Menanam padi SRI secara jalur di Sawah Sempadan, Tanjong Karang

9 Julai 2013 - Blok E Sawah Sempadan (Tanjong Karang)

Percubaan row seeder untuk penanaman padi menggunakan kaedah SRI. Sawah milik Othman Mogek seluas 1.2 hektar ini ditanam dengan varieti padi MR253. Kurang daripada 60 kg benih digunakan.

Govt urged to think hard about food security

Two organisations criticise Budget 2013 for not addressing the issue adequately.

PETALING JAYA: Budget 2013 reflects the government’s unwillingness to address the issue of food security in its totality, according to the Southeast Asia Council for Food Security and Fair Trade (Seacon) and the Federation of Malaysian Consumers Association (Fomca).

Both told FMT that the announcements in last Friday’s budget presentation showed a lack of concern over the possibility of a global food crisis. Fomca CEO Paul Selvaraj said the budget gave too much emphasis on commercial crops and too little on “perhaps more vital areas”.

“A total of RM5.8 billion was allocated to the Ministry of Agriculture, and only about RM105 of this is for actually improving yields of food crops such as rice, vegetables and fruits. About RM432 million—about four times more—is allocated towards improving yields in the palm oil sector.”

Selvaraj said Fomca did not expect Malaysia to escape the threat of a food crisis brought on by climate change.

He noted that food shortage in Africa was worsening and that even developed countries were already facing problems. “They can’t afford to buy food, can’t produce, are facing drought and so on.”

Citing the corn shortage in the United States, which has reduced the supply of cattle feed, he said a drop in yields in developed countries would affect food supply to the rest of the world. “Although the budget mentions an expected output from the increase in paddy acreage, there was no mention of how much it will reduce our dependency on rice imports,” he said. He said a Fomca survey of 36,000 Malaysians in 2009 and 2010 showed that food prices were the top concern.

“For a long time now, we have been under-investing in agriculture,” said. “In many countries, food production would expand in parallel with other industries. We shouldn’t neglect it and we don’t want to learn the hard way, when people can’t even afford to eat.”

Selvaraj criticised the budget allocations for addressing “mostly short term” concerns, saying they would only temporarily offset the financial problems of farmers, fishermen and others engaged in low-income activities. “Subsidies for seeds and fertilisers often benefit distributors and manufacturers, not the farmers,” he said.

Making farmers competitive

Seacon executive director Anni Mitin also criticised the subsidy programmes. “So much in subsidies is given, but these benefit only a number of companies directly.”

She added that there was a need to re-evaluate even those subsidies that would benefit farmers directly.

“When it comes to subsidies, we question how long these can last,” she said. “Why are we not making our farmers more competitive? The government should be more creative.” She suggested that the government start encouraging farmers to acquire training, to support their work with new technologies, and to sell their produce directly to consumers.

“We don’t expect them to be great businessmen, but the market should be open and they should learn to reach consumers.”

Selvaraj welcomed the introduction of the Takaful insurance for smallholders. However, he said the terms and conditions needed to be clear and should cover loss of production or income due to natural disasters.

He also said the decision to continue the AZAM Tani project was a positive one, but added that more youths should be roped in.

He said Fomca had concerns about anti-competitive practices.

“For food to be affordable, there should be competition along the supply chain. If there is manipulation, price fixing, or collusion, then consumers don’t pay the real price. This applies to every level from importers to wholesalers, middlemen, manufacturers,” he said.

He urged the government to make full use of the Anti-Competition Act, which he described as a weapon against these practices.

The world is closer to a food crisis than most people realise

Unless we move quickly to adopt new population, energy, and water policies, the goal of eradicating hunger will remain just that

In the early spring this year, US farmers were on their way to planting some 96m acres in corn, the most in 75 years. A warm early spring got the crop off to a great start. Analysts were predicting the largest corn harvest on record.

The United States is the leading producer and exporter of corn, the world's feedgrain. At home, corn accounts for four-fifths of the US grain harvest. Internationally, the US corn crop exceeds China's rice and wheat harvests combined. Among the big three grains – corn, wheat, and rice – corn is now the leader, with production well above that of wheat and nearly double that of rice.

The corn plant is as sensitive as it is productive. Thirsty and fast-growing, it is vulnerable to both extreme heat and drought. At elevated temperatures, the corn plant, which is normally so productive, goes into thermal shock.

