Southeast Asia Program PPI/PPIC and IPI Monthly Newsletter. Highlights from the Southeast Asia Program

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1 Southeast Asia Program PPI/PPIC and IPI Monthly Newsletter Highlights from the Southeast Asia Program June 2005 A regional initiative for the development of Site-Specific Nutrient Management in Maize The Southeast Asia Program (SEAP) of PPI/PPIC-IPI now supports 120 on-farm experiments on site-specifi c nutrient management (SSNM) with maize at 14 sites in Indonesia, The Philippines and Vietnam. This is the largest effort to estimate the sitespecifi c yield potential of corn, nutrient related yield gaps, and fertilizer nutrient requirements in the region. Additional, more detailed on-station trials are conducted in Indonesia to develop adequate N management strategies. Research results will be used to develop a generic SSNM approach for corn in the next 12 months, before large scale delivery of improved strategies will commence in 2006/2007. Efforts are underway to link this regional initiative with other national and international projects. Typical design of on-farm experiments at all project sites to estimate attainable yield in NPK treatments and nutrient limited yield in omission plots (NP, NK, and PK). Yield and nutrient uptake is evaluated in comparison with site-specifi c Improved Crop Management (ICM) and the Farmers Fertilizer Practice (FFP). Published by Southeast Asia Program Potash & Phosphate Institute/Potash & Phosphate Institute of Canada and International Potash Institute 126 Watten Estate Road, Singapore ( 1

2 Website of the Southeast Asia Program (SEAP) now accessible at The Southeast Asia Program (SEAP) of PPI/PPIC-IPI started to restructure its web site to provide better access to relevant information on key crops, nutrients, fertilizer needs, and developments in the region to the public and private sector. We hope that users will appreciate the shorter and simpler domain name says Dr. Christian Witt, Director of SEAP. New information and features will be added in the next six months with the aim to develop a leading site with agronomic information on key crops in the region. In May 2005, we revised our compilation of prices for important commodities in the region. Commodity prices have been charted for the year 2000 until present and are updated every month for 4 Cereal crops: rice, maize (corn) and wheat 4 Vegetable oils: coconut oil, groundnut oil, palm oil (crude), rapeseed oil, soybean oil, and sunfl ower oil 4 Cocoa and coffee 4 Rubber 4 Other crops: cotton, groundnut, rubber, soybean, sugar, tapioca and tea SEAP develops a set of key principles in crop and nutrient management in oil palm In preparation for their presentation at the 5th National Seminar of the Incorporated Society of Planters titled Plantation Management: Promoting Culture of High Performance, Christian Witt and co-authors developed a set of fi ve key principles in crop and nutrient management for oil palm. The seminar is the start for a new SEAP initiative including collaborative projects to promote the fi ve key principles of crop and nutrient management along with evolving strategies for their implementation in the region. Site-Specific Nutrient Management in Rice receives further international recognition Scientists of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) and partners from the Philippines, India, and Vietnam won two awards in the poster contest during the International Symposium on the Sustainability of Paddy Farming Systems, 1-2 June, organized by the 7th International Conference of the East and Southeast Asia Federation of Soil Science Societies in Quezon City. The fi rst prize went to the poster on Economic and Environmental Assessment of Site-Specifi c Nutrient Management in Irrigated Rice Systems, authored by Dr. Ireneo Manguiat from UPLB and co-authored by colleagues from PhilRice, IRRI, the Tamil Nadu Rice Research Institute (India), the Cuu Long Delta Rice Research Institute (Vietnam). This poster reported fi ndings from the Philippines, southern Vietnam, and southern India on economic benefi ts derived by farmers from use of SSNM and impacts of SSNM on greenhouse gas emissions as estimated with a simulation model. 2

3 The third prize went to the poster Site-specific nutrient management (SSNM) for rice in the Philippines authored by HC Gines (PhilRice), Roland Buresh and Mira Pampolino both IRRI), and L. Sebastian (PhilRice). This poster illustrated how the site-specific nutrient management (SSNM) approach for rice was used to develop a locally adapted recommendation for field-specific nutrient management, which includes use of the new four-panel leaf color chart and is being promoted by the public and private sector in the Philippines. The research presented at the conference is supported with funding from IFA, PPI/PPIC and IPI. Upcoming activities of the Southeast Asia Program (SEAP) 4 Stakeholder workshop on site-specific nutrient management (SSNM) for rice in Indonesia June 2005, Medan, North Sumatra, Indonesia. This workshop in jointly organized by the Indonesian Center for Food Crops Research and Development, the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), Philippines, and the Southeast Asia Program (SEAP) of PPI/PPIC- IPI. Key objectives of the workshop are 8 to formulate the understandings of improved nutrient management for rice into principles, guidelines, and information that can be used by extension, private sector, and farmers, and 8 to outline strategies by which technical experts and educators in nutrient management can effectively participate in and technically support initiatives for the wider scale dissemination of rice production technologies. 