Good morning! Morning Minutes is a round-up of stories that will break on Monday (Oct 31) and which we think you'd be interested in.

It appears on weekdays, available by 7am.

CONFERENCE ON FARMING PRACTICES

Singapore is hardly an agricultural country but farming practices - from crop cultivation to cattle rearing - will be the focus of the 27th Commonwealth Agricultural Conference, which begins on Wednesday (Nov 2).

Experts from across the Commonwealth will meet to ponder over isues such as trends in consumer behaviour and Singapore's food security.

FINDINGS ON SME CONCERNS, FUTURE PLANS

DP Information Group will be releasing on Wednesday (Nov 2) the 14th annual SME Development Survey, a nationwide poll of more than 2,500 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) on the issues that affect them and their plans for the future.

DP Information chief operating officer Lincoln Teo will discuss the findings at a media conference. He will be joined by Singapore Business Federation chief executive Ho Meng Kit.

CHINA AND TAIWAN HOLD BEIJING FORUM

The Chinese Communist Party and Taiwan's opposition Kuomintang (KMT) are holding the two-day Cross-strait Peace Development Forum in Beijing starting on Wednesday (Nov 3). The cross-strait forum has been held 10 times since 2006 and has become an important platform for interaction and dialogue between the two parties.

The meeting comes a day after KMT chairwoman Hung Hsiu-Chu met with President Xi Jinping at Beijing's Great Hall of the People. The KMT chair told Mr Xi at the meeting that the party would seek to play an active role in pushing for the "institutionalistion" of peaceful relations between the two sides.