonderful surprise,” Iriarte says. His team was looking for hints of cassava domestication and for clues to when maize farming spread to the Amazon. But in sifting the soil samples, Ph.D. student Lautaro Hilbert noticed the unusual abundance of rice phytoliths. Another remarkable aspect is that the Monte Castelo residents were farming maize and rice simultaneously, says Briana Gross, a plant evolutionary geneticist at the University of Minnesota in Duluth, who was not a member of the team.

Iriarte’s group suggests that New World rice cultivation was a response to increasing rainfall at Monte Castelo from 6000 to 4000 years ago that could have expanded wetlands and caused seasonal flooding. Such conditions would be unfavorable for other food resources but suited for the wild Oryza species, prompting farmers to manipulate and ultimately domesticate rice even while they grew maize and other crops, such as squash.

The authors suggest that the indigenous population decline and cultural disruption during European colonization was a death knell for domesticated rice in the Americas. Gross suggests that researchers can now look in wild rice populations for genetic traits that early Amazonian farmers bred for; if these persist, they might be exploited for improving modern cultivated varieties.

[GeneChing]

Chinese scientists put rice grown in seawater on the nation’s tables (http://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2115250/chinese-scientists-put-rice-grown-seawater-nations-tables)
Salt-resistant species could boost country’s rice harvest by nearly 20 per cent, top researcher says
PUBLISHED : Monday, 16 October, 2017, 12:00pm
UPDATED : Monday, 16 October, 2017, 11:22pm
Stephen Chen

https://cdn3.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/styles/980x551/public/images/methode/2017/10/16/7e7a95c0-afea-11e7-9cb1-5f6b75e2d8b2_1280x720_122605.JPG

Rice grown on a commercial scale in diluted seawater has, for the first time, made it into the rice bowls of ordinary Chinese people after a breakthrough in food production following more than four decades of efforts by farmers, researchers, government agencies and businesses.
Ning Meng bought a bag of the rice online and had it delivered to the family of her boyfriend early this month. Her boyfriend was living with his parents in a city in Zhejiang province, and the rice was a gift to her future in-laws.
On the evening of the Mid-Autumn Festival, they gathered around the rice cooker. The lid lifted, releasing a puff of steam and fragrance that made everyone take a breath.
“I could tell one grain from the other in my mouth,” said Ning, who gave it a top satisfaction rating. “My boyfriend said it was like the braised rice he had back in his village. It is very good.”.
The rice was not grown in traditional rice paddy, where fields are filled with fresh water, but on a salty beach on the Yellow Sea coast in Qingdao, Shandong.
China has one million square kilometres of waste land, an area the size of Ethiopia, where plants struggle to grow because of high salinity or alkalinity levels in the soil.
Agricultural scientist Yuan Longping, known as China’s “father of hybrid rice”, told mainland media that if a tenth of such areas were planted with rice species resistant to salt, they could boost China’s rice production by nearly 20 per cent.
They could produce 50 million tonnes of food, enough to feed 200 million people, he said.

https://cdn4.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/images/methode/2017/10/16/8a2b1016-afea-11e7-9cb1-5f6b75e2d8b2_1320x770_122605.JPG
Rice growing last month in a saline environment at the Qingdao Saline-Alkaline Tolerant Rice Research and Development Centre. Photo: China Foto Press

A research team led by Yuan, 87, recently doubled the output of seawater rice, which in the past was too low for large-scale production.
In the mid-1970s, worrying about how to feed the world’s largest, and rapidly growing, population, the Chinese government started looking for rice species that could grow in salt-soaked fields.
A major discovery was made by Guangdong-based researcher Chen Risheng, who stumbled on a species of red wild rice near a mangrove forest in Suixi county, Zhanjiang. After decades of trait selection, cross-breeding and genetic screening, researchers across the country came up with at least eight candidate species, but their productivity remained low, at two tonnes a hectare, just a third that of ordinary rice and insufficient for large-scale planting.
Last month, at the nation’s largest seawater rice farm, in Qingdao, the output of Yuan’s seawater rice exceeded 4.5 tonnes a hectare, according to state media reports.
Yuan Ce Biological Technology, a Qingdao-based start-up and business partner of Yuan’s team, said it set up an online shop in August, branding the rice “Yuan Mi” in honour of the project’s chief scientist.
The rice now being sold was harvested last year. This year’s crop will enter barns next month.
Each kilogram of “Yuan Mi” costs 50 yuan (US$7.50), or eight times as much as ordinary rice. It is sold in packs weighing 1kg, 2kg, 5kg and 10kg.
Nearly 1,000 people placed an order last month, and six tonnes of the rice had been sold since August, a Yuan Ce sales manager said.
“Our sales revenue target is 10 million yuan by the end of this year,” he said.

https://cdn4.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/images/methode/2017/10/16/9306e0ca-afea-11e7-9cb1-5f6b75e2d8b2_1320x770_122605.JPG
A Chinese scientist at the Qingdao Saline-Alkaline Tolerant Rice Research and Development Centre shows rice last month that can survive high levels of salinity. Photo: Imaginechina

The seawater rice was grown on virgin land where no crops had been planted before.
The rice grains have a unique texture and pleasant flavour, according to the company. Consumers pay a high premium not just for the pleasurable eating experience, but also for some potential health and safety benefits.
Professor Huang Shiwen, the leader of the rice disease research team at the China National Rice Research Institute in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, said salt was a disinfectant that could reduce or cut off the transmission of some diseases caused by bacteria.
“To survive in the harsh environment, these species must have some ‘diehard’ genes which may enable them to better resist the attack of certain diseases or bugs, especially those happening at the root or lower stalk,” he said.

https://cdn1.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/images/methode/2017/10/16/a424be8e-b21c-11e7-95c2-e7a557915c7a_972x_122605.jpg
China’s ratio of ‘wasteland’ to arable land. Graphic: SCMP

This could reduce the use of pesticides and lower the risk of exposure to harmful chemicals in the food chain, he said.
The seawater rice developed by Yuan and other research teams is not irrigated by pure seawater, but mixes it with fresh water to reduce the salt content to 6 grams per litre. The average litre of seawater contains five times as much salt.
Researchers said it would take years more research to develop a rice species that could grow in pure seawater.
Professor Zhu Xiyue, an economics and policy expert at the national rice institute, said the seawater rice project would help secure China’s food supply by turning “waste land to green fields”.
“The output may be low and price high, but they can increase China’s total area of arable land, which can be used and save many lives in hard times,” Zhou said.

https://cdn1.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/images/methode/2017/10/16/9b7f730c-afea-11e7-9cb1-5f6b75e2d8b2_1320x770_122605.JPG
Rice growing at the Qingdao Saline-Alkaline Tolerant Rice Research and Development Centre in Qingdao, Shandong province, last month. Photo: Imaginechina

China is already the biggest of importer of some major agricultural commodities, according to a report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute last year.
Zhou said the land area of some coastal provinces was increasing, as big rivers such as the Yangtze and Yellow River dumped enormous amounts of sediment into the sea.
“The seawater rice can be the first settler on this new land mass,” he added.
But the project also has its critics.
Liu Guangfei, a wasteland treatment expert at Beijing-based Eagle Green Technology Development, said Yuan’s rice could not be planted in inland provinces such as Heilongjiang and Xinjiang, which had more than 90 per cent of the saline and alkaline soils in China.
Hybrid rice crop falls short of super-sized target
The chemical composition of inland soil varied significantly from that on the coast, he said. Yuan’s rice was mainly resistant to sodium chloride, but waste land in inland areas had high levels of sodium sulphate, which could be detrimental to the rice.
He also doubted whether planting rice would be of long-term benefit in treating waste land.
“Planting this rice will keep the land salty forever,” he said. “It cannot be used to grow other crops.”
Liu said there were other commercial plants that could survive in such soils, such as jujube and wolfberry, that could significantly reduce salt water levels in fields after a few year’s of fresh water irrigation.
But the biggest challenge to the seawater rice project was that China now had a surplus of rice.
“China is not in food shortage any more,” he said.