4 Paper presentation: The Need to Increase Profitability in Oil Palm Plantations: Matching Crop and Nutrient Management Principles with Evolving Strategies. 5th ISP National Seminar 2005, 27th 28th June, Johor Bahru, Malaysia Dr. Christian Witt, Director of SEAP, will present a paper titled The Need to Increase Profitability in Oil Palm Plantations: Matching Crop and Nutrient Management Principles with Evolving Strategies by C. Witt, T. Fairhurst, and W. Griffiths at the 5th ISP National Seminar 2005, 27th 28th June, Johor Bahru, Malaysia. The paper summarizes the current challenges in oil palm production in the region and key principles of crop and nutrient management promoted by the Oil Palm Platform ( The Oil Palm Platform is represented at the conference by PPI/PPIC, IPI, CIRAD, Agrisoft-Systems, Hydronav, and MapInfo jointly presenting and exhibiting strategies, tools, and technologies in crop and nutrient management. News from the region Fertilizer news 4 New urea fertilizer plant in Vietnam Construction of a coal-to-urea fertilizer plant at Ninh Phuc Industrial Zone, in northern Ninh Binh province, will begin in the third quarter of this year under a recent Prime Minister decision. The plant has a design capacity of 560,000 tons per year. The decision was made as the domestic market is running short of urea fertilizer. Upon its completion, the plant is expected to partly address the urea fertilizer shortage for local farmers. Source: Nhandan, 26 May 2005, 4 Vietnamese farmers face fertilizer price hike Farmers in the Mekong Delta provinces are facing a urea fertilizer price hike just as the time has come to fertilize their summer-autumn crop. The price hike is due to sharp increases in urea fertilizer prices in the world market. Price for a kilo of urea fertilizer increased by 500 VND (0.03 USD) over late April to 4,800 VND (0.30 USD). The country will need 7.2 million tons of fertilizers for , including 2.1 million tons of urea fertilizer, 3 million tons of NPK fertilizer, and 1.4 million tons of phosphate fertilizer. During the period, the country will cultivate million ha, including 9.85 million ha of annual crops and 2.43 million ha of perennial trees. To fertilize the total acreage, Viet Nam has to import about 500,000 tons of urea fertilizer and 300,000 tons of potassium fertilizer. Fertilizer plants nationwide are expected to produce about 6.3 million tons of fertilizers up to Source: VNA, 18 May 2005, 4 Vietnamese fertilizer exported to Cambodia The Binh Dien Fertilizer Company s exports to Cambodian market keep increasing sharply. In the first four months of this year, the company exported US $8 million worth of fertilizer to the market. Last year, the 3

4 company earned US $10 million from exporting 40,000 tons of fertilizer to Cambodia. This year, Cambodian partners have placed orders of over 100,000 tons of fertilizer produced by Binh Dien Company. The company s fertilizer products are winning popularity in Cambodian market. Source: Nhandan, 26 May 2005, Rice news 4 Northern Vietnam farmers to grow 1.4 million ha of Summer-Autumn rice Farmers in the northern Red River delta and northern central provinces plan to plant around 1.4 million ha with the Summer-Autumn rice crop this year. They hope to harvest 6.5 million tons of paddy at the end of the crop. These provinces have set a target of reaching a paddy output of almost 5 million tons in the next Winter- Spring crop when they will grow rice on a total acreage of around 560,000 ha. Also according to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, farmers in the region enjoyed a bumper Summer-Autumn crop last year. They brought home 5.6 million tons of paddy with an average yield of 4.54 tons per ha, two records in terms of output volume and productivity. A total of 1.23 million ha were planted with the Summer-Autumn rice crop in Meanwhile, more than 500,000 ha of rice field in the previous Winter-Spring crop brought the local farmers a total paddy output of almost 4 million tons, up 300,000 tons over the same crop of Source: VNA, 18 May 2005, 4 Philippine hybrid rice-seed maker eyes Indonesia The Philippine SL Agritech Corp., seed producer of the hybrid rice SL 8H and supplier of the government s rice program, will start exporting its varieties to Indonesia this year. The company will forge an agreement with the Indonesian agriculture ministry in early June but negotiations are still on going with Jakarta about the initial export volume and whether the SL Agritech Corp. would put up a seed production facility in Indonesia. SL Agritech Corp. has two seed producing facilities in the Philippines, one in Davao province, which has a per-season production of 100,000 bags, and another in Sta. Cruz, Laguna, producing 15,000 bags. During the last cropping season, the company sold some 100,000 bags to local farmers. Other companies that produce hybrid seeds include Bayer CropScience, which markets Bigante and Tisoy varieties, cooperatives selling PhilRice-developed Mestizo 1, 2, 3, and the Rizalina variety, produced