Agriculture

• Tuesday, August 14th 2012 - 07:31 UTC

  Obama announces 170m dollars emergency support for scorched farms

  

  President Barack Obama announced an emergency purchase of up to 170 million dollars of meat and fish on Monday on a campaign trip to drought-hit Iowa, and accused Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan of blocking disaster aid to farmers.

• Monday, August 13th 2012 - 05:11 UTC

  Aid for US farmers stalled in Senate; proposal to reduce bio-fuel mix in gasoline

  

  The US House of Representatives passed a 383 million dollars disaster relief bill that provides political shelter for lawmakers during the worst drought in half a century, but may not release the aid for months to come.

• Saturday, August 11th 2012 - 11:17 UTC

  US consumers face dearer pork, chicken and beef because of the drought

  

  Pork and chicken will join beef on the menu of expensive meats as drought and US ethanol policy combine in a corn “disaster”, the head of the world’s largest pork producer has said.

• Saturday, August 11th 2012 - 11:03 UTC

  China only interested in commodities, not in products that reach supermarkets

  

  Trade with China for Argentina has great opportunities but also great threats because the Asian giant is only interested in produce with no added value, warned the head of Argentina’s Industrial Union, Ignacio De Mendiguren.

• Saturday, August 11th 2012 - 10:56 UTC

  Bill Gates finances research project to improve corn yields

  

  Billionaire computer magnate Bill Gates is to fund a €8m research project into whether cereal crops can be genetically engineered with nitrogen-fixing bacteria.

• Friday, August 10th 2012 - 08:49 UTC

  Brazil bumper crop of corn estimated at 71.5 million tons

  

  Brazil will reap a record grain harvest of 163.3 million tons this year, a gain of two per cent over 2011, the IBGE statistics agency says. The IBGE's latest forecast, based on July data is 1.6% higher than the previous projection.

• Friday, August 10th 2012 - 08:41 UTC

  Short of soy Brazil meat producers want to import from Bolivia

  

  Meat producers in Brazil's Mato Grosso do Sul state are lobbying the government to approve soy imports from neighbouring Bolivia after drought shrank supplies in the world's second grower, a state official and analysts.

• Friday, August 10th 2012 - 08:35 UTC

  Booming agriculture sees crop land prices in Brazil soar 18% in the past year

  

  Prices of Brazilian crop land have soared 18% in the past year, to judge by data from one of the country's biggest agricultural groups, which revealed plans to take sowings nearly to 300,000 hectares, according to Agrimoney.com.

• Friday, August 10th 2012 - 07:35 UTC

  FAO warns countries against a repeat of the 2007/08 food prices crisis

  

  The world could face a food crisis of the kind seen in 2007/08 if countries restrict exports on concerns about a drought-fuelled grain price rally, the UN food agency FAO warned, after reporting a surge in global food prices in July.

• Thursday, August 9th 2012 - 06:08 UTC

  New Zealand launches program for high quality marbled beef off grass

  

  The New Zealand government announced last week it will be supporting a program to produce high-quality marbled beef off grass, by combining specific high-marbling genetics with the country’s strengths in pastoral agriculture, according to Joe Burke from the Meat Division of Bord Bia-Irish Food Board.