Farmers are reconsidering the use of biotech seeds as it becomes hard to justify their high prices amid the measly returns of the current farm economy. Bayer AG on Wednesday said it agreed to buy Monsanto for $57 billion, creating one of the world’s largest agrochemical firms. Source: WSJ
Italy expects debt to rise to about 160% of gross domestic product by the end of this year despite a smaller-than-forecast contraction of the economy, officials familiar with ongoing budget talks said. The new figures, which are provisional and still subject to change, see the economy expanding 6% in 2021, the officials said, asking not to be named discussing confidential deliberations. Source Bloomberg Quint
It is less than two months since U.S. President Donald Trump travelled to Texas to declare that the U.S. energy industry, laid low by this year’s oil price crash, was back on its feet. “We’re OK now,” the president told the assembled crowd.
But bankruptcy numbers released this week tell a different story. Another 16 upstream U.S. oil and gas companies — producers and service providers — hit the wall in August, the same number as in July, according to law firm Haynes and Boone. Source Financial Post
The Bank of Italy said Italy’s public debt hit a new high of 2,560.5 billion euros in July, up 29.9 billion with respect to June. Source Ansa
