The Food Corporation of India (FCI) will procure over 33 per cent of paddy arrivals in Punjab during the ongoing procurement season against last year's 38 per cent. Ruling out any reluctance on the FCI part in purchasing the crop as stated by Punjab food and supplies minister Madan Mohan Mittal, FCI regional manager DP Reddy told UNI in Chandigarh that the agency was strictly following specification standards to maintain the quality.

The paddy procurement process was going on smoothly, he said. ``Things also depend on how soon farmers bring their produce in mandis allotted to us,'' he said adding that purchase was low at some places where mandis allotted to the FCI were mostly in remote and far-flung areas. The procurement figure of the corporation might touch 35 per cent, Reddy said. The FCI had till Wednesday procured 19.09 lakh tonnes paddy (28.2 per cent) against 48.69 lakh tonnes purchased by state agencies and 20.83 lakh tonnes by private millers. He said except in some pockets of Moga, Ferozepur and Amritsar, specification and other quality standards of the crop were up to the mark. The FCI was not facing problem either in procuring or storing the crop, he added.

S Korea rice output may go up

South Korea's ministry of agriculture and forestry said on Wednesday the country's rice output was expected to reach 5.22 million tonnes, up 2.4 per cent from a year earlier.``The expected rice output for 1999 was up 2.4 per cent from the 1998 harvest of 5.097 million tonnes and up 3.6 per cent from this year's output target of 5.04 million tonnes,'' the ministry said in a statement. The ministry attributed the rise in this year's expected rice output to an increase in the country's space for the rice paddy to 1.066 million hectares from the government's earlier expectation of 1.043 million hectares and from last year's 1.059 million hectares. In addition, the sufficient sunshine and rainfall from the rice-planting to the rice-earing seasons helped healthier rice output this year, the ministry said. But the statement said typhoons in September were expected to lower the output in southern parts of the country by one to four per cent compared with last year. The rest of the country was expected to see twoto seven per cent rise in their rice output compared with last year's output, the statement said.

This year's expected rice output would exceed the country's annual rice demand of 5.04 million tonnes, the statement said. The country would have rice stocks of about 1.253 million tonnes at the end of October 2000, compared with 777,600-820,800 tonnes recommended by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), it said.

Durum wheat

AWB Ltd launched a new durum wheat variety called Arrivato on Wednesday after nearly four years of research, the national grains Marketer said. AWB launched the new variety with its New Zealand project partners, Heritage Seeds and Crop and Food. AWB chief executive Murray Rogers said in a statement it was the first time durum wheat had been developed through a wholly privately-funded research and development programme. Arrivato, a white grained durum wheat which was bred to offer a good level of wheat rust resistance, had the potential to enhance Australia's durum crop, which was growing every year, Rogers said. It was best adapted to regions of medium rainfall through Victoria, New South Wales and South Australia. Testing is still underway to determine suitability to Western Australia. Australian production of durum wheat, which is used mainly for making pasta, has been expanding in recent years. Last season, AWB exported more than 250,000 tonnes of durum to traditional and new markets around the worldincluding Italy, Ethiopia, Libya, Morocco, Dubai, Sharjah and Kuwait, Rogers said.

Malaysia palm oil exports

Malaysian palm oil exports for October 1-20 were estimated at 568,442 tonnes against 583,925 tonnes in September 1-20, cargo surveyor Societe Generale de Surveillance Malaysia Sdn Bhd (SGS) said on Wednesday. SGS said exports comprised 130,140 tonnes of RBD palm oil, 277,021 tonnes of RBD palm olein and 48,694 tonnes of RBD palm stearin. The other products accounted for 112,587 tonnes.