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Cofco hires for its grain-buying team, person familiar says China is world's biggest soy buyer; Brazil is No. 1 exporter. [Extracted from the article]

The land in Western Bahia was purchased by Caracol Agropecuaria, a company that is controlled by Harvard's $37.1 billion endowment through an entity called Guara LLC, according to the university's tax filings. The endowment, which has a number of other properties in Brazil, decided to exit from a farm investment of at least $150 million in a state neighboring Bahia last year, contributing to the writedown of the natural resources portfolio. [Extracted from the article]

Pedro Parente, lauded for turning around Brazil's state-oil giant Petrobras SA, agreed to become chairman of struggling food conglomerate BRF SA, a breakthrough that may end several weeks of fighting among shareholders over who will sit on its board. Pension funds Previ and Petros, which together own about 22 percent of BRF, have been trying to oust Diniz and replace the entire board amid mounting losses and curbs on BRF's meat exports following a food-safety scandal. [Extracted from the article]

The clause, sort of an anti-force majeure, requires trading companies to pay for shipping costs even when they don't have the cargo to move. If that's what traders want, "that's fine", he said, "but that will push up freight costs even higher". [Extracted from the article]

"Behind the curtain", China retaliates against U.S.: analyst China's hunger for soybeans from Brazil, the world's top exporter of the oilseed, has spurred a price rally, signaling the Asian nation quietly started to eschew cargoes from the U.S. weeks ago. [Extracted from the article]

As for the metals used to manufacture Deere's machines, the import tariff is concerning because American mills will be able to increase prices significantly, Allen said, adding that steel could rise by roughly 30 percent in a short period of time. Deere and Caterpillar Inc. are among U.S. companies most at risk from escalating trade tension since exports make up about 30 percent and 20 percent of their equipment sales respectively, Morgan Stanley analyst Courtney Yakavonis said earlier this month. [Extracted from the article]

Police say emails from BRF employees show evidence of fraud Tarpon Investimentos SA, an investment company that counts Pedro Faria as a founder and is one of the largest shareholders of BRF, didn't immediately comment when contacted by Bloomberg. [Extracted from the article]

Abilio Diniz may be fired as chairman of poultry giant BRF That same year, he took over as chairman of BRF, supported by Tarpon and pension fund Previ, Brazil's largest pension fund and the second top shareholder. While BRF is broadly held, its largest shareholders often form alliances to impose its vision, acting like controlling shareholders. [Extracted from the article]

(Bloomberg Businessweek) -- Harvard Blew $1 Billion in Bet on Tomatoes, Sugar and Eucalyptus By the time Mendillo stepped down as endowment chief executive officer in 2014, the economy in Brazil was slowing, and a government corruption scandal was deepening, spooking Harvard and other foreign investors. [Extracted from the article]

Cofco International Ltd. has already overtaken some of the world's oldest agricultural traders to become one of the biggest shippers of soybeans in Brazil, the top exporter. The company is looking into buying warehouses and other facilities related to logistics deep in Brazil's agricultural heartland, according to Valmor Schaffer, Cofco's head for South America. [Extracted from the article]

Quality gap widens as Brazil sees soy exports surge to record Soybeans have become an essential global food crop because they are crushed to extract vegetable oil and then the remaining soy meal is fed to livestock. [Extracted from the article]

Brazil has become the world's largest market for fungicides as growers have stepped up the fight against Asian rust and other crop diseases. But there is mounting concern that fungicide use on soybeans -- Brazil's biggest crop -- may have reached a limit, at least until new chemicals are developed. [Extracted from the article]

Temer underwent surgery on urethral obstruction on Wednesday Brazilian President Michel Temer will remain hospitalized in Sao Paulo until Friday after undergoing a small surgery as the government abandoned its hopes of securing approval of a key pension reform bill. [Extracted from the article]

Yuan Longping High-tech Agriculture, the company responsible for managing Citic's corn assets in Brazil, is the world's largest rice-seed company. "We are committed to grow faster than Brazil's corn-seed market, where sales have increased between 3 and 5 percent over the past years, driven by the winter corn planting expansion", he said. [Extracted from the article]

Roiled by scandal, Brazil's JBS appoints Tomazoni as COO As COO, Tomazoni is now second only to Jose Batista Sobrinho -- the JBS in JBS -- who has returned as chief executive officer at the age of 84. Some investors have speculated that Tomazoni might one day rise to CEO -- in 2016, he was appointed for the top post at JBS Foods, the international unit JBS had planned to list in New York. [Extracted from the article]

JBS shareholder BNDES trying to overturn appoinment of new CEO BNDES said its CEO, Paulo Rabello de Castro, who has previously attempted to oust the Batistas from the JBS board, asked his legal team to seek arbitration with securities regulator CVM to overturn the management change. JBS shares dropped 4 percent in Sao Paulo on Monday and fell again by as much as 1.9 percent Tuesday, erasing some of the gains last week, when they advanced amid speculation JBS may choose a senior manager as its next leader. [Extracted from the article]

