Despite reforms, Cuba is growing less food than five years ago

Cuba is producing less food than it did five years ago despite efforts to increase agriculture production, the government reported Aug. 31. Some export crops and farm output aimed at substituting food imports registered minor gains, but overall output last year remained below 2007 levels, according to a report issued by the National Statistics Office.

Climate threat to world’s poor is underestimated

london / reuters Climate change will greatly increase the suffering of the world’s poor, says Oxfam. More frequent extreme weather events will create shortages, destabilize markets, and cause price spikes on top of projected structural price rises of about 100 per cent for staples such as maize over the next 20 years, the charity said


Western Canada farmland values soar as growers expand

Western Canadian farmland is soaring in value, as farmers expand their lands and look to cash in on high crop prices, a report by real estate organization RE/MAX said Sept. 10. The price of high-end grain-producing land in southern Saskatchewan has jumped 20 per cent on average from last year to a range of $1,200

More states join call for end to U.S. ethanol rule

Two U.S. states that depend on the livestock industry are adding their voices to a string of states asking Washington to ease pressure on corn prices by suspending rules that send a large share of the crop to produce ethanol. Georgia, the centre of U.S. poultry production, and New Mexico, with its large cattle industry,


Multiple predicaments: One core solution

The livestock industry and others that use corn as key input are calling on Congress and the administration to modify or suspend the ethanol mandate for the 2012 corn crop. Pressure for modifying the mandate is also coming from a hunger community that is fearful that a further rise in corn prices will trigger an

Ethanol output to drop 10 per cent

U.S. ethanol production will fall by 10 per cent in the coming year as rising prices from the drought cut exports in half, a University of Missouri think-tank forecast on Aug. 28. The Obama administration is weighing whether to relax a requirement to use corn-based ethanol in gasoline as meat and dairy farmers complain that


UN urges change in U.S. biofuel policy to avoid food crisis

The United Nations’ food agency stepped up the pressure on the United States on Aug. 10 to change its biofuel policies because of the danger of a world food crisis, arguing the importance of growing crops for food over their use for fuel. Global alarm over the potential for a food crisis of the kind

World powers weigh emergency meeting on food prices

Leaders want to avoid grain export embargoes that factored 
into global shortages and political instability in 2008.

Leading members of the Group of 20 nations are prepared to trigger an emergency meeting to tackle soaring grain prices caused by the worst U.S. drought in half a century and poor crops from the Black Sea bread basket. France, the United States and G20 president Mexico will hold a conference call at the end



High feed prices push more cattle to slaughter

Manitoba cattle auction marts operated in routine holiday mode during the week ended July 20 with feeder cattle seeing steady prices and average volume for this time of year. But, butcher cows on the slaughter market saw above-normal volume, and weaker prices, an industry official said. Rick Wright, a buyer with Heartland Buying Order Company,