
China's hog production is expected to bottom out before the end of 2019 and recover to normal levels in 2020, an agriculture ministry official said on Thursday.

The following piece on the Falklands and Brexit was distributed by the French news agency, AFP, both in English and Spanish. - It may be a remote archipelago 13,000km from mainland Britain but the Falkland Islands' incredible biodiversity, as well as fishing and meat exports, are under threat from Brexit.

Global food prices were steady in September, as lower sugar prices were offset by increased quotations for vegetable oils and meat. The FAO Food Price Index, which tracks monthly changes in the international prices of commonly-traded food commodities, averaged 170 points in September, virtually unchanged from August and 3.3 per cent higher than in the same month in 2018.

Brazilian farmers have planted 3.1% of the estimated soybean area for the 2019/2020 crop, agribusiness consultancy AgRural said on Monday, blaming a lack of rain for the slowest start to the season in six years.

A pending US lawsuit over claims related to Bayer's glyphosate-based herbicide Roundup has been delayed, the company said on Sunday with a new court date set for February 2020.

The UK government has provided £5 million of aid as part of an Argentine program to manage antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in agriculture and its impact on the environment. The funding will go to five research partnerships between the UK and Argentina.

Brazilian meatpacker BRF SA has admitted to bribing food inspectors with bank deposits and health benefits, police said on Tuesday, although the company itself avoided raids as it was cooperating with the latest phase of the corruption probe.

China's hog herd fell by half in the first eight months of 2019 due to a devastating outbreak of African swine fever and will likely shrink by 55% by the end of the year, analysts at Rabobank said on Wednesday.

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro on Tuesday signed a decree with a variety of measures to expand financing for farmers. The measures include the creation of a fraternal fund that will provide an estimated 5 billion reais (US$ 1.20 billion) in additional credit for the sector, according to Rogerio Miranda, the Economy Ministry's deputy secretary for agriculture policy.

Brazilian farmers are wary of the imminent introduction of a new genetically modified soy seed technology because of the risks associated with dicamba, a herbicide the biotech product is designed to tolerate.