Agriculture

• Thursday, January 24th 2019 - 09:12 UTC

  Saudi Arabia limits imports from a number of Brazilian chicken processing plants

  

  Saudi Arabia has barred five Brazilian chicken processing plants from exporting to the Middle Eastern country, leaving 25 with valid export permits, Brazil’s meat trade association ABPA said, citing “technical” reasons. The Saudi move threw up a fresh hurdle for top exporter BRF SA and its rivals just a day after an anti-dumping dispute with China was resolved.

• Tuesday, January 22nd 2019 - 10:09 UTC

  Brazilian 2019 coffee production forecasted to decline 11.5/18%

  

  Brazilian food supply and statistics agency Conab has reported that Brazil’s coffee production is expected to decline in 2019 to between 50.48 and 54.48 million bags. Conab attributes the 11.5 to 18% drop from the 61.65 million bags the agency reported for the year prior to Brazil’s coffee plants recovering from an increased output in 2018, which is affecting Arabica in particular.

• Tuesday, January 22nd 2019 - 10:06 UTC

  Beware EU consumers: scheme to sell horse meat lasagna

  

  Four people are going on trial in Paris over an alleged scheme that fed consumers across Europe frozen foods containing cheap horse meat fraudulently labelled as pricier beef.

• Saturday, January 19th 2019 - 09:36 UTC

  Brazil plans a self-monitoring system for food processors, despite a non-encouraging record

  

  Brazil is moving toward a self-monitoring system for food processors, Agriculture Minister Tereza Cristina Dias said on Friday, including meatpackers still recovering from an inspection scandal that hurt trade with key markets. Dias said in an interview that Brazil's new business-friendly government plans to send draft legislation on self-monitoring to Congress in the first half of this year.

• Saturday, January 19th 2019 - 09:22 UTC

  Extreme wet January displaces thousands and floods farmland in Mercosur member countries

  

  Intense rainfall in northeast Argentina and neighbouring areas in Mercosur members has caused devastating floods, amplifying the economic burdens of Argentina's recession. Over 5,000 people have evacuated the region, and millions of hectares of crops have been sent underwater.

• Friday, January 18th 2019 - 10:19 UTC

  Doubts about Brazil's real soybean production estimate because of adverse weather

  

  Analysts are casting doubt on the Brazilian government’s soybean production estimate. Conab, the government’s food supply and statistics agency, recently issued a forecast for 118.8 million tons of production, only slightly smaller than last year’s record 119.4 million tons.

• Wednesday, January 16th 2019 - 05:48 UTC

  Australia exposed to record temperatures: some 45C expected this Wednesday

  

  Australians have been warned to avoid exerting themselves outdoors and to drink lots of water as record temperatures in parts of the country look set to linger, and even increase, over coming days. Parts of New South Wales, Australia’s most populated state, and an area of Western Australia, saw record high minimum temperatures of 33 Celsius overnight.

• Monday, January 14th 2019 - 09:26 UTC

  FAO Food Price Index fell almost 22% in 2018 compared to 2017

  

  Global food prices held broadly stable in December, with rising international cereal prices offsetting declining sugar and dairy quotations, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) said. However overall for 2018, the FAO Food Price Index fell by almost 22% from 2017

• Thursday, January 10th 2019 - 08:32 UTC

  Brazil's soybean crop forecast cut 4.5m tons: hot spell in southern states

  

  Brazil’s 2018/19 soybean crop forecast was cut to 116.9 million tons on Wednesday from 121.4 million tons late in November, said consultancy AgRural, blaming extreme heat and a dry spell in southern areas for the smaller projection.

• Wednesday, January 9th 2019 - 19:01 UTC

  US government shutdown leaves farmers and markets with no reports on world crops

  

  The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) delayed several major U.S. and world crop reports because of the two-week-old partial government shutdown, the agency said on Friday. New release dates for the monthly World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates report and other data originally scheduled for Jan. 11 will be set once government funding is restored, USDA said.