Sudan Targets Food Self-Sufficiency In Five Years

Sudan will prioritize agriculture to target self-sufficiency within five years after the devastation of decades of civil wars, its agriculture minister said Nov. 22. Africa’s largest country must diversify its economy away from oil – from which it derives more than 90 per cent of its foreign exchange revenues – as the oil-producing south is

Vietnam Aims To Boost Rice Crop For Food Security

Vietnam vowed to maintain current rice crop areas and boost yields to ensure supplies remain adequate in the face of demand pressures from a fast-growing population as well as the effects of climate change. The government’s pledge of security of food supplies touched a key agenda topic at two conferences that opened in Hanoi recently,


As Canada Farm Values Rise, Investment Kept Limited

Growing investor interest in high production farmland in Canada’s Saskatchewan is helping push up farmland values, but the province’s limits on foreign agriculture investment are not likely to ease any time soon, according to a leading agriculture official. Saskatchewan is one of several Canadian provinces that restricts farmland ownership by non-Canadians. The Farm Land Security

Commodity Sell-Off Has Winners And Losers

The biggest decline in commodity market value since the financial crisis of 2008 looked like funds running for the exits, but big differences in open positions between oil, grains and other commodity markets will signal which markets may still be overextended. Based on the decline in open interest – the number of contracts bought or


Grains Increasing Shipping Volatility

Grains trades have increased volatility in the global dry bulk shipping market and will start to support freight rates from 2012, ship broker Howe Robinson’s joint chairman said Nov. 19. Deliveries of new bulkers ordered before global turmoil in 2008 have been weighing on the freight market even as a record-large U.S. soybean crop and

China Food Demand Boosts Brazil Growers’ Profits

Brazil growers will reap healthy profits from the 2010-11 grain crop, despite the high cost of getting goods to port, because strong demand from China is supporting prices, consultants MB Associados said. Despite the downward correction in world commodities prices in the past week, futures prices of commodities from grains to iron ore are still


Farm Subsidies Seen A Turnoff For Investors

Pricey commodities have made U.S. farmers less dependent on government aid, but the European farm sector still faces the risk of disruption from subsidies being phased out, agriculture investors said Nov. 10. Tim Hornibrook of Australia’s Macquarie Agricultural Funds Management said that price-skewing farm assistance was unlikely to disappear entirely any time soon, given concerns

In Brief… – for Nov. 11, 2010

Protecting biodiversity: Delegates from nearly 200 nations agreed Oct. 29 to a sweeping plan to put the brakes on loss of species by setting new 2020 targets to ensure greater protection of nature and enshrine the benefits it gives mankind. Environment ministers from around the globe also agreed on rules for sharing the benefits from


French Beef Producers Block Abattoirs Over Prices

French beef producers were blocking nine out of 10 slaughterhouses of France’s top beef processor Nov. 8 to ask for a rise in prices that would relieve higher costs, producers’ organization the FNB said. Breeders accuse Bigard, which accounts for about 40 per cent of cattle slaughtering in France, of being inflexible in price negotiations.

China Quarantine Bureau Rejects U.S. Corn Cargo

China’s quarantine bureau confirmed Nov. 2 that it had discovered traces of an unapproved genetically modified organism (GMO) in a U.S. corn cargo and had refused its entry into China. “A genetically modified element which is not approved by the Agriculture Ministry has been identified in the cargo and according to the relevant State Council