GMO rice. When there's a surplus even.

[GeneChing]

More GMO rice.


Scientists claim to have invented 'giant rice' that stands over SEVEN FEET tall as they look for ways to feed growing population (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4988310/Scientists-invent-giant-rice-stands-7ft-tall.html)
Experts in China claimed they had cultivated new grain in an experiment
The yield of the 'giant rice' is said to be 50 per cent higher than ordinary rice
It's expected to greatly benefit the nation which faces a shortage of farmers
Scientists also introduced 'sea rice', which could grow on saline-alkaline land
By Tracy You For Mailonline
PUBLISHED: 07:47 EDT, 17 October 2017 | UPDATED: 08:00 EDT, 17 October 2017

A new kind of rice that can grow as tall as 2.2 meters (7ft 2in) has been introduced.

The so-called 'giant rice' is expected to feed more people as scientists claimed its yield could be 50 per cent higher than ordinary rice, according to a report on China's People's Daily Online today.

Experts from the China said they had spent 10 years cultivating the new grain, which was unveiled on October 16.

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/10/17/12/456A4C3800000578-4988310-image-m-4_1508238851354.jpg
A researcher in China poses with the new 'giant rice', which could grow up to 2.2 meters

A team of researchers from the Institute of Subtropical Agriculture, Chinese Academy of Sciences, have planted and harvested the 'giant rice' on an experimental field, according to the People's Daily Online report, citing Xinhua News Agency.

The experimental field is located in Jinjing Township of Changsha County, central China's Hunan Province.

The new type of rice is said to be 1.8 metres tall on average (5ft 10in), with the greatest ones reaching 2.2 metres.

Xia Xinjie, a researching involved in the project, expected the yield of the 'giant rice' to surpass 11.5 tonnes per hectare. Mr Xia said the per-hectare yield is 50 per cent higher than the ordinary rice.

Mr Xia added that experts had harvested more than 500 grains from a single 'giant rice' stalk.

The Chinese scientists are said to have used a series of new technologies to cultivate the new rice, including mutation induction and hybridisation between different kinds of wild rice.

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/10/17/12/456A4C0B00000578-4988310-image-a-8_1508239023974.jpg
A Chinese farmer harvests Xiangliangyou 900, the hybrid rice that has set the world record for its high per-hectare yield. The new rice was invented by a team led by renowned Yuan Longpin

The 'giant rice' is due to greatly benefit China which is facing a shortage of farmers and a growing population.

'It is expected that 60 per cent more rice will need to be produced in 2030 compared to 1995,' Yuan Longping, a renowned agricultural scientist, told People's Daily Online, in an interview last month.

Mr Yuan added: 'Currently, one hectare for rice production provides food for 27 people. By 2050, one hectare will have to support 43 people.'


CHINA'S 'FATHER OF HYBRID RICE'
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/10/17/12/456A4C2F00000578-4988310-Chinese_scientist_Yuan_Longping_second_left_known_ as_the_father_-m-27_1508240667907.jpg
Chinese scientist Yuan Longping (second left), known as the 'father of hybrid rice', surveys the growth of hybrid rice in a field in Hebei, China, on October 15

Yuan Longping, 87, has been billed as the 'father of hybrid rice' in China for his constant contribution in breeding high-yield grains in the past 60 years.

Last month, the scientist announced he and his team had successfully cultivated a new type of rice, called 'sea rice', which could grow on saline-alkaline land.

On an experiment field, four types of rice were said to register an estimated output between 6.5 to 9.3 tonnes per hectare.

China has 100 million hectares of saline-alkaline soil, according to Mr Yuan. Among them, 18.7 million hectares have the potential to grow rice.

This week, another new type of hybrid rice, also cultivated by Mr Yuan, become the highest-yielding one in the world.

The rice has been named Xiangliangyou 900.

The pilot rice fields in Handan, Hebei province, were harvested on October 15.

The three plots yielded 17.2 tons per hectare on average. Of the three plots, the one with the highest yield reached 17.7 tons per hectare, which is a new world record.

Source: People's Daily Online

[highlypotion]

I got a repub version and traced it back to this earlier article.

Thank you for sharing this. I always have doubt whenever we buy cheaper rice. So next time, will try this technique to make sure we didn't get plastic rice.

[highlypotion]

If you're a facebook (https://www.facebook.com/Kung-Fu-Tai-Chi-Magazine-135964689362/)er, you've probably seen that trending Audi with a rice-cooker. It was actually an April Fools prank from 2015 (http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/04/01/national/media-automakers-offer-gags-galore-as-april-fools-catches-on-in-japan/#.Vsd9RPkrKUl), but that's facebook for you. And to think that fb is having such an effect on our Presidential election this year...:rolleyes:

Wow!! Looks so appetizing!

[highlypotion]

Jack Daniels is one of my favorites! I miss the days when I me and my friends were drinking til dawn.

[GeneChing]

How a Quest for the Perfect Bowl of Rice Cooked Up a Billionaire (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-29/billionaire-rises-as-asians-go-cuckoo-for-his-famous-rice-cooker)
By Yoojung Lee
August 29, 2018, 2:16 PM PDT Updated on August 29, 2018, 6:59 PM PDT
Koo’s company dominates market even as rice consumption falls
Cuckoo exports appliance to 25 countries, including China

https://assets.bwbx.io/images/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/iTP3.OEWXIB8/v0/800x-1.jpg
Cuckoo rice cookers at a store in Seoul. Photographer: SeongJoon Cho/Bloomberg

Rice is a staple for Koreans, but as New York restaurateur Bobby Yoon explains it, the connection is deeper, almost spiritual.

“We need the perfect bowl of rice for each meal," said Yoon, whose recently opened barbecue joint in Manhattan is an offshoot of Haeundae Somunnan Amso Galbijip, his grandfather’s venerable Busan institution. “It doesn’t have a flavor, but there is also a certain umami to it when cooked well.”

Perfecting rice that’s integral to such everyday dishes as bulgogi and kimchi jjigae needs the best cooker possible, one that produces perfect grains without scorching them. The countertop appliances are given as gifts when people get married or move to a new house, and can symbolize wealth and good health for the family.

By far the most popular brand is the Cuckoo, which emits a distinctive sound similar to the call of the bird it’s named after as it releases steam during the cooking process.

That obsession and stranglehold on the market has made Cuckoo Holdings Co. founder Koo Ja-sin a billionaire. The company controls about 70 percent of South Korea’s market for rice cookers -- easily outselling domestic rival Cuchen Co. -- and exports to more than two dozen countries, mostly in Asia.

‘Grown Big’

“The market is not huge, and there were already technology barriers when other big brands were looking to penetrate it,” said Yang Ji-hye, an analyst at Meritz Securities in Seoul. “Cuckoo seized the niche market and has grown big.”

Koo, 77, started the firm in 1978 after a brief career in politics, where he served as secretary to a local lawmaker. He began by manufacturing rice cookers for large companies such as LG Electronics Co. After orders dwindled to a trickle during the Asian financial crisis, he started his own brand in 1998.

