The world of soybean shipping has turned upside down thanks to the ongoing U.S.-China trade war. Argentina, the No. 3 global soy grower, is making major purchases of U.S. supplies. A weekly measure of US shipments to Argentina just rose to the highest in at least 35 years, U.S. government data showed Tuesday.
Brazil’s top appeals court has ordered the release of one of meat processor JBS’ controlling shareholders, Joesley Batista, and Ricardo Saud, a lawyer for J&F Investimentos, which controls JBS. Both were arrested on Friday in an investigation into illegal campaign contributions and alleged bribery of government officials.
The United Nations FAO has raised its forecast for global cereal production in 2018 to 2.601 million tons, primarily due to higher estimates for wheat production in Canada and China. Nonetheless, the new forecast remains 2.1 percent below the record level achieved in 2017.
International food commodity prices dipped in October, as falling dairy, meat and vegetable oils prices more than offset a surge in sugar prices, the United Nations said. The FAO Food Price Index, a measure of the monthly change in international prices of a basket of food commodities, averaged 163.5 points in October, down 0.9 percent from September and 7.4 percent below its level a year earlier.
Argentina is expected to harvest some 140 million tons of grain in the 2018/2019 season, the largest crop in the country's history, according to Argentina's Agriculture Secretariat.
Brazil’s President-elect Jair Bolsonaro appointed his first female cabinet member on Wednesday evening, picking the head of the farmers’ caucus in the lower house as agriculture minister.
The U.S. Commerce Department said it would begin a review of antidumping duties it placed last year on biodiesel imported from Argentina, the Argentine Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Wednesday.
U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue announced that the United States has joined with 12 other nations, (including Mercosur founding members) to support policies that enable agricultural innovation, including genome editing. The International Statement on Agricultural Applications of Precision Biotechnology was released in Geneva at the World Trade Organization Committee on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures.
Brazil’s National Supply Company (Conab) has released its monthly report this week, and it projects that the country will produce 119.4 million metric tons. Last season, the country produced 119.2 million metric tons. The surface would jump from 86.7 million acres to 89.2 million acres.
Russia's agriculture safety watchdog said on Wednesday it would allow imports of beef and pork from nine Brazilian plants beginning on Thursday, ending an 11-month ban triggered by concerns about the safety of their meat products.