News Headlines

Sunday 19 May 2013


Afghanistan

USA - Seaboard feed mill finished

Almost a year to the day after breaking ground west of Holyoke, construction for the new Seaboard Foods feed manufacturing facility has been completed.

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Friday 02 November 2012


Afghanistan

Afghanistan - Cattle smuggling

Following the order of Peshawar High Court regarding stopping cattle smuggling to Afghanistan, the government has controlled the cattle smuggling to Afghanistan, which greatly contributed to the stability of cattle markets in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

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Sunday 21 October 2012


Afghanistan

Afghanistan - Afghanistan's Natural Resources Could Spark Civil War

It is estimated that Afghanistan contains reserves of natural resources, such as oil, gold, iron ore, copper, lithium, etc., which could be worth trillions of dollars, and offers hope for the future to many of the country's poor villages which are situated near the resource deposits. The problem is that officials and industry experts are worried that the potential wealth to be made from the resources, has increased the level of corruption, violence, and intrigue in the country.

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Friday 21 September 2012


Afghanistan

Australia - The goat market

The goat market

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Sunday 11 March 2012


Afghanistan

USA - The grain market manipulators

Crop markets offer "little outright opportunity" for price gains, Goldman Sachs warned, lowering coffee market hopes, and warning over corn use by ethanol plants despite firm prospects for oil values.

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Friday 17 February 2012


Afghanistan

Germany - German pig herd falls

The German sow herd has fallen another two percent according to provisional census results for the year to November 2011.

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Sunday 12 February 2012


Afghanistan

Afghanistan - Farmers feeding the American demand for drugs

For a symbol of how America’s decade-long war is going in faraway Afghanistan, look at the beautiful fields of red poppies flowering so bountifully there. Unfortunately, that bounty symbolizes the failure of an ambitious Western initiative against Taliban forces.

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Sunday 08 January 2012


Afghanistan

Argentina - Our Christina on the road to recovery

Argentine President Cristina Fernández’ recovery is showing “no complications” and she is in “good spirits” announced presidential spokesman Alfredo Scoccimarro in the medical follow-up from the Wednesday thyroid cancer surgery.

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Saturday 17 December 2011


Afghanistan

Afghanistan - Meat inspection Afghanistan style

NANGARHAR PROVINCE, Afghanistan – Inspector Abdul Wahid stands prominently at the head of an examination table surrounded by a huddle of his colleagues. The group of men curiously watch him carefully inspect the lungs of a recently slaughtered cow. The mission at hand for this group of Afghan government agricultural extension agents is to inspect beef viscera looking for any sign of animal disease that would deem the carcass unsafe for human consumption.

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Wednesday 18 May 2011


Afghanistan

NZ - Craig Hickson on new meat strategy

Meat industry veteran Craig Hickson told farmers at Elmore Station last week they needed to quit any negativity and get behind the new red meat strategy.

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Friday 28 January 2011


Afghanistan

USA - No sale of Sara Lee who name Marcel Smits as chief executive officer (CEO)

Sara Lee Corp (SLE.N) said on this morning it plans to split into two separate public companies focusing on North American meats and international coffee and tea after it did not receive a large enough bid to entice it to sell the company.

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Saturday 19 June 2010


Afghanistan

Afghanistan - Soldiers learn farming

A tough assignment for a small group of Marines. They're trying to learn agriculture from the ground up in a week. They're not in uniform this week, but you can tell by the way they stand and listen, they're Marines. This group stationed at Camp Pendleton is getting a crash course in agriculture at Fresno State. The Marines are walking the furrows to learn what it takes to produce pomegranates, row crops and livestock.

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Sunday 16 May 2010


Afghanistan

Afghanistan - US Soldiers get into farming

It was an emotional day for friends and family of the soldiers and airmen who make up Task Force Ironhorse as they now set to deploy to Afghanistan. More than 60 members of the Kentucky National Guard's Agribusiness Development Team II were honored during a ceremony at Keeneland Race Track. This is the second mission of this type for the Kentucky National Guard. Kentucky's first team is currently in Afghanistan and soon expected to return.

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Saturday 17 April 2010


Afghanistan

Afghanistan - Vets help farmers

It may not feature highly in Nato's counter-insurgency manual but British forces have discovered that one way to triumph in the most vital battle of the Afghan war, winning over the hearts and minds of the local population, is through their goats and sheep.

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Sunday 11 April 2010


Afghanistan

Afghanistan - Throwing good money after bad

After weeks of intense fighting over the Taliban stronghold of Marjah, U.S. Marines are now taking cautious aim at the drugs trade, with a program designed to pay opium farmers to destroy their own crops without a fight. The goal of the new program is to tackle the drugs trade that fuels the insurgency -- without alienating farmers whose livelihoods depend on a crop they planted last year. Last month, thousands of Marines fought to drive the Taliban out of Marjah, a major hub for the trafficking and trade of opium in southern Helmand, the province that produces most of the world's raw material for heroin.

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Sunday 04 April 2010


Afghanistan

Afghanistan - Bringing in the harvest

Rather than a contract on the Chicago Board of Trade -- like an American wheat farmer or a Thai rice grower -- Afzal was paid 400,000 Pakistani rupees (5,000 dollars) by a middleman for the world's biggest drugs cartels. Afzal will harvest in a month, when the tall green weeds on his land have burst into scarlet bloom and the poppy bulbs ooze sap that will become opium.

