Food, in brief

On 29 October a St. Louis jury sided with Monsanto in a Roundup cancer trial. [1]

Monsanto, the maker of the weedkiller Roundup, has been owned by Bayer since 2018. [1]

Three women said regular use of Roundup gave them non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a kind of cancer. [1]

The jury ruled for Monsanto unanimously, in the first such trial since June. [1]

One of the three women, Cynthia Fernandez, died before the trial began. [1]

The verdict suggests the claims left after June will be harder to win. [1]

But it does not decide the outcome of any other open case. [1]

Toxicologists, scientists who study poisons, separate a hazard from a risk. [1]

The cancer agency asks whether glyphosate could cause cancer under some conditions. [1]

The EPA asks how likely harm is at the amounts people actually meet. [1]

Bayer gains what one investor called one of its most important trial wins. [1]

People who blame Roundup for their cancer now have fewer legal routes left. [1]

The next step is a Missouri court's decision on the $7.25 billion deal. [1]

Louis jury cleared Monsanto of every claim three women brought, and the win strengthens Bayer's push to settle about 65,000 other Roundup cases for $7.25 billion. [1]

One unanimous verdict feels like a final answer on whether a weedkiller causes cancer, but the jury ruled only on the claims in front of it, and it decides no other case. [1]

Since June, US label rules block many claims over a missing cancer warning, and the first trial on other grounds went against them. [1]

Whether a Missouri court approves Bayer's $7.25 billion Roundup settlement.

The court has not yet ruled, and the three women in this trial are outside the deal. [1]

Whether glyphosate causes cancer at the amounts people actually meet.

The WHO's cancer agency called it probably cancer-causing in 2015; the EPA found it not likely to, and is reviewing it again. [1]

Kpler, a data firm, says Middle East fertiliser exports fell by about 70% to 75%. [9]

Shipments were 994,000 tonnes in September, against 3.41 million tonnes a year earlier. [9]

The Iran war has mostly closed the Strait of Hormuz, the Gulf's sea exit. [9]

Saudi Arabia trucks some to its Red Sea ports, but not nearly enough. [9]

The Gulf sells 30% to 40% of the urea, a nitrogen fertiliser, shipped by sea. [9]

China and Russia are selling more, but at higher prices, Rystad Energy analysts say. [9]

Kpler expects exports to stay this low through year-end unless the fighting eases. [9]

Less fertiliser can mean smaller harvests and dearer food next year, Kpler's analyst warns. [9]

Countries such as India, a top rice and wheat grower, need Gulf fertiliser most. [9]

The Gulf makes only 10% to 12% of the world's urea, Kpler says. [9]

China and India make the most, but use nearly all of it at home. [9]

Economists call that a thin market: a few sellers supply what crosses borders. [9]

Sellers in China and Russia gain, filling the gap at a higher price. [9]

Farmers who must buy fertiliser abroad pay those higher prices. [9]

With Gulf exports down by about 70%, the rival supplies cost more. [9]

When Gulf fertiliser shipments recover.

Kpler expects them to stay near September's 994,000 tonnes through year-end unless the fighting around the Strait of Hormuz eases. [9]

Freshways, a UK milk processor, will pay farmers 7p a litre less from 1 December. [5]

That takes its base price to 29.4p a litre. [5]

It had raised its price by 9p in September and October, after a dry summer. [5]

Freshways says the rise was meant to help farmers and keep its milk coming. [5]

Cream fell 11% in a month, and UK butter is 29% below last year. [5]

UK farms got 38.45p a litre on average in September, 16% less than a year before. [5]

Chris Walkland, a dairy market analyst, called it a brutal cut. [5]

He does not expect other dairies to cut in December, but maybe in January. [5]

The cut lands on farmers who already face extra costs, Walkland says. [5]

Dairy economists say a processor's milk price follows what it earns from cream and butter. [5]

Freshways says raising its fresh-milk prices to shops risked losing sales. [5]

The processor passes its squeezed margin back to its farmers as a lower price. [5]

Whether cream prices recover before January is not yet known. [5]

From 1 December they get 29.4p a litre, 7p less, after cream and butter prices fell. [5]

Whether other UK dairies cut their milk prices in January.

One analyst expects no cuts in December but cannot rule them out for January if cream and butter stay weak. [5]

The UN food agency, FAO, warned that Rift Valley fever could spread across East Africa. [10]

It issued the alert with IGAD, a regional group of East African governments. [10]

Rift Valley fever is a virus that sickens sheep, cattle and camels, and can infect people. [10]

Mosquitoes carry it, and heavy rain gives them more places to breed. [10]

The rains are linked to El Nino, which is nearing record strength. [10]

Conditions look like 1997-98, when one of the largest outbreaks on record hit East Africa. [10]

Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda face the highest risk. [10]

FAO asks governments to stock vaccines and step up checks before any outbreak. [10]

FAO's forecast tool expects the risk to grow from October 2026 to January 2027. [10]

Herders could lose animals, and people catch it from sick animals or their products. [10]

Vets call it a zoonosis: a disease that passes between animals and people. [10]

FAO's tool reads satellites and rain forecasts to flag risky areas up to 3 months ahead. [10]

Nobody knows yet where an outbreak will start, only where conditions favour one. [10]

Why officials act before a harm is certain

A warning arrives: reports from families, a rain forecast, a satellite picture

Proof would take months, or come only after people or animals are hurt

Some harms cannot be undone once they happen

So officials act on the warning, sized to how bad the harm could be

The cost: some actions turn out not to have been needed

Officials do not need proof to act, only a believable warning of serious harm. A court is different: it acts only after a harm, and only on proof.

