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Caribbean Basin > Aruba + Barbados + Cayman Islands + Curacao + Dominca + Grenada + Guyana + Saint Kitts and Nevis + Saint Vincent and the Grenadines + Saint Lucia + Trinidad and Tobago

The cotton production forecast for 2024/25 has been revised downward to 5.2 million bales, with the area unchanged at 2 million hectares.

Israel does not have a policy restricting the use of imported genetically engineered (GE) commodities or derivative products. There are no changes in Israel’s policy towards plant, animal biotechnology, and microbial biotechnology since 2023.

The beef sector in Israel is growing and is heavily reliant upon imports. Israel’s lack of grazing land for cattle and an increasing population are the main factors contributing to the growth in demand for beef imports.

With over 2,500 facilities, the Israeli food processing sector is an important player in the domestic economy. In 2022, Israeli food processors' annual revenue stood at $23.19 billion.

In 2024, the Pakistan government issued revised Biosafety Rules and Regulations, creating a system to request genetically engineered (GE) commodity imports for food, feed, and processing (FFP). As of mid-October 2024, importers had submitted several applications to import GE soybeans for FFP.

This report supplements GAIN report IS2-24-0020: Israel Adopts Additional European Union Standards for Agricultural Imports and includes translations of the documents from Hebrew to English referenced in the report.

On August 4, 2024, the Government of Israel published the “Tenth Amendment to the Protection of Public Health (Food) – 2015” legislation under the Food Reform Law, which adopted more than 40 new food directives and regulations aligning with European Union standards.

Israel is a net importer of all major categories of food products. The Israeli food retail sector was estimated to be $20.7 billion in 2023, and during the same year, Israel imported around $4.96 million of consumer-oriented products.

With the outlook for the sugar industry largely unchanged from the previous report, no significant changes are made to the supply and demand tables.

No significant changes were made to the 2024/25 wheat supply and demand forecasts. Wheat imports and exports remain banned. The 2024/25 rice production forecast is unchanged at a record 10 million tons.

The Exporter Guide provides an economic and market overview, as well as demographic trends and practical tips for U.S. exporters on how to conduct business in Israel.