agricultural trade

Some 16 percent of U.S. beef, pork, broiler chicken and turkey meat will be exported this year, an upturn from 2015, forecasts USDA, with poultry showing the largest gains.

The rice harvest for the world's largest rice exporter, Thailand, is shriveling due to water shortages. USDA forecasts a crop of 10 million tonnes for 2015/16, down 15 percent from last season.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, on a trade mission to Peru and Chile this week, will travel to Havana next Monday and Tuesday as part of President Obama's trip to the island, the first U.S. president to visit in nearly 90 years.

In response to the worst drought in a century, South Africa will relax some of its rules on importing GMO corn so it can ramp up supplies of the grain, says Reuters.

Fourteen months after President Obama began to normalize relations with Cuba, the USDA is asking for money to open an office in Cuba. "The goal is to alert Congress there is an expanded trade opportunity available with Cuba," Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack told reporters.

U.S. farm exports, in a slump since setting a record in 2014, are projected to bottom out this year and grow steadily for the rest of the decade, says USDA in long-term projections released ahead of the Ag Outlook Forum next week.

"The United States has always been a major player in global peanut butter trade and continues to be the world's largest exporter," says USDA.

It's no fluke - for the second year in a row, Mexico topped Japan as the largest customer for U.S. pork exports in terms of volume, buying 31 percent of all U.S. pork shipped to foreign buyers.

Chinese businessman Mo Hailong pleaded guilty in Des Moines to conspiracy to steal trade secrets - inbred corn seeds from two of the largest U.S. seed companies - in return for prosecutors' recommendation of a shorter prison sentence, said the Justice Department. "Mo Hailong participated in the theft of inbred corn seeds from fields in the Southern District of Iowa for the purpose of transporting the seeds to China. The stolen inbred, or parent, seeds were the valuable intellectual property of DuPont Pioneer and Monsanto."

The United States can show its leadership in the world and reap benefits for itself through cooperative action, President Obama said in his final State of the Union speech. During the hour-long address, he asked Congress to approve the Trans-Pacific free-trade agreement and to end the half-century trade embargo on Cuba.

South Africa has agreed to remove barriers to U.S. poultry, beef and pork, said U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman. The United States threatened at the end of 2015 to revoke duty-free status for agricultural products from South Africa because it blocked U.S. meat. "The true test of our success will be based on the ability of South African consumers to buy American product in local stores," said Froman.

The Organic Trade Association, the main trade group for the organic food industry, said it was filing paperwork early next year for a “transitional” organic designation at the USDA that would benefit farmers going through the three-year transition to organic farming. The aim of the program would be to provide economic incentives for farmers to go organic at a time when demand is growing strongly but supplies still fall short.

Mexico and Canada objected to U.S. meat-origin labels since they became mandatory under the 2008 farm law, eventually winning a final WTO decision over the United States on May 18. The omnibus funding bill awaiting a vote in Congress would end the labeling system for beef, pork, ground beef and ground pork in order to avoid up to $1.01 billion in retaliatory tariffs.

The United States should work outside of the "failed construct" of the Doha Round negotiations if it wants to see freer trade in agriculture, said House Agriculture chairman Michael Conaway.