Soybean futures on the Chicago Board of Trade fell to session lows at midmorning on Friday on improving crop weather in South America and fears that China might switch some purchases of U.S. soybeans to South American origin, traders said. »

The Cameroon government wants to lift its annual robusta and arabica coffee production to 125,000 tons, up from the current combined total of 48,123 tons, two government ministers told stakeholders Friday. »

Farmers in the Cameroon's leading cocoa producing locality of the southwest region are receiving 1,350-1,400 francs per kilogram of cocoa beans sold, slightly down from XAF1,400-1,450 they sold the commodity over a week ago, several farmers and traders said Saturday. »

The hoarding of coffee by farmers hoping for higher prices could largely be the reason behind the low quality of cocoa being marketed in Cameroon, the executive secretary of the Cocoa and Coffee Inter-professional Board, or CCIB, told coffee farmers Friday. »

Cameroon exported 30,556 metric tons of robusta coffee in the 2008-09 season, up from 32,442 tons shipped from the West African nation in the previous season, according to statistics released Friday by commodity regulator, the National Cocoa and Coffee Board, or NCCB. »

Honduran coffee exports from Oct. 1, the start of the new 2009-10 crop cycle, through Jan. 29 rose 29% to 587,073 bags of 60 kilograms each, the Honduran Coffee Institute, or Ihcafe, said Friday. This compares to Honduran coffee exports of 421,487 bags in the same period last year, an Ihcafe... »

Coffee production from Costa Rica's 2009-10 harvest through Jan. 15 was down 12%, to 1,117,476 (60-kilogram) bags, the Costa Rican Coffee Institute, or Icafe, said Friday. This compares to registered production of 1,269,464 bags harvested through the same date last year in the 2008-09 crop year, Icafe said in a report, a... »

Cameroon exported 3,385 metric tons of arabica coffee in the 2008-2009 season, slightly up from the 3,122 tons exported in the previous season, according to the country's commodity watchdog, the National Cocoa and Coffee Board. A total of 3,744 metric tons of arabica coffee were produced in the 2008-09 season, 7.77% higher... »

El Salvador's coffee industry has logged in contracts worth 490,814 (60-kilogram) bags of coffee from the new 2009-10 crop in forward sales through Dec. 31, the Salvadoran Coffee Council said in a report Friday. This is up 26% on the volume of forward sales in the 2008-09 cycle where 391,017 bags of... »

Euro-zone banks are making it harder for companies and households to obtain loans, despite having abundant credit from the European Central Bank, another sign that the region's already sluggish recovery will be rocky. »