by another local company. The Philippine government plans to plant hybrid seeds to an estimated 500,000 ha. It also aims to plant hybrids to 214,000 ha for the wet cropping season. During the dry cropping season, the Department of Agriculture filled around 170,000 ha of irrigated farm lands with hybrids. Source: The Manila Times, 26 May 2005, 4 Bayer CropScience Philippines started a new hybrid seed-producing plant in Mindanao Bayer Cropscience Philippines opened a new hybrid seed-producing facility in Tagum, Davao del Norte, in March. The company, which also has a seed-producing facility in Isabela, has been sourcing the bulk of the seeds it sells in the Philippines from India. The Isabela seed facility could produce MT of hybrid seeds every cropping season while the Tagum facility could produce and store 1,000 tons. Bayer more than doubled its production in 2004, from 300 tons in Bayer s sales has been affected by its higher selling price of P1,900 vis-à-vis the subsidized SL 8H worth P1,300. Source: The Manila Times, 07 May 2005, Comment: Hybrid rice has a higher yield potential than the current high yielding, modern varieties grown in most part of Southeast Asia. Hybrids are mostly grown in the favorable season when climatic conditions are favorable and pest pressure is low, because more research is still needed to improve the pest resistance of hybrids. Nutrient needs of hybrids differ from currently grown varieties and fertilizer strategies have to be adjusted both in terms of time and amount of nutrient application. The Southeast Asia Program (SEAP) of PPI/PPIC and IPI is collaborating with the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) to develop adequate fertilizer strategies for hybrid and inbred rice collaboration with national partners in The Philippines and Indonesia. This issue will also be discussed at a stakeholder workshop on Site-Specific Nutrient Management (SSNM) for Rice in Indonesia, Medan, North Sumatra, June 2005, organized with support of SEAP. Agriculture in the Highlands of Vietnam 4 Vietnam province of Lam Dong targets arabica The Tay Nguyen (Central Highlands) province of Lam Dong will become the country s key arabica coffee producer by 2010, with about 25,000 cultivated ha, representing one-fifth of the country s total acreage. The announcement was made at a recent seminar on the development of arabica coffee plants, held by the Viet Nam Coffee and Cacao Association (Vicofa) and Lam Dong Province s agricultural and rural development department. Viet Nam plans to expand its arabica coffee plantations to more than 100,000 ha by 2010, in an 4

5 attempt to balance coffee production and gain competitiveness in the more profitable arabica market. There are about 510,000 ha of coffee nation-wide, 95% of which is robusta, while arabica plantations cover an area of about 30,000 ha. With US$500 million in exports every year, coffee is the country s second largest agricultural export after rice. Viet Nam last year exported about 950,000 tons of coffee, generating an export value of roughly $660 million, up 28% over the previous year. However, despite the large volume of exports, turnover has always remained modest, as Viet Nam s main coffee robusta has a low export value. In addition, Viet Nam s exporters cannot sell products directly to coffee processors, but must deal through traders. Despite the availability of Vietnamese coffee in dozens of countries, all the business deals have been made through international trade groups with representative offices in Viet Nam. Source: VNS, 4 May 2005, 4 Second largest irrigation project begins in Vietnam s Central Highlands Construction of the Ia Mlah irrigation project began in the central Highlands province of Gia Lai on May 25. The project with an investment capital of 420 billion VND (26.25 million USD) is the second largest after the Ayun Ha irrigation work. Once completed in mid-2008, the work is expected to irrigate 5,150 ha of rice and 4,000 ha of industrial crops in Krongpa district and provide water supply for 36,000 local people, who now have to cover distances of between 3 and 5 km in the dry season to get water for their domestic use. Source: VNA, 26 May 2005, Update on rubber markets 4 Viet Nam invited to join International Rubber Consortium The International Rubber Consortium (IRCo), comprising Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia, is inviting Viet Nam to join the organization in a bid to control the global rubber price. The total rubber output produced by the three IRCo members now accounts for 75% of the global natural rubber output. If Viet Nam joins the IRCo, the organization will make up at least 80% of the global output. IRCo could set a fair price for global rubber and rubber growers would benefit from this price. However, the World Bank predicted that the global natural rubber price will fall from 1.21 USD/kg in 2004 to 1.09 USD in 2005 and 83 US cents in 2015 due to the world s instable oil price. The IRCo was founded in 2001 by Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia with the aim of raising the global rubber price that which fell to 45 US cents/kg at that time. At present, the three countries are preparing a fund worth 4.5 million USD for taking intervention measures once the global rubber price falls to under 110 US cents/kg. In addition to the IRCo, there is also the Association