The public latched on to the “Do Cuckoo” catchphrase from the firm’s television commercials and sales quickly grew. Cuckoo shares have returned 127 percent, including reinvested dividends, since its 2014 initial public offering in Seoul, outpacing the 20 percent return of the Kospi Index of 780 Korean companies.

"Koreans believe that what’s made of rice is good for your health," said Jun Kyung-woo, the co-author of the book "Dining in Seoul." "When someone feels unwell, they even attribute that to not eating enough rice."

Koo now has a net worth of $1.1 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, based mainly on his and the family’s stake in the holding company and in Cuckoo Homesys Co., which rents appliances such as water purifiers. Koo is chairman of the holding company, while the oldest of his two sons -- Koo Bon-hak -- runs the business.

Biggest Stake

https://assets.bwbx.io/images/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/iQvOPcCiq1X8/v0/200x-1.jpg
Koo Bon-hak Source: Cuckoo Holdings

Koo Bon-hak, 48, is chief executive officer and holds the largest stake in Cuckoo. He joined the company in 1995 after earning a master’s degree in accounting from the University of Illinois.

A spokeswoman for Cuckoo, which also manufactures dishwashers, blenders and other kitchen appliances, declined to comment.

While Cuckoo dominates the market for cookers, it’s battling long-term trends that may undermine growth. Rice consumption in South Korea has tumbled by 50 percent in the past three decades as wheat-based products such as pasta and bread gained wider acceptance. The growing number of one-person households and dual-income families has contributed to the popularity of microwavable rice, which is less time-consuming and easier to cook.

Overseas sales, which account for about 10 percent of the company’s revenue, were hit by the fallout from tensions last year between South Korea and China over the U.S.-led deployment of an anti-missile system. Exports of Cuckoo rice cookers to China shrank 21 percent last year compared with 2016, according to a June research report by HI Investment & Securities in Seoul.

Cultural Link

Cuckoo products are sold in 25 countries, including China, Russia and Vietnam, with China making up about 40 percent of overseas sales, according to the company. Its rice cookers are customized to match each country’s environment, accounting for differences in temperature and humidity.

For many Koreans living abroad, a rice cooker is a reminder of home and a link to their country’s culture. When Yoon, the New York restaurateur, was a student in Pennsylvania, he said his mother sent him a Cuckoo for his dorm room. But he was unable to make it work because the power outlet was different than in Korea.

“My mom cried because I couldn’t use it,” Yoon said. “That’s how much a rice cooker means for the family.”

— With assistance by Kate Krader

"the power outlet was different" srsly? Get a power converter. Don't make your mum cry. :rolleyes:

[GeneChing]

Do we cut back on rice or meat (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?19996-Vegetarian&p=1315314#post1315314)? Or both?

Do we need an indie Climate Change thread?



Scientific American
Should We Eat Less Rice? (https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/roots-of-unity/should-we-eat-less-rice/)
Digging into the statistics about rice farming and climate change

By Evelyn Lamb on August 21, 2019

https://static.scientificamerican.com/blogs/cache/file/E8675E81-F828-4525-B10A0881C32ED7BB_source.jpg?w=590&h=800&54A91963-1B74-468A-A8956F97F06A7028
Terraces for rice farming. Credit: Joan Vila Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

“Your Bowl of Rice Is Hurting the Climate Too” reads a Bloomberg headline from June. “Rice cultivation could be as bad for global warming as 1,200 coal plants, so why aren’t consumers more bothered? Eco-conscious consumers are giving up meat and driving electric cars to do their part for the environment, but what about that bowl of rice?” I was irritated as soon as I read it. It was probably a combination of the whataboutism and the focus on a food that is eaten much more in Asia and Africa than the U.S. and Europe when overall Americans and Europeans have caused a lot more greenhouse gas emissions per capita than Africans and Asians. To top it off, what should I make of the 1200 coal plants number? How much of a climate impact “should” the staple food of billions of humans have?

The article is full of figures. They all sound impressive, but I didn’t really understand how to interpret them. Rice is “just as damaging over the long term as annual carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels in Germany, Italy, Spain and the U.K. combined.” (Do Germany, Italy, Spain, and the U.K. all rely on fossil fuels for most of their energy? How do the populations of those four countries compare to the population that relies on rice for a significant proportion of their calories? How should I compare climate impact of the farming of one crop for the entire world to the climate impact from all causes in a few countries?) “Global production of milled rice has increased 230% since 1960.” (How much has the population increased since then?) Rice production emits “twice as much of the harmful gases as wheat.” (Is more rice or wheat consumed?) “Growing rice in flooded conditions causes up to 12% of global emissions of methane, a gas blamed for about one quarter of global warming caused by humans.” (What are the major sources of anthropogenic methane emissions? Methane from rice farming causes 3% of anthropogenic global warming. Is that a lot? Food is one of the least optional sources of greenhouse gas emissions, after all. Plenty of people live without cars, flights, or electricity, but calories are a must.)

I’m not writing this post solely because I wanted to complain about one article that bugged me, as fun as that is. It’s important to think about how we interpret headlines like this one. Many people have had traumatizing experiences with mathematics and don’t feel comfortable reasoning about numbers or statistics, but as a society we are also on the whole deferential to numbers. An article can get away with throwing statistics around without properly contextualizing them because people won’t question them, or don’t know the right questions to ask, or think an argument that refers to a lot of numbers must be a sound one.

Furthermore, humans’ perceptions about what to focus on when it comes to pollution and climate change can be skewed. Recently, some environmental activists have zeroed in on plastic straw waste, causing a reaction from disability activists, who say plastic straws are important accessibility items for some people. The fracas concerns less than a tenth of a percent of the plastic pollution in the ocean. A plastic straw ban is basically symbolic. (A 2018 study estimated that about half of the plastic pollution in the famous Great Pacific Garbage Patch consists of lost or discarded fishing nets.) With a limited mental bandwidth for caring about and taking action on various environmental issues, where should rice fall on that list?

But most of all, I finished reading the article honestly unsure how to understand the impact of rice farming on the environment. I wanted to find the numbers that would help me put the situation in context.

Back to rice.

Reading the article, my first question was what proportion of the world’s calories come from rice. That seems like an important basic fact that would help me understand the other numbers. Ricepedia, a rice information site run by CGIAR, an agriculture research organization, says 19% of “global human per capita energy” comes from rice. About 3.5 billion people get at least 20% of their calories from rice, and about half a billion get most of their calories from rice. Other sources I found had similar numbers, reporting 16–20% for the proportion of the world’s calories that come from rice.

A fifth of the total calories humanity consumes is a lot. Corn (maize) and wheat have similar numbers. Together, the three plants provide more than half of our calories. Of course growing something that sustains so many people will have an impact on the environment. I was somewhat surprised that rice, corn, and wheat were so similar in the proportion of calories they provide. It helped put the fact that rice farming causes twice as much greenhouse gas emission as wheat in perspective.

My next question was how rice’s impact stacks up against impacts from other foods and how that compares to its importance as a source of nutrition. The statistic that rice produces 12% of anthropogenic methane and that the methane produced by rice farming makes put about half of crop-related greenhouse gas emissions come from a white paper prepared by the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF). (The white paper isn’t actually about the methane emissions; it is about a study that shows that attempts to mitigate methane emissions may be increasing the emissions of nitrous oxide, another potent greenhouse gas.)

