Food, in brief

India's rice harvest could fall by about 10 million tonnes this year, says B.V. Krishna Rao, president of India's Rice Exporters Association. [1]

That would be nearly 6.5% below last year's record of 154 million tonnes. [1] It would be the biggest drop since 2009/10, when an El Nino drought also cut the crop. [1]

The cause is missing rain. India's monsoon, the rainy season that began on 1 June, has brought 15% less rain than normal, and up to 42% less in some rice states. [1]

In Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, two of India's biggest rice-growing states, August rain was down 46% and 63%. [2] Rob Weston of CropGPT, a farm data company, says that could cut their crops by over 20%. [2]

Rice sown in the summer covered 42.68 million hectares by 11 September, nearly 4% less than a year earlier. [1] The summer crop makes up more than 80% of India's rice. [1]

The dry weather comes from El Nino, a warming of the Pacific Ocean that shifts where rain falls around the world. [2] US forecasters give a 75% chance that this one becomes the strongest since at least 1950. [3]

India sells more rice abroad than Thailand, Vietnam and Pakistan put together. [2] Rice is the main food for about half the people on Earth. [2]

Rice prices inside India have started to rise. [1] India's export prices are now at their highest in more than a year. [1]

India's government holds a record 59.6 million tonnes of rice in store, against a target of 10.3 million. [1] A dealer at a global trading house says that lets India keep exporting without limits. [1]

Sugar is under the same dry, hot weather. [2] Beet crops are down 22% in Germany and 15% in France, and cane is down 7% in India and 7.5% in Thailand, CropGPT says. [2]

Raw sugar prices had their strongest month since October 2010 in August. [2] India had already stopped almost all sugar exports in May because of drought. [2]

Not every rice grower loses. [2] El Nino usually brings wetter weather to the southern US, where Arkansas grows about 40% of the country's rice. [2]

Why it matters. The next test is whether India keeps rice exports open while prices rise at home; a record stock says it can, and the winter-sown crop depends on reservoirs that are already low. [1]

The United Nations named Luke Lindberg, 37, to run the World Food Programme, the UN agency that feeds people in wars and disasters. [6] He is now the US agriculture department's under secretary for trade. [6] He is also the son-in-law of John Thune, the leader of the US Senate. [6] He replaces Cindy McCain, who stepped down in February after a mild stroke. [6] The agency says up to 266 million people face acute hunger, but it aims to help only 110 million this year because of funding cuts. [6]

Why it matters. The United States has long been the agency's biggest donor, and an American has run it since the early 1990s. [6] Lindberg takes over an agency that already plans to reach fewer than half of the people it says are in acute hunger. [6]

Switzerland's lower house of parliament approved a trade deal with Mercosur, the South American trade group of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay, on 16 September. [8] The same house had voted it down in June. [8] It changed its vote after lawmakers added 517 million Swiss francs, about $631 million, of help for Swiss farmers over six years. [8] The upper house had passed the same package two days earlier, by 35 votes to 7. [7]

Why it matters. Farming is a sensitive subject in Switzerland, and the June no came from both the left and the right. [7] The deal is likely to go to a public vote under Switzerland's system of direct democracy. [8]

ICRISAT, an international crop research institute in Hyderabad, India, has won a licence to use CRISPR-Cas9, the most widely used gene-editing tool. [9] The patents on it are held jointly by Corteva, a US seed company, and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. [9] ICRISAT plans hardier, higher-yielding chickpea, pigeon pea, groundnut and millet, crops of dry regions. [9] Because the licence is not exclusive, it can pass edited seed to small farmers through partners. [9] Edited seed must still pass India's blind field trials before release. [9]

Why it matters. Patents had long blocked the use of the tool in Indian farming, Nature India reports. [9] Drought and heat tolerance are shaped by many genes, so they are much harder to edit than resistance to one disease. [9]

Citrus growers in Florida are planting trees on a gene-edited rootstock, the root part that a fruiting tree is grafted onto. [11] It was edited to resist citrus greening, a bacterial disease spread by a tiny insect that arrived in Florida in 2005 and has no cure. [11] Growers shipped about 300 million boxes of fruit a season in the late 1990s, and a little over 15 million this season. [11] The rootstock, CarriCea T1 from Soilcea, a Tampa company, was approved by the US Environmental Protection Agency earlier this year. [11]

Why it matters. Test trees planted last summer look taller and greener than their neighbours, but fruit takes years to show whether the fix works. [11] Ron English's family closed its citrus business in 2015 after greening killed its groves. [11]

Scientists at the Salk Institute in California have bred soybean plants whose roots grow straight down instead of out to the side. [12] They found 347 genes linked to root growth and carbon storage, then edited plants to root deeper. [12] An $18 million grant from the Bezos Earth Fund, a climate charity, will pay for field trials. [12] From lab results, they estimate a hectare of these soybeans could store about one extra tonne of carbon dioxide a year. [12]

Why it matters. Deeper roots could reach water below dry topsoil in a drought. [12] The team still has to show the plants keep their yields on real farms, and how long the carbon stays underground. [12]

In June the European Union ended its strict limits on growing gene-edited crops. [10] Until then every gene-edited plant was treated like a GMO, a crop that can carry DNA from another species. [10] The new rules split edited crops into two groups, and only the first is treated like a plant bred the ordinary way. [10] Writing in Nature this week, a plant geneticist argues flaws in the rules could limit their use. [10]

Why it matters. A 2023 European Commission study put EU cereal farmers' possible yearly loss from the old limits at up to 2.7 billion euros by the early 2030s. [10] This is one scientist's argument, not a ruling, and the EU is still writing the detailed law. [10]

