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almond kernel Cashew kernel, pistachio prices up on fresh demand New Delhi (PTI): Prices of cashew kernel and pistachio on Monday improved in the range of Rs 5-10 per kg here on fresh buying by local parties amid restricted arrival. Cashew kernel Nos 180, 210, 240 and 320 inched up by Rs 5 each at Rs 445-455, Rs 405-415, Rs 340-345 and Rs 320-330 per kg respectively on restricted arrival. Pistachio Irani, hairati and peshwari also followed suit and marked higher at Rs 490-520, Rs 505-530 and Rs 540-595 against previous level of Rs 480-510, Rs 500-520 and Rs 530 -585 per kg. Marketmen said increased buying against restricted supply pushed up prices. Following are today's quotations per 40 kg bag: Almond (California) new 8,600 Almond (gurbandi) 4,800 Almond (girdhi) 3,050, Almond kernel (California) 305-310 Almond kernel (gurbandi) (kg) 300-325 and Abjosh Afghani 6,000-12,000.

Cassava Flour Despite increased production of foodstuffs in Rwanda, the urban population is faced with soaring prices partly fueled by chaos in the internal distribution management. According to a mini market survey East African Business Week carried out in some wholesale and retail shops and markets in Kigali city last week, since January, wholesale and retail prices of locally made and imported commodities have been increasing. The survey showed that prices of basic and highly consumed foods like maize flour, cassava, beans, rice, irish potatoes, cooking oil, ground nuts, bananas, sugar, tomatoe sauce and beef, have been increasing since January up to date. The respondents said prices of locally supplied fresh foods like Irish potatoes, bananas, cassava, and dry ones like beans, groundnuts and peas have seen an increase despite high production in rural Rwanda. They, however, blamed the internal distribution management of foodstuffs to Rwanda's capital and its suburbs caused by the monopoly by some government supported cooperatives for the looming crisis. The cooperatives are accused of buying the produce from farmers at low prices and sell at higher prices in the capital, Kigali. This is also linked with allegations of buying in large quantities and selling when the prices shoot up. The cooperatives have also been accused of causing speculation on the shortage of food in the country. They are also accused of putting a total ban on farmers who wish to sell their produce to the buyers of their choice. This has generated a cycle of monopoly in the locally produced foodstuff and subsequently pushing up food prices. "The issue should be looked at in details rather than the way it is to day," a business man said in an interview with East African Business Week in Kigali. The distraught business man called for urgent government intervention. According to the survey, a 50kg bag of rice has increased from Rwf25,000 in January to Rwf30,000 at wholesale. This has hiked 1kg of imported rice from Rwf500 to Rwf650 in the same period. In addition, a 50kg bag of sugar moved up from Rwf25,000($45.4) to Rwf30,000 ($54.5) increasing the price per kilogramme from Rwf580 ($0.09) to Rwf800 ($1.4). A bag of maize flour has been hiked from Rwf11, 500($20.9) to Rwf12,000($21). A carton of locally produced tomato sauce increased from Rwf10,000($18) to Rwf18,000($32.7) at wholesale. A kilogramme of bananas which used to sell at Rwf80 ($0.01) has moved to Rwf100 ($0.18) and keeps changing. Beans -highly consumed in Rwanda increased from Rwf250 ($0.4) to Rwf300 ($0.5) a kilogramme. A liter of imported cooking oil also moved from Rwf700 to Rwf1300. A kilogramme of G-nuts shot up from Rwf400 ($0.7) to Rwf580 ($1.0). Salt also moved from Rwf100 ($0.18) to Frw240 ($0.4) per kilogramme.

Black Cigarettes The federal government is promising once again to crack down on contraband tobacco. Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day says more police officers will be dedicated to seizing illegal cigarettes, and a public education campaign will be launched to convince people not to buy black-market smokes. Mr. Day says the campaign will tell people that buying contraband gives money to organized crime groups and funds the drug and firearms trades. Details of the new strategy, such as how many new officers will be hired or how extensive the education campaign will be, are not clear. Contraband tobacco sales have skyrocketed in recent years. RCMP say they seized 618,000 cartons of cigarettes across the country last year — an all-time record, and five times the amount seized in 2004.