The EDF bases their estimates on the 5th Assessment Report of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (relevant chapter here). According to those numbers (specifically figure 6.8, if you’re following along at home), the main food-related contributors to anthropogenic methane emissions are rice paddies and cow ****s. (They don’t quite use that terminology.) Together, those sources account for about 40% of anthropogenic methane emissions, with rice producing about 30% of that amount. If all foods emitted the same amount of methane, rice would only produce 20%, so it produces about 1.5 times as much as it “should” proportionally. But the real story is that the methane emissions of food are very disproportionate, with rice and ruminants almost completely responsible! When all greenhouse gas emissions from food are taken into account, rice emits more greenhouse gases per calorie than wheat or corn but less than fruits, vegetables, legumes, or any animal sources. See this working paper from the World Resources Institute for more granular data. If the EDF is correct that rice emits more nitrous oxide than previously understood, those numbers may underestimate rice’s impact, but it is still dwarfed by the impact of animal-based foods.

I haven’t answered all the questions the article left me with, but I actually feel a lot more equipped to understand the impact of rice on the environment. Some of the numbers from the article still perplex me. I don’t know what to make of the comparison to 1200 coal plants or the assertion about Germany, Italy, Spain, and the U.K. Comparing the climate impact of fossil fuel use in all sectors in four countries to the impact of a food that is eaten all over the world just doesn’t make sense to me. The statistic about rice production increasing since 1960 is a little more meaningful. The world population today is about 2.5 times as much as it was in 1960 (so it has increased 150%). Rice production, though, is about 3.3 times as much, so rice production has grown more than the population by a moderate amount.

Personally, these statistics will probably not change my rice consumption. I don’t eat a lot of rice anyway. It’s a part of my diet, but I get a lot more of my calories from wheat, and I think decreasing my consumption of dairy products would probably be more effective in reducing the greenhouse gas emissions of my diet than reducing the amount of rice I eat would be. More broadly, rice is an important source of nutrition and part of the cultural heritage for billions of people and can be grown in places other crops can’t, so I bristle at any implication that people who rely on rice as a staple should cut down on it or are making irresponsible choices by surviving, and throwing shade at consumers who reduce their meat consumption but not rice seems particularly unhelpful.

That said, the statistics I found about the environmental impact of rice farming did surprise me. I didn’t realize it was such an outlier from other grains in terms of its climate impact, and I am glad that research continues into how to grow rice in less damaging ways. My dive down the rice rabbit hole also highlighted to me how difficult it can be to obtain and interpret information about how our choices affect the environment. Figuring out the full context for the numbers is difficult, and I hope more climate change research organizations will continue to make it easier for everyone to get the information they need to make informed choices.

The views expressed are those of the author(s) and are not necessarily those of Scientific American.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Evelyn Lamb
Evelyn Lamb is a freelance math and science writer based in Salt Lake City, Utah.

[GeneChing]

We've discussed plastic rice here (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?69705-Rice&p=1298630#post1298630)and here (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?69705-Rice&p=1298949#post1298949)



https://www.foodsafetynews.com/files/2019/10/Chris-Elliott-825x468.jpg
Chris Elliott
So-called plastic rice could have been the real deal, but stored for a decade (https://www.foodsafetynews.com/2019/10/so-called-plastic-rice-could-have-been-the-real-deal-but-stored-for-a-decade/)
By Joe Whitworth on October 15, 2019

Reports about “plastic rice” are likely incorrect according to a food fraud expert who says it could have been actual rice that had been poorly stored for up to a decade.

Chris Elliott, professor of food safety and founder of the Institute for Global Food Security at Queen’s University Belfast, said he has been investigating rice fraud for a number of years.

“That all started off by lots of reports coming from different parts of the world about what was called plastic rice. People were claiming that they were being sold rice that was made from plastic. As someone who studies food fraud I was quite interested in this,” he told Food Safety News while he was in Edinburgh to meet the head of the Scottish Food Crime and Incidents Unit (SFCIU).

“The first thing, when we looked at the economics, actually plastic is more expensive than rice so you (know) it is not made from plastic. Then you think why would people think they are eating rice made from plastic? It took quite a long time to uncover what we think was going on and I spent some time in South East Asia asking lots of questions.

“Plastic rice is not made from plastic, it is rice that has been stored for up to 10 years and not stored particularly well. The rice had become badly contaminated with molds and instead of that nice white color, had turned into an unpleasant green color and what the fraudsters had done was they had taken that rice out of the stores and bleached it to get back the white color.

“The only problem was whenever you bleach rice it loses the nice shiny surface so to get that back they sprayed it with paraffin wax. With that paraffin coating on it, it didn’t cook properly, hence the reason it was called plastic rice.”

Smartphone-based analysis

The university has been trying to develop quick analytical tests for the past couple of years so people can detect the difference between genuine rice and product that has been treated badly in terms of chemicals.

“There has been a big push in terms of how science and technology can detect and deter food fraud,” said Elliott.

“In terms of my own work at Queen’s University, we are looking at how we can use the thing that we all have in our pocket to detect food fraud. So doing a lot of smartphone-based analysis. Using fingerprints of food we can build these mathematical models of what the fingerprint of food should look like. Just six weeks ago I was in a marketplace in Ghana checking for fraud in rice using my smartphone.”

Elliott said Europe has a good food safety network so people would not try to sell very low quality product into the region because the systems would pick it up.

“In the U.K. and wider Europe we don’t need consumers to check if our food has been fraudulently produced. We’ve got a great infrastructure of government agencies and a fantastic food industry that are doing all that for us,” he said.

“What we want to do is put these tools in the hands of people in the food industry, government inspectors and environmental health officers to do that checking for us. In the developing world it is very different because that infrastructure doesn’t exist there, we want to put those tools in the hands of consumers to make informed decisions.

“The plastic rice is being sold to parts of the world that don’t have those checks and measures. It is not just in South East Asia; in Sub-Saharan Africa it crops up regularly where it is not only rice, they are generally sold the worst of the worst. Anything that cannot go into Europe because of food safety standards will end up getting dumped in Sub-Saharan Africa. They will sell to countries where they don’t have the measures to check and test for these things.”

Elliott led the independent review of Britain’s food system following the 2013 horsemeat scandal and is joint coordinator of EU-China-Safe, an EU Horizon 2020 project that runs until August 2021. There are 16 participants from the EU and 17 from China with an aim to improve food safety and combat fraud.

Predictions and problems caused by Brexit

A lot of work goes into trying to predict what the next problem might be.

“We’re developing predictive analytics, gathering lots of information from different parts of the world,” said Elliott.

“Thinking about what is happening to our climate and the way food is traded around the world, to try and predict where there will be problems, shortages and more demand than availability of foodstuffs. That is not only to guide our research but we inform the industry and government agencies about what we think their surveillance program should be not now but six months or a year down the road.”

Regarding Brexit, Elliott said it is not a question of if it will cause problems but how big they will be.

“As soon as you start to change rules and regulations that gives a massive opportunity for people who cheat and that happens the world over. There will be potentially a massive amount of fraud around tariffs as they are going to change. I think the potential for lots of smuggling from the Republic of Ireland into Northern Ireland and the rest of Great Britain will happen as well,” he said.

“The other big factor, the thing that worries me even more, is that the U.K. will get cut off from the established European networks that share information and intelligence. Fraudsters aren’t silly, they will know the disconnect between the U.K. and Europe and they will maximize that opportunity.

“There will be difficulties in terms of the informal relationships as well, I know the regulatory agencies across the country can pick up the phone and talk to their counterparts in Germany or France but will that be the same case going forward, I doubt it somehow. It has not been a frictionless proposition about leaving Europe, I think it is going to take years to rebuild some of those relationships that we once had.” This makes a lot more sense to me than plastic rice did.

