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Our introductory comments on global trends in the agriculture sector

Irrigation and fresh water will be required in increasing amounts to support the expansion of global agriculture. Groundwater is becoming more difficult and expensive to pump in many areas, and is non-existent in others. Currently major portions of California and Texas are in severe drought. Desalination of seawater is very energy intensive and generally is not economic for agriculture use.

Energy is becoming a more expensive input. When diesel fuel and fertilizer costs increase substantially growers reduce planting reflecting the economics. The volatility of energy and fertilizer prices also make it very difficult to plan what crops to plant, and in what quantities. When energy prices increase agricultural prices must increase substantially or economics will dictate fewer acres are planted. Many parts of the globe cannot afford expensive grains.

Asian population and economic growth will result in more people eating increasingly energy intensive foods as they “Westernize” their diets. Demand for grains should increase as grains are increasingly used as a biofuel or animal feedstock.

A crop failure in North America would have severe implications for global grain prices. The U.S. and Canada are the major global grain exporting countries. An early freeze in the grain belt, or a disease such as UG-99 (a wheat stem rust now threatening India), could severely impact crop yields. The U.S. experienced a major wheat crop failure due to disease back in the 1950’s; a repeat would be much more disruptive.

Historical trends in the Midwest indicate a severe drought occurs every 20 years or so (tree rings indicate this cycle has persisted for 600 years) – and it has been roughly 20 years since the last major drought. Some meteorologist also suggest a correlation between the sunspot cycle, the sun’s energy that reaches the earth, and long term weather trends – claiming the lack of sunspots can cause global cooling.

The “Maunder” and “Dalton” sunspot minimums correlated with the “Little Ice Age” of roughly 1650-1800. Global cooling trend would adversely impact growing seasons. The current sunspot cycle should have recovered from a low point of activity and resulted in dozens of sunspots by now – yet sunspots are eerily missing, and have been for about a year now. Scientists are unsure why this has occurred.


http://www.marketora...a...e&sid=13403

Edited by stocks, 15 September 2009 - 09:33 AM.

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Norman Borlaug

We read with sadness that Norman Borlaug, leader of the Green Revolution, passed away yesterday. Borlaug, called “the man who fed the world,” helped develop genetically modified organisms and spread the technology in impoverished Third World countries. Borlaug was credited with saving more than 1 billion people from starvation and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970, not to mention more than 35 honorary degrees and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.


It’s fitting to end with Borlaug’s own words from earlier this summer, about how to succeed in feeding the future world:

Even here at home, some elements of popular culture romanticize older, inefficient production methods and shun fertilizers and pesticides, arguing that the U.S. should revert to producing only local organic food. People should be able to purchase organic food if they have the will and financial means to do so, but not at the expense of the world’s hungry—25,000 of whom die each day from malnutrition.

Unfortunately, these distractions keep us from the main goal. … Factor in growing prosperity and nearly three billion new mouths by 2050, and you quickly see how the crudest calculations suggest that within the next four decades the world’s farmers will have to double production.

…[G]overnments must make their decisions about access to new technologies, such as the development of genetically modified organisms—on the basis of science, and not to further political agendas.


http://www.consumerf...m/headline/3988

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Hydroponically grown, pesticide free -- and $20 a pound


There's nothing like the simple pleasures of a farm stand to return us to our agrarian roots.

The promotion of organic and locally grown food, though an admirable cause, is a risky one for the Obamas, because there's a fine line between promoting healthful eating and sounding like a snob. The president, when he was a candidate in 2007, got in trouble in Iowa when he asked a crowd, "Anybody gone into Whole Foods lately and see what they charge for arugula?" Iowans didn't have a Whole Foods.

For that reason, it's probably just as well that the first lady didn't stop by the Endless Summer Harvest tent yesterday. The Virginia farm had a sign offering "tender baby arugula" -- hydroponically grown, pesticide free -- and $5 for four ounces, which is $20 a pound.

