CropsA machine-learning study projects European sorghum yields rising from 3 to as much as 3.8 tonnes a hectare by 2050-2100, with land suited to high, stable yields growing from 22% to up to 34% of cropland.
LivestockA review by Chinese researchers calls the bacterium one of the most promising alternatives to antibiotic growth promoters, with the strongest evidence in weaned piglets and weak evidence in cattle.
LivestockThe Canadian Food Inspection Agency will hold the interim maximum of 3,000 mg/kg in starter swine feeds instead of cutting it to 300 mg/kg, while it weighs information submitted by the pork sector.
OpinionIn a Seed World Europe column, Franco Brazzabeni says the EU's Protein Action Plan, despite a non-binding target and no budget line of its own, gives growers of soybeans and pulses and the seed sector a real opening.
LivestockA South African outreach adviser sets out what piglets, weaners, growers, finishers, gilts, sows and boars need, and what goes wrong when small farmers feed only bran or scraps.
AgrotechHigh production costs, weak demand and consumer disgust brought down leading insect protein firms, analysts told FoodNavigator; feed, pet food and aquaculture now look like the better markets.
AgribusinessNearby feed grain prices firmed in northern Australia as growers held new-crop barley and freight costs blocked southern grain, while Victoria warned of plague locust hatchings.
LivestockAt ILRI's Mazingira Centre in Nairobi, an Indian researcher screens local legume forages that could cut methane from sheep, while a Mozambican engineer builds a sensor dashboard to measure emission cuts from a manure biogas digester.
An Ethiopian smallholder who planted oats for seed on 0.25 hectares sold his first crop for ETB 45,000 and expanded the next year, part of an ILRI effort to turn forage seed into a business for farmers.
AgribusinessSolvent Extractors' Association data show India shipped 148,609 tonnes of oilmeal in July against 422,388 a year earlier. Bangladesh, the second-largest buyer, took 172,852 tonnes in April-July, up 17.18%.
LivestockHarper Adams University's 230-sow pig unit, now weaning over 37 pigs per sow a year, lost no pigs to this summer's heat after installing evaporative cooling, and is trialling a filterless air-cleaning system that cut ammonia by 40 percent and finishing diets with no soya.
EnvironmentA PNAS study by the Potsdam Institute and Kiel University finds that less diverse meadows and pastures would take up less carbon and yield less forage, with drops of up to 50% in places such as India and Paraguay.
LivestockUSDA's Beijing office says Chinese feed mills are swapping corn for wheat, barley and sorghum as hog losses push buyers toward cheaper rations.
