Glyphosate by no means on the home straight to re-licensing

Despite claims the European Commission will re-licence glyphosate for 10 years, the twists and turns on the road to that decision continue.

The campaign to secure support for a citizens’ charter challenging relicensing has now gained the necessary one million signatures. These will be verified by July, and the commission will have to consider the request and give reasons for its decision. This will have to happen before the product can be relicenced.

Meanwhile in a further twist it has emerged that in the World Health Organisation review an academic paper was overlooked, which would probably have changed its assessment to mirror the views of other scientific bodies that glyphosate is not carcinogenic.

The EU farm and competition commissioners have confirmed Brussels will carry out an assessment of the food supply chain to identify unfair trading practices (UTPs).

This is the first time Phil Hogan, for agriculture, and the competition commissioner, Margrethe Vestager, have set out a joint position.

However it seems the road to possible legislation will be slow. Both commissioners have played down early progress, warning the process will take time and there is no magic bullet cure. They say a review will be carried out in early 2018, with a view to having a report by the middle of next year. This appears to duplicate what the agri-markets task force has already done, suggesting the commission is in no hurry to confront retailers about these alleged practices.

The fallout from the Brazilian meat scandal has reached the UK, with one of the companies involved, JBS, seeking to strengthen its balance sheet by selling assets.

One that has been put up for sale is the Moy Park poultry business in Northern Ireland, which is a major supplier to the UK and European markets. It is also the biggest private sector employer in Northern Ireland.

JBS is seeking to raise more than £1.5 billion from these asset sales, which will allow it to focus on its core business in south and north America.

JBS only bought Moy park two years ago from another Brazilian company, Marfrig.

JBS has been hit by huge fines over its involvement in the beef scandal. That fine tops £2.5bn, although it will be paid over up to 25 years.

After increasing for six consecutive auctions the Fonterra Global Dairy Trade (GDT) price has slipped back.

It was down by just 0.8%, confirming recovery remains stable.

EU farm commissioner Phil Hogan has said dairy markets in the EU are recovering, with prices up by 21% against 2016, thanks to a cut in production. However he has warned a 350,000-tonne stockpile of milk powder in intervention stores remains a problem. Disposing of this at the prices offered, which are below market value, could destabilise recovery.

The current EU average milk price of 33.2 cents a litre has only been topped three times – in 2008, 2014 and 2014.