Hundreds of farmers on the island will receive close to $1 million in assistance from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Reimbursement Transportation Cost Payment Program, Resident Commissioner Pedro Pierluisi announced Thursday. The reimbursement is the largest amount granted by the federal agency in fiscal 2010.
For the past 100 years, worldwide chocolate consumption has reflected a 3 percent annual increase as demand for tasty cocoa-based products has gained ground. Today, the current global market value of annual cocoa crops is estimated at $5.1 billion, according to World Cocoa Foundation statistics.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced Tuesday it will award 25 grants to 19 states and Puerto Rico to boost market opportunities for local entrepreneurs.
A group of 100 farmers and agricultural executives participated in a handful of activities over the weekend in Puerto Rico and stateside that could generate more than $1 million in sales of local products both locally and abroad, the Agriculture Department said Monday.
Agricultural technology company Monsanto will announce today a $4.3 million expansion to convert temporary facilities in Juana Díaz into permanent ones, while expanding its research and development labs on the island, according to stateside reports.
The elimination of certain farming incentives proposed in a pair of measures will not come to fruition as a result of the Puerto Rico Farm Bureau’s lobbying efforts at La Fortaleza, the trade organization said Tuesday.
The Agriculture Department is sponsoring a junket to New York this week for a group of 11 Puerto Rican farming entrepreneurs looking for stateside buyers for a variety of locally grown products including oranges, soursop, mango, okra, star fruit, tamarind, squash, sweet peppers, tomatoes, onions, avocados, cilantro and oregano.
The University of Puerto Rico’s Mayagüez Campus is getting $100,000 in financing from the Puerto Rico Industrial Development Co. to work with the island’s food and beverage industry to develop a nutritional labeling and lab testing program.
The International Dairy Foods Association has sent a letter to Gov. Luis Fortuño urging him to oppose a bill currently in line for a vote at the Legislature that would would ban marketing, distributing and selling Ultra High Temperature milk that arrives to local warehouses 30 or more days after being manufactured.
The island’s declining coffee industry got a shot in the arm Wednesday with the opening of Puerto Rico Coffee Roasters’ new $15 million roasting and distribution facility in Ponce that pursues revitalizing the sector and increasing manufacturing capacity to export the product.
Ponce Mayor María Meléndez and Agriculture Secretary Javier Rivera Aquino, center, tour the Plaza del Caribe farmers’ market Saturday. Some 25 farmers participating in the Agriculture Department-sponsored farmers’ market in Plaza del Caribe in Ponce are expected to wrap up the weekend with between $35,000 and $40,000 in sales, organizers said. The first-of-its-kind event to […]
Three Latin American countries — Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay — are among five nations that recently threw their support behind livestock cloning as one of many agricultural technologies that can help meet the world’s growing demand for sustainable food production.
Local coffee production has dropped by half in the last five years as the sector considered a jewel of Puerto Rican agriculture has battled against natural disasters and a lack of people interested in taking on the arduous task of picking beans.
The Agriculture Department on Thursday filed a motion at the U.S. District Court for Puerto Rico requesting an additional 10 days to "responsibly calculate" what the new price for fresh milk should be.
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