of Natural Rubber Production Countries, which includes the three IRCo members plus Viet Nam, Singapore, Papua New Guinea and Sri Lanka. Source: VNA, 5 May 2005, 4 Viet Nam and Laos sign rubber plantation contract A rubber plantation contract was signed by Viet Nam s Dac Lac Rubber Co. Ltd. and Bachieng district of Laos Champassack province on May 14. Under this contract, farmers of the district will plant and take care of the rubber area the Vietnamese company will develop there. The contract is part of the Central Highlands Dac Lac province s project, valued at 30 million USD, to cultivate rubber trees in four provinces of Laos. The project was licensed by both the Vietnamese and Lao Governments six months ago. Source: VNA, 14 May 2005, 4 Good market and price for rubber export Vietnamese businesses have exported 160,000 tons of rubber since the beginning of this year, doubling the volume of last year s same period, according to the Ministry of Trade s Information Center. Export prices of rubber have increased sharply as natural disasters hit the world leading rubber-producing countries including Thailand, Indonesia, and Malaysia, causing fall in output. Price of SRV3L for export to China has bumped up to RMB11,500 (US$ 1389) per ton, RMB (US$12-24) over the end of March. Prices of rubber for export to other markets are also staying at high level. Price of latex for export to Italy is US$915.3 per ton; of SVR3L to Russia is US$1,325 per ton; and of SVRCV50 to the US is US$1,315 per ton. Source: Vneconomy, 16 May 2005, Comment: The Southeast Asia Program (SEAP) currently does not support rubber projects in the region because opportunities for changes in nutrient management are limited despite gaining interest in the crop. 5

6 2005 Water shortage - Farm output falls to lowest in four years in the Philippines Filipino farmers failed to raise their production in the first quarter, as farm output fell to its lowest in four years, according to the Department of Agriculture. The DA blamed the farm sector s flat growth on the dry spell caused by the El Niño weather phenomenon. Comprising a fifth of the Philippine economy and employing nearly half the Filipino work force, agriculture hardly grew at 0.55% in the January to March period. According to the Bureau of Agricultural Statistics (BAS), the little growth that the sector enjoyed was due to a 7.49% increase in the poultry sub-sector s output and a 5.94% growth in the fishery sub-sector. However, crop production, which accounts for half of total farm output, dipped by 3.06%, owing to declines in palay and corn production. Palay production fell 1.53%, while corn harvest recorded an 18.35% drop, both because of the dry spell that began in November. Other crops that recorded output declines include coffee, mango and tobacco. The DA, however, expects farm output to improve over the balance of the year, since the dry spell should ease in June or July. Farm output is expected to improve in the succeeding quarters given the intervention measures introduced by the agriculture department as well as the onset of rains in June or July. The department is targeting to regain losses in rice and corn production by expanding the hectarage planted to hybrid rice. The agriculture department eyes to produce 15.1 million MT of rice for this year, by planting hybrid rice varieties to 214,000 ha of irrigated rice lands in the country, particularly in Mindanao and Visayas. Source: The Manila Times, 13 May 2005, Dole Philippines expands pineapple plantations Pineapple giant, Dole Philippines, plans to develop some 5,000 ha of new pineapple plantations in Sarangani and South Cotabato provinces in Mindanao over the next two years as part of its continuing expansion program. The company is eyeing to forge new pineapple contract-growing arrangements with some 2,000 farmers based in Surallah and T boli towns in South Cotabato and Maasim in Sarangani. Under the contract-growership scheme, farmers or growers may avail of planting materials and direct technical assistance from Dole. The company will also be the exclusive buyer for the pineapple harvests of the beneficiaries. At a contract price of P2.20/kg, growers could earn a net income of P40,000 (US$ 736) a year for a ha of pineapple. Pineapple growers may harvest pineapple at least twice per cycle, which covers at least three and a half years. The estimated production cost for one cycle could reach P340,000 (US$ 6260). Source: Sun Star, 31 May 2005, Oil World Annual 2005 on sale The publishers of Oil World Annual 2005 announced the publication is now available. The 2005 issue of the Oil World Annual contains analyses of all the important price-making factors as well as provides Oil World s first 2005/06 projections for each of the 10 oilseeds, 17 oils & fats as well as for the 12 oilmeals. Covering 39 commodities and 150 countries, the databank carries comprehensive information on world supply/demand & trade balances and country breakdown. It is also available on CD-ROM with statistics in HTML format. To order and for additional information, visit or contact ISTA Mielke GmbH, Langenberg 25, Hamburg, Germany; fax Source: UCAP News, 12 May 2005, Subscribe to the SEAP newsletter If you would like to receive this newsletter via as a PDF, please send us an (mailto:seap@seap.sg) indicating that you would like to join our mailing list. seap newsletter 6