Archive
International News Services archives articles supplied to clients one year or more after initial publication. These articles are protected by a password and not made available to readers without permission from clients. They are used as a background resource by agency journalists. Upon client requests, International News Services will remove such articles from the archive or not upload them in the first place. They are included to demonstrate the breadth of topics undertaken by the agency and also to help promote clients’ coverage.
SUGAR PRICES
BY MARK ROWE and RICHARD HURST
WORLD sugar prices are heading for a three-year low and are projected to fall below six US cents a pound as a result of record harvests in a number of countries, particularly in Brazil, which is accused of “over-production.”…
OECD REPORT
BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE ORGANISATION for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has unveiled a report illustrating that rich developed countries continue to subsidise their food producers, helping to lock developing country competitors out of their markets. Its paper Agricultural Policies in OECD Countries: Monitoring and Evaluation 2002 will state that last year, member countries’ public aid to food producers accounted for 31 per cent of farm receipts.…
CFP REFORM
BY KEITH NUTHALL
PROPOSED reforms to the EU’s Common Fisheries Policy have been tabled by the European Commission. It wants to boost dwindling fish stocks by replacing yearly quotas with a multi-annual management plan based on conservation and end public aid for introducing new fishing vessels.…
BIOSPAIN
BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission is threatening legal action against Spain for allowing foods to be marketed using the term “bio,” when they are not organic, which Brussels says breaks EU rules on organic farming.…
SARDINES
BY KEITH NUTHALL
PERU has won a disputes proceedings case at the World Trade Organisation against the European Union, which has been found unfairly blocking the sale of a Peruvian sardine – sardinops sagax sagax – as sardines, despite Codex Alimentarius standards allow allowing them to be marketed in this way.…
FISH OIL
BY KEITH NUTHALL
SCIENTISTS at Australia’s University of Tasmania have created technology to produce beneficial omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids from marine microorganisms.
These acids are found in fish oils but derive from what fish eat rather than the fish themselves. This breakthrough comes on the heels of the discovery that southern hemisphere fish oils have higher amounts of omega-3s than those in northern waters.…
GERMANY
BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE GERMAN government has launched an investigation after it was discovered that around 100 organic farms have been feeding chickens wheat containing the banned herbicide Nitrofen. The agriculture ministry in Lower Saxony, where the tainted wheat was first discovered, has claimed that contaminated meat and eggs have already been sold and consumed.…
HARVEST INTERNET
BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE FUTURE Harvest Centres, a network of global food and environmental research organisations, has launched a new online search tool in Rome allowing users to search the rich reserves of online material about harvest performance worldwide. *More information: http://infofinder.cgiar.org…
CHINA BAN
BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union has lifted a ban on Chinese imports of certain fish, (including whole farmed and wild fish, gutted and de-headed fish and fish fillets of Alaska pollack, cod, redfish farmed fish and crustaceans), following tests by the EU Food and Veterinary Office.…
GM REPORT
BY KEITH NUTHALL
FARMS growing both GM and traditional crops will find it extremely difficult to guarantee that non-GM varieties are not so contaminated with genetically modified material, they cannot be sold as standard food, a European Commission report has claimed.…