Plump raisins by placing them in a bowl and covering them with boiling water. Allow raisins to sit for 5 minutes. Add to butter mixture alternately with water from the raisins. Bake 16-20 minutes or until cake tester or toothpick comes out clean. Drain water, saving 1 cup and set raisins and liquid aside. In mixing bowl, combine confestioners' sugar, butter or margarine and milk. Mix well and pour over warm cake and spread evenly. In a mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar. Combine flour,...

Product labeling helps convince consumers that local products are fresher than imported offerings and are worth higher prices. Hawai'i's production of fresh fruits and vegetables has roughly doubled since the 1960s as farms have shifted away from plantation crops to staples such as tomatoes, bananas, cabbage and sweet potatoes. The drop in market share for local producers comes as farmers grapple with an array of challenges including urban encroachment, high land costs, stiffer...

This causes problems for the commercial fruit grower and can lead to the greater use of pesticides to control pests or even a failure to keep the fruit pest-free and marketable. Owners of backyard fruit trees and certain fruit-bearing ornamental trees should be "good neighbors" and make the effort to adequately control cherry fruit flies in cherries and codling moth in apples, crab apples, and pears. So what options do you have if you have a fruit tree with wormy fruit, but don't want to...

But even if prices are rising, most farmers in Ivory Coast are unable to cash in on the bull market. Adjust font size: NEW YORK (Reuters) -- An unusually harsh harmattan -- a seasonal cold, dry wind that carries clouds of dust from the Sahara -- was the first sign of trouble for West African cocoa farmers. Stiff competition between buyers for scarce beans as the October-March main crop limped to a close pushed farm gate prices in some areas over 500 CFA francs ($1. Ivory Coast cocoa...

But many children on cocoa farms don't get to school, some exchange their childhood for work, a roof over their head and a meal a day. Eight years since reports of child labour and slavery in Ivory Coast - the world's largest cocoa producer - first emerged, progress in eradicating child labour has been slow. In the time that has passed, war, cultural differences and the importance of cocoa revenues to West African economies have all served to obscure the debate. Now chocolate firms are...