More trade could end African food shortages

Reuters / Africa could avoid food shortages if it reduces the tangled web of rules, fees and high costs strangling regional food trade and by putting large swathes of uncultivated land to productive use, according to a World Bank report. Just five per cent of Africa’s cereal imports are now provided by African farmers, according






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


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

Machinery dealers, meat packers likely to suffer

While U.S. crops of corn and soybeans wilt in the worst U.S. drought in a half-century, winners and losers are emerging in the agriculture sector of the Toronto Stock Exchange. Shares of Agrium Inc. and PotashCorp of Saskatchewan are up 21 per cent and eight per cent since June 1, lagging far behind the spike


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

USDA opens idle land for livestock feed

washington / reuters / U.S. farmers facing the worst drought since the 1950s can use environmentally fragile land for livestock feed, the U.S. Government said July 23, as it also asked crop insurers to give growers more time to pay premiums. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced those steps during a teleconference from Iowa and called