China is starting to feel the heat of Asia's financial crisis - and the chilli farmers in the north-west of the country have been among the first to get burned. The province of Shaanxi, one of the

These should be good times for Kenya's tea farmers. World prices for their product are impressively high, the E1 Nino weather phenomenon has brought plenty of rain, and as long as there is no drought

Today's meeting of farm ministers in Brussels, which continues tomorrow, will discuss reform of the tobacco regime. The Commission has put forward a proposal intended to persuade growers to shift

World Trade Organisation members yesterday formally endorsed WTO panel and appeals body rulings against the European Union's ban on hormone-treated beef which was found not to be based on scientific

Militant farmers yesterday blocked Greece's main north-south highway with tractors in protest against the Socialist government's refusal to make concessions in a long-running dispute over

A new environment crime law which will make it easier to protect natural resources in Brazil, such as the Amazon rainforest, has been signed by Fernado Henrique Cardoso, Brazil's president. The law,

Researchers are on the point of developing drugs to help people whose lives are blighted by "neuropathic" pain, the intense, long-lasting and almost untreatable pain caused by damaged nerves, the

Researchers at the University of the West of England, Bristol, predict that in the next two years a new species will emerge to prey on local populations of slugs. The predator will be nocturnal and

If the government wants to achieve a 20 per cent cut in 1990 carbon dioxide levels by 2010, more nuclear power plants will be needed, the all-party Commons trade and industry committee heard

A national agency to monitor marine pollution incidents should be established and funded by the industry, according to the official report, into the Sea Express oil spill published yesterday. The Sea