[GeneChing]

Hong Kong protests, cheap Chinese rivals: why Thai rice is in crisis (https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3037976/hong-kong-protests-cheap-chinese-rivals-why-thai-rice-crisis)
The country was once the world’s top exporter but it has been hit by a triple whammy of unrest in Hong Kong, a strong baht and tough competition
With rice front and centre in Thai politics, that’s bad news for Bangkok
Jitsiree Thongnoi
Published: 12:15pm, 17 Nov, 2019

https://cdn.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/styles/1200x800/public/d8/images/methode/2019/11/15/902fb852-0602-11ea-a68f-66ebddf9f136_image_hires_192545.JPG?itok=Iwhw4QSy&v=1573817156
Rice at a market in Bangkok. Photo: AFP

Thai rice, once dominant on the world market, is now facing a triple whammy of a strong baht, tough competition from Asian neighbours and social unrest in Hong Kong that is weighing on demand.
The weaker sales overseas are part of a lacklustre performance by the country’s export sector amid an almost 10 per cent rise in the currency against the US dollar since the beginning of the year. Rice exports have been left exposed to stiff competition from large producers such as India, Vietnam and China.
Traders have also blamed continuing anti-government protests in Hong Kong, where about half of rice classified as premium produce comes from Thailand. The number of tourists visiting the Chinese city has plunged in recent months, from 5.1 million in July to 3.1 million in September.

https://cdn.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/d8/images/methode/2019/11/15/a3cdc75a-0602-11ea-a68f-66ebddf9f136_1320x770_192545.JPG
Thai farmers harvest rice in a field in Thailand’s southern Narathiwat province. Photo: AFP

Thailand exported 143,000 tonnes of rice to Hong Kong between January and September last year.
In the same period this year, the country managed only 127,000 tonnes – an 11 per cent drop.
“Thai premium white rice caters mainly to Hong Kong’s tourism sector,” said Charoen Laothamatas, president of the Thai Rice Exporters Association (TREA). “But we have seen fewer shipments to Hong Kong in recent months as there is lower demand from restaurants and hotels.”
Thailand’s share of the city’s rice market peaked in 2016 at 64 per cent, but Laothamatas said it had since fallen to about 52 per cent.
However, a source at Chaitip, a major rice trading company that has been exporting to Hong Kong for more than a century, said the demonstrations had not been as damaging as recent price rises.
“The lower demand is not due to the unrest, it is because jasmine rice has become too expensive,” said the source.
“Droughts in many parts of Thailand this year have led to lower production of jasmine rice, which is why the price has shot up.”
Thai hom mali, or premium jasmine rice, is the country’s most recognisable rice product. Its slim and aromatic grain now costs about 1,200 baht (US$39) per tonne, while Vietnam’s white rice is priced at about half that figure.
The industry is crucial for Thailand because of the large number of Thais who depend on it. It supports as much as 30 per cent of the country’s 69-million population, according to Chookiat Ophaswongse, TREA’s special president.

https://cdn.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/d8/images/methode/2019/11/15/c0082dfc-0602-11ea-a68f-66ebddf9f136_1320x770_192545.JPG
Former Thai prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra relied heavily on government subsidies to rice producers to win political support. Photo: AP

It has often been central to Thai politics, with the country’s farmers holding considerable political influence. Support from Thailand’s rural northeast was central to the electoral success of the Shinawatra family between 2001 and 2014. Former prime ministers Thaksin and his sister Yingluck relied heavily on government subsidies to rice producers, who in turn formed the backbone of their populist “red shirt” movement, which clashed repeatedly with anti-Thaksin, pro-monarchy “yellow shirts”. The conflict led to a military intervention in 2014 that only ended this year with elections in March.
Until 2012 Thailand was the world’s top rice exporter in terms of volume, but India took the top spot after it lifted a ban on non-basmati rice exports in 2011.
The loss of Thailand’s prized position came in the wake of a “rice-pledging scheme” embarked on by Yingluck’s administration. The government bought rice from farmers at inflated prices, which sent the price of the product upwards on the world market while forcing down demand. An 18-million-tonne stockpile was accumulated by the state, the last of which was shipped out to market only last year, when total exports for the year stood at 11 million tonnes.
The disastrous programme cost the government US$8 billion, according to figures from the military, which cited it as a major justification for its coup that deposed Yingluck in 2014. The prime minister was subsequently sentenced in absentia to five years in prison, and the military junta then worked hard to court Thai rice farmers before it relinquished power this year.

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Bags of rice stacked at a factory in Bangkok. Photo: AFP

Nipon Puapongsakorn, a researcher at the Thailand Development Research Institute Foundation, said the government subsidy programme was a short-sighted attempt to maintain Thailand’s agricultural productivity and competitiveness.
The state last month also began paying farmers across Thailand who have joined a rice price guarantee scheme.
The scheme ensures farmers are paid the difference when the price falls below a predetermined benchmark. It covers five types of rice, including those from the country’s hom mali paddy and glutinous rice paddy, which are badly affected by drought and floods.
The programme will run until October next year, but several other subsidies and financial support schemes for rice farmers and growers of other crops, including oil palm, cassava, rubber and corn, will be available for longer.
Sudarat Keyuraphan, a key member of Thailand’s Shinawatra-backed Pheu Thai political party, this week said the government subsidy would allow middlemen to reduce the price of rice further when they bought from farmers.
But Puapongsakorn said these measures were only short term. “The budget for subsidy programmes is much higher than that for rice research, which helps Thailand stay competitive in the long run,” he said.
The researcher added that India’s development of hybrid fragrant rice and Vietnam’s research into soft white rice for export had seen Thailand’s jasmine rice lose its charm among international buyers.
“Vietnam has lower costs and the country’s currency is under control,” he said. “The government needs to develop new types of rice that meet more of the market demand.”
Vietnam is now the third-biggest supplier in the world.
Meanwhile, China, with its estimated rice stockpile of more than 100 million tonnes, has begun releasing supply to African countries, further edging out Thai producers, according to Puapongsakorn. He said China’s exports rose more than 70 per cent last year due to demand from Africa, with Ivory Coast the country’s biggest customer.
Chinese white rice cost US$300 a tonne in July, while similar grains from Thailand were quoted at US$390, those from Vietnam at US$360, and India at US$370, according to Thai media.
Market share for Thailand in Africa stood at 51 per cent last year, TREA figures show.
Laothamatas said TREA had cut its export target for this year to less than 8.5 million tonnes, down from the usual figure of between 9 million and 9.5 million.
“There was no competition 20 years ago, but there is competition everywhere now, from India, Pakistan, Myanmar and Cambodia,” he said. “We need to develop new rice varieties and reduce our costs so that we can compete.”
Ophaswongse told Bloomberg that the competition was “killing us all”. “We don’t know what else we can do. We tried reducing costs, but the baht keeps making our rice more expensive,” he said.
“We can only sit and wait, and some might have to quit the business.” ■

THREADS
Rice (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?69705-Rice)
Hong Kong protests (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?23536-Hong-Kong-protests)

[GeneChing]

I found this quite informative. :)


What's The Healthiest Rice? Brown Rice And White Rice Face Off (https://www.womenshealthmag.com/food/a29874395/healthy-rice/)
You might want to update your takeout order.
BY CHRISTINE YU
NOV 29, 2019

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LUCHEZAR GETTY IMAGES

If you've hesitated when picking between white rice and brown rice while ordering from your favorite takeout joint, you're definitely not the only one. White rice tastes so good soaked in sweet and sour sauce, but isn't brown rice better for you?

