Agriculture

According to the weekly report released by the Buenos Aires Grains Exchange (BdeC), wheat planting for the current harvesting season in Argentina has seen a rapid advance over the past week due to recent rainfall in the country’s main farmland areas. Argentina is a major international exporter of wheat, as well as processed soybeans and […]

China has passed a new law aimed at better protecting farmers’ land rights and supporting the development of rural village collectives. The law, known as the Rural Collective Economic Organisations Law, will take effect on May 1, 2025. While all farmland in China is state-owned, farmers have decades-long land lease rights that are exercised on […]

The BRICS group of countries, which includes Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, have expressed support for an initiative to establish a grain exchange, according to the Russian Minister of Agriculture, Oksana Lut. The proposed grain exchange would allow buyers to purchase directly from producers, a concept that has been backed by Russian President […]

A last-ditch attempt by EU governments to break a deadlock over relaxing regulations on gene-edited crops failed after countries including Poland rejected changes to the text that exempted patented seeds from the measure. The text for so-called new genomic techniques (NGT), which would be the foundation of negotiations with the European Parliament before the law […]

In an effort to bring down food inflation, the Indian government has allowed limited imports of certain commodities under the tariff-rate quota (TRQ) system, where importers pay nil or lower duty. The commodities included in the duty concessions are corn, crude sunflower oil, refined rapeseed oil, and milk powder. Specifically, India has allowed the import […]

India’s annual monsoon has covered more than three-fourths of the country and is set to cover the entire country on time for the planting season, despite stalling earlier this month, according to two senior weather officials. The southwest monsoon usually begins in the south around June 1 and spreads nationwide by July 8, allowing farmers […]

The General Food Security Authority (GFSA) of Saudi Arabia has issued a tender to purchase 595,000 metric tons of wheat for arrival between September and December this year. The tender was announced by the GFSA in a statement released on Thursday. The purchase is part of Saudi Arabia’s efforts to ensure food security and maintain […]

South Africa expects the World Trade Organisation (WTO) to set up adjudication panels in July to examine its two cases against the European Union over its phytosanitary measures for citrus imports, the country said on Wednesday. The world’s second largest citrus exporter after Spain is challenging changes made in 2022 to the EU’s phytosanitary requirements […]

An Argentine scientific institute has cracked the genome of the leafhopper, the insect which carries the bacteria responsible for wiping out vast swathes of the South American nation’s latest corn crop, the government said on Tuesday. The development, which determined the Dalbulus maidis’ genetic makeup, will serve future efforts to fight off the leafhopper, according […]

The prices of goods consumed by the agriculture sector in the European Union fell by 11% during the first quarter of 2023, with most countries recording lower costs as volatility related to the war in Ukraine quells, the EU’s statistics office Eurostat said on Wednesday. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, both major agricultural exporters, had disrupted […]