Canned Chestnuts Ken Ho, the owner of Tin Tin Buffet, first noticed the cost of his ingredients rising in the beginning of 2007. It started with a few distributors adding surcharges to make up for higher transportation costs, particularly those importing canned goods such as water chestnuts and bamboo shoots. Before long, each of Ho's half-dozen suppliers were adding fuel charges. Ho, who also manages the Asian restaurant near Pineville in south Charlotte, swallowed the increases. But they continued. A 25-gallon container of vegetable oil -- a kitchen staple -- rose to $29 from $18. The price of sugar, dairy and eggs, other commonly used ingredients, also rose sharply, he said. "At the beginning, we absorbed as much as we can," said Ho, who opened the restaurant in 2002. "There are limits to what we can do." In March, he raised his weekday prices about 50 cents to $8.95 for lunch and by a dollar to $16.95 for dinner. His lunch crowd, mostly nearby office and blue-collar workers, has fallen off, he said. But his weekend crowd has stayed strong. Many of those patrons are Asian residents living in outlying towns, such as Hickory and Rock Hill, who trek to Charlotte to shop at Asian food businesses, he said. These customers continue to eat at the brightly painted red and yellow restaurant, which Ho estimates serves about 5,000 customers a week. He says his buffet gives him an advantage over his competitors. Because his menu isn't fixed, he can substitute items that become too expensive. And his diners don't load up on rice, which has jumped 50 percent in price this year. Chinese take-out restaurants use lots of rice, because they must provide it with each order, he noted. In contrast, his customers opt to nosh on choices from butter shrimp to sushi. His most popular item, only served at dinner: snow crab legs.

Agricultural Machine Van Bitner thought the squeaky-wheel call of the Illinois chorus frog was just another sign of spring. "All of us grew up around here listening to them, and we thought it was no big deal," says Bitner, who farms near Mason City. "A neighbor described it perfectly: I thought everybody got to hear those frogs in the spring." Bitner didn't know the frogs were rare and listed as a threatened species in Illinois until Eric Golden knocked on his door. Golden was part of a team of conservationists, biologists, soil scientists and others interested in endangered species who fanned out across Menard, Mason, Tazewell and Cass counties this spring in search of new populations of Illinois chorus frogs. Golden heard the frogs calling from the pond behind Bitner's house and stopped to ask permission to take a look. This year's wet spring presented the best chance for researchers to find Illinois chorus frogs in a decade. Illinois chorus frogs are particularly difficult to find because they live most of their lives underground, feeding on moth larvae and other subterranean insects. For a few weeks in spring if conditions are right the chorus frogs emerge to mate. Their calls can be heard up to a mile away. Like many rare species, Illinois chorus frogs have very specific habitat requirements. They only burrow into two types of sandy soil, and the ponds they often use are ephemeral, lasting for a short time in spring. That's not much time for a frog to mate and produce eggs. Then the race is on for the tadpoles to mature before the pond disappears in late May. Some years, the ponds may not have water in them at all. Often, crops are planted on the sites in dry years, what biologists call "farmed wetlands." At one Menard County pond where the threatened frogs were calling, winter-wheat rows disappeared into the water. Somehow, the frogs had buried themselves deep enough to avoid farm tillage machinery. Vern LaGesse of LaGesse and Associates, an ecological restoration firm in Springfield, spotted the pond from the road only when he saw the heads of two Canada geese poking above a rise in the field. When he and James Wiker of Greenview went back to investigate later, barking dogs on both sides of the property drowned out any calling frogs. Despite the distraction, Wiker managed to locate specimens of the rare frog for verification.

Agaricus blazei A $20m Californian mushroom supplements specialist could face legal action for falsely stating it had received European approval for a number of health claims. Atlas World circulated a press release on popular industry websites on Tuesday proclaiming the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) had approved four immunity-oriented health claims for the mushroom variety, Agaricus blazei. However, EFSA has not yet begun to assess the thousands of claims that companies and trade associations within the European Union's 27 member states submitted before a January 2008 deadline under new pan-EU health claims regulations. An application for four immunity-based health claims has been made by an unnamed party, but EFSA is not expected to deliver an opinion on that (or any other) application until later this year. Consequences Following a NutraIngredients.com investigation, EFSA confirmed it had not assessed claims regarding the Agaricus blazei mushroom. The regulator then contacted Atlas querying its statement, prompting Atlas to remove its missive from the sites that had published it. Atlas chief operating officer, Yori Takeda, told NutraIngredients.com: "There may be a possibility of a mistake/misunderstanding about the EFSA approval. We confused the application document with an approval document - that was how this mistake was made." Under the European Union's new nutrition and health claim laws, all health claims carry the same weight regardless of whether they are made on-label, on websites, in text messages, press releases or any other medium. "These kind of claims could lead to a potential court action," said European food law specialist, Jean Savigny, a Belgian-based partner at Keller and Heckman. "The question is: has Atlas derived any economic benefit from the release of this statement? If it can be shown they have, then a competitor or a European government or agency may have grounds to bring an action against them and it might succeed." Atlas World is still developing its presence in Europe - only one Greek-based operator currently distributes its products - but the firm sells its Agaricus Bio and Agaricus Ekismate supplements in Greece, Japan, Malaysia, Hong Kong and Taiwan as well as the US.