Algeria’s Ministry of Agriculture on April 24, 2024 signed a deal with Qatar’s firm Baladna, to build the world’s largest dairy farm. According to the Ministry’s statement,  the project will establish a breeding farm for cow milk and meat production. Key products from the vast integrated infrastructure will be milk powder and red meat, among others.  The project will cover 170,000 hectares in...

The European Union (EU) parliament approved the new Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR) on April 24, 2024, promoting reusable packaging material. This breakthrough comes three years after information emerged that each EU inhabitant discards 188.7 kilograms of plastic waste annually.  After heated debates, 476 EU MEPs voted in favor of the regulation against 129 dissenters, with 24 abstainers. A month earlier in March...

A year after a warm 2022-23 winter and a lengthy freeze decimated peaches in Georgia, which is also known as “the Peach State,” farmers now predict a bountiful crop in 2024. Georgia’s peach farmers stake this hope on a currently normal spring without an unexpected ice freeze like in 2023. In 2023, late freezing conditions impacted the budding of numerous...

The average weights of U.S. beef cattle have improved but prices in April 2024 have increased by 5%, year-on-year. An April 17, 2024 report by the Economic Research Service (ERS) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) shows a month-on-month gain of 1.09% in farm gate prices. The fed cattle price reached $185 per hundredweight ($45.4 kg) in April, a unit...

Increasing consumption of olive oil, low global supplies and reigning high prices may spark growth in South Africa’s olive oil industry. This is according to Gilberto Biacuana, research fellow at Land Bank in an April 22, 2024 report on Press Reader. Biacuna notes that the local industry has been growing by 20% per year, the fastest for any agricultural sub-sector in South Africa. Stimulating this...

While renewing its exclusive access to south Pacific tuna fisheries, the US Congress was from April 8, 2024 considering $600 million in assistance to the South Pacific Tuna Treaty. If the finances come through, they will nearly triple United States’ yearly contribution to the treaty, to $60 million.  The funds will be utilized between 2024 and 2034 to help American islands such...

The prices of Norwegian salmon have appreciated by 41% in Q1 2024 in comparison to those of Q1 2023. The three-month appreciation has been driven by week by week marginal price increases. By week 2, April 2024, for instance, the average price had increased to NOK 137.41 ($12.41) per kg, up from NOK 135.28 ($12.22).  Waning farmed salmon quantities is partially the reason for...

Virginia’s peeler crab season which officially kick-started on April 15, 2024 is registering high prices because crab numbers remain unknown. The season occurs at the close of the main US crab season, which runs from October to January. According to the President of Virginia Waterman’s Association, J.C. Hudgins, soft shell peeler crabs are currently quite expensive. They start at $100 a bushel for female specimen and $150...

As the U.S. lobster season in Maine gears up to its June start, customers are paying highly for lobster rolls.  Hailed as the expensive side of lobster dishes, lobster rolls were costing $30 per 4-ounce piece in mid-April 2024. A lobster roll is a sandwich the size of a hot dog made of toasted wheat bun stuffed with lobster meat.  2024 Price Tag Reflects 2022...

As global cocoa shortage continues, Ivory Coast has reported a 30% drop in cocoa shipments, year-on-year, between October 1, 2023 and April 14, 2024. This is even as Ghana is negotiating delivery postponements to counter lack of supplies. Government data on April 15, 2024 showed that Ivory Coast exported only 1.31 million metric tonnes in the just-concluded main cocoa season.  Between April 8 and...