Arguing that there are justified reasons to increase the price of pile of rice, in Costa Rica the Alvarado administration authorized a 1.9% increase in the final price to the consumer.
With the increase decreed by the Ministry of Economy, Industry and Commerce (MEIC), the price per kilo will rise from $1.06 to $1.08, for the variety with 20% broken grain, also known as 80/20.
As a pressure measure for the government to decree a 1.9% increase in consumer value, in Costa Rica industrialists have decided to suspend from December 2 the receipt of national grain.
According to businessmen, the price increase is pending since June 2019 and they hope that with this pressure measure, the authorities will publish the decree, in which the value of the kilo is increased from $1.06 to $1.08 for the variety with 20% broken grain, also known as 80/20.
For the 2019-2020 agricultural cycle, 67,558 hectares of grain have been planted in the country, an area that exceeds in 5% what was reported for the previous harvest.
92.2% of the total rice crop is unirrigated (62,280 hectares with 988 producers) and 7.8% is irrigated (5,278 hectares of 53 producers), informed the Ministry of Agricultural Development (MIDA).
The main distributors have stated that the supply of cereals in supermarkets has been increasing in recent years.
Nacion.com reports that "...Each Costa Rican eats 1.2 kilograms of cereal a year, thus exceeding the consumption of this product by Mexicans, Colombians, Russians and even Japanese citizens."
In the last 16 years the amount of land cultivated with white corn has grown at an average annual rate of barely 1%, while in the case of beans, growth has been at an average annual rate of 6%.
From the executive summary of the report "Current situation of basic grains in Honduras", prepared by the Honduran Council of Private Enterprise:
The requirements for sanitation and traceability are preventing the livestock sector from taking advantage of quotas for meat exports duty free to Europe.
Although the Association Agreement between Central America and the European Union established a quota of 4,800 tonnes per year of rice and a quota of 1,533 tonnes per year of meat, which could enter Europe without incurring tariffs, neither sector has been able to take advantage of them completely.
Between January 2015 and December 2016, the average price per kilo of rice imported by Central American countries fell from $0.46 to $0.35.
Figures from the information system on the the Rice Market in Central America, compiled by the Business Intelligence Unit at CentralAmericaData: [GRAFICA caption="Clic para interactuar con la gráfica"]
68% of rice sales in the market are managed by 3 large companies, and 12% of the profits generated by the premiums are concentrated in a single company.
A study by the Chamber of Commerce concluded that the fixing by decree of the price of rice not only did not result in improvements in productivity, but also revealed the way in which the amount of area sown is distributed as well as the profits of rice trading companies in the local market.
With the bill approved in the National Assembly, the intention is to grant more facilities to increase local rice production and for imports to be a last option only in case of shortages.
From a statement issued by the National Assembly of Panama:
The plenary of the National Assembly approved, in a third debate, Bill No.
The union estimates that agricultural production cycle 2016-17 will be 5.5 million hundredweight, exceeding the 4.1 million hundredweight produced in the previous harvest.
The Union of Agricultural Producers of Nicaragua (UPANIC) based its forecast on the 68,000 acres of land to be cultivated during the different sub-cycles of production in the 2016/17 cycle.
Imports of husked rice grew by almost 200% between the periods 2011-2012 and 2015-2016, and even when paying a tariff of more than 35%, imports easily compete with the subsidized local product.
The competitiveness of imported rice is such that"... it is estimated that for the current period (1 July 2016 to 30 June 2017), purchases will reach 54,000 tons.That is almost three months consumption, in that presentation alone."
The government has announced it will buy 500 million hundredweight and will rent agroindustrial infrastructure to store crops in areas in Panama East, Darien and central provinces.
The 500 hundredweight that the Ministry of Agricultural Development (MIDA) is committed to buying from local producers will serve to supply markets run by the Agricultural Marketing Institute (IMA).
The producer's union estimates that in 2017 grain imports will go up 5% due to the reduction suffered by local production because of climate effects.
Members of the Guatemalan Rice Association plan to invest in agricultural technology and provide more support to small farmers in order to improve their productivity in light of the start of the United States´s tariff reduction process for grain.
The depletion of soils in Los Santos is leading producers to Darien, where rice cultivation has increased by 35% and more than 190 thousand hectares are now dedicated to raising livestock.
At the close of the 2015-16 crop year in the province of Darien almost 5,000 hectares were planted with rice and 192,000 hectares dedicated to cattle, two activities that until recently used to be concentrated in the province of Los Santos.In the case of rice, the increase is 35% from the agricultural year 2012-2013. In Darien,"... their soil moisture, land availability and proximity to the capital city have combined to the benefit of the productive sector."
The increase in 5,800 hectares in the amount of land planted with rice in 2015 will lead to an increase in local production which will reduce imports required to complete supply of the domestic market by almost 50%.
An article on Laestrella.com.pa reports that Jorge Arango, Minister of Agricultural development, said that "... the country has increased domestic production of rice this year, therefore imports of this grain will be reduced ' by nearly half 'what was imported in previous years. "
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