SINGAPORE - Singapore on Wednesday announced new measures to accelerate local food production as the coronavirus pandemic disrupts global supply chains, including a plan to turn car park rooftops in public housing estates into urban farms.
The densely populated city-state produces only about 10 percent of its food needs but has plans to increase that as climate change and population growth threaten global food supplies.
Around the world, restrictions on population movement because of the coronavirus outbreak are wreaking havoc on farming and food supply chains and raising concern of widespread shortages and price increases.
"The current COVID-19 situation underscores the importance of local food production, as part of Singapore's strategies to ensure food security," authorities said in a statement. "Local food production mitigates our reliance on imports, and provides buffer in the event of food supply disruptions."
Authorities have repeatedly assured locals that the city-state has sufficient food supplies, amid bouts of panic buying that have gripped the island during the outbreak.
Farmers and the government have been looking at ways to overcome the shortage of land in Singapore, where only 1 percent of its 724 sq km (280 sq miles) is devoted to agriculture and production costs are higher than the rest of Southeast Asia.
In response to the outbreak, authorities aim to speed up local production over the next 6 months to 2 years.
This includes providing a S$30 million ($21 million) grant to support production of eggs, leafy vegetables and fish in the shortest time possible, and identifying alternative farming spaces, such as industrial areas and vacant sites.
As part of that project, the Singapore food agency will launch a tender for rooftop farms on public housing car parks for urban farming starting next month, authorities said.
($1 = 1.4280 Singapore dollars)
-Reuters-
WASHINGTON -- The White House has agreed to suspend some tariffs on Chinese goods and reduce others in return for Beijing's pledge to hike purchases of US farm products in 2020, sources said on Thursday, taking a step towards deescalating the trade war between the world's two biggest economies.
A sourced briefed on the status of bilateral negotiations said the United States would suspend tariffs on $160 billion in Chinese goods expected to go into effect on Dec. 15 and roll back existing tariffs.
In return, Beijing would agree to buy $50 billion in US agricultural goods in 2020, double what it bought in 2017, before the trade conflict started, two US-based sources briefed on the talks said.
The White House didn't release any official statement, raising questions about whether the terms had been agreed by both sides.
Two people familiar with the negotiations had said earlier on Thursday that US negotiators were offering to cut existing tariffs on Chinese goods by as much as 50 percent as well as suspend the new tariffs scheduled to go into effect on Sunday in an attempt to secure a "Phase 1" deal first promised in October.
The US-China trade war has slowed global growth and dampened profits and investment for companies around the world. The United States has announced $28 billion in subsidies for American farmers affected by the dispute.
"If signed, this is an encouraging first phase that puts a floor under further deterioration of the bilateral relationship," said US-China Business Council President Craig Allen. "But this is just the beginning. The issues facing the US and China are complex and multi-faceted. They are unlikely to all be resolved quickly."
China bought $24 billion in US farm products in 2017, according to US Department of Agriculture figures.
AN AG BUY TURNAROUND
Trump said in a White House news conference on Oct. 11 with Chinese Vice Premier Liu He that the two countries had agreed to a "Phase 1" trade deal on "intellectual property, financial services" and a "purchase of from $40 (billion) to $50 billion worth of agricultural products."
A written agreement would be available in weeks, Trump said at the time, adding, "we’ve agreed in principle to just about everything I mentioned, all of the different points."
Beijing has since balked at committing to buy a specific amount of agricultural goods during a certain time frame, however. Chinese officials said they would like the discretion to buy based on market conditions.
After the October news conference, analysts questioned whether the $50 billion figure was realistic.
Soybeans made up half of China's agricultural purchases in 2017. Demand has since cratered because the pig herds that eat it have been decimated by African swine fever.
Chinese officials have demanded the United States roll back tariffs that Trump put in place as a condition of any "Phase 1" deal. The Trump administration has put tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars in Chinese imports, starting in July 2018.
Although there appeared to be an agreement in principle, it was unclear whether it was a written, actionable deal, or whether Beijing had agreed to it, said one Washington-based source familiar with the talks.
"Until the full text is released, it's not particularly actionable. It's very unclear to me: Is this an agreement in principle or is it an agreement?" the source said.
LOOMING DEADLINE
If Trump does not suspend the tariffs scheduled to go into effect on Sunday, Beijing officials will apply more tariffs on US goods and may suspend talks until after the US presidential election in November 2020, trade experts believe.
The new tariffs would apply to almost $160 billion of Chinese imports such as video game consoles, computer monitors.
In August, China said it would impose 5 percent and 10 percent in additional tariffs on $75 billion of US goods in two batches. Tariffs on the first batch kicked in on Sept. 1, hitting US goods including soybeans, pork, beef, chemicals and crude oil.
The tariffs on the second batch of products are due to be activated on Dec. 15, affecting goods ranging from corn and wheat to small aircraft and rare earth magnets.
China also said it will reapply on Dec. 15 an additional 25 percent tariff on US-made vehicles and 5 percent tariffs on auto parts that had been suspended at the beginning of 2019.
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KUALA LUMPUR (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - A former investment banker has raised more than $10 million to expand a startup that helps developing-nation farmers who are using green and ethical methods to earn more by linking them directly with food buyers around the world.
After a decade of investing in commodity markets at Deutsche Bank and Korea Investment Corporation, Hoshik Shin set up an online marketplace Tridge in 2015 to build a network of sustainable producers and link them to buyers at home and abroad.
Food sold on Tridge includes peppermint leaves from Egypt, peanuts farmed in Nigeria and mangoes grown in India and Thailand.
"At the moment, suppliers in emerging countries are so restricted to just meeting local buyers," said the South Korean entrepreneur, whose venture secured $10.5 million this month from investors to bolster the business.
"Through our platform, they can meet foreign buyers more easily ... prices will improve and that gives bigger benefits to both farmers and their employees," the 42-year-old told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Tridge users include the world's largest retailer Walmart Inc and French supermarket chain Carrefour, said Shin.
