News

SINGAPORE — Cornell University’s System of Rice Intensification (SRI) production method, which can increase rice yields by 20% to 50%, received an award from Olam International, the company announced on March 17.

WINNIPEG, MANITOBA, CANADA — The governments of Canada and Manitoba are making a major contribution to the Canadian International Grains Institute (Cigi) for the purchase of equipment in support of its applied research work that aims to add value to crops within the province as well as across Canada, Cigi said on March 13.

CREMONA, ITALY — Ocrim SpA on March 25 will celebrate its 70th anniversary in business. The company was founded in 1945 by Guido Grassi, Member of the Order of Merit for Labor, with the invaluable contribution of his brother Ettore and his cousin Luigi Grassi.

Ocrim was born as a small workshop located in the Cavatigozzi area of Cremona, Italy. With no more than 25 employees, the administrative and commercial activities were conducted in a commercial studio in the center of ...

NIPAWIN, SASKATCHEWAN, CANADA — Hanfood Group Holding Corp. announced recently plans to build a new grain handling facility and agricultural food park in Nipawin, Saskatchewan, Canada, according to an article in The Western Producer agriculture newspaper.

Work on the C$20 million project is expected to start in spring. The company hopes to start buying grain from farmers in northeastern Saskatchewan before the end of the year.

The proposed facility will include 46,000 tonnes of steel storage and a 134-car, loop-track that connects ...

BRUSSELS, BELGIUM — E.U. cereal production reached a new record level in 2014-15 thanks to favorable climatic conditions, bringing stocks back to comfortable levels and allowing for huge exports, according to the European Commission’s Winter 2015 Short-Term Agricultural Outlook published on March 9.

E.U. cereal harvest reached 327 million tonnes, which is 14% above average and 7% above 2013-14. Total cereal area increased by more than 1 million hectares from the 57.8 million hectares in 2013.

Good climatic conditions that included a ...

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, U.S. — Any future deregulation and commercialization of bioengineered/genetically modified wheat in the U.S. would pose questions.

Might yield and disease-resistant traits lead more farmers to choose wheat? Could industry influence consumers about the safety and potential benefits of bioengineered wheat? Could U.S. companies avoid any tangled trade issues internationally?

Such questions were discussed March 3 in Chicago, Illinois, U.S., during a session at the American Society of Baking’s (ASB) BackingTech 2015.

There is little question that U.S. acreage for corn ...

ROME, ITALY — The United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) Food Price Index declined to a 55-month low in February, dropping 1% percent from January and 14% below its level a year earlier.

Lower prices for cereals, meat and especially sugar more than offset an increase in milk and palm oil prices.

The FAO Food Price Index averaged 179.4 points in February, down from 181.2 points in January and 208.6 points in February 2014.

Its ongoing decline — to its lowest level ...