Food Security News

"The Columbia River and its tributaries, wetlands, and estuaries are the lifeblood of the Pacific Northwest, providing abundant water, power, recreation, agriculture, transportation and natural resources that have supported livelihoods, cultural and spiritual practices, commerce and economic growth.” - President Biden, Memorandum of September 27, 2023.Those abundant benefits directly impact about 13 million people in the Pacific Northwest. Hydropower extends that plentitude to millions more, powering cities and industry from Idaho to California.

The Australian Alliance for Animals has written an open letter to animal exporters imploring them to voluntarily suspend all live animal exports to or through the Red Sea while the risk of attack remains and to suspend any extended journeys to the Middle East via the Cape of Good Hope.The move follows the recently aborted voyage of the Bahijah. The livestock carrier sailed from Australia for Israel on January 5 but was recalled over a week into the voyage after diverting towards…

The Australian government refused a request by an Israeli livestock exporter to send a ship carrying around 14,000 sheep and hundreds of cattle on a month-long voyage around Africa to Israel earlier this week, but it left the way open for other options.The Bahijah sailed from Australia for Israel on January 5 but was recalled over a week into the voyage after diverting towards South Africa, unwilling to sail through the Red Sea.The ship has been docked in Fremantle port, Western Australia…

European renewable ethanol producers have launched a legal challenge to the EU’s FuelEU Maritime Regulation on the grounds that it fails to properly recognise the proven benefits of sustainable crop-based biofuels and has therefore violated several key EU legislative procedures.Companies representing nearly all of the EU’s production of renewable ethanol are seeking to annul a section of the legislation that considers crop-based biofuels to have the same emission factors as the least favourable fossil fuel pathway.

Freight going through the Suez Canal has dropped by 45% in the two months since attacks by Yemen's Houthis led shipping groups to divert freight, disrupting already strained maritime trading routes, according to UN agency UNCTAD.UNCTAD, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, which supports developing countries in global trade, warned of risks of higher inflation, uncertainty of food security and increased greenhouse gas emissions.Shipping companies have diverted ships from the Red Sea since the Iran-aligned Houthi movement…

Turkey, Romania and Bulgaria signed an agreement on Thursday on a joint plan to clear mines floating in the Black Sea as a result of the war in Ukraine, following months of talks between the NATO allies.Turkish Defense Minister Yasar Guler, his Romanian counterpart Angel Tilvar and Bulgaria's Deputy Defence Minister Atanas Zapryanov signed a memorandum of understanding in Istanbul to form a trilateral initiative to clear the explosives."With the start of the war, a threat of floating mines in the Black Sea has arisen. To combat it ...

This is the dawning of the age of AI and Big Data, huge agglomerations of new and transformative energy; almost self-generating, always strengthening and pulling at the reins, seeking to break free and run, a prospect both exciting and terrifying. That image can imply a human is holding the reins. How quaint: these days, AI itself may be holding the reins.In a review of innovation in 2023 – across any industrial or economic sector, not just maritime – AI looms large, a game-changer equivalent to IBM’s programming advances in the 1940s.

The RSPCA has welcomed the tabling of the Australian federal Minister for Agriculture's response to one of the largest Australian parliamentary e-petitions in history, calling for an end to live sheep export.Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, Murray Watt, stated: “The Australian Government acknowledges the considerable community concerns about animal welfare in the trade of live sheep exports by sea and understands the desire to see action.“The government took the commitment to phase out live sheep exports by sea to two elections…

NATO said on Wednesday it was stepping up surveillance of the Black Sea region as it condemned Russia's exit from a deal assuring the safe passage of ships carrying Ukrainian grain.The announcement came after a meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Council, a body established earlier this month to coordinate cooperation between the Western military alliance and Kyiv."Allies and Ukraine strongly condemned Russia’s decision to withdraw from the Black Sea grain deal and its deliberate attempts to stop Ukraine’s agricultural exports on which hundreds of millions of people worldwide depend…

The European Commission is helping the United Nations and Turkey try to extend a deal allowing the Black Sea export of Ukraine grain and is open to "explore all solutions," a European Union spokesperson said on Thursday, ahead of the deal's possible expiration on Monday.The U.N. and Turkey brokered the Black Sea Grain Initiative with Russia and Ukraine in July 2022 to help alleviate a global food crisis worsened by Moscow's invasion and blockade of Ukrainian ports. Ukraine and…

Russia's deputy foreign minister said on Monday that even if a deal allowing shipments of Ukrainian grain via the Black Sea ends, Russia's agreement with the United Nations to ease its own exports will stay in force, Russian state news agency RIA reported on Monday.Moscow has repeatedly said it sees little chance of agreeing an extension of the Black Sea Grain Initiative beyond July 18, because it says Western sanctions are thwarting its own U.N.-backed attempts to export both grain and fertiliser.Asked by RIA if the collapse of the grain deal would invalidate its memorandum with the U.N.…

The Black Sea grain corridor designed to ensure the safe supply of Ukrainian food to world markets has not yet resumed operation despite statements by Turkey and Russia on extending the agreement, a senior Ukrainian official said on Thursday.The deal has been extended for two more months, in what U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres hailed on Wednesday as “good news for the world,” a day before Russia could have quit the pact over obstacles to its grain and fertiliser exports.“This was announced yesterday…