Globally, consumers and retailers are demanding more information about the goods they source, buy and eat, to make sure their production and transportation do not damage the environment or use illegal and unethical business practices.
In response, manufacturers of household brands, restaurants and other businesses are seeking to attract more customers by offering products guaranteed free of deforestation or slave labor, for example.
Earlier this year, conservation group WWF launched a website that harnesses blockchain technology allowing users to scan a QR code on a product or menu revealing its full history and supply chain.
Seoul-based Tridge makes use of artificial intelligence, data and algorithms, and has about 80 employees in 40 countries verifying that suppliers are trustworthy and ethical.
Food sellers on the platform, who are based in about 150 countries, can cut out middlemen and traders along the supply chain, who often take a cut and push up prices.
"The buyers get cheaper sourcing, and the supplier can get a better selling price," said Shin.
Once linked, producers and their customers - which include large and small retailers, importers, manufacturers and caterers - can conduct business away from the website, with suppliers paying Tridge for the connection.
The online platform, whose main rival is China's Alibaba Group, has more than 1,000 food products, 60,000 suppliers and 40,000 buyers.
Last year, purchase requests totaled about $2 billion, Shin said, with a target of $10 billion for 2020.
"We figured that food and agriculture is the most fragmented industry," he said, noting the system can match sellers to buyers' specifications "within one second".
David Dawe, a senior economist at the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization in Bangkok, said ethical and sustainable food supply chains often incur extra costs, making it hard for them to be competitive.
"Use of new digital technologies can counteract those additional costs, helping such businesses to survive and grow their market share," he added. (Reporting by Michael Taylor @MickSTaylor; Editing by Megan Rowling. Thomson Reuters Foundation)
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DUBAI -- From a control room in the middle of Dubai's desert, Norway's sunrises and sunsets and the cool currents of the Atlantic are recreated for the benefit of thousands of salmon raised in tanks despite searing conditions outside.
Dubai is no stranger to ambitious projects, with a no-limits approach that has seen a palm-shaped island built off its coast, and a full-scale ski slope created inside a shopping mall.
But the farming of salmon in the desert is "something that no one could have imagined", said Bader bin Mubarak, chief executive of Fish Farm. "This is exactly what we're doing in Dubai."
Inside the facility, waters flow and temperatures fluctuate to create the most desirable conditions for the salmon living in four vast tanks.
"We provide for them a sunrise, sunset, tide, a strong current or a simple river current -- and we have deep waters and shallow waters," Mubarak told AFP.
Even for a country known for its extravagant ventures, building Fish Farm, located along the southern border of the emirate, was a challenging endeavor.
Salmon usually live in cold waters such as those in and off Iceland, Norway, Scotland and Alaska -- which is why the farming of Atlantic salmon in a country where temperatures can reach up to 45C (113 degrees F) is a stretch to say the least.
"Creating the (right) environment for the salmon was the hardest thing we faced," Mubarak told AFP.
"But we came up with the idea of dark water that resembles deep water, a strong current like the ocean with the same salinity and temperature of the Atlantic."
'GREATEST PRODUCTION'
Fish Farm bought some 40,000 fingerlings -- or juvenile fish -- from a hatchery in Scotland and thousands more eggs from Iceland to raise in open tanks in Dubai's southern district of Jebel Ali.
Salmon are born in freshwater but live in salt water for much of their lives before returning to freshwater to spawn.
At their home in the United Arab Emirates, the tanks are filled with sea water that is cleaned and filtered.
Fish Farm produces 10,000 to 15,000 kilos of salmon every month.
It was established in 2013 with the support of Dubai's Crown Prince Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum, to farm salmon and other fish including Japanese amberjack, which is used to prepare sushi.
Mubarak said that because of the technical challenge, salmon-raising remains the "greatest production" of the farm, which supplies to Dubai and the rest of the United Arab Emirates, where the population includes millions of expatriates.
"The UAE imports around 92 percent of its fish from abroad, and the goal today is to be able to fulfill (that demand) for imports internally, so that we have food security," Mubarak said.
"In case there is an interruption, cyclone or floods, the UAE will be able to supply itself. This is the main objective."
PROS AND CONS
Another goal is to be environmentally friendly and, in a move also motivated by the high cost of electricity, Fish Farm has plans to go solar-powered.
The ecological pros and cons of farming fish on land, compared to raising them in rivers and seas, are hotly debated, as is the alternative of harvesting wild fish.
"There are animal welfare concerns about keeping fish whose natural behavior is to swim freely in seas and rivers in closed tanks," said Jessica Sinclair Taylor, from Feedback Global, a London-based environmental group.
"There are also concerns about the energy requirements and therefore carbon emissions."
But she said that on the plus side, land-based farming prevents water pollution in lakes or seas where salmon farms are sometimes sited, and where waste and run-off can damage marine ecosystems.
According to the Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the UAE imported 2.3 billion dirhams ($630 million, 570 million euros) of fish products, crustaceans and mollusks in 2017 and exported 280 million dirhams' worth.
Fish Farm, the UAE's only fish farm, hopes to meet at least 50 percent of the country's needs within two years, said Mubarak.
In April, Fish Farm began selling its products in supermarkets. Despite its decidedly unnatural origins, the salmon is marked "100 percent organic" because of the fish feed and the absence of antibiotics in a closed environment.
"It is (more expensive), but I also think about the quality -- I've tried different salmon before and this is less greasy and my family prefers this one," said Katja, a German residing in Dubai.
She said that UAE is "making really great efforts to produce not only fish but vegetables and other foods locally, and I think I should really support that".
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LONDON/BEIJING -- China is scouring the world for meat to replace the millions of pigs killed by African swine fever (ASF), boosting prices, business and profits for European and South American meatpackers as it re-shapes global markets for pork, beef and chicken.
