Browse Data and Analysis

On August 24, 2023, the Philippines marked Bt cotton as the 4th genetically engineered crop approved for commercial propagation after corn (2002), rice (2021), and eggplant (2022).

Driven by strong internal demand, EU chicken meat production is expected to grow in 2023 and 2024. In 2024, Poland will be again the largest EU chicken producer, accounting for more than 20 percent of all EU chicken production.

MY 2023/24 sunflowerseed production is forecast at 1.6 million metric tons (MMT), which is down nearly 20 percent year-over-year because of drought-related losses in Thrace, Turkey’s leading sunflower producing region.

Since the beginning of 2023, the Turkish Lira (TL) has weakened by around 20 percent against the U.S. dollar. Despite the economic turmoil, demand for chicken meat is relatively stable, even with expected increased poultry market prices in correlation with increasing inflation.

FAS Manila adjusts marketing year (MY) 2024 raw sugar production down to 1.8 million metric tons, 100,000 metric tons (MT) below USDA Official. Declining sugarcane planting areas and weather disturbances including the ongoing El Niño are expected to affect sugar production.

FAS Manila forecasts beef imports to remain flat at 200,000 MT Carcass Weight Equivalent (CWE) in 2024 because of low demand for imported beef.

In August 2023, after more than a decade of political discussions on the restructuring of livestock farming, a new German law on mandatory animal husbandry labeling went into effect.

The “off-year” for production will push Turkiye’s pistachio production lower in Marketing Year (MY) 2023/24. The production of almonds and walnuts is forecast slightly higher but hazelnut production is expected to go down.

Bisphenol A (BPA) is a chemical used in the manufacture of polycarbonate plastics and epoxy resins.

In 2022, the European Union (EU)-27 imported $6.8 billion in tree nuts from the world. The EU remains a net importer of tree nuts for all products since demand highly exceeds domestic production.

Spanish tourism is rapidly recovering from the effects of the pandemic and reaching pre-pandemic levels. Demonstrating a definitive return to pre-pandemic normality, 2023 has seen stabilization in the growth of the Hotel, Restaurant and Institutional (HRI) sector.

FAS Manila expects rice imports to decline to 3.5 million MT as high prices in the international market and price ceilings ordered by the President disincentivize imports.