Food & Farming

A US judge halts the USDA's plan to move staff out of Washington and shut its biggest research campus, until at least 11 December →

A federal judge says the USDA almost certainly broke the US Congress's spending limits by paying for office closures and staff moves, and has frozen them while unions' lawsuit goes on. The limits run out on 11 December, so the US Congress now decides.

US farmers buy 16% fewer tractors in September than a year earlier, and 11% fewer combines →

US dealers sold 15,024 tractors in September against 17,979 a year before, every size fell, and Illinois grain farms now hold about 40% less spare cash than in 2022.

US wholesale prices for vegetables jump 41% in a month as diesel more than doubles in a year →

US wholesale prices rose 6.3% in a year, the most since 2022, with vegetables up 41% in a month and diesel more than doubled. Elsewhere, China sells cheap chicken abroad, England's barley crop shrank 11%, and US officials still have not named the brand behind an E. coli outbreak.

Thirty days of extra US beef imports cut what ranchers get for cows by 12-14%, while ground beef in shops falls 2% →

The US let in extra foreign beef without import tax to lower shop prices. A month later shoppers save about 13 cents a pound, ranchers get far less for their cows, and most of the beef has not arrived.

Rain leaves Iowa's corn harvest at 14% against a usual 34%, and sprouting ears and stained soybeans turn up across the US Midwest →

A very wet September has left much of the US corn and soybean crop standing ripe in the fields, and farmers report sprouted ears, mould risk and oddly coloured beans. Elsewhere today: the EPA moves to protect biofuel demand, foot-and-mouth disease reaches a second region of Namibia, and a British farmer tells MPs he now avoids growing food.

Fire destroys the Marche des Enfants Rouges, Paris's oldest covered food market, and all 17 of its stalls →

A fire before dawn on Monday gutted the 411-year-old food market in the Marais and left its traders with nothing, while a famine monitor warned that drought and war are pushing Sudan's Darfur and Kordofan toward famine.

The UK recalls eggs from a Ukrainian company over Salmonella, found while officials hunt the source of three outbreaks that have made more than 650 people ill →

A new strain of the food-poisoning germ turned up in eggs from Kyiv. The biggest outbreak, thought to be linked to imported eggs, has run since August 2025 and is still growing.

Alaska's pollock trawlers catch about 300,000 salmon a year while Yukon villages may not fish for Chinook, and trawling becomes an election fight →

Boats catching the fish for fish sticks also net hundreds of thousands of salmon a year, as western Alaska's salmon runs collapse and river villages give up fishing. Scientists blame warmer water most, but the trawl nets are what voters can change.

USDA forecasts the biggest US soybean crop on record and the second-biggest corn crop, and corn futures fall nearly 6% →

Corn yields beat analysts' guesses and more corn will go unsold, while China's buying holds soybeans up. Ukraine's grain is stuck in silos, a road cut has doubled vegetable prices in Taiz, and a UK crop fungus now survives a main spray.

The US pays crop farmers a record $13.8 billion for 2025, because 16 crops sold below the price floors a July law raised →

Corn, soybeans, wheat, rice and 12 other crops fell under the floor price set in US law, so the US government pays the gap. Also today: PepsiCo raises chip prices, and trust in US food safety hits a record low.

US regulators open an inquiry into how farm machinery is sold and repaired, a day after the USDA widens a probe into seed prices →

The US competition regulator and the farm department asked farmers, mechanics and dealer staff to describe how tractors are sold and fixed, and machinery shares fell. On the same days, heat cut France's wine and Britain's grain, Japan raided its brewers, and fertiliser and diesel stayed dear.

The EU wants limits on Ukraine's farm sales and farm subsidies to stay after Ukraine joins. Ukraine's farm minister says it cannot agree →

The European Commission set out its plan for a bigger EU on Tuesday. It would limit the farm money and the EU market that Ukraine's most sensitive farm products could get, even after Ukraine becomes a member. Ukraine says it can accept limits for a time, but not with no end date.

Russian drones sink a Turkish-owned ship carrying Ukrainian corn in Romania's part of the Black Sea, and two crew die →

The Royad Mammadov caught fire and sank 30 nautical miles off Romania on Monday. Ukraine blames two Russian drones, Romania has not named a cause, and 11 crew were rescued. Elsewhere, Trump lets trucks run on untaxed farm diesel, and bird flu returns to Britain.

Britain has no national food store, and 150 experts tell Andy Burnham to treat food as national security →

More than 150 experts say Britain has no plan to feed people in a crisis, while 15 US states sue Corteva over its seed spin-off, France's corn harvest halves and nobody in England checks how farmed fish are killed.

Brazil votes on Sunday in a near-tie between Lula and Flavio Bolsonaro. The winner sets the rules on clearing the Amazon for cattle and soy →

Brazil picks a president on 4 October, with Lula and Flavio Bolsonaro both near 40%. Amazon clearing fell 45% under Lula; his rival promises fewer rules for farmers. Also today: China's 55% tax on Brazilian beef begins, wet cane holds back Brazil's sugar, US farm costs outrun farm prices, and England lets farmers refill reservoirs in a drought.

Britain's worst bluetongue season on record: 2,201 farm cases since July, and all of Scotland becomes one restricted zone today →

Bluetongue, a midge-borne virus of sheep and cattle, has hit more British farms in three months than in the last three seasons together, and many animals were never vaccinated. World food prices reached their highest since November 2022, and Britain's diesel passed 2 pounds a litre.

Greggs plans to shut four UK factories and cut up to 740 jobs, while its sales grow 7.7% →

Greggs, Britain's biggest fast-food chain, says closing factories near Penrith and in Kelso, Seaham and Enfield will cost about £60m and save about £20m a year. It raised its profit outlook the same day and warned that costs could rise faster in 2027.

