North America Christmas Tree News

Related Agricultural Commodities Industry News

• December 2022: Alfalfa farmers in South Africa adopted farming technology and equipment to produce high-quality alfalfa hay that fetches a good price in both the domestic and international markets.
• February 2022: According to National Lucerne Trust, Lucerne hay produced during 2020-21 was 416,862 metric tons which increased compared to the previous year with 409,759 metric tons. South Africa exports alfalfa majorly to Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Botswana, Namibia, Lesotho, and China.

• January 2023: BarthHaas launched an all-new company website where hop services providers can present their extensive portfolio in an updated design and very clearly structured form. Hence, searching for information about the company, its products, and its services will be easier and more intuitive.
• January 2023: Crosby Hops, an integrated hop grower, processor, and merchant, announced the official expansion of its product offerings to include cryogenically processed lupulin pellets. Its new CGX concentrated pellets are available in several varieties, which makes it possible to brew aggressively-hopped beers that can improve yields and margins while reducing the environmental footprint of production.

• April 2022: Olam Agri, has released its Speciality Grains and Seeds, Peru Sustainability Report 2021 that outlines its continued progress towards more sustainable quinoa and chia supply chains, which are delivering positive social and environmental impacts for local quinoa and chia farming communities in Peru.
• January 2021: The Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development (DPIRD) in Australia has developed a specialised measurement technique to quantify the precise level of saponin on quinoa seed.

• May 2022: The Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT), on May 9, 2022, issued an amendment to the notification dated September 29, 2017, for the export of guar gum to the European Union and the United Kingdom. The export originating from India should get an official certificate and the original analytical report of testing of pentachlorophenol (PCP) and ethylene oxide (ETO) from Vimta Labs, Hyderabad. In addition to Vimta Labs, Hyderabad, Export Inspection Agency (EIA) Chennai has also been authorized to issue the analytical report of testing of PCP.
• October 2021: A team of Indian scientists from India's Department of Science and Technology developed an environmentally friendly, non-toxic, biodegradable polymer using guar gum and chitosan, both of which are polysaccharides extracted from guar beans and shells of crabs and shrimps. The fabricated guar gum-chitosan film having high water stability, high mechanical strength, and excellent resistance to harsh environmental conditions, can potentially be used in packaging applications.

• February 2023: Stora Enso, a leading provider of renewable products in wooden construction, sees a 7% dip in 2022 Wood Products division sales, mainly impacted by lower sales prices, especially for sawn wood.
• Nov 2021: The government of Puducherry (India) made a regulation that says wood-based industries shall be allowed to operate as per State-specific order/any specific order/Directions of the Hon'ble Supreme Court/Hon'ble High Court of Judicature at Madras/Central Empowered Committee or beyond ten kilometers of aerial distance from the boundary of nearest notified forests or protected areas excluding roadside/railway side/canal side plantations, whichever is less.
• August 2021: Turkey issued an export ban on sawn wood to prevent illegal export activities and prevent the passage of goods that are not suitable for export.

• August 2022: Carnegie Mellon University has launched a new research project in Qatar (CMU-Q), a Qatar Foundation (QF) partner university, to optimize the operations of greenhouses in Qatar. This project is funded by the Qatar National Research Fund through the National Priorities Research Program (QNRF) and will use machine learning (ML) to coordinate a fleet of mobile robots to collect visual data from Qatar greenhouse plants autonomously and use AI and machine learning to create predictive models of the crop's development status, quality, health, and expected yield.
• June 2021: The Finnish ag tech company iFarm has formed a partnership with Sadarah Partners to manage a commercial-scale indoor farm with the latest vertical farming technology for growing leafy greens, strawberries, and edible flowers that will help ensure a year-round supply of fresh produce in the country.

• October 2022: The European Union and its partners have collectively planned to raise 450 million euros (USD442 million) to support Ivory Coast's push to tackle child labor and deforestation linked to cocoa production.
• February 2022: The government of India in its Union Budget 2022-2023 proposed to decrease the custom duty on cocoa beans which has been reduced to 15 percent from 30 percent.
• June 2021: Ivory Coast is working on a biomass plant that runs on cocoa waste with support from the US Trade and Development Agency located in Divo, a town that produces a large share of the country's cocoa. In the biomass plant, cocoa plant matter left over after cocoa production will be burned to turn a turbine and generate electricity, much like a conventional fossil-fuel power plant.

• September 2022: Lotte Confectionery, a leading South Korean snack and ice cream maker, signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Aspire Food Group, a Canadian firm renowned for its advanced insect agriculture and food technology, to cooperate in areas of protein alternatives and edible insects.
• September 2022: InnovaFeed, a French company, has expanded the edible insect arena with an investment raised of USD 250 million backed by ADM and Cargill by the escalation of the production facility of black farm soldier flies in Decatur, Illinois.
• April 2022: The ValuSect consortium of European insect producers has extended EUR 460,000 (USD 496,600) worth of services to 18 edible insect enterprises. The selected companies will get help from expert partners to develop their innovative idea, which will improve insect production and consumer acceptance in North-West Europe.

• August 2022: Scientists at South China Agriculture University School of Horticulture made the world's first longan/lychee hybrid, Cineworld's SZ52, and it's expected to have characteristics suited for commercialization and wide scale adoption.
• June 2022: The Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA), along with Bihar Fruit & Vegetable Development Corporation (BFVDC), set up a virtual meeting with international importers and exporters and plant suppliers to promote Bihar's 'Langara aam' and 'Shahi litchi" in overseas markets like Mauritius, New Zealand, Bahrain, Qatar, the UK, and the UAE.

July 2022: Mitsui & Co. agreed with Rol-Ryz, a leading European pulse and rice distributor and a subsidiary of Euricom, to purchase a 28.6% stake in Rol-Ryz.

March 2022: The United Kingdom government has agreed to lift the 25% retaliatory tariff on the United States milled and broken rice imports from June 1.

2021: European rice imports from Vietnam increased by 20% in value, despite a marginal 1% increase in volume on account of the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA), which came into effect in August 2020.