Global cocoa rates rallied slightly on March 12, 2025 to $8,137.28 a tonne but are still nursing recent price lows over surplus projections.  Earlier on March 10, the cocoa price had finally bowed down to its lowest point since December 2024, at $8,100  a tonne.  The slump followed a 2024-25 surplus projection of 142,000 tonnes on February 28, 2025 by the...

March 14 is Pi Day when Americans usually look forward to relishing discounted circular foods, especially pizza and pie.  Pi is the Greek mathematical constant “π” or numeral 3.14159, which represents the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. It is the first three digits of this number that provide the name day of March 14.  The day...

After ten years of negotiations, the Philippines has finally allowed imports of various table grape varieties from South Africa, beginning February 26, 2025.  Popular varieties like Crimson Seedless could form a major share of exports to the new market. They will also constitute a part of the 23 to 25% remaining portion of non-Europe bound South African table grapes.  Currently,...

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is reprising its status as the government department with the most annual purchases by sourcing $100 million in domestic fish.  The department’s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) arm had by March 7, 2025 awarded multimillion-dollar contracts to pollock, shrimp and catfish suppliers. Some of the supplies will end up in the agency’s Child Nutrition...

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)’s sugar price index was up 7.3 points in February 2025 after three consecutive lackluster months. In its monthly global food price tracking report on March 8, FAO put the index of the sweetener at 118.5 points. Though showing monthly strength, the index is still down 22.2 points or 15.8% from the February 2024 equivalent.  This way...

China has finally remembered electric vehicle (EV) tariffs of fall 2024 and avenged them with 100% surtax on canola from Canada. This is happening just a few weeks after Canada raised its 2024-25 canola ending stock. The Ministry of Commerce of China specifically targeted canola oil, oilcake, pea, pork and aquatic good imports, effective March 20, 2025.  This fallout elicited a...

Peru’s agribusiness sector provided 44% of all jobs related to exports in the highly agricultural country in 2024. For this statistical report, Agraria Peru cites the Research Center for Economics and Global Business of the Association of Exporters (CIEN-ADEX). CIEN-ADEX’s data shows that annual export-related jobs reached 4,427,921 in 2024, up 15%.  Traditional sectors such as agriculture and mining provided 1,750,131 jobs or 39.5%...

Ukraine will walk the line of agricultural export controls as a future European Union (EU) member but will limit exports, says an official. The country applied for EU membership on February 28, 2022, just after invasion by Russia amid trans-European grain shipment huddles.  According to Andrei Dikun of the Ukrainian Agri Council, the nation will limit agri-food exports to the bloc...

Agricultural give-outs by the European Union (EU) have clouded Greece’s livestock farming after the prosecution of 100 agricultural subsidy fraud suspects.  According to Politico, these recipients of one of the most important farmer support funds by the EU got it fraudulently. Prosecutors had by end February handed the mainly Cretan suspects some 2.9 million euros ($3.5 million) in damages.  The indictment...

Farmers on the West Bank produced $184 million of lucrative olive oil in the October 2024 harvest despite the war cloud. According to the Ministry of Agriculture of Palestine, the olive oil volume hit 27,300 kilo-liters (KL) against an expectation of 18,000 Kl. This surprise rally owes to farm input by 200,000 Palestinian workers whom Israel expelled at the start of the war in...