In exchange many of their companies have received concessions of thousands of hectares of land to produce pineapple, sugar and other cash crops for export to their home markets. For many farmers that is difficult to do because they cannot pay for the lengthy claim process. The land is then turned into plantations producing cash crops or in some cases used for casinos. Farmers are thrown off their land thanks to legal loopholes with little compensation for their lost land and homes. With...

The $12 million, 85,000-square-foot facility houses state-of-the-art cooling, refrigeration, monitoring and packing equipment for fresh produce. Some 2,500 truckloads of locally grown radishes, green beans, Chinese vegetables, lettuce, parsley, endives, escarole and sweet corn will be shipped to national markets during the seven-month winter season. Bronson seized the opportunity to mention one of his favorite subjects: the need to grow crops to produce ethanol. New packinghouse signals...

ACI is offering its new trade finance solution as a standalone product or bundled with its existing solutions for online banking, automated enrollment and payment processing. Through the acquisition, ACI now offers a single product for end-to-end trade finance that provides back-end trade processing for bank operations as well as an integrated front-end open account trading vehicle for bank and customer use. The solution is built using a modern service-oriented architecture, offers...

DAN BUGLASS RURAL AFFAIRS EDITOR MARIAN Fischer Boel, the European commissioner for agriculture and rural development, in Brussels will welcome a large group of young farmers from all over the EU to hear and consider their views on future policy developments later today. DAN BUGLASS RURAL AFFAIRS EDITOR MARIAN Fischer Boel, the European commissioner for agriculture and rural development, in Brussels will welcome a large group of young farmers from all over the EU to hear and consider their...

Throughout history civilizations expanded as they sought new soil to feed their populations, then ultimately fell as they wore out or lost the dirt they depended upon. That process is being repeating today, but in a new book a University of Washington geomorphologist argues the results could be far more disastrous for humans because there are very few places left with fertile soil to feed large populations, and farming practices still trigger large losses of rich dirt. That process is...

by: Doug Cameron Monsanto is likely to raise its long-term forecasts for the use of genetically modified corn following the ethanol-driven surge in demand from US farmers during the current planting season. Rising demand for US corn for use as food and fuel has forced farmers to plant in more hostile terrain and encouraged a drive for higher yields to take advantage of record crop prices. Hugh Grant, Monsanto's chairman and chief executive, said the US group would evaluate how the US...

LAKELAND - If you're keeping score on whether dumping Brazilian orange juice has harmed Florida growers, the home team is down 4-3 with a few innings of the game yet to play. The commission investigated orange juice supplies in Florida, both from domestic production and imports, from the 2001-02 through the 2004-05 seasons. The trade body found Brazilian exports rose substantially during that period and led to rising OJ inventories that suppressed farm prices Florida processors paid to the...

But when Eukanuba, a canned food produced by Canadian-based Menu Foods inc., was recalled last month by the Food and Drug Administration, DePaul joined the thousands of pet owners nationwide who are switching to organic pet foods - or even making their own. But when Eukanuba, a canned food produced by Canadian-based Menu Foods inc., was recalled last month by the Food and Drug Administration, DePaul joined the thousands of pet owners nationwide who are switching to organic pet foods - or...

Despite the continued opposition by "a small section", Indian farmers, who have been haunted by bollworms for more than three decades, had accepted this technology, he claimed. Making an attempt to clear a lot of doubts and enable people to develop more confidence in crop biotechnology, Manjunath in his book said that coincidental with its steep increased adoption, the average yield of cotton in India increased from 308 kg per hectare in 2001-02 to 450 kg per hectare in 2005-06 with most...