The European Union, the world's second largest pork producer after China, has ramped up sales to the Asian giant although it can only fill part of the shortfall caused by ASF. Argentina and Brazil have approved new export plants to meet demand and are selling beef and chickens, as well as pork, to fill the gap. U.S. producers, however, have been hampered due to tariffs imposed by Beijing.
Other Asian countries are also ready to step up imports as they, too, deal with outbreaks of ASF. Vietnam, the Philippines, North and South Korea, Laos, Myanmar and Cambodia are all struggling to contain outbreaks of the disease, which is deadly to pigs although not harmful to humans.
"It is very good news for those involved in processing and have licenses for exports to China," said Justin Sherrard, global strategist, animal protein at Rabobank.
Major EU pork processors include Danish Crown, Tonnies Group and Vion Food Group although the market is fragmented with many small- and medium-size players.
Shortages in the world's top pork consumer have been exacerbated by the upcoming Lunar New Year celebrations in late January, when pork, and pork dumplings in particular, play a central role in the food on offer.
One of the biggest European players Danish Crown said there had been a very clear jump in demand from China in the run-up to the Lunar New Year and it was bullish on the outlook for 2020.
China's state-owned agriculture conglomerate COFCO said this week it had agreed to buy $100 million of pork from Danish Crown in 2020 to help ease the domestic shortage.
NEW PLANTS IN SOUTH AMERICA
Rabobank estimates that China's hog herd, the world's largest, fell by half in the first eight months of 2019 and will likely shrink by 55 percent by the end of the year.
Many more meat plants in Argentina and Brazil have recently been approved to export to China including beef and chicken as well as pork.
Nicholas Lafontaine, a cattle rancher from the town of Azul, 300 kilometers (186 miles) southwest of Buenos Aires, said China had traditionally taken cheap cuts with premium steaks destined for the EU.
China is now taking the whole carcass, reducing the amount of meat sold on the local market for Argentina peso, a currency which has lost around a third of its value this year.
As processing margins have improved, plants have reopened.
"The other benefit that comes from growing Chinese demand is the reopening of beef plants, he said, adding that when a factory opens its doors it is thinking about China.
Neighboring Brazil has also benefited.
According to Brazilian meat trade groups, in one go Beijing authorized Brazil to more than double the number of beef plants with permits to sell directly to mainland China -- to 33.
Brazil exported 1.64 million tonnes of beef in 2018 with China buying 19.3 percent of the volume, trailing only Hong Kong. The South American country's exports have been forecast to rise to 1.8 million tonnes this year.
"China is the market paying the highest premiums for Brazilian meatpackers," Luciano Pascon, chief executive of privately-owned meatpacker Frigol, told Reuters in an interview.
TRADE WAR HITS US PRODUCERS
Hefty tariffs on American pork imposed by China as part of the ongoing trade conflict are likely to mean that the US industry will benefit less than its rivals.
US-based meat packers such as Smithfield Foods have, however, been able to secure some direct sales. Tyson Foods expects to benefit from African swine fever by increasing sales to China or other countries as the outbreak redirects global meat trading.
Tyson Foods share price has risen about 50 percent so far this year.
Trent Thiele, a farmer who raises about 60,000 hogs a year in Elma, Iowa, said, however, the trade war is hurting American hog producers.
Thiele said he would prefer selling US pork to Chinese buyers than picking up residual business elsewhere in the world because China is a main buyer of products such as pigs' feet and organ meat that other countries have little appetite for.
"A lot of our other competitor countries are obtaining the market share that naturally would have been ours if we didn't have the retaliatory tariffs," said Thiele, president of the Iowa Pork Producers Association.
ASTRONOMICAL
Imported pork ribs currently cost around 40,000 yuan ($5,680) per ton, compared with 17,600 yuan in spring 2019, traders said, while prices for other cuts such as pig front leg and rib meat have roughly doubled in that period.
"Right now, prices are astronomical, and the risk is very high," said a Beijing-based beef importer, who was struggling to gauge the right volumes to meet demand and avoid being left with expensive stock at the end of the holiday period.
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization's Meat Price Index is up 12.5 percent so far this year and is at the highest level since January 2015.
The pork component has risen by more than 20 percent.
The high global pork prices are even sparking interest in pig farming in predominately Muslim Kazahkstan.
"Not a week goes by without someone visiting us who wants to get into pig farming," said Maksut Baktibayev, chairman of Kazakhstan's Meat Union, an industry lobby group.
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Farmers had just begun harvesting olives in southern Spain when US President Donald Trump soured the mood with the announcement that Washington would slap hefty tariffs on their produce.
"We are really worried," said Carlos Carreira at his 130 hectare (320 acre) olive grove near the town of Antequera in the southern region of Andalusia.
Spain is the world's biggest producer of olive oil, and the bulk of it comes from Andalusia, whose hills and plains are dotted with olive trees with their distinctive gnarled trunks.
"Already last year prices were sometimes so low that they did not cover production costs. If we add to this a sharp rise in the price of our products in the United States, many farms may end up not being viable," Carreira added.
Several thousand olive growers, many waving olive branches marched through Madrid on Thursday to protest plunging prices and demand protection from a 25 percent tax which the US is planning to impose from October 18.
The fresh tariffs announced October 2 target some EU agricultural and industrial products -- including Spanish olives and olive oil -- worth $7.5 billion (6.8 billion euros).
The tariffs are in retaliation for subsidies given by Brussels to aircraft maker Airbus.
Olives and olive oil are Spain's main agricultural exports to the United States. It exported 405 million euros worth of olive oil, and 179 million euros worth of olives, to the country last year.
At Carreira's farm, a dozen day laborers used machines to shake the olive trees, causing the fruit to fall onto long nets.
Still bright green, they will be sold as table olives. Olive oil production will begin a few weeks later when riper olives will be collected.
'TRIPPED'
But some of this "liquid gold", which sustains entire villages, risks going unsold this year because of the tariffs.
