CHICAGO -- Ranchers in May drove more cattle into U.S. feedlots than anticipated compared with the same period a year ago, said analysts after Friday’s U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) monthly Cattle-On-Feed report.

VEGETABLE and flower seed producer and supplier East-West Seed Co. is planning to expand its portfolio by offering vertical farming solutions such as hydroponic units and smaller greenhouses to urban dwellers.

HAVANA -- Cuba, short on sugar for domestic consumption after a disastrous harvest, hopes to avoid importing by drawing on its reserves and plans to begin the coming harvest early, industry officials told Reuters.

SAO PAULO -- The board of Brazilian food processor BRF SA on Thursday elected Chairman Pedro Parente to the additional post of chief executive, the company said in a securities filing.

TOKYO/WINNIPEG, MANITOBA -- Japan’s farm ministry said on Friday it has suspended its tender and sale of wheat from Canada after grain containing a genetically modified trait was discovered last summer in Canada’s Alberta province.

CHICAGO -- US soybean futures plunged 2.5% to a one-year low on Friday on concerns that escalations in a trade fight with China would threaten shipments to the biggest buyer of the oilseed, traders said.

MEXICO CITY -- Mexico could strike at $4 billion in annual imports of US corn and soybeans if President Donald Trump escalates a trade spat with new tariffs, officials told Reuters this week, and it is studying how to reduce the pain of such a move.

DAVAO CITY -- Small banana growers have received complaints from buyers of some of their harvest from the Giant Cavendish Tissue Culture Variant 218...

THE tobacco harvest is expected to dwindle this year as farmers shift to other crops in preparation for the nationwide smoking ban, and regulators are exploring alternative markets including export destinations, where prices are firming up due to interest in alternatives to smoking that are still based on tobacco.

SYDNEY -- Relieved farmers in Australia’s export-focused west are celebrating good rainfall at the end of the winter wheat-planting window, although conditions remain parched in the eastern states.

DES MOINES -- More than 14% of $140 billion in annual US farm exports have been or will likely be hit by retaliatory tariffs in trade disputes with major buyers such as China and Mexico, a top US trade negotiator said on Thursday.

MOSCOW -- Leading Russian agricultural consulting firms SovEcon and IKAR have cut their estimates for the country’s 2018 grain harvest due to cold wet conditions in the key spring wheat regions of Siberia and the Urals.