The UN food agency asked governments to stock vaccines and step up checks now, from rain forecasts, before any outbreak has been found.

The FDA told parents to throw away every batch on the strength of choking reports, without waiting for a study or a court.

From 30 December a seller must show its palm oil is not from cleared forest; the EU does not have to prove that it is.

Severe drought status lets officials save water before any supply is cut, and farmers may fill their reservoirs early.

Applied to every small risk, this would block useful things too. So officials weigh how likely and how bad the harm is against what acting costs.

A herder in Kenya, a parent in the US and a palm oil buyer in Europe each now live under a rule made on a warning.

Where Rift Valley fever will break out, if it does.

FAO's tool maps where conditions suit the virus up to three months ahead, but not where the first case will appear. [10]

Scotland's independent pig farmers lose over 1 million pounds a month, their union says. [6]

Andrew Connon leads NFU Scotland, the farmers' union, and spoke at its conference on 29 October. [6]

He said the 2 million pound rescue from Scotland's government in July falls short. [6]

Pig numbers have fallen since March, and family farms are leaving the industry. [6]

Scotland's pigs eat about 300,000 tonnes of Scottish grain a year. [6]

Jim Fairlie, Scotland's farming minister, criticised a shop for promoting pork from Germany and the Netherlands. [6]

Fewer pigs means less grain sold by Scotland's arable farmers, Connon warned. [6]

Losing more farms could leave too few pigs to keep Scotland's processing plants going. [6]

Planners call it critical mass: a plant needs enough animals to keep running. [6]

A possible UK ban on gas stunning of pigs could add to their costs, farmers warn. [6]

Scotland's government promised more talks on support, but named no sum. [6]

In Britain, farmers are carrying the fall in dairy and pig markets: Freshways will pay 7p a litre less from 1 December, and Scotland's independent pig farmers are losing over 1 million pounds a month. [5][6]

They are losing over 1 million pounds a month, and their union says July's 2 million pound rescue falls short. [6]

The FDA, the US food regulator, warned against a toddler snack bar. [11]

The bars, Tractor Wheels, come from Once Upon a Farm, an organic children's food firm. [12]

Several children aged 1.5 to 2.5 could not breathe after eating them, reports say. [11]

When chewed, a bar can form a dry, sticky lump that back blows may not dislodge. [11]

Some children needed emergency help and a stay in hospital to be watched. [11]

The warning covers every flavour and batch, sold at Costco, Target, Walmart and online. [11]

Once Upon a Farm is recalling the bars and offering full refunds. [12]

It says no other Once Upon a Farm products are affected. [12]

"We fell short of that," the firm said of the trust parents place in it. [12]

Young children are the ones at risk, and the usual first aid may fail. [11]

Food scientists call this a physical hazard: harm from texture or shape, not germs. [11]

The FDA acted on reports of choking and asked the firm to recall the bars. [11]

The FDA has not said how many children were hurt, only that there were several reports. [11]

The FDA told parents to throw away every batch on the strength of choking reports, without waiting for a study or a court.

How many children choked on Tractor Wheels bars, and how many bars are still in homes.

The FDA speaks of several reports and has given no count. [11]

Indonesian campaign groups found signs of forest clearing in 2024 at a palm oil plantation. [13]

The plantation, in Central Kalimantan, belongs to KLK Group, a rubber company. [13]

Recent buyers of its palm oil include PepsiCo, Unilever, Ferrero, Mondelez and Procter & Gamble. [13]

The groups did not show that every named company broke the law. [13]

The EU's forest law starts on 30 December, after repeated delays. [13]

It bars palm oil, cocoa, coffee and beef from land cleared after 31 December 2020. [13]

The US ambassador to the EU called the law over-regulation and an unneeded trade barrier. [13]

The 30 December start will test whether the EU enforces it despite pressure to ease it. [13]

Under the law, sellers must prove their goods are not linked to deforestation. [13]

Supply-chain experts call this traceability: following goods back to where they grew. [13]

Brazil, Indonesia, Malaysia, Ghana and the US have lobbied the EU to rethink it. [13]

From 30 December a seller must show its palm oil is not from cleared forest; the EU does not have to prove that it is.

Whether the EU enforces its forest law from 30 December.

