News digest - 25/11/2020

The Nigerian poultry farmers are currently facing financial straits as the price of poultry feed has increased greatly due to the shortage of soybean and maize (two main ingredients for poultry feed in Nigeria), so that they are often unable to feed their birds. In order to recoup their costs, many poultry farmers are selling off their birds at giveaway prices. Furthermore, 20% of all poultry farmers in the Ogun state had to shut down their farms, as a result of this hike in the costs of production.  

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One of the consequences of the trade tensions between China and Australia is the fact that there are now extra checks for imported goods at the border. For example, the Australian exporters of live lobsters are slowly stopping to ship their products to China, as some of them claimed that the lengthy delays in customs testing (which are necessary to check the levels of cadmium in the shipments, according to China’s border officials) caused the crustaceans to die.

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Beef, pork, lamb and mutton prices in South Africa are currently the highest they have been in years, and according to the experts, this trend will continue in December. This hike in prices is caused by the increase in the costs of production (by 70% to 75%), because yellow maize prices (which is a major feed ingredient) are up 24% year-on-year. Furthermore, the demand for red meat has outweighed the slaughter rate in the South African livestock industry.

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For the last two weeks, rice prices have been increasing in Antananarivo’s retail markets. According to Madagascar’s Ministry of Industry, Trade and Handicrafts, this hike in rice prices is unjustified and deliberately prompted by the vendors in Antananarivo’s markets. The Ministry has taken measures against the retailers that were unable to justify the high prices, and it also announced the arrival of boats carrying imported rice during the next six months.

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A strong demand and the dry weather in several wheat producing countries around the world are driving up the prices of the grain and encouraging the US farmers to expand seedings of winter wheat this autumn for the first time in eight years. This hike in prices comes as a relief for the farmers, after four years of global surplus grain stocks that have kept the prices low: in fact, the tightening wheat supplies worldwide and the strong demand from China are fuelling the US maize, soybean and wheat futures.

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Thanks to a smartphone app that gives smallholder cashew farmers in Ghana the possibility to have direct access to the services of a large food and agribusiness company, they are getting better prices for their produce and reducing their costs of production: in fact, the app allows farmers to get prices directly from the company, rather than from the intermediaries. This is part of a wider programme that also provides farmers with a better access to agricultural inputs (such as fertilizers) and farming advice.

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Indonesia’s government is boosting the production of sugar in the country by attracting more investment in the industry, in order to avoid a potential shortage of this commodity (and therefore also hikes in prices) during the course of next year.  More in particular, the Ministry of Agriculture will partner with state-owned enterprises and private companies to intensify 200,000 hectares of land on Java island and to expand the acreage for sugar with an additional 50,000 hectares outside of the island, in order to raise the production by roughly 676,000 tons.

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The United Kingdom and Canada have recently agreed to establish a new bilateral trade deal in 2021, meaning that the export of GBP 11.4 billion worth of UK goods and services to Canada will continue unhindered. More in particular, since wine and spirits are among the 98% of goods that will continue to benefit from tariff-free trade and Canada is an important market for the UK gin and wine exporters, this is a good result for the British wine and spirits industry.

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According to the Indian Border Security Force, there is a multimillion-dollar ring accused of smuggling cows across the border into Bangladesh from the Indian state of West Bengal. These smuggled cows pose health risks and undermine Bangladesh’s livestock industry, but several factors (including the porous borders and the involvement of security personnel) make it difficult to stop cattle smuggling.

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The Securing Equitable Living Income for Cocoa Farmers campaign seeks to eliminate extreme poverty among cocoa farmers in West Africa, by clarifying the regulatory frameworks governing cocoa production and trade, and by engaging relevant stakeholders to discuss and develop efficient strategies and roadmaps to address the pricing challenges in the cocoa industry.

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