Considering the age of keto and low-carb everything has many people throwing grains out the window, figuring out what type of rice is the healthiest (and if rice is honestly healthy at all) has never been more confusing.

Should you stick to brown rice—or skip the starchy stuff altogether? Well, it depends. Many nutrition experts advocate that grains can totally fit into a balanced diet—as long as you choose your variety (and portion size) wisely.

Don't worry, your love affair with poke bowls is far from doomed. Here, dietitians break down the healthy (and not-so-healthy) types of rice—and how to make the grain work for you.

The big question: Is brown rice healthier than white rice?
Yep, it’s more than just color that sets these two types of rice apart.

“Brown rice contains all three parts of the grain: the bran, endosperm and germ," says dietitian Marisa Moore, RDN. SparkNotes: Yes, that means brown rice is a whole grain.

“White rice, meanwhile, goes through processing that removes the bran and germ, leaving just the starchy endosperm,” says Moore. So, nope, not a whole grain.

That processing has a pretty major impact on rice's nutrition. “White rice has been stripped of most of its protein, fiber, B vitamins and minerals," says Lauren Harris-Pincus, MS, RDN, dietitian and author of The Protein-Packed Breakfast Club. (Because of this, a lot of companies in the US actually fortify white rice with the B vitamins thiamin, niacin, folic acid—and iron—to revive some shred of nutrition.)

“Brown rice, then, contains more protein, fiber, and nutrients than white rice, making it more filling and satisfying," Harris-Pincus says. "It also has a lower glycemic index, meaning one serving of brown rice raises blood sugar less than the same serving of white rice.”

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KUMACORE GETTY IMAGES

To put the differences in perspective, here's the nutritional information for one cup of cooked brown rice, per the USDA Nutrient Database:

Calories: 238
Fat: 1.87 g
Carbohydrates: 49.6 g
Fiber: 3.12 g
Sugar: 0.47 g
Protein: 5.32 g
Sodium: 202 mg

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ALEAIMAGE GETTY IMAGES

And the nutritional information for a cup of cooked white rice, per the USDA Nutrient Database:

Calories: 204
Fat: 0.44 g
Carbohydrates: 44.2 g
Fiber: 0.63 g
Sugar: 0.08 g
Protein: 4.22 g
Sodium: 387 mg
Though a serving of brown rice is higher in calories, it provides more balanced nutrition—and is generally a better pick—than a serving of the white stuff.

Got it. So what are the healthiest types of rice?

Okay, so you know that brown rice is technically healthier than white—but brown and white rice aren't the only players in the game. In fact, other varieties of rice may be even better for you than brown rice.

According to Moore, red rice and black rice actually compete for the title of "healthiest rice."

“Black rice has been shown to have the highest antioxidant activity of all the rice varieties,” Moore says. “It gets its deep purple-black color from anthocyanins, the same pigments that give blackberries their antioxidant power."

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DOUGLAS SACHA GETTY IMAGES

Here's the nutrition information for a serving of black rice, per the USDA Nutrient Database:

Calories: 160
Fat: 1.5 g
Carbohydrates: 34 g
Fiber: 1 g
Sugar: 0 g
Protein: 4 g
Sodium: 0 mg
Though perhaps not as impressive as black rice, red rice also boasts a solid antioxidant profile, Moore says. (It actually has more fiber than black rice, though.) When it comes to these body-protecting compounds, brown rice can't really compete.

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VICTOR CARDONER GETTY IMAGES

Check out the general nutrition stats for a serving of red rice, per the USDA Nutrient Database:

Calories: 160
Fat: 1.5 g
Carbohydrates: 34 g
Fiber: 5 g
Sugar: 0 g
Protein: 4 g
Sodium: 30 mg

And then, of course, there's wild rice. Another popular—and healthy—pick, wild rice is particularly unique because, well, it's not actually rice.

“Wild rice looks and cooks like rice, but it's technically the seed of an aquatic grass," says Harris-Pincus. "It contains more protein, fiber, potassium, and zinc than brown or white rice." It's also lower in calories and carbs.

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MIKROMAN6 GETTY IMAGES
Finally, here's the nutrition information for a serving of wild rice, per the USDA Nutrient Database:

Calories: 166
Fat: 0.6 g
Carbohydrates: 35 g
Fiber: 2.9 g
Sugar: 1.2 g
Protein: 6.5 g
Sodium: 4.9 mg

So does that mean pre-made or packaged rice is a no-go?

Though funkier rice varieties are your most nutritious picks, don’t completely discount the pre-made stuff—especially when you have zero time to cook from scratch.

“Packaged rice can be a healthy choice, especially compared to some other convenience foods," says Moore. Just check the label for unnecessary ingredients or high amounts of sodium.”

To keep it clean, opt for the plain versions of frozen or microwavable rice products. Uncle Ben's Chicken and Broccoli Ready Rice, for example, contains almost 500 milligrams (half your daily limit) of sodium.

“In small portions, the nutritional differences are small," says Harris-Pincus. "But if you consume large portions (one cup or more) of rice several times per week, the differences add up.”

Want to add rice to your diet? Here’s the healthiest way to do it.

When choosing between types of rice, taste matters, says Moore.

“I grew up on rice and still love it," says Moore. It's an inexpensive blank canvas to build upon.”

Depending on the type of dish you're making (like an Asian-inspired stir fry versus colorful macro bowl), you might want to choose the type of rice you use based on the flavors you're after, Moore says. “Some recipes taste best and are most authentic using white rice, while others work well with the nutty flavor of brown rice."


Whatever type of rice you choose, just keep portion sizes in mind. “If you love white rice, a small portion [think one-third to one-half of a cup] certainly will not hurt you,” she says.

Plus, “the good news is that when you cook and then cool white rice, it forms 'resistant starch,'" says Harris-Pincus. This type of starch is resistant to digestion, so eating cooled rice will have less of an effect on your blood sugar. WIN.

The bottom line: Though brown, red, wild, and black rices are more nutritious than white rice, you can incorporate all types of rice into your diet as long as you stay mindful of portions.

CHRISTINE YU
Christine Yu is a freelance writer, yoga teacher, and avid runner who regularly covers health, fitness, nutrition, and wellness for outlets like Well + Good, Women’s Health, Runner’s World, and Outside.

[Tong Chuang]

Just bought a Tatung Rice / Multicooker - made in Taiwan - used by 95% of Taiwanese Households.
These last for ages apparently, around 30 years plus and are often handed down to the next generation.

http://www.tatungusa.com/Home/filelib/812-tac-6gsf-6-cup-multi-functional-cooker-by

The rice doesn't burn at the bottom of the pot as it uses a water bath for the pot, which is stainless steel also so no toxic non-stick coating touches the rice.
Can also steam other foods and cook stews etc. Optional larger steamer trays available as well.

A bit pricey, but after having to repair or replace those old style, thermoswitch button type electric rice cookers, hoping the Tatung will last longer!

No beeping noises or complex programs to work out, unlike 'InstantPot' or those fancy Pressure RiceCookers.

