By Meredith Davis CHICAGO, April 7 (Reuters) – Fund buying boosted Chicago Mercantile Exchange hogs more than one percent on Monday while wholesale pork prices also underpinned prices, traders said. Hog futures rose late in the session as traders actively bought summer hog contracts. The CME April hog contract rose 1.52 percent due to its […] Read more
Stories by Reuters News Service
U.S. farm bill keeps livestock insurance out in the cold
CHICAGO (Reuters) — Grain farmers walked away from the new federal farm bill with more than $50 billion in subsidized crop insurance programs, but livestock producers did not fare as well. They still have no program of subsidized insurance for cattle, pig, poultry or other animal deaths from disease. Instead, major aid for livestock producers […] Read more
Russia’s 2014-15 exportable grain surplus seen at 25MT including Crimea
MOSCOW (Reuters) — Russia, one of the world’s top wheat exporters, may increase grain exports over the next marketing year, partially due to crops in the Crimea region, the head of Russia’s Grain Union, Arkady Zlochevsky, said on Monday. Russia’s decision to annex Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula has resulted in the most serious East-West confrontation since […] Read more
Louis Dreyfus Commodities names three new board members
PARIS (Reuters) — Louis Dreyfus Commodities has appointed three new members to the supervisory board of its holding structure, including the chairman of crop chemical group Syngenta, the global trader said on Monday. In addition to Syngenta’s Michel Demare, Louis Dreyfus Commodities also named as directors Steven J. Wisch of El Dorado Partners and Dr. […] Read more
Cooling pork prices drop hog and cattle futures
CHICAGO (Reuters) — Chicago Mercantile Exchange lean hogs futures fell three cents, as much as the market allows, on Friday as wholesale pork pricing cooled and cash hog prices weakened. CME feeder and live cattle prices also fell sharply in response. Livestock traders worried that wholesale prices of bacon and pork chops may still be […] Read more
U.S. exporters hope for early end to China pig restrictions
(Reuters) — U.S. livestock exporters hope China will lift restrictions on imports of U.S. pigs by the end of April if tests can be agreed for a virus deadly to piglets, a trade group said on Friday. China, the world’s No. 1 pork consumer, has imposed “temporary restrictions” on U.S. pig imports until agriculture ministries […] Read more
Merck wants to test Zilmax on 240,000 cattle but beef industry resists
CHICAGO (Reuters) — Merck & Co. Inc. wants to feed its controversial feed additive Zilmax to 240,000 U.S. cattle to prove it is safe. But there is a problem: giant meat processors like Cargill Inc. don’t want to touch animals fed with the drug. Merck plans to conduct the biggest ever test of its kind […] Read more
Lawsuit over Hebrew National Hot Dogs revived
NEW YORK (Reuters) — A year after ConAgra Foods Inc. won the dismissal of a lawsuit claiming that its Hebrew National hot dogs were not kosher, a higher authority has given the case new life. A U.S. federal appeals court in St. Paul, Minnesota, on Friday said a trial judge erred in dismissing the lawsuit […] Read more
China still evaluating rejected gene-modified strain of corn
BEIJING (Reuters) — China has still not approved a gene-modified strain of corn known as MIR162, the government said on Friday, prolonging a ban that has seen nearly one million tonnes of the U.S. grain turned away from Chinese ports since November. Asked if its biosafety panel had made a final decision, the agriculture ministry […] Read more
China slaps ‘temporary restrictions’ on U.S. pig imports
(Reuters) — China, the world’s No. 1 pork consumer, has slapped “temporary restrictions” on imports of U.S. pigs to prevent a deadly virus from spreading to its herd, according to a report by Bloomberg citing the Livestock Exporters Association of the USA. The news will probably raise concerns among U.S. farmers who are battling the […] Read more
