SINGAPORE:
They are too young to have beer. But the many youngsters who go to the Chomp
Chomp Food Centre at Serangoon Gardens can still drink to their heart’s content
from the popular tower dispensers at the hawker centre.
The
quenchers on their tables are sugar cane towers, however, and not beer – drink
stall owner Brendon Tan’s solution for his thirsty customers.
“We
used to sell smaller cups,” he said. “(Gradually) we upsized from 700
millilitres to 1 litre, then 1.5 litres. People were looking for (a bigger)
jug, so I thought maybe we can try a (sugar cane) tower.”
In
the past year though, he had to raise the prices of the juice – for the first
time in the two decades he has been selling the drink. A tower now costs S18,
up from S$15.
In fact, the cost of sugar cane in Singapore has risen by much more. Between last November and this July, the price per box rose from around S$16.50 to S$29 – a 75 per cent increase.
With
food prices rising by more than 10 per cent over the past five years, the
series For Food’s Sake finds out what is behind the hikes in the prices of
various foods and beverages.
In
the case of sugar cane, it is a shortage like never before, said Mr Ray Sng, one
of the co-founders of Daily Fresh Sugarcane Supplier.
“Some
of my customers in other hawker centers (told me) they’re selling (sugar cane)
three days in a week,” he said.
And
the factors coming into play are not only short-term, but also long-term.
1. WHAT
THE RAINS AND FLOODS DID
Singapore
imports more than 99 per cent of its sugar cane from Malaysia, where the best
areas for growing the plant are in the western states, such as Negeri Sembilan,
Perlis, Kedah and Perak as well as in Muar, Johor.
Sugar
cane’s water requirements are higher than other arable crops, yet too much
water can also create problems, as presenter Lennard Yeong discovered when he
travelled to Negeri Sembilan.
In
the Jelebu district, being next to a river has helped farmer Mohammed Farid,
whose family has been growing sugar cane since his father started in the 1970s.
But
when it rained continuously for five days last December, the downpour flooded
his farm, leaving his crop vulnerable.
“(Too
much rain) damages the sugar cane. Some rotted and turned sour,” he said. “I
wanted to cry and scream out loud. It was very frustrating and disappointing.”
In
February, his farm flooded again, along with other farms in the low-lying area
– an unprecedented recurrence.
“The
flood was almost three to four feet high. So we had to cut the sugar cane in
half (to save some),” he said. “I deployed all 20 of my employees from one area
to the next.”
On
both occasions, he was able to save only about 30 per cent of his sugar cane –
a crop with a minimum growing period, ideally, of around nine months.
“The
most difficult thing I’ve ever faced has been to recover (my losses) from the
flood,” he added.
2. HEADING
FOR CLOSURE
Even
if the weather takes a turn for the better, Singaporeans might still have to
pay more to get their sugar cane fix in the near future.
Many
of Malaysia’s sugar cane farms are small family holdings, and that model of
business may well become a thing of the past.
Take,
for example, Mr Mohd Arif Majid, who runs his two-hectare farm in Negeri
Sembilan with the help of only one person: His 50-year-old wife Simisah.
He
takes pride in that fact, but also struggles to send freshly cut stems to his
buyers. While sugar cane is best processed within 24 hours of harvest, he
sometimes has to start earlier.
“If
the request is for a lot of sugar cane to be available on Wednesday, maybe we’d
have to start cutting on Monday. If the amount is less, then perhaps we’d start
cutting on Tuesday afternoon,” he said.
Age
is also catching up on the 55-year-old, who might not have much time left to
run the farm. He has four sons, but none of them plans to take over from him.
“In
the sugar cane business, you get your returns only after seven months (when you
harvest),” he said. “My four sons prefer to be salaried workers and are working
for the government. They feel more comfortable in office clothes.”
3. LARGER
FARMS SCALING BACK
The
time-consuming job of planting and cutting sugar cane means owners of bigger
farms must rely on foreign labour. And that is also posing a challenge.
A
shortage of workers is farmer Tan Wee Teck’s greatest problem, as the work “is
too hot and too tough”. “You have to go row by row to look for the longest
(stems),” he said by way of explanation.
The
shortage extends to the labour-intensive task of processing the crop.
This
includes removing the skin so the stems look cleaner, which is done manually
because “not all sugar cane grows straight”, not to mention that “you have to
leave some (skin) on or else the sugar cane would dry out”.
“It
would be very difficult to use a machine,” he said.
In
2006, he had around 30 workers – many of whom were Indonesians – in his
40-hectare farm in Muar. Now he has a workforce of 14, which has forced him to
halve the size of his farm to 20 hectares.
“Even
if I raise the salary, the younger folks aren’t interested in farming. I can’t
attract young locals. There would still be very few interviewees,” he added.
“We aren’t able to produce more sugar cane.”
After
spending three days meeting farmers, Mr Yeong also found that some of them have
started to downsize because the Malaysian authorities have been cracking down
on undocumented migrants in the past few years.
4. MIDDLEMEN
GIVING UP TOO
As
it turns out, even some middlemen are throwing in the towel.