Dcoop, the cooperative which Carreira belongs to and whose headquarters sit at the entrance to Antequera, exports nearly 15 percent of its output to the US, around 35,000 tonnes a year.
The cooperative, which groups 75,000 farmers, is a heavyweight in the sector. In some years it produces more olive oil than all of Italy.
Dcoop views the US market as a growth area, estimating olive oil consumption there could double in less than a decade.
It invested $80 million in the US, mostly in 2 bottling plants in Baltimore and Los Angeles.
"All of a sudden, the market we believed in and tried to grow imposes these tariffs on us. It's like we are being tripped in the middle of a race," said Dcoop president Antonio Luque.
He said the injustice is all the greater since Spain's main European competitors like Italy, Greece and Portugal have been spared tariffs on their olives, and will certainly use this advantage to boost their market share in the US.
JOB CUTS
The cooperative will probably have to slash its workforce by 10 percent at its main bottling plant in Andalusia.
These jobs could reappear in the US since the Trump administration has exempted bulk olive oil from the tariffs, meaning that Spanish firms could get around the levy by bottling their oil on the other side of the Atlantic.
Dcoop has not ruled out expanding its US plants, even if it would be "bad for jobs in Spain", Luque said.
Olive farmers in Andalusia are still reeling from heavy tariffs slapped by the US on black table olives in response to complaints from Californian producers who argued their Spanish rivals had an unfair advantage because of the European Union's lavish farm subsidy scheme.
Exports of black olives from Spain to the US fell by 50 percent.
Spanish farmers accuse Spain's Socialist government of doing nothing to protect them.
Luque warned that support for the EU could decline as a result of the differing tariff advantages.
"Why stay in the European Union if things are like that in the future? All this could do so much more harm, socially, than people imagine," he said.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
NEW YORK - US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday a deal to end a nearly 15-month trade war with China could happen sooner than people think and that the Chinese were making big agricultural purchases from the United States, including of beef and pork.
"They want to make a deal very badly... It could happen sooner than you think," Trump told reporters in New York.
Trump said later after signing a limited trade deal with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe there was a good chance of reaching an agreement with China.
He said China was trying to be nice to him and added to reporters: “I was nice to them.”
"We're having some very good conversations," Trump told a later news conference.
"You know why they want to make a deal? Because they’re losing their jobs, because their supply chain is going to hell and companies are moving out of China and they're moving to lots of other places, including the United States."
In the meantime, Trump said, the United States was taking in "billions and billions of dollars in tariffs."
"China is starting to buy our agricultural product again," Trump added. "They’re starting to go with the beef and all of the different things, pork, very big on pork."
"You know they want to make a deal and they should want to make a deal. The question is, do we want to make a deal?”
Trump spoke a day after delivering a stinging rebuke to China's trade practices at the United Nations General Assembly, saying he would not accept a "bad deal" in US-China trade negotiations.
US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said there was communication between the two sides and the Chinese would be in the United States for talks in early October.
"At this stage what you want to do is have confidence building and show goodwill, and I think ... we’re doing that," he told reporters. "The president wants a deal if he can get a good deal. If he doesn’t ... we have a tariff policy in place."
China's top diplomat hit back at US criticism of its trade and development model in a speech on Tuesday after Trump spoke at the United Nations. Wang Yi, China's foreign minister and state councilor, said Beijing would not bow to threats, including on trade, though he said he hoped the high-level trade talks next month would produce positive results.
Wang also dismissed the concerns of those in the United States who worry that China will unseat the United States from its leading role in the world, calling it a strategic misjudgment. Asked about this remark, Trump said: “Maybe they just say that.”
The early October meetings are to include the top trade negotiators from both sides: Chinese Vice Premier Liu He, Lighthizer and US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. They are expected to determine whether the world's 2 largest economies are starting to chart a path out of their trade war or headed for new and higher tariffs on each others' goods.
Trump has sought to pressure China to agree to reduce trade barriers through a policy of increasing tariffs on Chinese products. On Tuesday, he accused China of the theft of trade secrets "on a grand scale" and said it was taking advantage of World Trade Organization rules.
Although Trump held out hope in his UN speech that the United States and China could still reach an agreement, he made clear he wanted a deal that would re-balance the relationship between the two economic superpowers.
Wang said the trade war was inflicting unnecessary damage on both countries, raising costs for American firms, pushing up consumer prices and dampening US growth potential.
(Reporting by Jeff Mason; Additional reporting by Michelle Nichols, David Brunnstrom and David Lawder; Editing by Alistair Bell and Lisa Shumaker)
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BEIJING - For public relations officer Rachel Li, paying top dollar for "beautiful" cherries imported from the United States was a no-brainer.
"I heard they are full of iron," said the Guangzhou-based 33-year-old, "eating them makes me feel healthy, luxurious." Or it did, until Beijing imposed sky-high tariffs on US cherries and importers took fright, leaving store shelves bereft and consumers like Li needing a different fruit fix.
Across China's metropolises, the appetite of a burgeoning middle class for expensively fresh US cherries has become a symbolic casualty of China's festering, tit-for-tat trade battle with the United States. A business that grew to nearly $200 million in 2017 from zero in 2000 has now withered to little more than a tenth of its volume peak, customs data shows.
With import tariffs for US cherries set at 50 percent, Beijing has relaxed regulations allowing imports from Central Asia - a region that just happens to be central to President Xi Jinping's epic "Belt and Road" infrastructure project, an intercontinental initiative worth hundreds of billions of dollars.
"It's an opportune time for China to fiddle with the knobs and to do so in a way that builds economic ties and offers a new market for 'Belt and Road' partners," said Even Pay, senior agriculture analyst at Beijing-based advisory firm China Policy.
China's Ministry of Commerce didn't immediately respond to a fax requesting comment.
