Castor cultivation firm Casterra Ag, a subsidiary of Evogene, has signed an agreement to supply castor seed varieties to one of the world’s leading energy companies for use in biofuel production.

Ukrainian agribusiness Kernel Holding has completed its purchase of OilExportTerminal, an edible oils trans-shipment terminal in the port of Pivdennyi in the Odessa region of the Black Sea, World Grain reported the company as saying.

Indonesia’s palm oil smallholders’ union has welcomed the European Union (EU)’s new deforestation law but says farmers would need help to comply, Eco Business reported.

Proposals by the German government to end crop-based biofuel production would severely hit farmers and reduce rapeseed output, Thomas Mielke, CEO of Hamburg-based oilseeds analysts Oil World was quoted as saying in a Reuters report.

A period of unusually warm weather in Europe could impact crops in the months ahead, according to a monthly update by the European Union (EU)’s crop monitoring service, reported by AgriCensus.

Chemical and consumer goods company Henkel has signed a five-year agreement with Shell Chemical to replace up to 200,000 tonnes of fossil feedstocks used in the manufacture of its most popular laundry products with renewable alternatives.

US agribusiness co-operative CHS has announced plans to build a new grain shuttle facility in South Dakota, USA.

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) has put an end to the emergency use of neonicotinoid pesticides, which are widely linked to the decline of bees, Euractiv reported.

From a total of 1.4bn ha of land used to grow crops globally in 2021, only around 8% of the area was used to supply feedstock for biofuels production, Germany’s Union for the Promotion of Oil and Protein Plants (UFOP) reported.

In its first estimate of the global rapeseed planted area for the 2023/24 marketing season the International Grains Council (IGC) forecasts an area of 40.2M ha, Germany’s Union for the Promotion of Oil and Protein Plants (UFOP) reported.

Freight and charter costs could fall if port congestion eases, World Grain reported a trade source as saying.

Chinese soyabean imports from Brazil dropped for the second consecutive year, according to data from China’s General Administration of Customs, reported by AgriCensus.

The Indian government has discontinued its tariff rate quota on soyabean oil and extended its lower duty policy for refined palm oil imports, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) reported.