The launch event for the FAO/OECD Agricultural Outlook 2019-2028 on July 8, 2019 at FAO headquarters in Rome. (Photo (c) FAO/Giuseppe Carotenuto)
Photo credit must be given: ©FAO/Giuseppe Carotenuto. Editorial use only. Copyright ©FAO.

FAO, OECD see swine fever in China among risks to food markets

Paris | Reuters — The spread of a deadly pig disease in China that has disrupted the world’s biggest pork market is one of the major risks to a well-supplied global agricultural sector, the FAO and OECD said on Monday. African swine fever was highlighted in the annual agricultural outlook for 2019-2028 from the Food […] Read more

(Giuseppe Carotenuto photo courtesy FAO)

Canada’s ag output seen likely rising under climate change

CNS Canada — A new United Nations report suggests just how climate change will reshape agriculture by 2050 — and that Canada’s production capacity stands to benefit. International trade will play an ever-larger role in helping to feed people in food-deficient regions, as warmer temperatures and less precipitation will damage yields in many tropical areas, […] Read more

(Allan Dawson file photo)

AMIS adjusts world grain production outlooks

CNS Canada –– Global supply-demand outlooks, released by the market monitoring agency of an alliance of 11 international organizations, point to lower corn production for 2018-19. The Agricultural Market Information System (AMIS) Market Monitor report for July said the record corn harvest in 2017-18 will slip by more than four per cent in 2018-19. That’s […] Read more

Syrian agriculture faces US$16 billion bill from conflict

Rome | Thomson Reuters Foundation — Syria’s six-year conflict has caused at least US$16 billion in damage to agriculture — about a third of the country’s GDP — a U.N. agency said on Monday, calling for more funds to salvage local food production as millions go hungry. Fighting has led to extensive crop and livestock […] Read more

(Lentils.ca)

Lentils, chickpeas can help reverse soil erosion trend, U.N. says

Rome | Thomson Reuters Foundation — Planting more lentils, chickpeas and other pulses will improve the health of the world’s soils that have reached critical levels, threatening to worsen hunger and poverty levels, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said on Monday. About a third of the world’s soils are degraded because of soil […] Read more


Temple ruins at Palmyra in central Syria. (CIA.gov)

Food production in Syria reported at all-time low

Geneva | Reuters — Food production has dropped to an all-time low in Syria where millions of hungry civilians are struggling through their sixth winter in a war zone, United Nations agencies said Tuesday. Many farmers have had to abandon their land, unable to afford the soaring cost of seeds, fertilizers and tractor fuel, the […] Read more

The Nile River at Cairo. (CIA.gov)

Egypt bans ergot in wheat, again

Cairo/Abu Dhabi | Reuters — Egypt reinstated on Sunday a controversial ban on wheat shipments containing even the slightest amount of a common grain fungus, baffling traders who had returned to the Egyptian market just last month when the ban was lifted. The world’s largest wheat importer said on Sunday it was re-introducing its zero […] Read more

Erwin Northoff (r), chief of media for FAO, presents the Star Prize to Laura Rance at the 2016 IFAJ Congress in Bonn, Germany. (IFAJ.org)

FBC editorial chief wins major international awards

Laura Rance, editorial director of Farm Business Communications and editor of the Manitoba Co-operator, has won two major international awards for her work on African agriculture. Rance won the International Federation of Agricultural Journalists (IFAJ) Star Prize for ‘Africa’s Hunger Games,’ published in the Winnipeg Free Press in April 2015. The same piece was awarded […] Read more


(Giuseppe Carotenuto photo courtesy FAO)

Food commodity prices seen stable over next decade

Paris | Reuters –– Higher agricultural productivity and slightly larger crop areas in the coming decade will cover rises in food demand, leading to stable prices and a period of more restrained agricultural markets, the FAO and OECD said Monday. In their annual Agricultural Outlook report, the Food and Agriculture Organization and the Organisation for […] Read more

Sunset in Egypt on the Nile River south of Luxor. (CIA.gov)

Egypt returns to zero tolerance of ergot in wheat

Abu Dhabi/Cairo | Reuters — Egypt has rejected two shipments of wheat for containing trace levels of the ergot fungus, backtracking on a government pledge to apply international standards and alarming traders looking to do business with the world’s largest buyer of the grain. Earlier this year traders boycotted state wheat tenders after the country’s […] Read more