News

European Union cereal production is expected to be virtually unchanged at 292 million metric tons in 2010-11 compared to the previous harvest year, Strategie Grains said in its monthly report published Thursday.

Soybean-based biodiesel production in the U.S. has come to a halt after Congress allowed a $1-per-gallon government tax incentive for the industry to expire on Dec.31, National Biodiesel Board spokesman Michael Frohlich said Tuesday.

White sugar climbed to the highest price in at least two decades in London on speculation that India, Pakistan and other importers will purchase more of the sweetener as a supply deficit looms.

The European Commission has approved 13 programmes in 11 Member States to promote milk and milk products in the European Union. The total budget of the programmes, running for a period of three years, is € 35.8 million of which the EU contributes € 17.9 million. This was one of a set of measures proposed by the Commission in July 2009 to address the difficult market situation faced by the dairy sector (see IP/09/1172 ). The Commission committed itself to adopt an additional round of dairy product promotion programmes on the internal market.