As spring turned into summer, the thermometer began to rise across the corn belt. In St Louis, Missouri, in the southern corn belt, the temperature in late June and early July climbed to 100F or higher 10 days in a row. For the past several weeks, the corn belt has been blanketed with dehydrating heat.

Weekly drought maps published by the University of Nebraska show the drought-stricken area spreading across more and more of the country until, by mid-July, it engulfed virtually the entire corn belt. Soil moisture readings in the corn belt are now among the lowest ever recorded.

While temperature, rainfall, and drought serve as indirect indicators of crop growing conditions, each week the US Department of Agriculture releases a report on the actual state of the corn crop. This year the early reports were promising. On 21 May, 77% of the US corn crop was rated as good to excellent. The following week the share of the crop in this category dropped to 72%. Over the next eight weeks, it dropped to 26%, one of the lowest ratings on record. The other 74% is rated very poor to fair. And the crop is still deteriorating.

Over a span of weeks, we have seen how the more extreme weather events that come with climate change can affect food security. Since the beginning of June, corn prices have increased by nearly one half, reaching an all-time high on 19 July.

Although the world was hoping for a good US harvest to replenish dangerously low grain stocks, this is no longer on the cards. World carryover stocks of grain will fall further at the end of this crop year, making the food situation even more precarious. Food prices, already elevated, will follow the price of corn upward, quite possibly to record highs.

Not only is the current food situation deteriorating, but so is the global food system itself. We saw early signs of the unraveling in 2008 following an abrupt doubling of world grain prices. As world food prices climbed, exporting countries began restricting grain exports to keep their domestic food prices down. In response, governments of importing countries panicked. Some of them turned to buying or leasing land in other countries on which to produce food for themselves.

Welcome to the new geopolitics of food scarcity. As food supplies tighten, we are moving into a new food era, one in which it is every country for itself.

The world is in serious trouble on the food front. But there is little evidence that political leaders have yet grasped the magnitude of what is happening. The progress in reducing hunger in recent decades has been reversed. Unless we move quickly to adopt new population, energy, and water policies, the goal of eradicating hunger will remain just that.

Time is running out. The world may be much closer to an unmanageable food shortage – replete with soaring food prices, spreading food unrest, and ultimately political instability– than most people realise.

• Lester R. Brown is the president of the Earth Policy Institute and author of Full Planet, Empty Plates: The New Geopolitics of Food Scarcity, due to be published in October

Market fundamental and commodity speculation

Food prices and food insecurity are front page news. Price volatility in food and commodity markets – a marked phenomenon in recent years that has undermined food security – and its causes, including the role of speculation in commodities futures markets. While the impact of increased speculation on prices is still debated, the risks of the formation of price bubbles and the exclusion of commercial players, because of higher costs of participation in a deregulated commodity futures market. Mark Bittman includes this in his news items - "Evidence is growing that financial speculators are responsible for the rising price of food. So the Commodity Futures Trading Commission just released new rules to curb excessive speculation, and the result is — you guessed it — a giveaway to speculators."

When food prices rise, some blame investors. Last year, the German news magazine Der Spiegel published an in-depth article, called Speculating with Lives, looking at what’s driving up food prices. The authors argue that while some of the factors we hear a lot about, such as global warming, biofuels and population growth, are small contributors to rising food prices, they aren’t the main culprit. Instead, the article points a finger at investors who have increasingly fled the financial markets and started trading in commodities such as silver, gold and, yes, food.

New IATP Report Shows Excessive Speculation Hurts Farmers and Increases Hunger By Kim Kido – A recent report published by the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) describes how and why speculative trading has caused agricultural commodity prices to fluctuate wildly, irrespective of actual supply and demand. The report shows how such price fluctuations negatively impact farmers and consumers, and supports regulations that would stop this from happening.

Foreword from Excessive Speculation in Agriculture Commodities, Dr. Steve Suppan wrote;

"Orthodox agricultural economists denied that the commodity price bubble was due to anything but fundamentals, and both Wall Street and LaSalle Street gleefully cited their work. David Frenk, former financial analyst and now executive director at Better Markets, Inc., eviscerated such denialist work, published by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development just before the U.S. Senate voted on what would become the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. Frenk’s work is reprinted here, as is an excerpt from the testimony of Professor Michael Greenberger to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). Greenberger, a former CFTC commissioner, explains important regulatory tools that the CFTC can use to prevent the excessive speculation that induces price hikes and volatility.