Batista, Ricardo Saud turned themselves into police Sunday In the recording, Saud is heard telling Batista that Miller, who at the time worked with the Prosecutor General's Office, was trying to influence Janot's position on the terms of the plea deal. [Extracted from the article]

The $1.04 billion deal is latest move by JBS to offload assets The second-largest U.S. chicken producer will finance the takeover using cash on hand, existing credit facilities and a seller financing note issued to JBS, which Pilgrim's said it intends to replace with permanent financing. [Extracted from the article]

Media report Supreme Court Judge requests jail for meat tycoon In order to prevent the agreement from being fully scrapped, J&F and its executives are said to be discussing new terms with prosecutors, including raising the fines that Batista would have to pay, according to report published on Saturday by Brazilian newspaper Folha de S. Paulo. [Extracted from the article]

Unpaved, muddy roads have hampered grain transportation earlier this year, and storage squeezes are happening with more frequency after the nation's farmers rapidly expanded production over the past decade. Still, one bright spot in the storage squeeze is that many farmers have bought grain bags, Dalcin said. [Extracted from the article]

Growers collecting bumper harvests will compete for buyers That's giving exporters incentive to push corn shipments out quickly and could mean a squeeze for hedge funds that are betting on a price rally. [Extracted from the article]

JBS, Marfrig and Minerva stand to gain record beef margins Prices that meatpackers like JBS SA, Marfrig Global Foods SA and Minerva SA pay for cattle had the biggest decline in two decades this year. Domestic cattle prices have fallen by 15 percent since March after several nations temporarily banned Brazilian beef following the Weak Flesh probe. [Extracted from the article]

Local prices to growers are down 28 percent from a year earlier, so farmers are stashing soybeans anywhere they can rather than sell, which is creating a storage crunch at grain bins just as Brazil's record corn crop arrives. Corn prices probably will drop further because farmers prefer selling it and holding soy, Debastiani said at a crop tour last month. [Extracted from the article]

Producers say they fear not getting paid for the cattle delivered to JBS, especially with banks asking ranchers for additional guarantees on loans made against expected sales to the company. In the meantime, ranchers may continue to hold off on selling their cattle until prices rebound or JBS starts paying in cash again, Caiado said. [Extracted from the article]

The fallout dented the country's meat shipments and hurt the earnings of JBS SA, the world's largest meat producer, which has denied any wrongdoing. The U.S. is a minor importer of Brazilian beef, buying only 2 percent of the country's shipments this year through May, according to Brazilian exporter group Abiec. [Extracted from the article]

Europe Raises "Serious Concerns" Over Brazil Meat After Probe In letter, EU demands improved checks on meat safety The introduction of "100% systemic pre-export microbiological checks" for the export of poultry meat and meat products and preparations to the 28-nation bloc. [Extracted from the article]

As JBS grew abroad, speculation of favorable treatment swirled BNDES agreed to lend the company $80 million, and the Batistas allegedly paid 4 percent of the value, or $3.2 million, as a bribe to an associate of Mantega, Batista said. [Extracted from the article]

Shares, bonds extend declines Tuesday amid owners' plea deal Also weighing on the shares is the uncertainty surrounding parent company J&F Investimentos SA, which is still in negotiations with prosecutors for a leniency deal. [Extracted from the article]

JBS's founders are known for both big business and scandals Jan. 26, 2016: Brazil's public prosecutor accused J&F executives including Joesley Batista of financial crimes involving a series of loans made to related companies. [Extracted from the article]

Big buyers like China need more to feed pigs, make cooking oil China, the biggest buyer, boosted first-quarter soybean imports by 20 percent from a year earlier, and the pace is twice what it was as recently as 2010, government data show. [Extracted from the article]

BRF plant was shut down amid probe into bribes, tainted meat Producers, who sell the poultry to BRF and have been stuck with the birds since the plant was shut down, are concerned about the possibility that the facility remains closed for a long period of time, he said. BRF's plant in Mineiros usually slaughters about 25,000 turkeys per day, according to Lemos. [Extracted from the article]

JBS, BRF launch massive media campaigns to stave off impact Food giants JBS SA and BRF SA took out full-page newspaper ads and paid for prime-time television spots to reassure consumers their meat is safe to eat after finding themselves at the center of Brazil's latest corruption probe. JBS has for years promoted its fresh beef brand Friboi through a widely popular campaign highlighting the company's meat is "100 percent inspected" and a "synonym for confidence.". [Extracted from the article]

Producers get paid less for damaged supplies in Mato Grosso "Rains will hurt farmers' profits because of the discounts applied, but will have minor impacts on crop volume", Assarice said on Feb. 17, after leading the company's crop tour for four days. [Extracted from the article]

