China

U.S. district judge Stephanie Rose sentenced Mo Hailong, a Chinese national also known as Robert Mo, to three years in prison for conspiracy to steal trade secrets, the Justice Department announced. Mo took part in the theft of hybrid seed corn, developed by Monsanto and Pioneer, for shipment to a Chinese conglomerate that owns a corn seed subsidiary.

The United States will continue its run as the world's largest cotton exporter during 2016/17 with shipments up by 26 percent from the previous marketing year, said the International Cotton Advisory Committee. Higher yields and a 20 percent expansion in U.S. plantings will assure an abundant supply for shipment overseas.

The global stockpile of grain will swell by 5 percent during 2016/17 because farmers are growing grain faster than the world can consume it, says the International Grains Council. "Grains inventories in the major exporters are predicted to grow to a seven-year high, while those in China could reach 200 million tons for the first time in 17 years," says the monthly IGC Grain Market Report.

Ruling that its domestic producers have been "substantially" harmed, China's Commerce Ministry announced anti-subsidy duties of 10-10.7 percent on imports of distillers dried grains, an ethanol co-product used as livestock feed, from the United States beginning on Friday, said Xinhua.

A U.S. district judge has decided a proposed class-action lawsuit against Syngenta will include half a million U.S. corn growers, but excluding those who planted two GMO strains from the Swiss seed company, says AgWeb. The lawsuit stems from China's rejection in 2013 of cargoes containing Syngenta's Viptera strain and the subsequent decline of corn prices.

In a preliminary ruling, China's Ministry of Commerce said it will put a duty of 33.8 percent on shipments of distillers dried grains from the United States, a step that could affect ethanol makers and rebound against U.S. soybean meal usage, said Agrimoney. Some in the commodity trade speculated China was playing tit-for-tat with a U.S. complaint to world trade authorities over Chinese farm subsidies.

Nearly 13 years ago, China shut its borders to U.S. beef in reaction to the first U.S. case of mad cow disease. Now, the government says it will end the ban, leaving U.S. officials and cattle producers asking for a timeline, says the Wall Street Journal.

Countries must start figuring out how much food they waste if they’re going to meet the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goal of halving global food waste and lowering food loss by 2030, says a report out by Champions 12.3, a coalition of government, business, and research organizations.

Seed company Syngenta wants the U.S. appeals court in Denver to intervene in a class-action lawsuit, prompted by China's rejection of cargoes that included a GMO variety not approved for import.

The world's largest pork producer and consumer, China, has soared into the lead as the world's largest pork importer, accounting for one-fourth of the world market. China will import 2.4 million tons of pork this year, a million tons more than Japan, the previous leader, says a semiannual USDA report.

Food regulators in China issued strict new rules, known as Order 27, "governing how food producers and operators — including related third-party computer platform and delivery service providers — store, market and transport their products sold online," said Food Safety News.

With a worldwide glut holding down cotton prices, the National Cotton Council, a U.S. trade group, called for an examination of domestic supports offered to growers in China, India and other developing countries as well as of the impact of synthetic fibers. Gary Adams, the Cotton Council's chief executive, said India, China and Pakistan are years behind in reporting the scope and type of subsidies offered to their growers.

China is the largest buyer of U.S. farm exports and also the target of 14 of 23 world trade complaints filed by the Obama administration. In a new case, the United States accuses China of paying unfairly large subsides to corn, wheat and rice growers, distorting the world market and hurting U.S. farmers.

Chinese officials in Shangdong Province have ratified the country’s first government-backed recommendations for how to slaughter chickens, says the New York Times. The guidelines, which were are not mandatory, are both an attempt to quell activists’ concerns and corner the export poultry market, which increasingly calls for more humane animal production.

The Justice Department filed an antitrust lawsuit in federal court in Chicago to block Deere and Co., the world's largest farm equipment maker, from buying Precision Planting, its chief competitor in selling high-speed seed planters to farmers. The government says the two companies account for at least 86 percent of sales of the planters, which are expected to become the industry standard.

China will remain the leading importer of soybeans and cotton, but Mexico will be the world's largest corn importer for the rest of this decade, said the Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute. The United States would be the top corn exporter despite increased competition from Brazil, said the University of Missouri think tank in updating its international marketing baseline.