Why you mostly can't buy rice in the supermarket

Because most irrigation has ceased for lack of water -- while dam water is allowed to flow out to sea for "environmental" purposes

Panic buying is adding to the pressure on rice supplies at a time when drought and water reform have led to one of the smallest crops in the industry's 70-year history in Australia.

The grower-led company SunRice will produce about 5 per cent of its average rice production this year, and is relying on overseas product to meet demand domestically and for export markets.

Chief executive officer Rob Gordon said panic buying of rice had put enormous strain on the company's facilities. "We've got orders for 250 per cent of normal and obviously we don't have the spare capacity to be able to produce that, but we are flexing our supply chains," Mr Gordon said.

"We are importing rice from different parts of the world for the Australian market even though we normally sell Australian rice here. "Clearly that will be very clearly labelled so consumers can understand that we've had to source rice from somewhere else."

Mr Gordon said the company would secure enough rice from overseas suppliers to satisfy demand for an estimated 1.2 million tonnes in sales to about 50 countries this year.

This will be further complicated by the Vietnamese Government announcing that all rice exports will be banned from May 31 to protect its domestic supply, affecting the company's milling operations in that country.

Fewer than 70 Australian growers will harvest crops in the coming weeks, out of close to 800 producers in a good season.

Prolonged drought and water reform is likely to see production fall below last year's 54,000 tonnes, the second lowest crop on record.

In a good year, SunRice injects up to $500 million into the New South Wales economy in wages and payments to growers and local suppliers.

This year the company laid off 250 workers, and the impact of that reduced economic activity has hit the Riverina region hard.

The Mayor of Leeton, Paul Maytom, said governments needed to understand that the value of rice to local communities extended far beyond its farm-gate return.

"It should not be about who can pay the highest price for water; it should be about what will it cost our communities if we cannot sustain that diversity of irrigated agriculture that we have, which then moves into the value-added side, which then moves into employment and then sustains our whole community," Mr Maytom said.

Under water reforms, the environment and permanent crops, such as almonds, grapes and citrus, get water allocated before annual crops such as rice, cotton and cereals.

SunRice chairman Laurie Arthur said annual crop irrigators felt under siege.

About 500 have joined a $1.5-billion class action against the Murray-Darling Basin Authority, but he is urging calm.

Mr Arthur is one of the state's biggest rice growers and a former national water commissioner.

He said he understood grower frustration, but hoped state and commonwealth governments would make more water available for low-security irrigation.

"One of the reasons the irrigation community supported the reform process was the concept of property rights, transparency of process and a framework of water entitlements that give the sector confidence to invest to world's best practise," he said.

"Some of those have been delivered and some have demonstrably not been delivered.

"The government now holds 28 per cent of all the allocations in the Basin, so they are enormous users, and I believe they have the ability to correct the situation."

There are a number of big reports on water reform policy due in the coming months.

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Queensland looks set to legalise voluntary assisted dying for terminally ill adults

Queensland should legalise voluntary assisted dying for terminally ill adults, the government's health committee has found.

An investigation to gauge public opinion on voluntary euthanasia has determined most Queenslanders are in favour of it.

Currently, there's no option for terminally ill Queenslanders to get help to die.

The committee found that every four days in Queensland, a terminally-ill person takes their own life.

'This must stop,' committee chair and Labor MP Aaron Harper wrote in a report tabled in parliament on Tuesday.

'Suicide should never be the only option for Queenslanders suffering at end of life.

'This is just one of the many reasons the majority of our committee chose to support a recommendation for more choice for people suffering from an advanced progressive or neurodegenerative condition, through access to a voluntary assisted dying scheme.'

A sample bill has already been draft by Queensland University of Technology Professors Ben White and Lindy Wilmot.

The committee of parliamentarians recommended euthanasia be limited to Australian citizens or permanent residents in Queensland with the capacity to make decisions.

To be eligible, patients must be diagnosed with an advanced or progressively terminal chronic or neurodegenerative condition that cannot be eased.

Those with a mental health illness should not be ruled out, so long as they can make decisions.

Time frames for a person's assisted death should not be proposed, the committee recommended, in recognition of the complex, subjective and unpredictable nature of terminal illnesses.

A sample bill has already been drafted by Queensland University of Technology Professors Ben White and Lindy Wilmot.

'It's an excellent bill,' Dying with Dignity Queensland president Jos Hall said.

Advocates want to see voluntary assisted dying legislated before October's state election, but understand the response to COVID-19 takes priority.

'It needs to be dealt with as a matter of priority at the first available opportunity,' Ms Hall said.

'Knowing that over 80 per cent of Queenslanders support voluntary assisted dying, regardless of who forms the next government, we would like to see this dealt with.

'We would be pleased to work with whichever party forms government if this is not dealt in this parliamentary term.'