About 3.3 million Kenyans face acute food shortage after two failed or weak rainy seasons, Nature Africa reports. [13] Kenya has had a climate-smart farming plan since 2016, backed by a $297 million World Bank project. [13] Yet few farmers use drought-tolerant seed and methods. [13] A study of 146 farmers in Makueni and Kajiado counties found poverty was the main barrier, ahead of a lack of training. [13]

Why it matters. One farmer, Mary Ndunge, said the recommended seed is often missing from the shop, and when it is there she lacks the money. [13] The study found the agencies promoting the methods more often blamed a lack of education. [13]

Australia's government announced steps on 17 September to cut yearly immigration by tens of thousands of people. [5] They include a ballot limiting how many backpackers on working holiday visas can stay a second or third year. [5] Farm groups say processing these visas will now take three months instead of a few days. [5] The National Farmers' Federation says one in seven farm jobs is held by a backpacker. [5]

Why it matters. Australia is the world's third-biggest wheat exporter. [5] Farm groups say a shortage of workers could put the next wheat harvest at risk. [5]

ABARES, Australia's farm forecaster, expects a winter crop of 61 million tonnes, the fourth-largest on record and 16% above the ten-year average. [4] Better rain than expected fell in South Australia, Victoria and southern New South Wales. [4] Lentils could reach a record 2.3 million tonnes, while chickpeas could fall 52%. [4] The Bureau of Meteorology now expects a drier spring in the south-east because of El Nino. [4]

Why it matters. Crops running weeks ahead of normal are exposed to late frost, and a dry end to the season would cut into that forecast. [4] High fertiliser costs have already pushed some farmers from wheat to barley, which needs less of it. [4]

In eastern Uganda, farmers who had paid rainmaker David Nabutsilili chased him after his rain flooded their gardens, and he broke his thigh bone. [14] Rainmakers are traditional spiritual leaders who perform rituals to ask for rain. [14] In South Sudan, at least two have been killed in the past two years. [14] In June, men in a dry south-eastern area buried a rainmaker named Albino Lobillia alive, witnesses told AP. [14]

Why it matters. AP reports rainmakers are more and more often blamed as changing weather frustrates farmers. [14] Nabutsilili says he must flee his home when he fails to meet expectations. [14]

The US meat inspection agency announced a Stand-Up Program on 16 September, with up to $50 million to help states start or expand their own meat inspection. [15] Thirty-one states run such programmes, and New Mexico became the 31st this month. [15][16] A state-inspected plant can sell only inside its state unless the state joins a second scheme for shipping across state lines. [15] The move follows an executive order President Trump signed on 4 September. [15]

Why it matters. The agency says start-up costs have kept states out, and more state programmes mean more places for ranchers to process animals close to home. [15] It says food safety standards do not change. [15]

The US agriculture department awarded over $26 million in Value Added Producer Grants on 18 September. [17] The grants help farmers turn what they grow into products they sell themselves, and pay for market research and marketing plans. [17] Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins tied the money to rebuilding the US cattle herd. [17]

Why it matters. The department says selling a finished product lets a farmer cut out the middleman and keep more of the money. [17]

The US agriculture department said on 18 September it had acted against 170 shops across New York City's five boroughs after hundreds of undercover investigations. [18] The shops, mostly small grocers and convenience stores, take SNAP, the US food-stamp programme for low-income households. [18] The charges include swapping benefits for cash and selling alcohol or non-food goods with them. [18] Penalties run from temporary removal from the programme to a permanent ban. [18]

Why it matters. The department called it part of a wider fight against fraud in what it describes as a $100 billion-a-year programme. [18]

The alcohol limit on champagne has been raised from 13% to 15%, for this year only, after record heatwaves in France. [19] Heat and drought gave the grapes more sugar, and yeast turns sugar into alcohol. [19] The first grapes were cut in early August, the earliest harvest ever recorded in Champagne. [19] The Comite Champagne, the industry body, says only a few wines should reach 13.1% or 13.2%. [19]

Why it matters. The body says harvests this early could be normal in 10 to 15 years because of climate change. [19]

Six landowners and the group Conserve Big Bend, acting for 230 more, sued the US Department of Homeland Security on 14 September. [20] They want to stop a border wall in the Big Bend region of west Texas that would take private land, including ranches. [20] The suit says the region fails the legal test for the waivers the wall relies on. [20] The Big Bend stretch had under 1.5% of arrests on the south-west border over five years. [20]

Why it matters. Cattle rancher Yolanda Alvarado said families do not know what will happen to their homes and their ranches. [20] The waivers let the wall skip dozens of environmental and heritage laws. [20]

Some Russian farmers plan to plant less winter wheat, Bloomberg reports. [21] Grain shipments from Black Sea ports have been choked since July, when Russia and Ukraine stepped up attacks on each other's ports, silos and ships. [21] Farmers in both countries are stuck with millions of tonnes of unsold grain, which has pushed prices down at home while their costs rose. [21]

Why it matters. Russia is the world's top wheat shipper, so a smaller harvest there in 2027 would reach every country that buys its wheat. [21]

The United States had its hottest summer on record, beating a mark from the Dust Bowl years of the 1930s, the US weekly crop bulletin reported on 15 September. [3] June to August ran 2 to 4 degrees Fahrenheit above normal across much of the West, the Plains and the Atlantic coast. [3] On 12 July, Miles City in Montana reached 115F. [3] It was also the driest US summer since 2020. [3]

Why it matters. Winter wheat ended its season in early July with 47% of the crop rated poor or very poor. [3] El Nino also held off Atlantic hurricanes: there were none through August. [3]