Page 317 of articles about markets-economics

International prices of key food staples have dropped during the first five months of 2010 according to the latest edition of FAO's biannual Food Outlook report. Despite recent drops in international food prices, the cost of the average food basket is 69 percent higher than six years ago.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced that Emergency Conservation Program funds are being made available to farmers and ranchers in 14 states to repair farmland damaged by natural disasters in 2010.

Rural Development Trust (RDT) an NGO founded by late Father Vicenç Ferrer, has come out with the piggery scheme to help supplement their meagre daily income.

The exports of pig meat from Denmark to Japan increased by 20 % during the first quarter of this year.

Fearing impacts from the blue ear disease, Vietnam is now in favour of imported pork.

The European Commission authorised a Finnish scheme with a budget of €22 million which aims at supporting farmers in Finland who encounter difficulties as a result of the current economic crisis. Aid under this scheme can be granted until 31 December 2010 and will take the form of a direct grant. This scheme is a further application of the Commission's Temporary framework for State aid measures to support access to finance in the current financial and economic crisis, as amended end of October 2009 in order to allow Member States to grant limited amounts of aid to primary agricultural producers.

The Ministry of Commerce, together with the Ministry of Finance, National Development and Reform Commission and Agricultural Development Bank recently launched a new round of pork reserves, aimed at stabilizing domestic pork prices and securing the interests of pig farmers.

The latest figures on the Spanish swine census, from November 2009, show a progressive decrease in the swine population over the last year, reaching a drop of nearly 2.6%. The sharpest decrease came in the second quarter of the year, with a fall of 1.8%.

Market receipts (revenues from the sale of crops and livestock) declined by $883 million to $40.9 billion in 2009.