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Queensland sugar industry provides large amount of ethanol to make sanitizers


QUEENSLAND'S multi-billion dollar sugar industry is playing a vital role in the fight against coronavirus. Sugar giant Wilmar says it has doubled production in recent weeks of ethanol, a by-product of sugar molasses, for use in sanitisers and cleaners.

Wilmar BioEthanol executive director Shayne Rutherford said the COV1D-19 outbreak had triggered an unprecedented demand for ethanol and it was working hard to meet the needs of its customers in the cleaning and pharmaceutical sectors.

Cleaning products manufacturers including Ormeau-based OzKleen says they can't obtain enough ethanol to meet demand as the coronavirus epidemic spreads.

Mr Rutherford said the company's North Queensland ethanol distillery produces about 60 million litres of ethanol a year for the renewable fuel (E10) and industrial markets. "In recent weeks, we have maximised our production of higher-grade ethanol suitable for use in sanitisers and surface cleaners," said Mr Rutherford.

The company had provided more than 370,000 additional litres of ethanol to Australian pharmaceutical customers in the year to date, an increase of about 60 per cent. It also had shipped more than 380,000 additional litres of ethanol to Australian cleaning product customers - an increase of more than 280 per cent. -"This represents a doubling of the ethanol volumes we've supplied to Australian pharmaceutical and cleaning product customers so far this year, compared to the first quarter of 2019,"

He said the company's Sarina distillery employs about 50 people directly and Operates 24 hours a day. At its Yarraville operation the 15 people employed there are working extended hours to meet the current spike in demand.

Wilmar is one of the major Australian producers of ethanol products, supplying over half of the domestic food and beverage and industrial market as well as supplying the rapidly growing fuel market in Australia.

Rum distilleries in Queensland also have quickly adapted to surging demand for ethanol and are rolling out hand sanitiser from their factories. Minister for State Development Cameron Dick said Beenleigh Rum Distillery and Bundaberg Rum Distillery would focus on the production of ethanol for hand sanitiser immediately, using existing production lines and staff.

From the Brisbane "Courier Mail" of 28 March, 2020





The coronavirus lockdown has Australia's domestic violence shelters fearing for migrant women

At one domestic and family violence service in a multicultural area of Melbourne, the number of calls for assistance is significantly down. But it’s the lines going quiet that is the worry.

CEO of South East Community Links Rhonda Cumberland told SBS News she is concerned women wanting to leave their abusive partners are now at more risk as Australia tackles the coronavirus crisis by imposing lockdown measures.

And for those who have migrated to Australia from a different country, they may be without a wide network of support.

“Family violence generally has gone quiet in terms of any reporting, but for migrant women, in particular, you can imagine with all of the violence being contained in the home without any outlets available [it would be] just totally compressed into the home,” she said. 

Her organisation works to provide settlement and other support services to the diverse areas surrounding Dandenong in Melbourne’s south-eastern suburbs, where roughly 70 per cent of residents come from non-English speaking backgrounds.

Ms Cumberland said without any access to public space due to the COVID-19 lockdown restrictions, coercion experienced by women at home was likely getting worse, and many may feel they now have no outlet to escape or seek help through.

“They have very few opportunities to make phone calls, to be in touch with friends who might support them, or go anywhere to engage in any type of community space,” Ms Cumberland said.

“The entrapment is real. It will last quite a long time. It’s very hard to reach these women at the best of times, but in these conditions, it’s just so much more difficult.”

'People are very scared'

It’s a sentiment echoed by Annabelle Daniel, CEO of Women’s Community Shelters, a network of seven shelters across New South Wales for women who have experienced family and domestic violence.

As Google reports seeing the highest magnitude of searches for domestic violence help that they have seen in the past five years, with an increase of 75 per cent, Ms Daniel said her organisation has received a 30 per cent spike in the number of calls for information about what help is available. But that hasn’t been translated into the intake at the shelters.

“What that says to us is people are very scared for the potential for lockdown increasing the intensity of domestic or family abuse they might already be experiencing,” she said.

“What a lockdown environment creates is a situation where you might be around someone who is abusive 24/7. What that does is it increases the potential for surveillance, monitoring phone and internet use, for listening in on conversations, to basically have eyes on someone all the time."

“One thing we do know about domestic and family abuse is that controlling behaviours that go on can absolutely be amplified in an isolation setting,”.

Family and domestic violence shelters are considered essential services and remain open to the public.

Ms Daniel said it was important for women to know there are places available in shelters and there is support on hand for those who need it.

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 Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).    For a daily critique of Leftist activities,  see DISSECTING LEFTISM.  To keep up with attacks on free speech see Tongue Tied. Also, don't forget your daily roundup  of pro-environment but anti-Greenie  news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH .  Email me  here