They make sizes for Families or individuals too. A bit of dependability in this crazy World we live in!:)


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGPky9ExLZg

[GeneChing]

Yuan Longping, whose hybrid rice helped feed the world, dies at 90 (https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/yuan-longping-dead/2021/05/25/e23a377e-bd5a-11eb-b26e-53663e6be6ff_story.html)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://arc-anglerfish-washpost-prod-washpost.s3.amazonaws.com/public/NLE5DEV5MII6XMTOKNTD427G74.jpg&w=916
Rice researcher Yuan Longping, at center in 2017, in a field of hybrid rice in northern China. (Chinatopix/AP)
By
Harrison Smith
May 25, 2021 at 5:39 p.m. PDT
Yuan Longping, a Chinese scientist who developed strains of hybrid high-yield rice that helped alleviate famine and poverty around the world, enabling farmers to feed a growing planet with fewer resources, died May 22 at a hospital in Changsha, China. He was 90.

The cause was multiple organ failure, according to the state-run People’s Daily newspaper. Mr. Yuan had been hospitalized in March after falling at a rice-breeding center in southern China, and reportedly continued to track the weather and monitor crops from his bed.

Known in China as “the father of hybrid rice,” Mr. Yuan was one of his country’s most revered scientists, a self-described “intellectual peasant” who spent a few hours each day in the fields, sometimes taking a break from his research to play the violin among the stalks. Once targeted by Communist officials for daring to suggest a slight change to Mao Zedong’s agricultural program, he emerged as a national hero in recent decades, with thousands of mourners leaving chrysanthemums for him at a memorial service in Changsha.

In the early 1970s, Mr. Yuan and his team developed hybrid strains that typically yielded 20 percent more rice than conventional varieties, transforming Chinese agriculture after years of famine and scarcity. Some 10,000 years after Chinese farmers began cultivating rice near the Yangtze River, the country now produces more than 200 million tons of rice a year, more than any other nation.

Rather than limit his rice technology and growing techniques to China, Mr. Yuan pushed to share them with the world. He ultimately partnered with the United Nations and the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines, in addition to teaching farmers in India, Vietnam and elsewhere how to grow hybrid rice. In 2004, he was awarded the World Food Prize with rice researcher Monty Jones of Sierra Leone, and credited with helping “create a more abundant food supply and more stable world.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://arc-anglerfish-washpost-prod-washpost.s3.amazonaws.com/public/YZDJW3V5NMI6XERKYQGJO5F4JA.jpg&w=916
Mr. Yuan receives the World Food Prize in 2004 with Monty Jones, right. (Bill Neibergall/Des Moines Register/AP)
Along with American scientist Norman Borlaug, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate who developed high-yield varieties of wheat, Mr. Yuan was frequently cited as a leader of the Green Revolution, in which mid-century agricultural advances helped feed a growing planet. If the term was somewhat ironic, suggesting an alternative to China’s “red” communist revolution, it nonetheless suggested the scope of Mr. Yuan’s research, which influenced the cultivation of a staple crop that nourishes half the world’s population.

“He wanted to reach as many people as possible, so the problem of food could be solved globally,” said Jauhar Ali, a senior scientist at the International Rice Research Institute. In a phone interview, he added that hybrid strains account for about 15 percent of world rice production. “We have to attribute this to Yuan Longping,” he said. “Had he not been there, China would have starved.”

Born in Beijing on Sept. 7, 1930, Yuan Longping was the son of a railroad official and English teacher. His family moved frequently, uprooted by war between China and Japan, then between nationalists and communists. He said he became fascinated by flowers and trees after visiting a horticultural center as a student in Wuhan.

Mr. Yuan studied agronomy at what was then Southwest Agricultural College in Chongqing. After graduating in 1953, he taught at an agricultural college in Changsha, where his focus shifted from sweet potatoes to rice. High-yield hybrid corn was already in production, and Mr. Yuan sought to do something similar with rice, a self-pollinating crop that posed a far greater challenge for plant breeders.

Beginning in the late 1950s, his research was further stimulated by the Great Leap Forward, a government campaign to bring industry to the countryside, which resulted in catastrophic famine and tens of millions of deaths. “At that time, grain was even more precious than gold,” Mr. Yuan told China Daily in a 2011 interview. “I never had a full stomach during that period, and that bitter memory is unforgettable.”

Mr. Yuan said he saw at least five people who had collapsed on the side of the road, dead from starvation. In an autobiography, he recalled that some tried to fend off hunger by eating grass roots and bark or by double-steaming rice, which caused it to expand.

In the wake of the famine came the Cultural Revolution, a decade-long period of upheaval in which perceived foes of Mao were persecuted or killed. Mr. Yuan was targeted as an intellectual but saved by an official who “recognized the value of his research,” according to historian Sigrid Schmalzer’s book “Red Revolution, Green Revolution” (2016). He was later “sent to a coal mine to ‘temper’ himself and reform his thought,” Schmalzer wrote, and freed after a pair of students vouched for his character.

Mr. Yuan forged ahead with his research, concluding in the mid-1960s that male-sterile rice plants were key to producing a vigorous, high-yield hybrid strain. He later recalled looking through tens of thousands of ears of rice, often while walking barefoot through the paddy field, before he and his team located the right plant on Hainan Island in 1970.

Using the Hainan plant and a new technique for transferring genetic material into commercial strains, he and his team developed the high-yield hybrid in 1973. Large-scale cultivation began in 1976, the same year Mao died. Under the Communist leader’s successor, Hua Guofeng, Mr. Yuan rose to prominence in China for the first time.

In an email, Schmalzer said that during the Cultural Revolution, “the radical politics favored emphasizing the collective nature of the research, including the important contributions of peasant technicians.” By the mid-1970s, Chinese publications were celebrating the way in which Mr. Yuan’s research team had grown “from a small number of specialists’ experiments to a new phase of a thousand armies and ten thousand horses.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://arc-anglerfish-washpost-prod-washpost.s3.amazonaws.com/public/ZGXCCHV5NMI6XERKYQGJO5F4JA.jpg&w=916
Mr. Yuan in 2018. (Yang Huafeng/China News Service/Getty Images)
Mr. Yuan later directed a national hybrid rice research and development center and lent his name to a Chinese seed company. He carried the Olympic Torch in 2008 as it passed through Hunan province en route to Beijing, and in 2019 he was awarded the Medal of the Republic, the country’s highest official honor, by President Xi Jinping.

Survivors include his wife, Deng Zhe; three sons; and several grandchildren.

In recent years, Mr. Yuan and his team developed new varieties of salt-tolerant rice. Amid suggestions that he engineer rice with improved taste or texture, he said he remained focused on ensuring there was enough food to go around. He dreamed of creating “rice crops taller than men,” he said, in which “each ear of rice was as big as a broom and each grain as huge as a peanut.”

In his dream, he told state media, he “could hide in the shadow of the rice crops with a friend.”


By Harrison Smith
Harrison Smith is a reporter on The Washington Post's obituaries desk. Since joining the obituaries section in 2015, he has profiled big-game hunters, fallen dictators and Olympic champions. He sometimes covers the living as well, and previously co-founded the South Side Weekly, a community newspaper in Chicago.

“the father of hybrid rice”

[tranphuc93]

Just bought a Tatung Rice / Multicooker - made in Taiwan - used by 95% of Taiwanese Households.
These last for ages apparently, around 30 years plus and are often handed down to the next generation.



The rice doesn't burn at the bottom of the pot as it uses a water bath for the pot, which is stainless steel also so no toxic non-stick coating touches the rice.
Can also steam other foods and cook stews etc. Optional larger steamer trays available as well.

A bit pricey, but after having to repair or replace those old style, thermoswitch button type electric rice cookers, hoping the Tatung will last longer!

No beeping noises or complex programs to work out, unlike 'InstantPot' or those fancy Pressure RiceCookers.