May was the last month for which figures were available at the time of writing, typically the first big month in China's cherry import season. Supplies from Uzbekistan leaped to nearly half of the May total, Reuters' calculations show, from zero a year earlier, while the US share of the cherry import pie shrank to 38 percent from nearly 80 percent in May 2018 - and a near monopoly in May 2017.
But total cherry imports into China by volume have plummeted because of the collapse of US shipments: 187 tonnes in May 2019, versus 337 tonnes in May 2018 and 1,505 tonnes in May 2017.
Uzbek cherries sell at about 70-80 yuan per kilogram (kg) at retail level, according to four fruit traders, no more than half the 160 yuan ($23.28) per kg that Rachel Li said she happily remembers stumping up for her sweet US cherries.
No matter the price, though, the volumes now being shipped in are so small that Li said she hasn't seen imported cherries for weeks. A search by Reuters for US cherries at a supermarket and smaller groceries in downtown Shanghai on a recent weekday came up empty-handed.
'IMPOSSIBLE TO DEVELOP'
For Victor Wang, the China representative of US Northwest Cherry Growers, it's now a case of trying keep head above water.
Wang said it took 17 years of marketing and government lobbying to help make US cherries some of the most coveted fruits in China - at one stage his suppliers were even exporting more to China than across the border to Canada. But that all changed in 2018, when two rounds of Chinese tariff hikes added 40 percentage points to import charges.
"With such exorbitant costs after the tariff hikes, and impact of a strengthening dollar, it's impossible to develop the market - we are at best maintaining it for now," said Wang.
Making life harder, Wang said, is the fact that the association has also struggled to advertise the US fruit this year. He said many Chinese media and business partners, including Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, have declined to provide coverage or to run promotions.
Alibaba confirmed that US cherry promotions were halted but rejected any suggestion that was related to US-China tensions. It said the move was due to "market-related factors", including seasons, holidays and unspecified business opportunities.
"Any speculation tied to the current geopolitical climate is groundless," the retailer said in a statement sent to Reuters.
'BELT AND ROAD' RULES RELAXED
Just as US supplies shriveled, Beijing has relaxed a requirement for cherries from 'Belt and Road' partners Uzbekistan and Turkey to undergo up to 21 days of pre-shipment cold treatment, making exports easier by allowing fumigation as a pest control measure.
That's opened a trade window not lost on businessmen like Zhu Jianfeng, general manager of Zhejiang Fishing E-Commerce Co, who said he has been investing in unspecified projects in Uzbekistan for years and has "very close ties" with the domestic government.
For the first time this year, Zhu's company imported 300 tons of cherries from Uzbekistan, with plans to boost the volume to 5,000-10,000 tons in 2020.
Zhu acknowledged a lack of processing technology in Uzbekistan, saying the cherries are sent by air and have a shelf life of up to five days; US cherries, in contrast, last for up to two weeks when transported by air. Zhu said he planned to help the Uzbek industry upgrade by increasing investment in production lines.
Back in Guangzhou, Rachel Li said she's switched her quest for health and luxury through fruit from cherries to avocados. While market data suggests the produce she's buying is most likely from Peru, Li said she had stopped paying much attention to where the fruit is from.
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HANOI - Vietnam culled a further 500,000 pigs over the past two weeks to tackle an outbreak of African swine fever, taking the total killed so far to 1.7 million, or 5% of the country's herd, the agriculture ministry said on Monday.
Pork accounts for three-quarters of total meat consumption in Vietnam, a country of 95 million people where most of its 30 million farm-raised pigs are consumed domestically.
The virus, first detected in the Southeast Asian country in February, has spread to 42 of the country's 63 provinces, the agriculture ministry's Livestock Production Department said in a statement on its website.
"The African swine fever outbreak is the most dangerous and costly of its kind in the husbandry industry of Vietnam," agriculture minister Nguyen Xuan Cuong said in the statement.
"Though the virus first appeared nearly 100 years ago, there has been no vaccine and no medicine for treating the disease".
China, the world's largest pork producer, which has also been hit by the virus, said on Friday it will start work on clinical trials of a vaccine for African swine fever, which is fatal to animals but not harmful to humans.
Cuong said it is difficult to contain the outbreak given that the virus remains dormant in the environment for a long time and can spread through complex and varied means.
Earlier this month, Vietnam said it will mobilize its military and police forces to help combat the outbreak.
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in March advised Vietnam to declare the swine fever outbreak as a national emergency.
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ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast--Nigerian billionaire Aliko Dangote, known as Africa's richest man, told a forum in Ivory Coast on Saturday how he once took $10 million in cash out of the bank just to look at it and get it into his head that this was real money, not just figures on paper.
"When you're young your first million is important, but after, the numbers don't mean much," Dangote, a manufacturing tycoon with a range of companies spanning cement to flour, told the Mo Ibrahim forum in Abidjan.
"One day, I cashed 10 million, put them in the boot of my car I put it in my room. I looked at them and thought 'now I believe I have money' and took it back to the bank the next day," he told his audience.
Anecdotes aside, Dangote said that the 2 most promising sectors for Africa's future were agriculture and new technologies. But he advised young African entrepreneurs not to get carried away by the first flush of success.
"Often in Africa we spend our projected incomes. There are ups and downs" in business, he warned.
Dangote said he regretted the customs and administrative problems that hamper business development throughout the continent.
As an example he cited the difficulties his cement group faces in exporting to Benin from Nigerian factories 40 kilometers (25 miles) from the border. Benin imported "more expensive" cement from China instead.
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SHANGHAI -- A major Chinese food producer said Monday that traces of the African swine fever virus had been found in its frozen dumplings.
China, the world's biggest consumer and producer of pork, has struggled to contain an outbreak of the virus since the first cases were detected last August.
Officials have said hundreds of thousands of pigs were culled in a bid to stop its spread -- an effort that has also seen restrictions placed on moving pigs from affected areas.
