The Federal Government has announced successful trade negotiations with India will enhance the export of macadamia nuts to the sub-continent. Concluded negotiations with India’s quarantine authorities will allow Australian macadamia nuts to be exported to India without fumigation previously required. Ongoing consultation with the Australian macadamia industry will allow heat treatment as an alternative to fumigation. Australian Macadamia Society CEO, Jolyon Burnett, said market access negotiations... ...Read more »

The international Extended Commission for the Conservation of Southern Bluefin Tuna (CCSBT), which is made up of six nations, has devised a formal plan to help rebuild the global stock of southern bluefin tuna. Southern bluefin tuna fish are found throughout the southern hemisphere mainly in waters between 30 and 50 degrees south but only rarely in the eastern Pacific. The only known breeding area is in the Indian Ocean, south-east of Java, Indonesia. Under the CCSBT’s strategy, Australia’s national... ...Read more »

Research released today by the Australian Food and Grocery Council (AFGC) predicts that, under the Federal Government’s carbon tax, Australian food manufacturers’ operating profits will fall by an average of 4.4 per cent in 2012-13. The carbon price of A$23 per tonne will be a “real hit” to profits for Australia’s largest manufacturing sector, according to the AFGC. Global management consulting firm A.T. Kearney undertook the research. It claims that losses in profitability could reach... ...Read more »

Ongoing concerns about the safety of eating fish caught in Gladstone Harbour, central Queensland, have led the owners of the city’s largest fish market to refuse fish caught in the harbour. This is despite government agencies in Queensland suggesting that the fish pose no health risk. Last week, the Queensland Government lifted a three-week fishing ban it had previously imposed on the harbour last week. At the time, Queensland Fisheries Minister Craig Wallace claimed the results of a water quality... ...Read more »

A report released today by the Queensland Government predicts the State’s milk production will fall by 5 per cent for the year 2011/12. The report attributes the impacts of natural disaster recovery and the supermarket ‘milk war’ to estimated low production levels. According to the Department of Employment, Economic Development and Innovation (DEEDI) report, the gross value of milk production in the State of Queensland for 2011-12 is forecast at A$229 million, 5% lower than the final estimate... ...Read more »

Australian canned tuna brand Greenseas announced today that it will no longer source tuna caught using Fish Aggregating Devices (FADs) after 2015. FADs usually consist of buoys or floats tethered to the ocean floor with concrete blocks. They attract fish for numerous reasons that vary by species. Currently, Greenseas uses FADs in conjunction with purse seine fishing methods. HJ Heinz Company, which owns the Greenseas brand, said it will be working closely with suppliers and other stakeholders to... ...Read more »

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) have demonstrated that mineral levels in new varieties of broccoli are the same as they were in 1975. Their findings were published today in Crop Science, the journal of the Crop Science Society of America. Researchers at the USDA and Baylor College of Medicine (BCM), in Houston, analysed 14 varieties of broccoli grown at the same time in the same environment in South Carolina. Essential minerals including calcium, magnesium, potassium, phosphorous,... ...Read more »

The Australian Government claims that Australia has pushed to the forefront of the environmental movement this week by passing the historically momentous Clean Energy Bill, popularly dubbed the “carbon tax”. The Australian Labour Party government, in alliance with the Greens and Independents, mustered the numbers to pass the legislation through the lower house of Federal Parliament. The Australian Labor Party won the vote on the 18 carbon tax bills 74 to 72. The Clean Energy Bill will... ...Read more »

An international team of scientists, led by researchers at McMaster and McGill universities, in Canada, has found that a diet containing plenty of fruit and raw vegetables could alter a gene that puts people at risk of heart disease. The researchers said the study involved analysing more than 27,000 individuals from five ethnicities – European, South Asian, Chinese, Latin American and Arab – and the affect that their diets had on the effect of the ‘9p21’ gene. The ‘9p21’ gene... ...Read more »

Australia’s largest hunger relief organisation, Foodbank, is to launch a campaign called Bridge the Hunger Divide on Sunday 16 October 2011, to coincide with World Food Day. World Food Day is a United Nations initiative to raise awareness of global food insecurity issues such as hunger and poverty. Foodbank said it will be building a sculpture of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, made almost entirely out of donated food. The Foodbank initiative has been supported by: Aldi, Cerebos, SPC Ardmona, Coles,... ...Read more »