They make sizes for Families or individuals too. A bit of dependability in this crazy World we live in!


https://youtu.be/oGPky9ExLZg

[GeneChing]

This makes me think of spam musabi.

I'm amused that Tatung has spammed us twice. Yo Tatung! Consider investing in an ad! (https://www.kungfumagazine.com/about/advertise.php)

[GeneChing]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pgeu6NvC6Zo

[Tong Chuang]

This makes me think of spam musabi.

I'm amused that Tatung has spammed us twice. Yo Tatung! Consider investing in an ad! (https://www.kungfumagazine.com/about/advertise.php)

Gene, I did the first post, I apologise if it came across as spam - I did not intend it to be meant that way, As for the second post (which was basically a copy and paste job) I don't know who did this - it seems a bit desparate.

[GeneChing]

I appreciate your apology. It wasn't a bannable offence but it was enough for forum members to complain.

Moving on...

[GeneChing]

Global Rice Shortage is set to be the biggest in 20 years (https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/19/global-rice-shortage-is-set-to-be-the-largest-in-20-years-heres-why.html)
PUBLISHED TUE, APR 18 20238:12 PM EDTUPDATED WED, APR 19 20231:23 AM EDT
Lee Ying Shan
@LEEYINGSHAN

KEY POINTS
Rice production for 2023 is set to log its largest shortfall in two decades, according to Fitch Solutions.
“At the global level, the most evident impact of the global rice deficit has been, and still is, decade-high rice prices,” Fitch Solutions’ commodities analyst Charles Hart told CNBC.
There’s a strained supply of rice as a result of the ongoing war in Ukraine, as well as weather woes in rice-producing economies like China and Pakistan.

https://image.cnbcfm.com/api/v1/image/107225913-1681631865209-gettyimages-1372863580-284064final.jpeg?v=1681863138&w=740&h=416&ffmt=webp&vtcrop=y
Bowl of white rice at Bamboo Sushi restaurant in San Ramon, California, January 23, 2022.
Gado | Archive Photos | Getty Images

From China to the U.S. to the European Union, rice production is falling and driving up prices for more than 3.5 billion people across the globe, particularly in Asia-Pacific – which consumes 90% of the world’s rice.

The global rice market is set to log its largest shortfall in two decades in 2023, according to Fitch Solutions.

And a deficit of this magnitude for one of the world’s most cultivated grains will hurt major importers, analysts told CNBC.

“At the global level, the most evident impact of the global rice deficit has been, and still is, decade-high rice prices,” Fitch Solutions’ commodities analyst Charles Hart said.

Rice prices are expected to remain notched around current highs until 2024, stated a report by Fitch Solutions Country Risk & Industry Research dated April 4.

The price of rice averaged $17.30 per cwt through 2023 year-to-date, and will only ease to $14.50 per cwt in 2024, according to the report. Cwt is a unit of measurement for certain commodities such as rice.


Given that rice is the staple food commodity across multiple markets in Asia, prices are a major determinant of food price inflation and food security, particularly for the poorest households.
Charles Hart
COMMODITIES ANALYST, FITCH SOLUTIONS
“Given that rice is the staple food commodity across multiple markets in Asia, prices are a major determinant of food price inflation and food security, particularly for the poorest households,” Hart said.

The global shortfall for 2022/2023 would come in at 8.7 million tonnes, the report forecast.

That would mark the largest global rice deficit since 2003/2004, when the global rice markets generated a deficit of 18.6 million tonnes, said Hart.

Strained rice supplies

There’s a short supply of rice as a result of the ongoing war in Ukraine, as well as bad weather in rice-producing economies like China and Pakistan.

In the second half of last year, swaths of farmland in the world’s largest rice producer China were plagued by heavy summer monsoon rains and floods.

The accumulated rainfall in the country’s Guangxi and Guangdong province, China’s major hubs of rice production, was the second highest in at least 20 years, according to agriculture analytics company Gro Intelligence.

Similarly, Pakistan — which represents 7.6% of global rice trade — saw annual production plunge 31% year-on-year due to severe flooding last year, said the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), labeling the impact as “even worse than initially expected.”

https://image.cnbcfm.com/api/v1/image/107226776-1681807683429-gettyimages-1251909843-fc_1070376.jpeg?v=1681863138&w=740&h=416&ffmt=webp&vtcrop=y
Workers cultivate rice seedlings at an agricultural service station in Hangzhou in east China’s Zhejiang province Sunday, April 16, 2023.
Future Publishing | Future Publishing | Getty Images
The shortfall is partly due to result of “an annual deterioration in the Mainland Chinese harvest caused by intense heat and drought as well as the impact of severe flooding in Pakistan,” Hart pointed out.

Rice is a vulnerable crop, and has the highest probability of simultaneous crop loss during an El Nino event, according to a scientific study.

In addition to tighter supply challenges, rice became an increasingly attractive alternative following the surge in price of other major grains since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Hart added. The resulting rice substitution has driven up demand.

Whose rice bowls will be affected?

Lower year-on-year rice production in other countries like the U.S. and EU have also contributed to the deficit, said Oscar Tjakra, senior analyst at global food and agriculture bank Rabobank.

“The global rice production deficit situation will increase the cost of importing rice for major rice importers such as Indonesia, Philippines, Malaysia and African countries in 2023,” said Tjakra.

Many countries will also be forced to draw down their domestic stockpiles, said Kelly Goughary, senior research analyst at Gro Intelligence. She said countries most affected by the deficit would be those already suffering from high domestic food price inflation such as Pakistan, Turkey, Syria and some African countries.


China is the largest rice and wheat producer in the world and is currently experiencing the highest level of drought in its rice growing regions in over two decades.
Kelly Goughary
SENIOR RESEARCH ANALYST, GRO INTELLIGENCE
“The global rice export market, which is typically tighter than that of the other major grains ... has been affected by India’s export restriction,” said Fitch Solutions’ Hart.

India banned exports of broken rice in September, a move Hart said has been a “major price driver” for rice.

Surplus in the horizon

However, the shortage may soon be a thing of the past.

Fitch Solutions estimates that the global rice market will return to “an almost balanced position in 2023/24.”

That could lead to rice futures falling in year-on-year terms to below their 2022 level, but remain elevated at “more than one third above their pre-Covid (2015-2019) mean value, in part as inventories are replenished after a period of extensive drawdown.”

“We believe that the rice market will return to surplus in 2024/25 and then continue to loosen through the medium term.”

Fitch further projects that the prices of rice could drop almost 10% to $15.50 per hundredweight in 2024.

“It is our view that global rice production will stage a solid rebound in 2023/24, expecting total output to rise by 2.5% year on year,” Fitch’s report forecast, hinging on India being a “principal engine” of global rice output over the next five years.

https://image.cnbcfm.com/api/v1/image/107225912-1681631285212-gettyimages-1251802850-INDIA_WHEAT.jpeg?v=1681863138&w=740&h=416&ffmt=webp&vtcrop=y
Anindito Mukherjee | Bloomberg | Getty Images
However, rice production remains at the mercy of weather conditions.

While India’s Meteorological Department expects the country to receive “normal” monsoon rainfall, forecasts for intense heat and heat waves through the second and third quarters of 2023 continue to pose a threat to India’s wheat harvest, the report cautioned.

Other countries may not be spared either.

“China is the largest rice and wheat producer in the world and is currently experiencing the highest level of drought in its rice growing regions in over two decades,” said Goughary.

Major European rice-growing countries like France, Germany and the UK have also been afflicted with the highest level of drought in 20 years, she added.
This is bad.