Search Results for: Brazil

BY MONICA DOBIE, in Ottawa

SCIENTISTS have gathered in Quebec City, Canada, to discuss ways of fighting plant diseases that threaten to destroy cocoa production. At the Cacao Diseases: Important Threats to Chocolate Production Worldwide symposium members of the American Phytopathological Society, Canadian Phytopathological Society, and the Mycological Society of America listened to experts warn of the grave threat to cocoa plants posed by three deadly diseases: black pod, frosty pod, and witches’ broom.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE WORLD Trade Organisation’s (WTO) Doha round food trade talks collapsed today, with diplomats floundering about how to recover from damaging political deadlock. European Union (EU) trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson has bluntly blamed the Americans for refusing to yield on reducing farm production subsidies.…

BY ALAN OSBORN

EUROPEAN food manufacturers are increasingly concerned that western governments might turn to sugar beet as a source of bio-fuel in the next few years, with possibly serious consequences for the price and availability of sugar in the long-term.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

URBANISATION in developing countries will inflate demand for meat and processed foods generally from this year to 2015, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has predicted. In a new ‘Agricultural Outlook’ written with the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the OECD says "growing market opportunities in certain developing countries" (notably Brazil, China and India) will cause a "shift in production and export of farm commodities away from [developed] OECD countries and more towards other developing economies".…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

BRAZIL has announced at the World Trade Organisation plans to extend quota restrictions on imports of peeled desiccated coconuts for another four years – to 2010 – because of concerns about an import flood damaging local production.

ENDS…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE WORLD’S trade ministers will this August and September be considering whether they want to make further compromises that could restart the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) Doha Development Round, which have been suspended amidst disagreement over its final goals.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

URBANISATION in developing countries will inflate demand for meat and processed foods generally from this year to 2015, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has predicted. Its new ‘Agricultural Outlook’ identifies "growing market opportunities in certain developing countries" (notably Brazil, China and India).…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE WORLD’S largest solar photovoltaic power plant is now under construction in Portugal’s sunny Algarve region. When it starts generating electricity early next year, it should power 8,000 homes, saving 30,000 tonnes annually in greenhouse gas emissions. There will be 52,000 photovoltaic modules on the plant on the 60-hectare site located on a south-facing hillside at Serpa, which is one of the sunniest spots in Europe.…

STORIES BY KEITH NUTHALL

EUROPEAN Union food safety alert service RASFF has warned of nut aflatoxin contaminations, as global food standards agency Codex Alimentarius develops guidelines on the problem. RASFF highlighted aflatoxins in Iranian pistachio nuts, Israeli groundnuts, and Azerbaijani hazelnuts sold in Italy; Iranian pistachios sold in Spain and Germany; American almonds in Spain; amongst other incidents.…

BY DAVID HAWORTH, in Brussels

IT is not often that Jan Figel, the European Union (EU) Commissioner for education, training and multilingualism makes headlines. Not only is the Slovak modest to a fault, but as under EU treaties, education policy is controlled by national governments, his responsibilities rarely get the headlines which other policy areas attract.…