Sanquan Food, based in central Henan province, issued a public statement confirming media reports published in recent days that contaminated pork dumplings were detected in two provinces that do not share a border.
The company said suspect batches of dumplings had reached grocery stores, but that it was sealing affected products and cooperating with authorities.
The statement did not mention a broader recall.
Unconfirmed Chinese media reports have said that products manufactured by several other companies also contained traces of the virus.
African swine fever is not harmful to humans but can be fatal to pigs, raising fears for the country's giant pork industry.
But the media reports prompted anger online from Chinese consumers who vented over the latest in a recurring series of product scandals, despite repeated government promises to ensure safety.
Sanquan Food's share price dropped as much as 2.25 percent in Monday morning trading on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange.
soure: news.abs-cbn.com
With the continuous and unstoppable evolution of smart homes, it would only be a matter of time for connectivity to reach other spaces and environments. This is especially true for industries that demand accuracy and real-time updates to flourish.
With this, Japanese firm Yanmar asks “why not smart fields?” In a huge event in Bangkok, the company introduced its YM351A and YM357A, which form the backbone of their tractor lineup in the region in the coming years. “With the entry of the YM into the burgeoning Southeast Asia tractor market, Yanmar is poised to deliver 21st century agriculture toward improving lifestyles and delivering value to the region’s farmers,” says Yanmar Agri Corporation president Hiroaki Kitaoka.
Design pedigree
Kitaoka and the company qualify “21st agriculture” as technology that can streamline operations and create new value for farmers.
For example, Yanmar knows that farming in the region cultivates rice in wet paddies and a range of dry field crops such as corn, sugar can and the like. To lower costs and maximize income, field contractors often demand highly-efficient lightweight and reliable 50 to 60 horsepower tractors. Both YM models can work both rice paddies and dry fields, and can haul loads, and features advanced geolocation functions toward improving work efficiency and profitability.
They achieved this by focusing on great ground clearance, which is the key to powering on in muddy conditions or passing over crops without damaging them. Meanwhile, the models also have a maximum turning angle of 55º. The YM can perform a wide range of work and has a specially mated newly-designed rotary tiller that limits soil traveling into the rotary for reduced power loss.
With a flat deck and deluxe suspension seating, the YM is comfortable and easy to operate. Operators can stop or start PTO operation with one touch of a button. Unsurprisingly, we have Ken Okuyama to thank for this ease. The Yanmar Holdings director and renowned industrial designer—known for such projects as the Enzo Ferrari, the Ferrari P4/5, the Maserati Quattroporte V, and several Shinkansen trains—is responsible for the YM tractor’s design.
Smart farming today
Perhaps its most interesting feature is its connectivity. SMARTASSIST-Remote allows users to access vital operational information about their tractors through an intuitive user interface which can even be accessed from a smartphone. Its geolocation features allow the operator to see exactly where their equipment is and how it is working. The technology can also issue warnings when machinery is operating outside preset parameters or if the equipment moves beyond designated boundaries. This means reduced downtime, greater earnings, and peace of mind for farmers.
The models also come with a powerful and efficient Yanmar direct-injection TNV diesel engine that realizes high power with low fuel consumption and superb durability.
The engine incorporates a Monoplunger fuel injection pump atomizes fuel at high pressure as well as a unique and improved combustion chamber shape. Gear ratios are matched to work speed for best performance with 8 forward and 8 reverse gears. Gear ratios widely overlap all speed ranges to deliver the best torque for the work speed, using less fuel. A full-synchromesh gearbox ensures smooth changes, even while working.
Founded in Osaka in 1912, Yanmar was the first to succeed in making a compact diesel engine of a practical size in 1933. Then, with industrial diesel engines as the cornerstone of its enterprise, Yanmar has continued to expand its product range, services, and expertise to deliver total solutions as an industrial equipment manufacturer. As a provider of small and large engines, agricultural machinery and facilities, construction equipment, energy systems, marine equipment, machine tools, and components, Yanmar’s global business operations span seven domains.
The YM Tractor will go on sale in Southeast Asia from early 2019 and is expected to be progressively deployed globally in coming years.
For more information, visit yanmar.com.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
PARIS - Bumblebees acquire a taste for food laced with a pesticide known to harm them, according to a study suggesting the chemicals pose an even greater threat to pollinators than previously thought.
In experiments, researchers showed that bees initially put off by sugar water containing neonicotinoids -- the most widely-used class of insecticide worldwide -- soon started seeking them out to the exclusion of untainted food.
The findings were published Wednesday in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
Neonicotinoids, earlier research has shown, disrupt the ability of bees to reproduce and lower their resistance to disease.
"At first, it appeared that the bees did avoid the food containing the pesticide," said lead author Andres Arce, a researcher at Imperial College London.
"However, as individual bees increasingly experience the treated food they develop a preference for it."
Even when the position of their feeders was switched, the pollinators made a beeline for the one laced with insecticide.
Neonicotinoids target nerve receptors in insects much in the way nicotine -- the addictive ingredient in tobacco -- does in humans and other mammals.
"Our findings... tick certain symptoms of addictive behaviour, which is intriguing given the addictive properties of nicotine on humans," said lead researcher Richard Gill, also from Imperial.
Unlike contact pesticides, which remain on the plant surface, neonicotinoids are absorbed by seeds and transported to leaves, flowers, roots, and stems as the plant grows.
Several countries have banned forms of the insecticide, mainly due to its impact on Nature's little helpers.
In the European Union, three neonicotinoid-based products will be off-limits in open fields starting on December 19. France has banned five chemical variants starting Saturday.
Canada recently announced it would phase out two neonicotinoids used on canola, corn, and soybean crops.
Widely used over the last two decades, neonicotinoids were designed to control sap-feeding insects such as aphids and root-feeding grubs.
In recent years, fears have been growing over the declining health of bees globally, and the possible role of neonicotinoids.
Pesticides have been blamed as a cause of colony collapse disorder, along with mites, viruses, and fungi, or some combination.
