Archive

BY MATTHEW BRACE, in Sydney
FARMED seahorses are being branded in Australia to save wild populations from being poached.

To stem the illegal depletion of wild colonies of seahorses in the oceans a seahorse centre was set up in Tasmania, where they are farmed for consumption.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has been given authority by European Union Council of Ministers (finance) to negotiate a comprehensive “Governing International Fisheries Agreement” with the USA. A Brussels official in the Commission’s directorate general for fisheries told Fishing News International that a future deal could lead to EU fishing crews being given access to fish US waters and for European factory ships to be allowed to buy stocks from American fishermen at sea.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE OFTEN tortoise-like World Trade Organisation has set itself such tight deadlines to make serious progress in its ongoing agricultural round that it will have to work, in its terms, at break-neck speed.

Announcing the end of the second stage of the talks, where diplomats attempted to put details on the general liberalisation proposals made in stage one, the round’s special session of the agriculture committee gave itself until March 31 to agree firm principles on which to base bilateral horse-trading that should start months afterwards.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A RETURN of demand amongst consumers in the European Union for high quality beef following the decline of BSE has made the European Commission propose that the EU opens a special 1,000 tonne import quota for high quality fresh, chilled or frozen beef, with a low 20 per cent duty rate.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has launched a case at the European Court of Justice in a political battle with the EU Council of Ministers over whether Portuguese pig farmers should receive Euro 16.3 million in state aid. Ministers had allowed Portugal to release the money to refund losses incurred by an earlier order from the Commission that previous subsidies of this value should be repaid, in effect overruling Brussels’ decision.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
PORK and pig exports from Luxembourg to the rest of the European Union have been banned by the European Commission after classical swine fever was detected on three farms in the Grand Duchy. The transshipment of pigs across the country’s busy motorways linking Germany with France and Belgium has also been blocked, along with the export of porcine semen, ova and embryos.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE REQUIREMENT that 20 per cent of fresh beef meat and offal imported into the European Union from the USA should be tested for the presence of banned hormones is to be lifted, after EU vets approved a proposal from the European Commission.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
GERMANY has admitted there were flaws in its testing for BSE in certain non-approved laboratories. The German agriculture minister Renate Kunast detailed “certain deficiencies” to other EU farm ministers this week, but said that measures had now been taken to correct matters on the advice of the European Commission.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE PROSPECTS of success for the planned merger between Denmark’s two largest slaughterhouses Danish Crown and Steff-Houlberg have been dealt a blow, with the case being referred by the European Commission to the Danish competition authority, which has aired concerns about the deal’s impact.…

BY MONICA DOBIE
CANADIAN meat producers in Alberta are using their livestock excrement to heal contaminated soil caused by leaks from oil and gas exploration.

Researchers at colleges in Lethbridge and Olds, Alberta, have found that contaminated earth mixed with raw cattle or poultry manure, which was turned repeatedly to introduce oxygen to the mix, developed micro-organisms, (fungus and molds), getting to work to break down hardened hydrocarbons.…