For
example, Mr Yap Siong Shee, who used to supply Singapore with sugar cane from
farms in southern Malaysia, had to close his shop barely a year into operations
because of the decreasing stock.
“We
(had to) go to places farther afield to buy (sugar cane), like Pahang and
Perak,” said the former supplier in Malaysia. “(Petrol costs and salaries)
became more expensive.
“(For
every) box, we were losing S$3 to S$4. So you can (calculate) that for 200
boxes … we were losing around $600 per day. So how much per month could I lose?
So we couldn’t sustain this.”
In
Singapore, two suppliers also called it quits and were absorbed by Daily Fresh,
which delivers enough sugar cane stalks daily to make 50,000 litres of juice.
There
are six other companies delivering sugar cane to Singapore daily, and it was
initially not easy for Daily Fresh, incorporated in April last year, to gain
the trust of the licensing companies across the Causeway.
Mr
Sng said his company had to pay farms in advance to secure its share of sugar
cane. And now its efforts to keep supply coming include a plan to start its own
farm, if the land can be acquired.
“It
wouldn’t cover everything, but it would counter part of the problem,” he said.
“I don’t think there’ll be a day in Singapore when we … have no sugar cane
juice at all.
However,
with consumers footing only a fifth of the current price hike driven by the bad
weather – according to the supplier – Mr Yeong could not help wondering whether
prices may rise further.
“With
an eye on the bottom line, whether (the big players) can keep the supply going
may well depend on how much we’re willing to pay,” he said.
Source
: SumbernewsAsia
Forex Trading Scams to Watch
The
forex market involves very active trading of over $1 trillion each day, not
including futures and currency options, which put the trading at closer to $5
trillion daily. The market does not have
much in the way of regulation, although things have started to improve
recently.
The
opportunity still exists for many forex scams, which tempt new investors with a
promise of quick fortunes through "secret trading formulas" or
algorithm-based "proprietary" trading methodologies. Before choosing
a broker or platform, go through your own due diligence by visiting BASIC, or
the Background Affiliation Status Information Center, created by the
self-regulatory NFA (National Futures Association).
01
Signal Sellers
Stock
Market Illustration
One
of the challenges a rookie forex investor faces is determining which operators
to trust in the forex market and which to avoid. Signal sellers make a good
example.
Basically,
a signal seller is offering a system that purports to identify favorable times
for buying or selling a currency pair. The system may be manual, where the
trader enters the info and gets a result, or it may be automated.
Some
systems rely on technical analysis, others rely on breaking news and many
employ some combination of the two. But they all purport to provide information
that leads to favorable trading opportunities. Signal sellers usually charge a
daily, weekly or monthly fee for their services.
Some
analysts propose that many or even most signal sellers are scam artists. A
frequent criticism is that if it were really possible to use a system to beat
the market, why would the individual or firm that has this information make it
widely available? Wouldn't it make more sense to use this incredible signaling
system to make huge profits?
Other
analysts distinguish between known scammers and more reputable information
sources such as Metatrader, that offer a well-thought-out signaling service.
Behind
these opposing views lies a larger difference of opinion about whether anyone
can predict the next move in a trading market. This fundamental disagreement
won't be settled any time soon. Nobel Prize-winning Economist Eugene Fama
proposes in his well-regarded Efficient Market Hypothesis that finding these
kinds of momentary market advantages really isn't possible.
His
economist colleague, Robert Shiller, also a Nobel Prize winner, believes
differently, citing evidence that investor sentiment creates booms and busts
that can provide investment and trading opportunities.
The
best way to determine if a signal seller can benefit you is to open a paper
money or practice trading account with one of the better-known forex brokers.
Be patient, and eventually, you'll determine whether predictive signaling works
for you or doesn't.
02
Phony Forex Investment Management Funds
In
the world of investing, outrageous claims are the surest sign of potential
fraud
In
the past few years, forex management funds have proliferated. Most of these, if
not all, are scams. They offer an investor the "opportunity" to have
his forex trades managed by highly-skilled forex traders who can offer
outstanding market returns in return for a share of the profits.
The
problem is, this "management" offer requires the investor to give up
control over his money and to hand it to someone he knows little about other
than the hyped-up and often completely false record of success available on the
scammer's website and brochures.
The
investor often ends up getting nothing, while the scammer uses investors' funds
to buy yachts and private islands.
A
good rule of thumb in the forex market, as with other investments, is that if
it sounds almost too good to be true, such as annual returns of more than 100
percent, for example, it's almost certainly a scam.
03
Dishonest Brokers
Trader
watching stocks crash on screen
Although the forex market is not entirely
unregulated, it has no central regulating authority. The forex spot market is
completely unregulated and accounts for the majority of trades. Unsurprisingly,
some forex brokers do not deal fairly with their customers and, in some
instances, defraud them.
You
have two ways to avoid bad brokers. Before engaging a forex broker, look the
brokerage up on a website that identifies dishonest forex brokers. Better yet,
trade with a broker that also handles other stock market trades and is subject
to SEC and FINRA oversight. While the forex trade itself may be unregulated, no
broker subject to such oversight would risk its license for other securities by
defrauding its forex customers.
