As Covid-19 continues to spread in more countries, the impact between China and its trading partners is growing. According to the China Chamber of Commerce of I/E of Foodstuffs, Native Products and Animal By-Products (CFNA), a long list of countries has introduced new rules on imports of China’s agri products. These include Azerbaijan, Egypt, Pakistan, Germany, Russia, Georgia, Korea, Kyrgyzstan, Cameroon, Mauritius, Bangladesh, Tajikistan, Turkey, Armenia, Italy, India, Indonesia and Jordan.

ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA. As USDA and other federal agencies work to implement legalization of industrial hemp under the 2018 Farm Bill, regulatory and data hurdles remain two big factors that must be overcome for the market to mature, panelists said during a session at USDA’s 2020 Agricultural Outlook Forum.

The European Union’s sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) measures were among the issues that raised the most concerns in last week’s two-day World Trade Organization (WTO) meeting to review the EU’s trade policy, officials in Geneva said.

An Irish MEP asked the European Commission last week whether consumers were being misled about products from the Golan Heights and the West Bank as they are not being correctly labelled as coming from Israeli settlements.

Costco Wholesale Corp. has become the first company to qualify for FDA’s fast-lane for moving imported foods, the Voluntary Qualified Importer Program (VQIP), FDA announced Friday (Feb. 21).

ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA. Confidence that the Phase One US-China trade agreement, initial US-Japan deal and US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) will deliver on their promise of boosting US ag exports was voiced by US Chief Ag Negotiator Gregg Doud and USDA Undersecretary of Agriculture for Trade and Foreign Agricultural Affairs Ted McKinney during a session at USDA’s 2020 Agricultural Outlook Forum.

Not every Chinese company cancelled its attendance at Gulfood 2020, but the Chinese Pavilion contained a mere fraction of the number of exhibitors listed in the official catalogue, and Chinese buyers were also hard to spot.

ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA – Digitalization of the food and ag sectors will enable the rapid deployment of new technologies that can help increase productivity, reduce waste and improve food safety, FDA Deputy Commissioner for Food Policy and Response Frank Yiannas said Thursday (Feb. 20) at USDA’s 2020 Agricultural Outlook Forum.

A report published this week by the World Health Organisation, UNICEF and the medical journal, the Lancet, condemns the advertising of unhealthy foods aimed at children which it says is fueling the childhood obesity crisis. The number of obese children and adolescents increased from 11 million in 1975 to 124 million in 2016 – an 11-fold increase, the report notes.