South Africa’s Competition Commission is set to conduct a far-reaching market inquiry into the poultry sector. This comes barely three weeks after the government announced 25 to 30% rebates on chicken meat imports to manage inflation. Though general inflation slowed down by 5.5% in quarter 3, 2023, South Africa’s  chicken inflation rose to 7.3% in November.  This is why the commission wants to redeem...

Super Bowl LVIII final kicked off Sunday, February 11, 2024 in Las Vegas, U.S. to a parallel guacamole lovers’ celebration. At the event, sports and entertainment enthusiasts savored some of the 138,000 tons of avocado that came this season from Michoacán, Mexico. With San Francisco 49ers and Kansas City Chiefs reprising a 2021 rematch, fans were scooping away guacamole from the stands....

Cherry farmers in the southwestern province of British Columbia (B.C.) in Canada are unsure when flower budding may start. This is after an unpredictable freezing and rainy winter delayed the usual bud formation timings. Cherries in British Columbia normally begin to form buds in February before flowers blossom in early April. Then the dark red fruits mature in June and are ready to...

Thailand, producer of 500 million coconut kernels annually, is welcoming the 2024 Lunar New Year with ample supplies of coconuts. The February 10 holiday could propel spending by 10% or 50 billion baht ($1.39 billion), a boon for the coconut jelly business. This will be the highest spending since 2021, according to the University of the Thai Chamber of Commerce’s field survey. Coconut...

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has put out a public alert for Trader Joe’s chicken pilaf over claims it may contain rocks. USDA’s Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS) issued the nationwide warning on possible contamination of the popular snack on February 7, 2024. A consumer who ate the frozen ready-to-eat food complained of teeth injury and reported of stones in...

Chinese consumers are taking a lukewarm approach to commodity prices, which have dropped to their lowest in 14 years. At the same time, buyers know that the government could enforce counter-deflationary measures that might raise food prices. China’s consumer price index (CPI) dipped 0.8% January 2024, year-on-year. This in spite of 0.2% and 0.3% consecutive monthly CPI upticks in November and December 2023,...

The European Commission has backed down on a previous requirement to cut non-carbon dioxide gases on farms by 30% before 2040.   Instead of farmer-targeting measures, the European Union (EU) on February 6 decided to cut industrial greenhouse gases by 90% by 2040. The decision is a goodwill gesture to European farmers who have been protesting in France and Belgium over climate-related...

Ivory Coast’s mid-crop cocoa harvest might shed yields by 25% to between 400,000 and 450,000 tonnes, according to regulators. This is happening just 21/2  months after rainfall during the dry season in November 2023 fanned hopes of a major harvest. On February 6, 2024, insiders at Ivory Coast’s Cocoa-Coffee Council (CCC) disclosed to Reuters of the looming drop in the mid-crop yields. The...

Agricultural output in quarter 4 (Q4) 2023 helped slow general inflation in the Philippines to 2.8% by January 2024. Crop production from September to December 2023 was the key driver of easing inflation, which fell from the 3.9% of Q4 2022.  In general, agriculture grew by 0.7%, year-on-year, in Q4, according to the government’s preliminary data of January 30, 2024. Inflation in...

At a time when delayed monsoon rains have hampered the planting of sufficient pulses, India is expecting a bumper 2023-24 lentil crop. While the planting area of other pulses diminished, red lentils’ acreage rose to 1.95 million hectares (ha) by January 19, 2024. This represents a 5.4% increase over the January, 2023 equivalent.  Therefore, India’s red lentils (masur) harvest before June 2024...