It has been delayed before, producer countries and the US are lobbying against it, and the Indonesian groups did not show that every named buyer broke it. [13]

England is phasing out direct payments, the yearly sums the government paid farmers. [7]

Connon met an English farmer whose payment fell from 75,000 pounds to 600 pounds this year. [7]

Next year her payment disappears completely. [7]

Scotland's government says it will keep paying direct support. [7]

The union wants the farm budget raised from 677 to 860 million pounds on 3 December. [7]

It says inflation has cut the support's buying power by about 27% since 2014. [7]

From 2030 Scotland's payments will go more to active farmers than landowners, says Jim Fairlie. [7]

Farmers on each side of the border now get very different help. [7]

Economists separate a sum's face value from its real value: what it buys after prices rise. [7]

A budget fixed in pounds buys less every year that prices rise. [7]

Scotland's government says its own funding from the UK is falling in real terms. [7]

As England phases them out, one farmer's payment fell from 75,000 pounds to 600 in a year. [7]

Whether Scotland's 3 December budget gives farming the 183 million pounds more its union asks for.

Ministers say they will keep direct payments but face falling funding from the UK government. [7]

The National Drought Group says 82% of England is still in drought, despite recent rain. [14]

England needs at least 120% of normal rain for six months to leave drought by spring. [14]

Parts of Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Somerset and Sussex remain in severe drought. [14]

North West England moved from dry weather into recovery on 28 October. [14]

The Environment Agency is letting farmers fill farm reservoirs from rivers outside the normal season. [14]

Severe drought status lets officials save water before any supply is cut. [14]

A dry winter would raise the risk of serious harm to farming next year. [14]

Hydrologists, who study water, say hard dry ground lets rain run off instead of soaking in. [14]

So England faces drought and flooding at the same time, the water minister says. [14]

The government told water firms to put public supplies first. [14]

Severe drought status lets officials save water before any supply is cut, and farmers may fill their reservoirs early.

NFU Scotland called for an independent review of the UK's food import rules on 29 October. [8]

The UK imports about 40% of the food it eats, Andrew Connon says. [8]

Food imports have grown 70% since 1997, and the food trade gap has doubled since 2000. [8]

The union wants imports held to the same core standards as Scottish farms. [8]

It also wants clearer labels saying where food was produced. [8]

Over 80% of shoppers say origin matters, but under half feel they can find it. [8]

Scottish farmers say they pay for high standards that cheaper imports do not meet. [8]

Trade economists call this a level playing field: rivals selling under the same rules. [8]

The union's paper gives no estimate of what stricter import rules would do to prices. [8]

John Deere, the US tractor maker, will call back more than 300 laid-off workers. [16]

It also plans to hire more than 400 new workers in the coming months. [16]

More than 275 will return in Waterloo, Iowa, the biggest group. [16]

About 125 workers near Des Moines stay laid off. [16]

Deere cut jobs in rounds since 2024 as farmers bought less machinery. [16]

Counting these, it will have recalled about 1,000 workers since 2024. [16]

Deere says the extra workers prepare it for future labour negotiations. [16]

Economists call tractors durable goods: farmers can put off buying one when money is tight. [16]

Deere has not said the farm machinery market is really recovering. [16]

Every laid-off Deere worker in Waterloo, the Quad Cities, Ottumwa and Dubuque has been called back. [16]

More than 300 laid-off workers are being called back, and more than 400 new jobs are planned. [16]

NASA satellites spotted 13,241 fires in Pakistan's Punjab province from 1 to 29 October. [22]

That is 4.2 times as many as in India's Punjab, which had 3,158. [22]

HamariHawa, an environment monitoring website, found 92% of Pakistan's fires were on farmland. [22]

Most were in the rice belt around Lahore, likely farmers burning crop waste. [22]

In 2019 it was the other way round: 14,002 fires in India's Punjab, 2,908 in Pakistan's. [22]

Punjab's environment agency is inspecting brick kilns and farms to curb smog. [22]

The smoke can add to Lahore's worsening air, depending on the wind. [22]

Remote sensing, measuring from space, counts fires as satellites pass overhead. [22]

It cannot measure the area burnt, and misses fires hidden by cloud or smoke. [22]

Pakistan publishes no comparable official daily fire count to check these figures. [22]

India's Punjab cut its satellite-spotted crop fires by 95% between 2021 and 2025. [22]

Mondelez, maker of Oreo, Cadbury and Toblerone, grew sales 2.3% in July to September. [18]

Selling more items added 1.8 points of growth; higher prices added just 0.3. [18]

Its gross profit rose by more than $1.3 billion. [18]

Mondelez also agreed to buy Undercover Snacks, a US maker of chocolate-covered quinoa crisps. [18]

It kept its forecast of at least 2% sales growth this year. [18]

Shoppers bought more Mondelez snacks, not only paid more for them. [18]

Business analysts split sales growth into volume, meaning more items, and price. [18]

Shareholders gain: Mondelez returned $2.8 billion to them in nine months. [18]

Swings in cocoa prices remain a cost risk for every chocolate maker. [18]

Hershey, maker of Reese's, says its salty snacks sell faster than it can make them. [19]

Short supply of Dot's pretzels and multipacks has hit output for at least six months. [19]

Salty snack sales still jumped 22.3% in its latest three months. [19]