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Tuesday 02 March 2010


Afghanistan

Afghanistan - US$3 million food deal with UK

Pomegreat, which claims to be the UK's leading pomegranate juice company, has entered a deal worth £3m to purchase pomegranate concentrate and fresh fruit from Afghanistan

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Saturday 30 January 2010


Afghanistan

Afghanistan - National Guard helping farmers

Sixty Arkansas National Guard soldiers and airman are in the last stages of training to help improve farming practices in Afghanistan

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Saturday 16 January 2010


Afghanistan

Afghanistan - $20 million from USDA

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack today announced up to $20 million for capacity building efforts within Afghanistan's Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock (MAIL), the department responsible for managing that country's agricultural economy

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Afghanistan

Afghanistan - When you consider that the US consume 70% of the worlds drugs

Trying to erradicate poppies in Afghanistan and cocoa in Colombia is like pushing a snowball up hill

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Wednesday 06 January 2010


Afghanistan

Afghanistan - National Guard helping small farmers with seed planting

Instead of hand-tossing the wheat seed, Afghan farmer Wali Sauder took the Hoosiers' advice and used a hand-held spreader

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Thursday 24 December 2009


Afghanistan

Afghanistan - Small farmers get a little support from unusual quarter

Reporting from Naray, Afghanistan - Army Spc. Kathy Tanson, who grew up on a farm in Corning in Northern California, is wrestling goats and sheep into submission so they can be vaccinated against parasites and anthrax

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Saturday 19 December 2009


Afghanistan

Afghanistan - U.S Troops go to the aid of small farmers

The U.S. Marines were tense looking for bombs buried near a mud compound in this remote farming town in southern Afghanistan. Their new Afghan police colleagues were little help...

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Tuesday 15 December 2009


Afghanistan

Afghanistan - Marines helping small farmers

The U.S. Marines were tense looking for bombs buried near a mud compound in this remote farming town in southern Afghanistan. Their new Afghan police colleagues were little help, joking around and sucking on lollipops meant for local kids. The government had sent the new group of 13 police to live and train the Marines just a few days earlier. Most were illiterate young farmers with no formal training who had been plucked off the streets only weeks before.

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Sunday 29 November 2009


Afghanistan

Afghanistan - National Guard helping farmers

About 60 S.C. National Guard soldiers have left for Afghanistan to help local farmers grow bigger crops and raise healthier livestock.

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Sunday 22 November 2009


Afghanistan

Afghanistan - Poppies still main cash crop

Afghanistan's agriculture sector has suffered badly during 30 years of war, driving many farmers to grow opium, a lucrative crop with which other products have not been able to compete.

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Saturday 21 November 2009


Afghanistan

Afghanistan - Farmers doing it tough

Afghanistan's agriculture sector has suffered badly during 30 years of war, driving many farmers to grow opium, a lucrative crop with which other products have not been able to compete.

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Friday 20 November 2009


Afghanistan

Afghanistan - Building up farms again

If the United States really wants to stabilize Afghanistan, say six Afghans visiting Colorado farms, then it should focus more on building agricultural options beyond the illicit drug trade for the war-torn nation's mostly agrarian people.

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Thursday 19 November 2009


Afghanistan

Afghanistan - US Army helping farmers

In addition to locating and killing terrorists and establishing security in eastern Afghanistan, the 3rd Brigade Combat Team hope to offer the local citizens a way forward.But to achieve the humanitarian goal, the soldiers needed a little help, in the name of John Bartee, Montgomery

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Sunday 25 October 2009


Afghanistan

Afgahanistan - US Troops help farmers

Before a battalion of U.S. Marines swooped into this dusty farming community along the Helmand River in early July, almost every stall in the bazaar had been padlocked, as had the school and the health clinic. Thousands of residents had fled. Government officials and municipal services were nonexistent. Taliban fighters swaggered about with impunity, setting up checkpoints and seeding the roads with bombs.

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Friday 28 August 2009


Afghanistan

Afghanistan - The poultry industry

The Women’s Poultry Project in Afghanistan’s Panjshir province is a giant leap forward for the women who call the Panjshir River valley their home. The project is designed to empower women in the valley by assisting them in providing food and income for families. Greg Schlenz of the

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Thursday 06 August 2009


Afghanistan

Afghanistan - Poultry production

Poultry scientists in the University of Arkansas System’s Division of Agriculture recently taught poultry production basics to a National Guard agricultural development team headed

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Thursday 09 July 2009


Afghanistan

Afghanistan - Swine flu

Afghanistan's only known pig has been released out of quarantine two months after he was locked away because of swine flu fears.The pig, a curiosity in Muslim Afghanistan where pork and pig products are illegal because they are considered irreligious, was quarantined because visitors to the zoo were worried it could spread the new H1N1 flu strain. "Our people did not

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Thursday 11 June 2009


Afghanistan

Afghanistan - Problems in the wool industry

Drought, conflict and lack of investment have caused a 20 percent fall in the export of products made from a silky lambskin known as karakul, and adversely affected the livelihoods of thousands, according to the Export Promotion Agency of Afghanistan (EPAA).

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Jan Zandbergen        Lanexco Ltd