ADM, Cargill invested to add port capacity, speed up loading With 60 miles (97 kilometers) of the 1,000-mile roadway known as BR-163 still unpaved, about 40 percent of new port-terminal capacity in the northern state of Para will probably be idled this season amid bottlenecks and delays, according to Kleber Menezes, the state's transport secretary. [Extracted from the article]

J&F will put 685 million shares of Eldorado, or 30 percent of company equity, in escrow while discussing the terms of the deal, which is expected to be concluded by March 31. Attribution Gerson Freitas Jr.: by reporter Tatiana Freitas: by reporter Simon Casey: editor responsible Millie Munshi: editor Patrick McKiernan: editor. [Extracted from the article]

Funcef and Petros, which are part of a broader criminal investigation on pension fraud, invested 550 million reais in Eldorado in 2009 and owned a stake valued at 3 billion reais as of December, J&F said at the time. Attribution Gerson Freitas Jr.: by reporter Tatiana Freitas: by reporter Simon Casey: editor responsible Millie Munshi: editor Patrick McKiernan: editor. [Extracted from the article]

Dry weather has farming companies cutting their loses In parts of northeastern Brazil, so little rain has fallen in the last four years that farmers find themselves stuck in what is the worst agriculture crisis to hit the country in a decade. "Farmers should always be prepared for possible losses, but nobody is ready for a 40 percent loss", said Walter Horita, a soybean and cotton farmer who has been in Bahia for 33 years. [Extracted from the article]

After all, Joesley and Wesley were masterminds behind the $20 billion acquisition spree that won over investors and transformed JBS into the biggest foreign meat producer on U.S. soil. (Updates fourth paragraph to show Wesley and Joesley Batista have been reinstated to CEO, Chairman posts.). [Extracted from the article]

JBS SA, the world's largest meatpacker, said late Tuesday that Wesley Batista will return to his post as chief executive officer, just hours after temporarily stepping down amid a probe by Brazilian police into investments made by state-run pension funds. Earlier in the day, JBS said Jose Batista Jr. was to take over as interim CEO in place of Wesley, his brother, who stepped aside as part of a judge's decision on the pension funds investigation. [Extracted from the article]

Jose Batista Jr. replaces brother Wesley at largest meatpacker Attribution Fabiana Batista: by reporter Tatiana Freitas: by reporter Robin Saponar: editor Simon Casey: editor Brendan Walsh: editor responsible Julia Leite: by reporter. [Extracted from the article]

Fertilizer companies are facing a new challenge in Brazil, where a shortage of road transport is forcing up the cost of moving their production into the nation's interior. "All the fertilizer companies will be affected by higher freight costs", Monteiro said in a telephone interview Friday. [Extracted from the article]

Too few soybeans to meet export commitments, needs of crushers Domestic demand for soy-meal, which is mostly what crushers produce, has been undermined by the weakened state of Brazil's chicken industry, the soybean processors' main client. [Extracted from the article]

The article focuses on the decision of food and agriculture products provider Cargill Inc. and food processing firm Louis Dreyfus Co. to halt some processing of soybeans in Brazil due to a domestic shortage of the crop and declining profit margins, as of August 2016.

Agricultural Ministry said credit to farmers shrank 9.1% That funding typically takes the form of barter trading: Suppliers provide fertilizers and chemicals to farmers ahead of the planting season and receive part of the harvest as payment months later. [Extracted from the article]

Price of carioca bean has doubled as farmers shift to exports Futures markets are available to smooth out prices, and farmers have more borrowing options: they can get credit from fertilizer or chemical companies, and the international trading firms that buy the crop. Brandalizze says a credit expansion, targeted at irrigation projects, could solve the problem by enabling farmers to grow carioca beans as a third crop each year, sandwiched between soybeans in the summer and corn during the winter. [Extracted from the article]

Brazil slashed its estimate for domestic corn output after drought and frost hurt the crop. Brazil's crop agency Conab said Thursday it now estimates corn production at 69.1 million metric tons for the current season, down from a June estimate of 76.2 million tons. [Extracted from the article]

Annual IGP-M inflation reaches fastest pace in nearly 8 years Brazil's broadest measure of inflation accelerated more than all economists estimated in June, further dimming prospects for a rate cut, following a spike in the price of beans and other food products. [Extracted from the article]

U.K. seen adopting more flexible rules on meat imports Brazil's beef sales to the EU reached $802.3 million last year, making it the second-largest market for the nation's exporters, according to data from industry group Abiec. [Extracted from the article]

Midwest rains aid U.S. crops, Brazil's harvest advances As crop collection progresses, the domestic supply squeeze is easing and buyers are trying to negotiate lower prices, according to Cepea, the University of Sao Paulo's research arm. [Extracted from the article]

Corn from Brazil is heading to the U.S., the world's biggest exporter, just as the South American country grapples with a shortfall of the grain. Most-active corn futures have climbed more than 20 percent this year on the Chicago Board of Trade as importers turned to U.S. farmers amid Brazil's supply squeeze. [Extracted from the article]