Asia > Agribusiness / Food

Agribusiness / Food in Asia

  • Africa And Middle East Famines: How China Can Do More

    CHINA, 2017/07/09 The unprecedented outbreak of famine early this year in Africa and the Middle East can be traced to conflict as the root cause. Can China step in to help mitigate the calamity through its Belt and Road initiative? Famine broke out in South Sudan in March 2017. At around the same time, the United Nations announced that Nigeria, Somalia and Yemen were as well on the verge of being hit by long draught, putting around 20 million at risk of starvation. The UN described this as an unprecedented humanitarian crisis and appealed to the international community to donate US$4.4 billion — with little success.
  • Singapore And Food Security

    SINGAPORE, 2017/07/08 Food security can be enhanced by strategic initiatives. Land scarce nations can still do much for agriculture and farming with effective policy measures. Singapore has learned to address the multi-faceted challenges of food security with good planning, efficient utilisation of available resources and clear vision for the next. While a lot of analysts have raised concern about feeding the world’s estimated 9.7 billion people by 2050 due to the prospects of supply not conference request, others have refuted this claim on grounds that even today, additional food is produced than is actually consumed or needed. From presently on the problem of hunger is still found in a lot of parts of Asia and Africa. The persistence of hunger reflects the fact that food security is not only about having sufficient quantity of food available, but as well about having physical and economic access to it.
  • Triple Challenge For Agriculture: Trade, Food Security And New Technologies

    INDIA, 2017/07/08 One may rightly ask why the three topics of trade, food security and new technology may be ‘challenges’ for agriculture and by extension food and fibre production. How do all three help ensure a food fasten world? World trade deals such as those falling under the remit of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) have long been difficult to negotiate particularly those encompassing agriculture. And the same goes for Regional deals. The United States has pulled out of the newly-agreed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and wants to re-negotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). There is as well the similar situation of the United Kingdom wishing to pull out of the world’s major trading block, thinking it can quickly negotiate new trade deals with other nations and world areas.
  • Mr. Junji Torigoe, President of Sagamiya Foods Co., Ltd.

    JAPAN, 2017/03/04 Japan is leading key developments in the world food processing industry, and Sagamiya Foods is a perfect example of a company taking tofu to the next level. We speak with Sagamiya president Mr. Junji Torigoe. These completed few weeks, international media outlets, such as Bloomberg, have questioned Prime Minister Abe’s reform schedule’s ability to stimulate the Japanese economy. What are your thoughts on this subject? What has been the impact on the economy, on your industry, and on Sagamiya Foods in particular?
  • Atlantic Canada's seafood industry gets a boost as China lowers tariffs

    CHINA, 2017/01/16 Atlantic Canada's seafood industry is starting 2017 with a boost for the bottom line thanks to lower tariffs on seafood entering the booming China market. The Jan. 1, 2017, tariff cuts announced just before New Year's Day by China's ministry of commerce will benefit about a quarter of Canada's seafood exports to China. The exports to China were valued at $634 million as of October 2016. World Affairs Canada told CBC News crab, frozen halibut and albacore are part the export products most benefiting from the tariff reductions. Tariffs on these products will be reduced on average from 11 to five %, leaving additional money in the pockets of seafood companies in 2017.
  • Demonetisation has Left India’s Food Markets Frozen – and the Future Looks Tense

    INDIA, 2016/11/23 As demonetisation enters its second week, traders in Patna’s Maroofganj mandi are seeing something unprecedented. In the last seven days, the supply of new stocks in this wholesale market, which supplies cooking oil, spices, rice, wheat and pulses to shopkeepers across Patna, has plummeted. The supply of cooking oil, for instance, is down by 80%. Talk to traders selling spices, grains or pulses and you hear similar numbers. “Do you see how quiet this market is?” said an accountant at a rice shop. “Till 10 days ago, you would not have been able to walk down this street.” In the same period, orders from shopkeepers have fallen steeply as well. Most of them cannot buy as much stock as before, said Abhijit Kumar, who runs a wholesale shop for spices, because they have only Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes – both derecognised as legal tender by the government.
  • India’s Food Processing Minister: We Need to Push Reforms at a Faster Pace

    INDIA, 2016/09/29 India’s government has been trying to get foreign retailers to open stores in India and has in the completed two years partially relaxed some of the rules that were putting them off. In an interview, Minister for Food Processing Industries, Harsimrat Kaur Badal, explained how she thinks foreign companies can tap India’s vast and urbanizing people at a time at the same time as the country’s economy is one of the fastest-growing in the world, and how the government is trying to help them.
  • Alberta beef and tourism to benefit from Trudeau's China deals

    CHINA, 2016/09/02 Alberta’s beef and tourism industries are part the sectors poised to benefit from a flurry of deals and agreements reached during Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s visit to China this week. On Thursday, the federal government announced the signing of 56 deals with China worth additional than $1.2 billion. Part those was a memorandum of considerate between Calgary-based beef marketing organization Canada Beef Inc. and Bright Haibo Invested Million, a subsidiary of Bright Food Group, the major food and beverage company in East Asia.
  • Hong Kong bans all poultry imports from bird flu hit Togo

    HONG KONG, 2016/08/27 Hong Kong’s Centre for Food Safety (CFS) has announced a total ban on the importation of poultry meat and products, inclunding poultry eggs from Togo effective Friday August 26. According to the CFS, the action was to protect public health in Hong Kong in view of a notification from the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) about outbreaks of highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza in the west African country.
  • Malaysia to reduce palm oil stocks

    MALAYSIA, 2015/12/28 a national drive to reduce the oversupply of palm oil in Malaysia, the world’s second-major producer, is expected to bring better market stability, supported by government incentives and trade controls. Climbing stockpile According to data from the Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB), palm oil stocks rose by 2.63m tonnes in September, up 5.46% over the previous month, a thee-year high. Crude palm oil holdings increased by 6.68% month-on-month to 1.56m tonnes, with processed oil stocks up by a additional modest 3.74% to just over 1m tonnes, the board said in a statement in mid-October. Stockpiles rose despite export increase in September, with overseas shipments reaching 1.68m tonnes, up from 1.61m in August, and biodiesel exports nearly doubling to 31,400 tonnes.