Avocado farming has become a big-league agro-enterprise with various market forces including border control, climate and global appetite for avocado favouring Kenyan producers.     The Hass avocado, a premium product in the Middle East and Europe has especially gained popularity in the ready-to-eat segment, with consumer appetite changing graduallyContinue Reading

Add “cause for a university evacuation in Australia” to the long list of reasons that durian may be the world’s most maligned fruit.   About 3 p.m. Saturday local time, Melbourne’s Metropolitan Fire Brigade sent out an alert about a chemical hazard at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology.  Continue Reading

Farms in Hawaii could become “zero waste” if a state-funded demonstration project proves viable.     The state’s Agribusiness Development Corp. is proposing to build a $1.5 million facility at the Shipman Business Park that would grow algae from leftover produce, in particular, papaya. The algae could then be usedContinue Reading

South Australia has strengthened its import requirements, following the discovery of fruit fly larvae in four consignments of Queensland mangoes sent to South Australia during the summer harvest, which threatened its fruit fly-free status.     The reforms include a ban on fruit that has been heat-treated as well asContinue Reading

Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI) has recently successfully developed year-round dragon fruit in the country by using artificial lighting.   BARI held a workshop at Pahartoli of Khulshi in Chattogram on Saturday over the success of the institute where its Director General Dr Abul Kalam Azad was present as chiefContinue Reading

The week-long festival of Zambales province’s most popular produce – mangoes – was celebrated over from April 14-17 as provincial officials formally opened the annual Dinamulag Mango Festival.   Dinamulag Festival is an annual thanksgiving for another year of bountiful harvest, officials said.   Provincial Administrator and Festival Committee ChairpersonContinue Reading

Tropical Race 4 (TR4), the virulent strain of fungus Fusarium oxysporum cubense that is threatening banana crop globally with the fusarium wilt disease, has hit the plantations in India, the world’s top producer of the fruit. The devastating disease which surfaced in the Cavendish group of bananas in parts ofContinue Reading