The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) on June 6 reported a third consecutive monthly sugar price index decline by 2.9 points for May 2025. May’s sugar index dropped -2.6% from April’s, to 109.4 points, even as the global prices of most other categories performed better. This follows a similar decrement in both March and April, driven by a positive 2025-26 global production outlook. Since...
The Maine lobster sector expects Trump to ease lobstering
Lobster fishermen and sector representatives in Maine hope President Donald Trump will ease fishing by reopening an important fishery. Initially, President Barack Obama made the lobster-rich Cape Cod coast adrift 4,900 square miles a marine park. Trump reverted the decision in 2020, only for President Joe Biden to close it again in 2021. The Maine Lobster Association (MLA) recently...
Uganda farms bamboo into economic empowerment
In what began in 2019 as a ten-year national reforestation drive, bamboo (bambusa polymorpha) farms in Uganda are slowly but surely flourishing. Along the Nile in Njeru, Buikwe District in central Uganda, a biofortification company has established a tissue culture laboratory. Modern Laminates Ltd intends to extend its virgin role of kraft paper production and transform the leftovers into biogas. The...
The Malaysia beef price reaches a cut above in Sarawak
Sarawak on northwest Borneo island in Malaysia is courting a steep beef price after import controls, preempting circular farming system plans. Parts of the state had the highest beef rates countrywide at 95 ringgit ($22.41) a kg by June 6, 2025. While retail offers across Malaysia in early June clocked 27-48 ringgit ($6.37-11.32) a kg, Sarawak’s averaged 64 ringgit ($15.10). State premier Abang Johari is laying...
Coffee value addition in Peru gaining among Huánuco’s smallholders
The Alto Hualluga coffee belt on the banks of Hualluga river in the Huánuco region of central Peru is lately embracing caffeine value addition. All this is thanks to an intervention program by the National Commission for Development and Life Without Drugs (Devida), reports Agraria. The program will give specialty coffee and processing know-how to 200 smallholders in the area, beginning June...
Apples from the Netherlands to make landfall in China
The Netherlands has secured mandate to export apples to China following the signing of a customs protocol dating from May 14, 2025. China’s General Administration of Customs reiterated that the protocol covers quality requirements that the European source will ably meet. The apple protocol is lookalike to the existing one that covers pear imports from the Netherlands into China. Holland’s Ministry of...
A Florida oyster bay reopening after lengthy closure
A Northwest Florida bay whose oyster riches were once of fabled status could reopen in fall 2026 after a five-year closure. Once supplying 90% of oyster under consumption in Florida, Apalachicola Bay on the Gulf of Mexico closed fisheries in December 2020. The ban happened two years after Mississippi also instituted an oyster harvest moratorium that lasted till 2024. In March 2025,...
Retail eggs shed $1 month-on-month in the U.S.
U.S.’ grocers finally lowered the retail rates of eggs to $5.12 a dozen before the national egg day on June 3, 2025. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), a good poultry market outlook has contributed to the belated decline. The report details that current average rates are $1 less than they were at their peak in March 2025. In some...
United States tips Vietnam as agricultural export market in balancing act
The United States on June 2, 2025 secured a $2-billion agricultural export deal with Vietnam, amid skewed bilateral trade. Vietnam’s trade delegation led by the Minister of Agriculture & Environment Do Duc Duy is currently undertaking a June 1-7 interstate tour. In its earliest tour leg, the delegation has already bagged almost $800 million in corn and soymeal import...
Sugar market price gets shot in the arm by steady crude oil
Flailing global sugar markets rallied modestly after crude oil registered international market price gains on June 3, 2025. Brent crude oil gained by 0.651% day-on-day, to $65.44 a barrel on the 3rd. Later in the day, sugar pricing in New York and London added 0.12 and 0.59% in daily margins, respectively. After the previous day’s increases, New York’s raw sugar...