The US Department of Agriculture’s Farm Service Agency issued state level releases on Friday detailing safety net and conservation payments, including 1.39 billion dollars for Iowa, 446.4 million dollars for Louisiana and 255 million dollars for Washington. The releases break down the state shares of the programmes behind the record 13.8 billion dollar national safety net payout for the 2025 crop year announced on October 7 and covered on this site on October 9.
Cocoa gave back part of its grind driven gains on Friday, settling down 3.19 percent at 5,645 dollars a tonne in the settlement wrap, a day after European and Asian third quarter grind data beat forecasts, with Europe up 3.2 percent and Asia up a record 29 percent, in the story published here on October 16. Freight also finished the week lower despite a firmer Friday for bulk: dry bulk freight rose 2.45 percent on the day but fell 9.65 percent on the week in the site tables, and tanker freight fell 0.98 percent on the day and 9.95 percent on the week.
In shipping enforcement, five people were arrested in the Bergen area of Norway on Wednesday and searches were carried out in Germany and Romania in a coordinated Eurojust investigation into suspected fraud and bribery in husbandry services for NATO vessels, with estimated losses above 1 million euros and the alleged scheme running from 2021 to 2025, DPA reported. In food security research, the IAEA reported that Burkina Faso is growing more rice with the help of nuclear science techniques, part of its long running mutation breeding work on staple crops.