agricultural trade

U.S. pistachio production is expected to fall by half in the 2015/2016 crop year, causing the global crop to contract by 86,000 tonnes to 529,000 tonnes, the USDA Foreign Agricultural Service reported. The U.S. pistachio crop is in an off-year cycle of its alternate-bearing harvest, where trees produce a greater than average crop one year, and a lower than average crop the next.

France's junior minister for trade, Matthias Fekl, said it will be "impossible" for the EU and the United States to complete a free-trade agreement this year, reports the EurActiv news site. Fekl threw cold water on the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) on the same day the EU announced a slow-down in the approval process for a sweeping EU-Canada trade pact.

If businessman Donald Trump wins the presidency, Republicans would feel obliged to oppose the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement, said House Agriculture Committee chairman Michael Conaway. In a Roll Call video, Conaway, who volunteered in May to advise Trump, the presumptive GOP nominee, on agricultural policy, says TPP already faces an uphill struggle for passage, so with Trump's opposition "it would be difficult to get that done."

The decision by UK voters to leave the European Union will complicate the contentious negotiations for a U.S.-EU free trade agreement. And it could redound on regulation of pesticides such as glyphosate and neonicotinoids.

As Britain votes today on whether to leave the EU or remain a member, "it is no coincidence that food and drink is at the heart of so much of the debate," says the Guardian. On one hand, food and drink is the largest manufacturing sector in the nation and on the other, the EU's Common Agriculture Policy (CAP) "swallows up nearly 40 percent of the total EU budget."

Some 16 percent of U.S. red meat and poultry will be exported this year, a 900-million-pound increase from 2015, according to USDA estimates, which call for a modest increase in the new year. Sales were constrained last year by the strong dollar and trade barriers due to the bird flu epidemic.

Agriculture Minister Gustavo Rodriguez Rollero told a U.S. audience that Cuba wants to expand farm output dramatically, in part to feed the increasing stream of tourists to the island. The country now imports $2 billion in food annually "but we want to produce at least 50 percent," Rodriguez said at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce during a visit to Washington and Iowa, reported Agencia EFE.

Agriculture Minister Tsao Chi-hung back-pedaled on earlier statements that Taiwan would have no choice but to allow imports of U.S. pork raised with use of growth stimulant ractopamine, said The China Post. The newspaper said U.S. officials have indicated that removal of the ban is a pre-condition for Taiwan to join the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement.

The El Niño weather pattern, now on the wane, is the prime reason for crop-killing drought in Vietnam, "but it is not the only one," says the New York Times. Scientists say a contributing factor is the government's "rice first" policy, which leads to planting of three rice crops a year instead of the traditional one or two. The intensive growing depletes soil nutrients and magnifies the impact of drought.

The winner in 2013 of a challenge against China over chicken products, the United States is going back to the WTO to force China to remove antidumping and countervailing duties.

While most U.S. farm groups favor the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership, "agriculture is not unanimously supporting this," says Roger Johnson, president of the National Farmers Union.

Farmers in Canada intend to plant a record amount of land to lentils and dry peas, a combined 9.4 million acres this year, "betting that strong demand from drought-stricken India will soften the blow of low prices for wheat, corn and other field crops," said the Toronto Globe and Mail.

Although the turkey was first domesticated by indigenous people in Mesoamerica thousands of years ago, when Mexico now wants turkey meat, it looks north. More than 90 percent of the turkey eaten by Mexicans comes from the United States.

Cuba bought $17.8 million of U.S. food and agricultural products during February, compared to $22.8 million during January, said the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council, which tracks trade between the nations.

For nearly two decades, the United States has imported more agricultural products from Europe than it exports to the continent.

The United States and Cuba, adversaries since the 1960s, agreed to cooperate in improving food production and conserving natural resources as part of President Obama's visit to Havana.