The United Nations warned last year that 40 percent of invertebrate pollinators -- particularly bees and butterflies -- risk global extinction.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
NEW YORK - Can a hamburger or steak be labeled "meat" if it is plant-based?
That question has sparked a debate about US food labels as key US cattle industry players have sought to crack down on marketing of proteins made from soy and other plant-based substances.
Jessica Almy, policy director of the non-profit Good Food Institute, which promotes meat-alternatives, said labels must state clearly if a product is made from soy or another plant, but they usually make sense in context.
"Regardless of whether it is made of beef, soy, or wheat, a burger tells you it can be cooked on a grill, placed on a bun, and served with mustard and ketchup," she said.
Almy also sees no alternative to labeling as "meat" new products made from animal cells grown in a lab. Such protein offerings are expected to hit US supermarkets and specialty shops within the next few years.
"These are muscles and fat. It would be extremely misleading to call it other than meat," said Almy said.
That stance has enraged some in the traditional meat industry, spurring the US Cattlemen's Association to file a petition to the Agriculture Department to reserving the term "meat" or "beef" to protein derived from slaughtered animals.
"Labels indicating that a product is 'beef' should be limited to product from cattle that have been born, raised and harvested in the traditional manner," the petition said.
The cattle association, which represents ranchers and cattle breeders, said it wants to avoid a similar outcome to the dairy industry, which has seen alternative products made of soy, almond and other non-dairy sources take 10 percent of the "milk" market.
"We started seeing these products put into the meat shelves in the grocery stores with packaging, label and design misleading the consumers into believing that perhaps it is a healthier version of the traditional meat or perhaps this is real beef," said USCA spokeswoman Lia Biondo.
"We are trying to preempt the issue, to prevent what the dairy industry is going through."
INDUSTRY SPLIT
For now, alternative meat products represent a tiny portion of US protein sales. But the items are becoming more widely used, and not just by vegetarians.
Startups in alternative food today offer products that do a much-improved job of simulating the taste, texture and smell of traditional meat. Industry players say it is only a matter of time before these options are made with animal cells, further complicating the picture.
While the USCA petition has won some support, not all in the food industry have signed on.
The Farm Bureau generally supports the idea behind the petition, but does not want oversight of alternative proteins to shift outside of the Agriculture Department.
"If it is not called meat, what is it then? We want to retain the jurisdiction under the Secretary of Agriculture," said Dale Moore, who is in charge of public affairs for the Farm Bureau.
The National Cattlemen's Beef Association, which counts among its members meat distributors and processors, has not signed the petition either.
Chris Kerr, investment manager at New Crop Capital, a venture capital firm investing in alternative food companies, said efforts like the USCA petition illustrate a head-in-the-sand approach to shifting tastes.
"We are looking at a major behavioral shift by a whole segment of the consumer population, driven a lot by the millennials. They are very open to plant-based food, to being flexitarian," he said.
"The industry can fight this, but they are arguably fighting against themselves because ultimately most meat producers will have some stake in this and it will be a successful outcome," he added.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
LA RODA DE ANDALUCIA, Spain - The US flag still flutters next to others in front of the AgroSevilla factory, the world's biggest exporter of black olives based in southern Spain.
But the cooperative in Andalusia may soon have to take down the Stars and Stripes if a rise of more than 20 percent in duties on black table olives recently imposed by the United States, its number one client, becomes permanent.
Far from just concerning Spain, the decision could snowball into the US imposing duties on other European products such as French cheese or Italian wine.
Since the winter and the sudden rise in levies, "we have lost many contracts and we have had to let people go for the first time ever," says Gabriel Redondo, president of a grouping of 4,000 farmers who all own a small share of the factory, the world's biggest for black olives.
Set at the heart of huge olive plantations between Seville and Granada in the south, the factory treats, cures and slices olives, which are picked green.
They are then put in jars and cans and dispatched to 72 countries where they are sold to pizzerias, sandwich shops and salad bars - all expanding markets, particularly in the United States.
'RE-ORGANIZING EVERYTHING'
AgroSevilla exports 25 percent of its annual production to the US.
But within the space of a few months, the clouds have gathered for the cooperative and the entire sector, which employs 8,000 people on full-time contracts and ensures the survival of 16,000 farms in Andalusia.
In 2017, 2 Californian companies filed a complaint against their Spanish competitors to the US commerce department, accusing them of dumping, or selling their products too cheaply in the United States by profiting from EU subsidies.
The department opened a probe, as did the International Trade Commission, an independent federal agency that investigates trade-related issues.
The final decision is due on mid-July, but the United States has already slapped temporary duties of more than 20 percent this winter on Spanish olives.
The conflict comes amid fears of a wider trade war after US President Donald Trump's administration raised customs duties on steel and aluminium, even if Europe is for the moment exempt from these.
For farmers in Andalusia, the move to raise levies came as a total surprise.
The sector as a whole exports 40 percent of its production to the United States for some 70 million euros ($86 million) a year.
Even before the final decision, some US buyers have suspended their contracts, which are now too expensive thanks to the temporary duties..
In the factory, "we're re-organising everything," says Redondo, who fears they will lose market share to Morocco or Egypt.
Out of 450 employees at the factory, 30 have already lost their jobs. If the situation drags on, this could rise to 80.
EU POLICY CHALLENGED
Paradoxically, the Californian complaint only targets finished products and not imports of untreated olives that have just been picked.
The United States, which only produces 20 percent of the olives it consumes, will therefore continue buying the unprocessed olive fruit from Spain.
And that's a concern for Spanish farmers.
"We don't want to deliver olives without transforming them" as the untreated fruit is sold half the price of the finished product, says Juan de Dios Segura, who farms 100 hectares of olive trees nearby.
He's waiting anxiously for the July decision in the US, as he has already bought all the necessary fertilizer and machines for this year.