The Ukraine Black Sea grain deal has been extended for two more months, in what U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres hailed as "good news for the world," a day before Russia could have quit the pact over obstacles to its grain and fertiliser exports.Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan announced the extension in a televised speech and it was later confirmed by Russia, Ukraine and the United Nations.The flow of ships through the corridor had been grinding to a halt during the last few days with the deal set to expire on Thursday."The continuation is good news for the world…

The U.N. aid chief said on Monday efforts will continue in coming days to extend a deal allowing the safe Black Sea export of Ukraine grain, a pact Russia has threatened to quit on May 18 over obstacles to its grain and fertilizer exports.The final two ships are due to leave Ukrainian ports on Tuesday under the Black Sea deal, said a U.N. spokesperson."Continuation of the Black Sea Initiative is critically important," Martin Griffiths told a U.N. Security Council meeting on Ukraine. "We will continue to call on all to meet their responsibilities as the world watches us very closely."The U.N.

Russia on Thursday said there would be no extension of the UN-brokered Black Sea grain deal beyond May 18 unless the West removed a series of obstacles to the export of Russian grain and fertilizer.The Ukraine grain Black Sea export deal was brokered by the United Nations and Turkey in July last year to help alleviate a global food crisis worsened by conflict disrupting exports from two of the world's leading grain suppliers."Without progress on solving five systemic problems...there is no need to talk about the further extension of the Black Sea initiative after May 18…

“On Friday February 24, 2023, one year has passed since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. During that year, dry bulk exports from Ukraine have dropped 77.8% compared to the same period a year earlier, causing a decline in global dry bulk volumes. Seaborne exports have been restricted to agricultural goods and even those have been limited,” says Filipe Gouveia, Shipping Analyst at BIMCO.Ukraine’s sea ports were under a blockade from the start of the war until the end of July 2022 when the Black Sea Grain deal was signed.

Dozens of merchant ships with grains and sugar are stuck outside Iranian ports after weeks of delays as payments snags disrupt flows of goods into the country, according to trade sources and shipping data. Food is exempt from the West's sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program, but the impact of the sanctions on Iran's financial system has created complex and erratic payment arrangements with international companies. The latest payment issues have led to ships being unable to discharge cargoes, with at least 40 bulk carrier ships stuck outside the major Iranian ports of Bandar Imam Khomeini and Bandar Abbas, ship tracking data on Refinitiv showed. Iran’s foreign ministry was not immediately available for comment.

A deal aimed at easing global food shortages by facilitating Ukraine's agricultural exports from its southern Black Sea ports was extended for 120 days on Thursday, though Moscow said its own demands were yet to be fully addressed.The agreement, initially reached in July, created a protected sea transit corridor and was designed to alleviate global food shortages by allowing exports to resume from three ports in Ukraine, a major producer of grains and oilseeds."I welcome the agreement…

A deal to free-up vital grain exports from Ukraine expires on Nov. 19, and intense negotiations over the next few days will determine whether it is extended and possibly even expanded to help ease concerns about global food security.The agreement, reached in July, created a protected sea transit corridor and was designed to alleviate global food shortages by allowing exports to resume from three ports in Ukraine, a major producer of grains and oil seeds.Here are some of the issues:WHAT HAS BEEN EXPORTED?The pact created a safe shipping channel for exports from three ports in Ukraine.So far…

It’s amazing to consider that a commercial vessel in the Pacific Ocean, approaching the mouth of the Columbia River, can continue its eastward journey to finally tie up at the Port of Lewiston, in Lewiston, Idaho, America’s most inland West Coast port, 465 miles from the Pacific Ocean.The Columbia and Snake Rivers form that critical east-west waterway, an economic powerhouse regionally, nationally and internationally. According to the Pacific Northwest Waterways Association (PNWA)…

China’s saber-rattling around Taiwan underlines the need for Australia to be prepared for conflict in the South China Sea.With its growing navy and air force, and the bases it has built throughout the area, China is increasingly capable of disrupting shipping lanes crucial to Australia’s exports and imports.Chinese military bases across the South China Sea (© OpenStreetMap contributors)Of particular concern is our reliance on liquid fuels imported via South China Sea shipping routes. This reliance has become more pronounced over the past few decades as all but two local refineries have closed.

Late last month, a Russian-flagged cargo ship carrying corn pulled into the Turkish port of Izmir on the Aegean Sea. The SV Nikolay had loaded the grain at Port Kavkaz, in Russia, six days earlier on June 18, according to documentation provided by an employee of the Russian company that owns the ship.A Reuters analysis of satellite imagery, ship-tracking data and open-source photos and videos yields a different port of origin for the SV Nikolay. On June 18, Reuters’ analysis of a satellite image indicates…

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish leader Tayyip Erdogan plan to meet in the near future after a phone conversation in which they discussed efforts to facilitate grain exports from Ukraine, the Kremlin said on Monday.Turkey has been mediating between Moscow and Kyiv since Russia sent its armed forces into Ukraine on Feb. 24.