WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The trade deal that U.S. negotiators are seeking with China may have more in common with a sanctions-monitoring regime than a traditional trade pact. The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump is pushing China to agree to regular reviews of its compliance as a condition of any trade deal between the world’s […] Read more
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Australian flooding hits cattle herds, fertilizer output
SYDNEY (Reuters) – Australia’s largest fertilizer maker and its biggest listed cattle farmer this week warned investors of sizeable losses stemming from floods that engulfed parts of Queensland state, as receding water began to reveal the scale of damage. Flooding rain raked the Queensland coast at Townsville last week, before sweeping inland and submerging vast […] Read more
How a Philippines regulator stymied DowDuPont’s global seed launch
WINNIPEG, Manitoba (Reuters) – A Philippines regulator poses an unexpected obstacle to DowDuPont’s launch of a new line of genetically engineered soybeans in the United States as the company challenges Bayer AG’s decades-long dominance of the U.S. seed market. China’s January approval for imports of DowDuPont’s Enlist E3 soybeans – amid the U.S.-China trade war […] Read more
Brazil’s next soy crop survey likely to show further decline – official
BRASILIA (Reuters) – Brazil’s next survey of the 2018/19 soy crop is likely to show a further decline in estimated output resulting from dry weather in January, Eduardo Sampaio, farm policy secretary at the Agriculture Ministry, said on Tuesday. The current survey showed a drop of roughly 3.5 million tonnes in output, from a previous […] Read more
Russian agricultural firms raided over suspected tax evasion
MOSCOW (Reuters) – Meat producer Cherkizovo and farming conglomerate Rusagro were among agricultural firms across Russia targeted in a sweeping investigation into suspected tax evasion on Wednesday. The Tax Service said so far five potential breaches had been uncovered in inspections carried out with the Federal Security Service (FSB) at agricultural holdings across 13 regions. […] Read more
CN Rail profit beats on higher crude, grain shipments, raises dividend
(Reuters) – Canadian National Railway Co beat analysts’ estimates for quarterly profit on Tuesday, as it transported higher volumes of petroleum crude and Canadian grain. A lack of pipelines to the United States and oversupply have led Canadian energy producers to look for alternatives such as railroads to ship crude. As a result, Canada’s largest […] Read more
Drought, animal disease threaten South African farmers
JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – South African grain and red meat farmers are bracing for hard times after dry weather conditions and an outbreak of the highly contagious foot and mouth disease suspended meat exports, officials said on recently. Maize prices have climbed amid concerns that dry conditions in the main part of South Africa’s maize belt […] Read more
Investor group wants fast-food chains to address climate change
ROME (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – An investor group managing some $6.5 trillion on Tuesday called on six of the world’s largest fast food restaurants, including McDonald’s, KFC and Burger King, to reduce their planet-harming greenhouse gas emissions and water use. Companies selling burgers, chicken and milk products are trailing behind other high-emitting industries, like carmakers, […] Read more
Oink, moo and brrr: Polar vortex strikes U.S. farm belt
CHICAGO (Reuters) – Farmers from North Dakota to Iowa buckled down for some of the coldest weather in a generation on Wednesday, throwing extra rations to pigs or building igloos for chickens in the teeth of sub-zero temperatures and bone-chilling winds. Some, like Kurt Line in Indiana, joked about the forecast. Line said he was […] Read more
U.S. judge to allow controversial evidence in Roundup cancer trials
Jan 28 (Reuters) – A federal judge overseeing lawsuits alleging Bayer AG’s glyphosate-based Roundup weed killer causes cancer on Monday tentatively allowed pieces of controversial evidence that the company had hoped to exclude from upcoming trials. U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria during a hearing in San Francisco federal court called his decision “probably most disappointing […] Read more