The sector says it has already spent 5 million euros in lawyers' fees in the United States, and it feels forgotten by the European Union.
"Europe deployed all its diplomatic energy (on steel duties) but left us by the wayside. It's condescending as the sector is small," says Redondo.
By arguing that European subsidies are creating unfair competition, the US complaint "is calling into question the legality of the entire European agriculture policy," says Antonio de Mora, head of Asemesa, the association of table olive producers.
The European parliament is concerned too.
Fearing a "spiral of defense investigations" on agricultural products, it voted last month on a resolution asking the European Commission "to study the possibility of challenging any final US decision before the WTO (World Trade Organization)."
The commission, meanwhile, says it will "take action" when necessary and considers "there is no base for anti-subsidy measures."
source: news.abs-cbn.com
PARIS - President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday faced heckles and whistles from French farmers angry with reforms to their sector, as he arrived for France's annual agricultural fair.
For over 12 hours, Macron listened and responded to critics' rebukes and questions -- only to return home to the Elysee Palace with an adopted hen.
"I saw people 500 meters (yards) away, whistling at me," Macron said, referring to a group of cereal growers protesting against a planned EU free trade pact with a South American bloc, and against the clampdown on weed-killer glyphosate.
"I broke with the plan and with the rules and headed straight to them, and they stopped whistling," he told reporters.
"No one will be left without a solution," he said.
Macron was seeking to appease farmers who believe they have no alternative to the widely-used pesticide -- which environmental activists say probably causes cancer.
He also wanted to calm fears after France's biggest farm union warned Friday that more than 20,000 farms could go bankrupt if the deal with the Mercosur trade bloc Brazil -- the world's top exporter of beef -- as well as Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay) goes ahead.
Meanwhile, Macron was under pressure over a plan to allow the wolf population in the French countryside to grow, if only marginally.
"If you want me to commit to reinforce the means of protection... I will do that," he responded.
And he called on farmers to accept a decision on minimum price rules for European farmers -- "or else the market will decide for us".
But it wasn't all jeers and snarls for Macron at the fair.
He left the fairground with a red hen in his arms, a gift from a poultry farm owner.
"I'll take it -- we'll just have to find a way to protect it from the dog," he said, referring to his Labrador, Nemo.
It was a far cry from last year, when -- as a presidential candidate not yet in office -- he was hit on the head by an egg launched by a protester.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
MANILA - Pia Wurtzbach swears by her Miss Universe crown that a local chocolate brand is better than the foreign competition, so much so that she sent a box to Hollywood blogger Perez Hilton.
And when Pacific Rim leaders converge in the Philippines this week to discuss free trade and nuclear tensions in the Korean peninsula, their spouses will get dark chocolates from Davao City, President Rodrigo Duterte's hometown.
Filipino chocolatiers are pushing back against imported candies that are being offered at cheaper prices while building niche markets abroad.
"Kapag tinanggal mo yang mga brand na yan, hindi mo talaga mapapansin yung difference kasi masarap talaga siya," Wurtzbach told ABS-CBN News.
(If you strip the brand names, you won't notice the difference because it's really delicious.)
Hilton asked for samples of the chocolate brand she was endorsing when she posted a photo on Instagram, Wurtzbach said. The gossip writer was among judges who voted unanimously for the Filipina beauty queen during the 2015 Miss Universe Pageant.
Foreign brands such as Cadbury and Meiji have been offering smaller servings at around P20 per bar to compete on price with local brands such as Goya, endorsed by Wurtzbach.
Still, Filipinos prefer local brands due to their "level of sweetness that suits local taste preferences," research firm Euromonitor International said in a study.
Chocolates and chocolate-covered bars such as Nips and Cloud 9 from tycoon John Gokongwei's Universal Robina, accounted for 61 percent of the market last year, according to Euromonitor.
Davao-based Malagos Chocolates has built a steady following abroad with its dark chocolate bars and tablets that dissolve into drinks. Spouses of ASEAN leaders will get to try both this week, courtesy of Honeylet Avancena, the President's partner.
Philippine cacao gives Malagos Chocolates its unique flavor, said lead chocolatier Rex Puentespina told ABS-CBN News.
"It has to be local because we really have to promote sustainability para magtulong-tulungan tayo (We need to help each other)," he said.
Malagos is experimenting with chocolate-covered dried fruits and more Instagram-friendly packaging to attract more clients, especially in hotels, Puentespina said.
The company's foreign clients include a Singaporean ice cream shop that uses Malagos in its concoctions, he said.
"Tourism arrivals there is very high and it's close to us, but it's a tough market also because all the major brands are there and they are price-sensitive, he said.
For Wurtzbach, international recognition for Philippine chocolates is overdue.
"I think it's about time na ma-recognize worldwide ang isang Filipino brand na kaya din naman to be at par with international brands," she said.
(I think it's about time that a Filipino brand is recognized worldwide, that it can be at par with international brands.)
source: news.abs-cbn.com
MANILA - The Philippines has recorded its first bird flu outbreak and will "eliminate" half a million chickens to control the spread of the virus, Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñol said Friday.
Around 38,000 chickens have died of the Avian Influenza Type A Subtype H5 in San Luis town, Pampanga, Piñol reported at the Mango Stakeholders Forum Friday.
To prevent the spread of the deadly virus, Piñol said around 500,000 chickens would be "eliminated."
The Department of Agriculture has also ordered a halt to the transport of poultry from Luzon to other parts of the country until further notice to control the outbreak.
Avian influenza is a viral infection that spreads among birds but can infect humans as well.
According to the World Health Organization, human infection is primarily acquired through direct contact with infected animals.
The infection may cause diseases such as mild conjunctivitis or swelling of the eyes, severe pneumonia and even death. Interaction with humans infected with the flu, however, does not result in "efficient transmission" between people.
The WHO also clarified that there is no evidence that the avian flu can be acquired by eating properly cooked eggs or poultry.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
