Farmers in Ghana are half-heartedly acclimatizing to new farm-gate cocoa rates despite receiving a 4% annual raise for the 2025-26 season. The Cocoa Board of Ghana (Cocobod) announced the price at 51,660 cedi ($4,784) a tonne on August 4 amid high expectations. But the positive welcome soured, as new nominal price of 3,228 cedi ($294.72) per 64 kg falls...
India’s 2025 sowed kharif (spring) crop area has increased to 103,981,000 hectares (ha), up 4% year-on-year (y-o-y). According to an August 15, 2025 release by the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, 2025 has 3,739,000 ha above 2024’s. Coarse cereals registered robust plantings at 18,234,000 ha, a modest yearly growth by 912,000 ha. Maize drove these slim...
Salmon fishers, industry reps and stakeholders are circumnavigating around a decision to stop expanding the Tasmania marine fishery for surveying reasons. An August 17, 2025 the government of the south Australia state paused further offshore fishing expansions to undertake fish mortality studies. Apparently, over 3 million salmon died in summer 2024 in coastal Tasmania from Piscirickettsia salmonis bacteria, per...
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA)’s proposal to reduce fruit sugar content in pasteurized juices has garnered praise in Florida. A Federal Register report, revised on August 14, 2025, proposes to bring pasteurized orange juice sweetness from 10.5º to 10º Brix. The change will mandate processors to feature 17 grams (g) of sugar derived from oranges in...
Summer mangoes and kiwi fruit from Guzhang county in east-central China and Tiandong in the south are rapidly filling regional export markets. As of August 15, 2025, Tiandong in the autonomous Guangxi region of south China was packing mango goodies to Russia. The key export product is mango-aroma ice pops by the Tiandong Yisheng Import...
Importers China and India are riveted by falling global natural rubber prices involving a wait-and-see trade game. India was in mid-August 2025 importing RRS-4 quality rubber at 190 rupees ($2.17) a kg, down from 213 rupees ($2.43) earlier. Busy exploiting an import gap of lately inactive China, the subcontinent awaits 40,000 tonnes of rubber this August. The south...
The government and cottage industrialists in Uganda are keen to ride the wave of booming raw cocoa sales by enhancing processing. In the year ending June 2025, cocoa sales hit an unprecedented 72,545 tonnes, worth 2.2 trillion shillings ($620 million). Hitherto in the 2012-22 timeline, annual sales had been averaging around 32,000 tonnes, worth 265...
Rock lobster stakeholders in New Zealand are airing views on a plan to cut Northland Island’s catches before September 22, 2025. Guidelines on the proposal have already appeared on the website of the Ministry of Primary Industry for public feedback. According to the Minister of Oceans and Fisheries, Shane Jones, cuts will bring sustainability to the whole...
Rains at home and surpluses elsewhere have turned wheat bearish for producers in southeastern and northeastern Australia. By August 12, 2025, bulk prices were down to A$330 ($216.18) a tonne in northern New South Wales and across Queensland. The low outlook follows July saturation that revived the southern crop that includes the Victoria wheat belt. Rainfall has...
China temporarily imposed 75.6% duty on grain canola imports from Canada on August 12, 2025, effective two days later. Now on its second leg, the tiff began in March 2025 with 100% levy on canola oil and meal imports. The latest action will impact the world’s top importer of rapeseed, which China almost exclusively buys from...