Mosaic buys into phosphate
(Reuters) — U.S. fertilizer maker Mosaic Co. said it would buy CF Industries Holdings Inc.’s phosphate mining and manufacturing business for $1.2 billion in cash.
Mosaic will acquire CF Industries’ 22,000 acre South Pasture phosphate mine, a phosphate manufacturing plant and ammonia terminal and warehouse facilities in Florida.
Olivieri Foods sold
TORONTO (Reuters) — Canada Bread Co., which is majority owned by Maple Leaf Foods, said it has agreed to sell its Olivieri Foods fresh pasta and sauce business to Spanish food processing company Ebro Foods SA for about $120 million.
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Toronto-based Canada Bread said the deal, which is subject to regulatory approval, is expected to close by the end of 2013.
Olivieri Foods accounted for less than 10 percent of Canada Bread’s revenue in 2012. The company also sells bread under the Dempsters brand and other food products under banners such as POM, Ben’s and Sunmaid.
The Olivieri business, which employs some 375 people, makes flat and filled fresh pasta products and sauces at facilities in Hamilton, Ont., and Delta, B.C.
Ukraine’s seeding progresses
KIEV, Ukraine (Reuters) — Ukraine’s farmers have sown 93 percent of winter grains area so far, data from the agriculture ministry showed last week.
The ministry’s data showed that farms had sown 18.8 million acres of winter grains as of Oct.31 compared with 19.5 million acres sown at the same date last year.
The latest data shows farms have already sown 15.3 million acres of winter wheat, or 93 percent of the forecast, and 2.7 million acres of winter barley or 94 percent of the expected area.
Ukraine is a traditional grower of winter wheat, which accounts for more than 90 percent of its overall wheat output.
The ministry said farms had harvested a total of 51.9 million tonnes of grain from 34.6 million acres or 89 percent of the area sown for 2013 harvest.
It says the 2013 corn harvest was 64 percent complete and farmers harvested 18.5 million tonnes.
Reserves trump farmland
BRASILIA, Brazil (Reuters) — Brazil’s Supreme Court has ruled that the terms for the creation of one of the country’s largest Indian reservations did not apply to other cases.
It marked a setback for agricultural interests hoping to limit the expansion of reserves onto farmland.
In its decision, the court ratified the existence of the Serra do Sol reservation on the northern border with Venezuela and Guyana.
But it ruled unanimously that 19 conditions it set in 2009 for the formation of the 17,430 sq. kilometre reserve did not apply automatically in other disputes over Indian lands, although they could serve as precedents.
Brazil’s farm lobby had hoped one of those conditions, banning an expansion of the land set aside, would extend to other areas and restrict the government’s ability to enlarge reservations onto land already occupied by farmers.
Horse meat scandal closes plant
PARIS, France (Reuters) — Food giant Nestle will shut a frozen meals plant at its site north of Paris after sales were hit by a Europe-wide scandal that saw horse meat find its way into processed products such as ready meals, company officials said.
The scandal started in January when traces of horse meat found in frozen burgers sold in Irish and British supermarkets sparked concern among French consumers and put them off frozen foods, a Nestle France spokeswoman said.
“The closure is a direct consequence of the horse meat crisis,” she said. “In supermarkets, ready-meal aisles were deserted. It’s what you call collateral damage.”
The plant closure will lead to 165 job cuts. France is Nestle’s second largest market in the world behind the United States. It has 30 plants in France, employing 16,000 people.
Lanworth raises Australia wheat production forecast
CHICAGO, Ill (Reuters) — Crop forecaster Lanworth has raised its outlook for the Australian wheat harvest by two percent because of better than average soil moisture in Western Australia, South Australia and Victoria provinces.
Lanworth said it expects the country’s 2013-14 wheat production to reach 25.294 million tonnes, up from its previous estimate of 24.822 million tonnes issued a week ago.
It reaffirmed its global crop production estimates of 955 million tonnes for corn, 288 million tonnes for soybeans and 707 million tonnes for wheat.
For the United States, Lanworth slightly increased its corn production estimate to 13.795 billion bushels, based on an average yield of 156.4 bushels per acre. Its previous forecast was 13.792 billion bu., based on an average yield of 156.2 bu. per acre.
It left unchanged its U.S. soybean production estimate of 3.215 billion bushels, based on an average yield of 41.8 bu. per acre.
Cargill says new law to hurt Brazil meal exports
SAO PAULO, Brazil (Reuters) — The port reform law that Brazil’s president Dilma Rousseff pushed through Congress favours the export of soybeans over soy meal, said Paulo Sousa, the head of grain crushing in Brazil for U.S.-based Cargill.
Brazil’s tax structure has favoured the export of whole beans over meal for a decade, unlike neighbouring Argentina, where the tax code favours soy product exports such as meal and oil.
Sousa said the government’s new port terminal concession model, which will emphasize the movement of volume at the lowest cost though the ports, “is anti-industry.”
The government’s push to revamp the country’s struggling port infrastructure will prioritize groups that want to open new terminals that move the most product by weight.
This may put terminal operators that move higher value products at a disadvantage because their volumes may be lower even though the value of the goods is higher.
Sousa said terminal operators at the ports will favour beans because meal is more expensive per tonne to move than whole beans.
Cargill not ready to accept Zilmax
CHICAGO, Ill. (Reuters) — Agribusiness giant Cargill Inc. said last week that it will not buy cattle fed Merck & Co.’s cattle-feed additive, Zilmax, and will not feed it to its own cattle, until it is “100 percent confident” the animal welfare issues are resolved.
“Cargill will not use it until we are 100 percent confident the animal welfare issues are resolved, plus we will also not use it until Asia and other trading partners accept it in their markets,” the company said in an emailed statement.
Merck said earlier in the week that it was working to resume sales of the livestock feed additive in the United States and Canada, though it said it was too soon to say when that would happen.
Merck had halted sales of the muscle-building drug in August over animal welfare concerns.
New GMO corn on tap
BRUSSELS, Belgian (Reuters) — The European Union is on course to approve cultivation of a new type of genetically modified corn for the first time in more than a decade, according to a draft proposal from the bloc’s executive arm.
The proposal was drawn up after Europe’s second highest court last month blamed the European Commission for lengthy delays in the approval process for the insect-resistant corn, developed jointly by DuPont and Dow Chemical.
The commission is expected to send the proposal to EU ministers next week for approval. Even if governments fail to decide, as is expected, the commission will have the power to grant approval by the end of the year.
While it is unlikely that the crop would ever be widely grown in Europe, where GMO cultivation remains a tiny fraction of the global total, the proposal will face fierce opposition from environmental campaigners, skeptical consumers and some EU governments.
The move could also revive a stalled debate over draft EU legislation to allow individual governments to decide whether to ban cultivation of GM crops that have been approved at EU level.
An EU approval request for corn variety 1507, sold outside Europe under the Herculex brand name, was first submitted in 2001.
But a series of safety assessments carried out in response to objections from some countries delayed the process for more than a decade.
Last month’s court ruling forced the commission to act, and according to the bloc’s GMO legislation the next stage in the approval process is for EU ministers to take a vote.
