Free Republic

China's decisions around its agricultural policy are becoming increasingly murky with news of arrests, secrecy, and claims of cover-ups. Key points: A Chinese grains analyst has reportedly been jailed and another is said to be under house arrest Australian grains analysts say China is suppressing information about grain shortages to keep world prices down China is buying up near-record amounts of grain while reporting a bumper crop of its own Independent analysts who report on China's grains industry have reportedly been arrested and their online businesses shut down to stop them from telling the truth about the country's below-average crop....

Spring weather has delayed the Texas watermelon harvest, casting doubt on the supply ahead of the Fourth of July holiday. Fields across the state are behind schedule due to weather, meaning peak sales for the summer holiday are in jeopardy statewide, growers say. Gary Collins first started growing watermelons 66 years ago. This season, he said, has been “pretty rough.” “Ground was cold, ground was real cold,” Collins said.

Sugar: it’s so quintessentially Cuban that even a young, machete-wielding Fidel Castro used to hack away at the cane stalks vital to the Caribbean island’s economy. Now, the long-time world leader in sugar production is importing the stuff for the first time, and in large amounts, from France after another bad harvest. Sugar used to account for the vast majority of Cuba’s exports. But the fall of its big brother, the Soviet Union — a key, hungry customer — changed everything, as did a lack of investment in seeds, fertilizer and pesticides. To wit: in the early 1990s, Cuba produced...

CHICAGO (AP) - CHICAGO (AP) — A new analysis of U.S. health data links children's attention-deficit disorder with exposure to common pesticides used on fruits and vegetables. While the study couldn't prove that pesticides used in agriculture contribute to childhood learning problems, experts said the research is persuasive. "I would take it quite seriously," said Virginia Rauh of Columbia University, who has studied prenatal exposure to pesticides and wasn't involved in the new study.

Bangkok - Excessive use of fertilizers and pesticides and other poor farming practices have led to an insect plague in Thailand's rice fields that was predicted to reduce yields by 30 per cent in vast areas, the International Rice Research Institute warned Monday. "This is the worst outbreak of brown planthoppers I have seen in my career since 1977," said Manit Luecha, director of the Chainat Rice Seed Center. "Most of the paddy fields - probably more than 1 million hectares - will suffer rice yield losses of more than 30 per cent," he predicted. Thailand is the world's largest...

Jim Rogers is sounding the alarm -- buy agricultural commodities ahead of the riots. The financial crisis has cut off investment in agriculture, with many farmers unable to get loans for fertilizer according to Mr. Rogers. Of course, this means agricultural commodities will make a killing: CNBC: "Sometimes in the next few years we're going to have very serious shortages of food everywhere in the world and prices are going to go through the roof." Cotton and coffee are good buys because they are very distressed, while sugar, despite the fact that it has gone up a lot, is still...

Cold temperatures threaten seed potato crop By the Associated Press | Posted: Sunday, October 11, 2009 2:30 pm BOZEMAN - Record-low temperatures in southwestern Idaho are threatening to destroy at least a portion of this season's crop of seed potatoes. Spuds still in the ground could be saved by a layer of snow; a dusting had fallen on Bozeman and the surrounding region by Sunday.

Impoverished areas of Africa and Asia face severe crop losses from climate change in 20 years Many of the world’s poorest regions could face severe crop losses in the next two decades because of climate change, according to a new study by researchers at Stanford University’s Program on Food Security and the Environment (FSE). Their findings will be published in the Feb. 1 issue of the journal Science. “The majority of the world’s 1 billion poor depend on agriculture for their livelihoods,” said lead author David Lobell, a senior research scholar at FSE, which focuses on environmentally sustainable solutions to...

Tuesday July 19, 4:43 PM Angry farmers force closure of China plantBEIJING, July 19 (Reuters) - Chinese farmers have attacked a pharmaceutical plant and forced it to close, angered that its chemical waste was ruining their village's crops, polluting its river and harming their health, the factory and officials said. The Jingxin Pharmaceutical Company in Xinchang county in the eastern province of Zhejiang has been closed since July 4 when a group of villagers stormed it, a company statement said, giving no details of how many were involved in the siege. But a posting on a stock exchange online message...