Ukraine has begun implementing its newest European Union animal welfare standards to expedite egg, beef, pork, poultry and live pig exports into the bloc. The January 1, 2026 directive is under the Ministry of Development of Economy, Trade & Agriculture, which will maintain consistent animal records for three years. Focus areas include veterinary and current health data...
South Korea with its millennium of beverage-drinking culture is contemplating surcharging disposable cups that serve coffee, amid hospitality industry hostility. On January 2, 2026, the government hosted a ‘Cup Price Display System’ agenda mandating cafés to include prices of cups on coffee receipts. In a bid by the Ministry of Climate, Energy & Environment to...
Sugar prices ended 2025 on a promising note on both sides of the Atlantic after Brazil lowered 2026-27 production projections. Short-covering traders in New York recorded a price hike of 1.35% day-on-day on December 31 for #11 (raw cane sugar). This is even as their London counterparts gained by 0.56% for #5 (white sugar). Although...
Three separate thefts in New England between November and December 2025 have occasioned diverse value losses in crabmeat and oysters, alongside $400,000 worth of lobster meat. A New York Post story of December 30 records full cages of oysters to have disappeared before the crab and lobster heists took place. Firstly on November 22, an...
Peru has recorded a 75% rise in avocado exports to the United States in spring/summer 2025, versus a similar timing from 2024. According to the Peruvian Avocado Commission (CAP)’s president Xavier Equihua via Agraria on December 30, 2025, origin diversification spurred exports. Equihua tabled U.S.-bound dispatches for spring and summer 2025 as having increased to 230 million...
India is newly the rice production champ of the world in the 2024-25 fiscal year, overtaking China amid escalating groundwater crisis. The subcontinent’s agriculture ministry announced on December 29 that annual rice output up to June 2025 was set to clock 149 million tonnes. This projection echoes the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)’s 2024-25 production...
The 2026 Osechi ryori (traditional New Year’s feast) culture in Japan is encountering tight supplies of chief ingredients like Hokkaido-derived salmon roe. Low catches of chum salmon and other species across 2025 has pushed up prices while the depreciation of the yen against the dollar has hiked condiment rates. Osechi ryori traditionally contains a three-tier dish that symbolize a pile...
A historic India-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement (FTA) on December 22, 2025 has provided India’s farmers with preferential treatment. While New Zealand will allow 100% duty-free imports, India will only give market access to 70.03% of imports. However, Delhi has excluded 29.97% of bilateral goods from any duty concession, including ammunition, dairy, sugar, peas, chana and corn,...
Waning global demand has lowered sugar prices to their cheapest point in 4 years, nearly matching crude oil’s related 4.75-year low. On December 22, 2025, raw white sugar was averaging $0.15 a pound in New York’s futures despite advancing by 0.94% day-on-day. Covrig Analytics forecasts a worldwide surplus of 4.2 million tonnes in the 2025-26 season due to Brazil’s...
The high proposed 2026 agriculture budget in the Philippines will leverage market access, boost farmers’ income and lower food prices. Lawmakers are already hailing the 214.39-billion peso ($3.65 billion) budget proposal for the Department of Agriculture (DA) as historic. Senator Francis Pangilinan called the allocation the biggest since 2010, per a Phil News report on December 21,...