Environment
Colombia eyes farmland expansion
SANTA MARTA, Colombia (Reuters) — Colombia will cultivate 10,000 sq. kilometres of new farmland over the next three years in a bid to avoid costly imports and organize the agriculture sector ahead of a possible peace accord with Marxist rebels.
The program, valued at $680 million, will bolster cultivated land by 14 percent, agriculture minister Aurelio Iragorri said.
The plan comes as Latin America’s fourth-biggest economy is struggling to control inflation that has crept up close to five percent, a weakened peso, drought and a slowing economy. Inflation is higher than the two to four percent target range established by the central bank.
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Agriculture ministers agree to AgriStability changes
federal government proposed several months ago to increase the compensation rate from 80 to 90 per cent and double the maximum payment from $3 million to $6 million
Animal Welfare
Cattle drownin shipping accident
SAO PAULO, Brazil (Reuters) — Thousands of cattle owned by beef producer Minerva SA are thought to have died when a boat leaving a port in northern Brazil overturned, the company and Williams Shipping Agents said last week.
Minerva said in a securities filing that a ship transporting its cattle had tipped over after departing from the Vila do Conde port in Barcarena. There were no human victims, it said.
Local news site G1 showed images of some cattle escaping from the side of the ship and swimming at the water’s surface while most remained trapped.
Williams Shipping Agents said the ship was carrying 5,000 animals, though a Minerva representative could not confirm the number.
Minerva said in the filing that once the cattle left the dock they became the responsibility of the shipping firm, which it did not name.
Trade
Libera to join WTO
GENEVA, Switzerland (Reuters) — Liberia has agreed to terms to join the World Trade Organization with the body’s 161 members, clearing the final negotiating hurdle in time for ministers to approve the deal at a meeting in December, the WTO said.
Liberia has been ravaged by the Ebola epidemic over the past 18 months, spurring the effort by the WTO and Liberia’s trade minister Axel Addy to clinch a deal that should help build confidence in its weak economy and reduce poverty.
“My dream is that the work we have done here will pave the way for a better Liberia for all of us and our children so they too can exercise their potential,” Addy told the WTO working party on Liberia.
President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf said last month that her country needed two years to regain its economic footing after Ebola, which has killed 4,800 people in Liberia and a total of 11,000 across West Africa. Liberia was declared free of the virus for a second time on Sept. 3.