Lindt cuts its 2026 sales forecast to almost no growth and plans to lower its chocolate prices. Shoppers in parts of Europe bought less after its price rises →

Lindt, the Swiss maker of Lindor truffles, now expects its sales to grow 0-2% this year, down from 4-6%. Its boss blamed price rises forced by years of expensive cocoa, gloomy shoppers and Europe's summer heatwave. Its shares fell 8.7% on Tuesday.

The US stopped letting in Canadian spirits, wine and whey on Tuesday. Small Canadian distillers say the provinces' own shops are hard to get into →

A US ban on about $967m a year of Canadian goods, most of it alcoholic drink, took effect on Tuesday. Big whisky brands may move their bottling to the US. Small distillers cannot, and selling across Canada means getting past each province's own liquor shops.

India's Supreme Court tells the food regulator to stop delaying red warning labels. Food companies say shoppers already read red as 'not vegetarian' →

India's Supreme Court asked why the food regulator needs four months plus a year to put red warnings on packs high in salt, sugar or fat. The food industry's lobby group wants another colour and looser limits.

The US and China agree a $30 billion tariff cut. US farmers wait to hear if China's 10% tax on their crops is in it →

The US and China agreed a $30 billion tariff cut and to keep farm goods out of future fights, but it is not yet known whether China's 10% tax on US soybeans is part of it.

Rain slows Iowa's harvest, and soybean mills pay up to $1 a bushel over the futures price to keep running →

A wet September left Iowa's soybeans in the fields while last year's beans ran out, so mills built to press a record crop are paying farmers extra for beans delivered this week.

America reopens its biggest cattle crossing from Mexico, closed since last year over a flesh-eating fly. Beef will not get cheaper soon. →

The Santa Teresa livestock port in New Mexico, which handled 43% of Mexican cattle imports, reopened on Thursday at half or less of its old flow. The US herd is the smallest in 75 years, and the calves crossing now will not be beef for five to eight months. The same week, immigration operations kept workers away from Kansas meat plants, Europe extended fuel subsidies for farmers and fishermen, and the UN refugee agency said 400 people a day are crossing from Sudan into Chad.

Britain's hottest summer cost its dairy farms 240 million litres of milk. New Zealand's Fonterra says El Nino could cut its milk next. →

UK dairy farms delivered 240 million fewer litres of milk than expected this summer, worth more than 83 million pounds, and many have started giving cows their winter feed. Fonterra, the world's biggest dairy exporter, named El Nino as a risk to its milk. Ghana's cocoa board is raising 16.3 billion cedis at home to buy a crop whose season has not opened, and US farmers harvest under record diesel prices.

Wheat buyers who waited for a Black Sea deal now pay about a quarter more →

Attacks on ships have kept most Russian and Ukrainian grain in port since July. Importers in Asia and Egypt held off buying, hoping for a deal, and are now running short as wheat hits a three-and-a-half-year high.

Russia takes control of Nestle's six factories and Auchan's 229 shops, without buying them →

A decree from Russia's president handed the Russian businesses of Nestle and Auchan to a state-picked manager. The owners keep them on paper and lose the right to run them.

Trump says the US will buy potash from Belarus. The fertilisers American farms cannot get are nitrogen and phosphate. →

Potash is the one fertiliser American farms are not short of. The two they are short of, nitrogen and phosphate, are held up by the war on Iran.

China has bought more than half the soybeans it promised. The rest of America's farm sales wait on one last 10% tax. →

China's state traders have booked about 13 million tonnes of American soybeans this season, against a pledge of 25 million a year. The bigger prize, $17 billion of corn, sorghum and other farm goods, needs a 10% tax dropped, and the two presidents meet on 24 September.

US diesel hits a record $6.44 a gallon, in the weeks farmers must bring in the corn →

The American diesel price set a record on 18 September, 68% above a year ago, at the point in the year when the corn and soybean harvest has to be cut and moved. The railways that carry the grain have more than doubled their fuel charge.

India's rice harvest faces its biggest fall since 2009 as a record El Nino dries the monsoon →

India's rice exporters expect about 10 million tonnes less rice this year after the monsoon brought 15% less rain than normal, while the government sits on a record 59.6 million tonnes in store.

The world will use about 30 million tonnes more corn than it grows this season, the widest gap in over 30 years →

America is harvesting its second-largest corn crop ever, and the world is still short. Grain harvests fell in the big exporting countries, Brazil is planting soybeans at the slowest pace in 20 years, and corn prices rose a record 16% in August.

African swine fever has cost Asia's pig farms up to $192bn. Now it is killing wild pigs that live on one island each. →

A virus that arrived with farm pigs in 2018 has spread into Asia's forests, and scientists say some island species could be gone within a single human generation.

Ivory Coast's new cocoa tracking system is stalling, and Ghana just raised the price across the border →

Every cocoa purchase in Ivory Coast has had to go through an electronic card since 1 September, because Europe will soon refuse beans it cannot trace to a plot of land. Traders say the card readers never reached the villages.

England takes deep-fried food and Coco Pops off the school menu →

From 2027 schools in England must cut desserts, processed meat and fried food, and breakfast clubs get nutrition standards for the first time.

South-west Scotland is now a bluetongue zone for at least two years. Its farm minister says the virus is not going away. →

Bluetongue, a sheep and cattle virus spread by midges, has reached 20 Scottish farms, and animals leaving Dumfries and Galloway now need a licence until the region is free of it for two years.

The mackerel in British tins is now a Chilean fish from a different family. The rule was changed so the tin can still say mackerel. →

Atlantic mackerel stocks fell by three-quarters after seven governments could not agree how to share them, so Princes and Lidl put cheaper Chilean jack mackerel in the tin, and the UK changed its labelling rule to allow the name.