International

[ad_1] Editor’s Note: Jeff Caldwell is content marketing manager at Lessing-Flynn, a marketing and advertising agency based in Des Moines, US. Previously, he was editor of Successful Farming and the High Plains Journal. The views expressed in this article are personal. “Normal” life as we know it has been severely disrupted as the novel coronavirus […]

[ad_1] Agribusiness giants Cargill and Agrocorp have completed a groundbreaking grain deal that provides a taster of how cross-border food commodity trading could become much faster and more frictionless in the future. Tapping into Hyperledger Fabric – an open-source blockchain technology – US-based Cargill was able to complete the sale of a consignment of wheat […]

[ad_1] Gaston Marquevich is thankful his fresh produce operation Generation Farms in Florida and Georgia has always sold into grocery stores. While he’s faced plenty of other complications relating to the Covid-19 pandemic, finding a client in demand has not been one of them. “Lots of growers that have focused on foodservice are having a […]

[ad_1] One of last year’s biggest tech investors in agrifood globally has warned of an eye-watering ¥2.6 trillion ($24.2 billion) annual loss on its startup bets. SoftBank said in a note to shareholders that it made an estimated loss of ¥1.8 trillion ($16.8 billion) last year on its Vision Fund – the $100 billion-plus investment […]

[ad_1] A tangible hint of food insecurity wafted through Kuwait several weeks back, when a cheap and common food item—onions—disappeared from grocery stores in the small Gulf country. With global supply chains disrupted by the coronavirus crisis, the Kuwaiti government sent trucks to buy and haul back 120,000 kilos of onions from nearby Yemen, a […]

[ad_1] The government of the Philippines is boosting a state-led agribusiness marketplace initiative with technology and private sector partnerships to help farmers and consumers during the Covid-19 crisis. The country’s Department of Agriculture (DA) originally launched the project alongside the Department of Interior & Local Government and state-owned enterprise Food Terminal Inc in September last […]

[ad_1] Editor’s Note: Joseph Byrum, a geneticist, is chief data scientist at Principal Financial Group and a regular contributor to AFN. Read more of his contributions here. The next harvest is becoming a matter of economic survival for some growers in uncertain times. With trade wars, pandemics and market plunges, farmers now more than ever need […]

[ad_1] Editor’s Note: Henry Gordon-Smith is founder of urban farming consultancy Agritecture and is today launching a new urban farm planning software tool called Agritecture Designer.  Every so often, something happens that changes everything. Maybe it was your wedding day, the birth of a child, a hurricane, or 9/11. COVID-19 is one of those moments, […]

[ad_1] Now more than ever farmers are probably looking for ways to bring more income as an uncertain financial future lies ahead. Markets are taking unpredictable cartwheels, consumers are abandoning traditional buying patterns and the supply chain is on a topsy turvy tailspin. Yet, the same problems that so many agrifood tech startups were working […]

[ad_1] New Zealand’s largest e-commerce company is re-listing online livestock and feed sales as the country enters the third week of a Covid-19 lockdown which has severely restricted farmers’ ability to buy, sell, and feed their animals. When New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern announced the country would go into a strict ‘alert level four‘ […]

[ad_1] Editor’s note: Jeanae DuBois is director of growth marketing at Shift3 Technologies, a mobile and web app developer based in Fresno, US.  Traditional farming technology is developed with large companies and large farms in mind because that’s where the biggest profit margin is to be found. This means smaller farming operations often find that […]

[ad_1] The Singapore Food Agency (SFA) is launching a S$30 million ($21 million) grant to boost the country’s agrifood industry, as the Covid-19 pandemic lays bare the fragilities in Southeast Asia’s food supply chain. The fund is dubbed ’30×30 Express’ in reference to Singapore’s goal of domestically sourcing at least 30% of its food by […]

[ad_1] Many of the world’s leading industries are grinding to a halt as governments across the globe attempt to thwart the further spread of Covid-19. Industries that involve bringing large numbers of people together physically are bearing the brunt, including sporting events, restaurants, education, and tourism. But there are a few that have been deemed […]

[ad_1] An agtech deal which would’ve seen one of New Zealand’s largest agribusinesses go global has been killed off due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Livestock Improvement Corporation (LIC) shareholders have voted against the proposed acquisition of a majority stake in Afimilk, an Israeli provider of tech to the dairy industry. The New Zealand company – […]

[ad_1] Humans are not alone in experiencing complications related to pregnancy and birth. Any livestock farmer who has spent some time in the trenches can regale you with a tale or two about moonlight bovine midwifery or the art of repositioning a backward lamb in the unaccommodating birth canal of a labor-weary ewe. “The swine […]