IATP began in the midst of a U.S. farm mortgage foreclosure crisis, due in great part to prices—below cost of production—that agribusinesses paid to farmers and ranchers for the raw materials of food products. Even when aided by U.S. taxpayer subsidies, prices were so low that many farmers could not afford to re-pay loans to buy land that they were advised to buy “to get big or get out” of farming. Crops, livestock, meat and dairy products exported at below the cost of production drove farmers in other countries out of business. In 1995, following the founding of the World Trade Organization (WTO), IATP began a decade of nearly annual reporting on the percentage of U.S. export prices for row crops dumped on international markets, i.e., sold at below the cost of production. Although dumping is a patently unfair trade practice under WTO law, the WTO did nothing to stop it.

Now WTO negotiations are dead in the water and agricultural commodity prices are high, though not so high relative to agricultural production costs, over which farmers have little control. Land purchase prices and rental rates, and the cost of seeds, diesel fuel and, above all, fertilizer, have increased sharply, partly due to hikes in oil and gas futures prices. But the dominant trade policy discourse no longer is about subsidies and dumping. Instead it is about commodity price volatility and securing raw materials, agricultural, metals and energy commodities, by any means necessary, with trade as just one option. The unvarnished truth of what an UNCTAD economist said to me in 2004 has sunk in more deeply: “I don’t know why you spend so much time on trade policy when the financial system is such a mess.”

The next stage in the fight against excessive and purely financial speculation in commodity markets is perhaps the most important. Rules based on analysis of comprehensive trade data and sound legal reasoning to make markets fair are prerequisite to good enforcement that can manage the price volatility that results from supply, demand and other fundamental factors."

Since all grain commodity futures contracts which are bought must also be sold, speculation should not cause more than short term price changes although it might contribute to volatility. The non-linearity between price and grain inventories during perceived times of scarcity might be the reason that some jump to the conclusion that speculators are causing rapid price rises during these time periods of real or perceived scarcity. However, the regulatory to help protect the food commodities from speculation is counter productive.

According to Kay McDonald, the recent history of grain markets supports two conclusions. First, the price spikes of 2008 and more recently are not as unusual as many discussions imply. Second, the balance between consumption, available supply, and stocks seems to be as relevant for our understanding of these markets as it was decades ago.

Any sign for a price drop?

Menuai padi SRI Sg Burong 4 Januari 2012

Menuai Padi SRI di Sg Burong

4 Januari 2012 - hari menuai padi di Parit 4 Sungai Burong. Padi dituai pada usia hampir 120 hari. Penuaian agak lewat kerana penanaman yang lewat - hampir 2 minggu lewat akibat masalah banjir. Ini merupakan musim kedua padi SRI dibuat di lot ini (rujuk di sini). Analisis komponen hasil dan kecekapan pengeluaran akan dibincangkan dalam entri akan datang.

Seminar Mekanisasi SRI di PLKP Tanjong Karang 22 Disember 2011

Jabatan Pertanian Negeri Selangor hari ini menganjurkan Seminar Mekanisasi SRI di Pusat Latihan Kejenteraan Pertanian (PLKP) Tanjong Karang. Seminar dirasmikan oleh Pengarah Pertanian Negeri Selangor Tuan Haji Ahmad Zakaria bin Mohd Sidek memberi fokus kepada pembangunan mekanisasi SRI di Selangor dihadiri lebih 130 orang peserta melibatkan agensi kerajaan, swasta, universiti, pihak-pihak berkepentingan dan petani. Sebanyak 3 kertas kerja dibentangkan dan pameran alat-alat implemen untuk SRI turut diadakan. Pada sebelah petang, sesi perbincangan dibuat berkenaan dengan hala tuju mekanisasi SRI beserta dengan business plan untuk mengembangkan SRI bersama peserta seminar.

Mekanisma kuku pada mesin transplanter

Sambungan dari post sebelum ini: mekanisma kuku (transplanting claw) yang digunakan bagi mengubah anak benih secara kaedah rotary forced planting. Kaedah menanam menggunakan mesin boleh diubahsuai untuk mendapatkan jarak dan bilangan anak pokok yang dikehendaki.

