After a 90-day period of soaring prices, wheat futures finally dropped at Euronext trading platform in Paris on April 29, 2024.  Among contracts, wheat set for September delivery fell most, by 2.2%, to settle at EUR 230 ($246.12) per tonne. This was a major retreat given prices had peaked at a three-month high of EUR 235.75 ($252.23) on April 26. The major drive for...

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has been testing for avian flu in beef and dairy products since the finding of the pathogen in the lung tissue of a dairy cow.  The meat from the infected cow, meanwhile, did not enter the market.  It is currently indeterminate whether the virus affects only dairy cows or even beef breeds. Hence, USDA has been...

Farmers in the vanilla belt of Wewak have benefited from an international initiative to digitize vanilla farming in Papua New Guinea (PNG). The EU-STREIT PNG initiative began as a vanilla quality sensitization program before it finally oriented farmers to digital marketing. The program is a sponsorship of the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). By...

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...