Agribusiness Update for Friday 7/19/13

This is the Agribusiness Update...I’m Greg Martin...

Senate Agriculture Committee Chair Debbie Stabenow convened the first official hearing in the committee’s Commodity Futures Trading Commission reauthorization effort Wednesday. Stabenow said the committee must examine lessons from past market failures as it reauthorizes the CFTC to avoid repeat crises like the 2008 near-collapse of global financial markets that left eight-million men and women without jobs.

If the proposed purchase of Smithfield Foods by Chinese company Shuanghui International moves forward - Reuters is reporting the plan is to list the combined company in Hong Kong. With the combined Smithfield-Shuanghui operation valued at around 20-billion dollars - the Hong Kong IPO would be valued at around four-billion dollars.

Idaho is seeing more mosquitoes testing positive for West Nile Virus. This is the second round of positive tests in Ada County. The district says they've responded to and treated all of the locations where the samples were found and will continue to monitor the locations throughout the summer.

That’s today’s Agribusiness Update from the Ag Information Network.