Gambar dekat kuku menanam memilih anak benih dan menanam ke dalam tanah sawah

Gambar ilustrasi kuku menanam menunjukkan bagaimana alat ini berfungsi

Kuku menanam akan berfungsi secara berputar, memilih anak benih dengan bilangan yang boleh ditentukan oleh operator. Kuku boleh dilaras untuk mengambil 1 hingga 10 anak benih bagi setiap "point" tanaman. Jarak antara pokok (between heel) juga boleh dilaras dan mesin ini akan memutarkan kuku secara automatik mengikut jarak yang dikehendaki. Lebih rapat jarak antara pokok, lebih cepat putaran akan dibuat oleh mesin.

Padi SRI - mesin transplanter bagi menanam 1 anak benih

11 Mei 2011 - saya bersama-sama Puan Noorazimah dan En Wan Yusoff melawat pengusaha tanaman padi secara transplanting di Sekinchan bagi mendapatkan idea berkaitan mesin transplanter. Tujuan lawatan ini adalah untuk mendapat pandangan dan kaedah bagaimana mengubahsuai implement pada mesin transplanter supaya hanya satu anak pokok dengan jarak yang sesuai dapat ditanam menggunakan mesin.

Beberapa ciri mekanikal mesin transplanter ini diperhatikan bagi mendapat idea bagaimana ia berfungsi dan boleh diubahsuai untuk tanaman padi SRI.

Claw (kuku) yang terdapat pada mesin transplanter untuk memilih dan menanam anak benih padi. Bukaan pada claw ini boleh diubahsuai bagi mendapatkan satu anak benih berbanding kaedah konvensional 4 hingga 8 anak benih. Kuku ini berfungsi secara berputar (juga dikenali sebagai rotating claw) dimana terdapat 2 kuku pada satu alat kuku berputar ini. Kuku yang berputar ini juga boleh dilaraskan mengikut jarak anak pokok (between heel) yang dikehendaki (12/14/16/18/21/24 cm) manakala jarak antara baris (between row) tetap pada 30 cm. Mesin transplanter biasanya mempunyai 4, 6 atau 8 kuku berputar. Penanaman ini juga dikenali sebagai rotary forced planting.

Platform benih dan kuku berputar ini boleh dilaraskan mengikut kesesuaian. Kedalaman anak benih juga boleh diubahsuai diantara 1 hingga 10 cm dan ketinggian anak benih yang boleh digunakan diantara 10 hingga 25 cm.

Kebanyakan peralatan pada mesin transplanter ini mudah diselenggara dan alat ganti tulen dijual oleh pengeluar dan pembekal. Bagi memastikan mesin ini berfungsi dengan baik, pengguna perlu sentiasa memeriksa dan menyelenggara 8 bahagian jentera ini.

Gambar-gambar penanaman padi secara transplanting di Sungai Burong, Tanjong Karang

Membina Parit Tengah Sawah

Kerja-kerja membina parit dalam sawah (parit tengah)

Sistem saliran dalam petak sawah sangat penting di dalam aspek pengurusan air dalam petak sawah. Pembinaan tepi batas dan parit tengah boleh meningkatkan kecekapan pengurusan air di dalam meningkatkan hasil padi.

Parit tengah dibuat di bahagian tengah lot sawah dengan berukuran 2 kaki lebar atas x 1 kaki lebar bawah x 1 kaki dalam. Bagi parit tengah pula, parit hendaklah lurus dan tanah buangan dilonggokkan sama tinggi di kiri dan kanan parit tersebut.

Kedudukan parit tengah sawah

Keratan rentas parit tengah sawah

Parit tengah sawah yang baru selesai dikorek

Merata Sawah (bahagian 4)

Keadaan sawah selepas perataan tanah dilakukan dalam keadaan kering

Air dimasukkan ke dalam petak sawah sebelum membuat perataan dan bajak basah

6. Setelah selesai merata sawah dalam keadaan kering (menggunakan bucket leveller > box leveller > rotary cultivator), sawah akan diratakan buat kali keempat dalam keadaan basah. Air akan dimasukkan ke dalam petak sawah bagi menjadikan tanah tepu air dan traktor dengan kapasiti 70 hingga 80 HP akan digunakan bersama implemen niplo harrow untuk membuat perataan terakhir.

Traktor 4 roda bersama implemen niplo harrow untuk bajak basah dan merata sawah

Merata sawah basah menggunakan jentera dua roda