For years, thieves throughout New Zealand have crept through avocado orchards with near impunity, selling their stolen goods to roadside fruit stands and unscrupulous artisanal toast dealers.

Doug Saathoff, whose great-grandfather began farming around Trumbull, Neb., in the late 1800s, planted his first soybean in 1996 and hasn’t lost money since. Even droughts haven’t hurt because there’s plenty of underground water.

Scientists called this week for greater transparency over the use of tax havens by companies involved in activities that have harmed the world’s oceans and the Amazon rainforest.

Over the past year, a group of top global retailers and food companies have been working with IBM on testing blockchain technology to improve traceability in their supply chains. The companies include Nestlé, Unilever and Walmart.

When Dollar General came to Haven, Kansas, it arrived making demands. The fastest-growing retailer in America wanted the taxpayers of the small, struggling Kansas town to pick up part of the tab for building one of its squat, barebones stores that more often resemble a warehouse than a neighbourhood shop.

Last year, Brazilian farmer Gustavo Lopes sized up his sugarcane plantation against his soybean fields.

Walmart is focused on delivering zero waste to landfill from its key global operations by 2025, the global retailer has said.

A shipment of soya beans worth more than $20m (£15.5m) has been bobbing aimlessly in the Pacific Ocean for a month, a casualty of the escalating trade war between China and the U.S.