Argentina and China have agreed to expand their commercial ties by increasing soybeans and corn exports to the Asian country, Buenos Aires said Saturday. "China approved three trangenic soybean and corn" varieties, Argentine Agriculture Minister Norberto Yahuar said in a statement. "In the next season we will be using these approved seeds and obviously, we will be able to sell more," the minister said, after talks in Beijing with his counterpart Han Chang Fu.

BEIJING, China - Rising global food demand will push up prices 10 to 40 per cent over the coming decade and governments need to boost investment to increase farm production, a forecast by two international agencies said Thursday. Growth in food production has slowed over the past decade even as rising incomes in developing countries boosted consumption, said the UN Food and Agriculture Organization and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - A southeastern New Mexico company's plans to convert a cattle plant into a horse slaughterhouse has hit another roadblock, this time over an environmental dispute that the company's attorney blames on the Obama administration putting politics over policy. Blair Dunn, who represents Valley Meat Co. of Roswell in its more than yearlong effort to get approval to slaughter horses, says the U.S. Department of Agriculture keeps changing the rules because it opposes horse slaughter.

WICHITA, Kan. - A Kansas farmer has sued seed giant Monsanto over last week's discovery of genetically engineered experimental wheat in an 80-acre field in Oregon, claiming the company's gross negligence hurt U.S. growers by driving down wheat prices and causing some international markets to suspend certain imports. The federal civil lawsuit, filed Monday by Ernest Barnes, who farms 1,000 acres near Elkhart in southwest Kansas, seeks unspecified damages to be determined at trial.