Reading Time: 2 minutes Chicago | Reuters –– Global beef buyers will likely need to cobble together supplies from several nations if a scandal persists in Brazil’s meat sector because supply constraints and politics are already limiting trade flows, market analysts said Monday. China suspended imports of all meat products from Brazil, the world’s top beef exporter, as a […] Read more
Brazil beef scandal leaves fewer options for global buyers
U.S. grains: Wheat rises on weather concerns
Reading Time: 2 minutes Chicago | Reuters — Chicago Board of Trade wheat futures rose 1.2 percent on Monday and hit their highest level since mid-February on concerns about dry conditions hampering crop development in the U.S. Plains, traders said. Falling production in Australia and strong export data also lent strength to the wheat market, which closed in positive […] Read more
India considering reinstating wheat import tax
Reading Time: 2 minutes New Delhi | Reuters –– India could impose a 25 per cent import tax on wheat by the middle of March, two government sources said on Wednesday, reinstating the tariff after a gap of nearly three months in response to recent large purchases from overseas. India, the world’s second-biggest wheat producer, lowered the import tax […] Read more
Canada says TPP trade deal dead without U.S.
Reading Time: 2 minutes Calgary | Reuters — The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal cannot proceed without the United States, Canada said on Tuesday, even as Australia and New Zealand pledged to salvage it. U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew from the 12-nation TPP on Monday, following through on an election promise days after his inauguration. “This agreement was so […] Read more
Australia, New Zealand pledge to salvage TPP
Reading Time: 2 minutes Reuters — Australia hopes to salvage the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) by encouraging China and other Asian nations into the agreement in the wake of U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to pull his country out of the pact, its trade minister said on Tuesday. New Zealand’s trade minister said ministers from the remaining TPP countries would […] Read more
Australia approves sale of giant Kidman pastoral holdings
Reading Time: < 1 minute Sydney | Reuters –– Australia on Friday approved the A$386.5 million (C$379.3 million) sale of the country’s largest private landholder S. Kidman and Co. to a consortium led by the country’s richest woman Gina Rinehart, after blocking two previous bids. Rinehart and her minority partner, Chinese developer Shanghai CRED, will now complete the purchase of […] Read more
Australian bidders gatecrash deal for country’s biggest landholding
Reading Time: 2 minutes Sydney | Reuters — Four of Australia’s wealthiest outback cattle families plan to make the first entirely domestic offer to buy S.Kidman and Co, the country’s largest private landholding, paying more than a rival bid of A$365 million (C$370.1 million), two of the quartet said. Kidman has already accepted a joint offer by Australia’s richest […] Read more
U.S. grains: Corn, soybeans fall on harvest pressure
Reading Time: 2 minutes Chicago | Reuters — U.S. corn and soybean futures weakened Wednesday on expectations that drier weather in the coming days will allow farmers in the Midwest to ramp up the harvest of what is expected to be record-large crops, traders said. MGEX spring wheat and K.C. hard red winter wheat contracts firmed on tight stocks […] Read more
TPP study sees net ‘neutral’ effect on dairy sector
Reading Time: 4 minutes An economic impact study on Canada’s participation in a Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal finds losses in Canada’s dairy sector would be “offset” by gains for dairy processors from cheaper dairy imports. The study, prepared for the federal government by its Office of the Chief Economist and released Friday, notes Canada has offered expanded access […] Read more
Australia competition watchdog to widen dairy investigation
Reading Time: < 1 minute Sydney | Reuters — Australia’s competition watchdog will launch a broad investigation into the country’s dairy industry, the country’s deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce said on Thursday. The investigation comes after Australia’s largest dairy processor Murray Goulburn and New Zealand’s Fonterra Co-operative Group in April reduced their farm gate prices, or what they pay farmers […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