Obama, in her brief speech to the vendors and patrons, handled the affordability issue by pointing out that people who pay with food stamps would get double the coupon value at the market. Even then, though, it's hard to imagine somebody using food stamps to buy what the market offered: $19 bison steak from Gunpowder Bison, organic dandelion greens for $12 per pound from Blueberry Hill Vegetables, the Piedmont Reserve cheese from Everson Dairy at $29 a pound. Rounding out the potential shopping cart: $4 for a piece of "walnut dacquoise" from the Praline Bakery, $9 for a jumbo crab cake at Chris's Marketplace, $8 for a loaf of cranberry-walnut bread and $32 for a bolt of yarn.


http://www.washingto...1703679_pf.html

[OEXCHAOS]

There's often a snob appeal at work at farmers markets. Old hands know that, however. I noted with some annoyance that the price of "locally raised" chicken had increased significantly over the past couple years. Then I discovered that my butcher was buying chickens from a farmer literally a couple miles down the road and charging significantly less than the grocery chain, let alone the boutique farmers market butcher. On the other hand, when things are in season one can get a pretty good deal stuff like squash and cucumbers and tomatoes and greens. Mark

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17 November 2010, Rome – International food import bills could pass the one trillion dollar mark in 2010 with prices in most commodities up sharply from 2009, FAO said today.

In the latest edition of its Food Outlook report, the agency also issued a warning to the international community to prepare for harder times ahead unless production of major food crops increases significantly in 2011.

the global import food bill will likely rise to a level not seen since food prices peaked at record levels in 2008.

Link


The 25 Countries That Will Be Screwed By A World Food Crisis

Read more: http://www.businessi...1#ixzz16L727hoU

[stocks]

Iowa Farmland prices surge 16% in year, near all-time high

Ames, Ia. - The average price for an acre of Iowa farmland is $5,064, up about 16 percent and more than $700 from last year, according to Iowa State University's annual survey.

The figure approaches the all-time high, inflation-adjusted average of $5,711 per acre in 1979.


Farm

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The 25 Countries That Will Be Screwed By A World Food Crisis

Read more: http://www.businessi...1#ixzz16L727hoU

Tunisia and Egypt are 2 of the 25.
2 down and 23 to go.

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new link-- The 25 Countries That Will Be Screwed By A World Food Crisis

http://www.businessi...slideshow-start

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Egypt and Tunisia usher in the new era of global food revolutions

Vulnerable governments are scrambling to lock up world supplies of grain while they can. Algeria bought 800,000 tonnes of wheat last week, and Indonesia has ordered 800,000 tonnes of rice, both greatly exceeding their normal pace of purchases. Saudi Arabia, Libya, and Bangladesh, are trying to secure extra grain supplies.

The immediate cause of this food spike was the worst drought in Russia and the Black Sea region for 130 years, lasting long enough to damage winter planting as well as the summer harvest. Russia imposed an export ban on grains. This was compounded by late rains in Canada, Nina disruptions in Argentina, and a series of acreage downgrades in the US. The world’s stocks-to-use ratio for corn is nearing a 30-year low of 12.8pc, according to Rabobank.
The deeper causes are well-known: an annual rise in global population by 73m; the “exhaustion” of the Green Revolution as the gains in crop yields fade, to cite the World Bank; diet shifts in Asia as the rising middle class switch to animal-protein diets, requiring 3-5 kilos of grain feed for every kilo of meat produced; the biofuel mandates that have diverted a third of the US corn crop into ethanol for cars.

Add the loss of farmland to Asia’s urban sprawl, and the depletion of the non-renewable acquivers for irrigation of North China’s plains, and the geopolitics of global food supply starts to look neuralgic.

Food

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Food and failed Arab states

Even Islamists have to eat.

A number of economists anticipated the crisis. Reinhard Cluse of Union bank of Switzerland told the Financial Times last August:

"Significant hikes in the global price of wheat would present the government with a difficult dilemma.

Do they want to pass on price rises to end consumers, which would reduce Egyptians' purchasing power and might lead to social discontent?

Or do they keep their regulation of prices tight and end up paying higher subsidies for food? In which case the problem would not go away but end up in the government budget.

Egypt's public debt is already high, at roughly 74% of gross domestic produce (GDP), according to UBS. Earlier this year the IMF projected that Egypt's food subsidies would cost the equivalent of 1.1% of GDP in 2009-10, while subsidies for energy were expected to add up to 5.1%.
...
Tensions over food have led to violence in bread queues before and it wouldn't take much of a price rise for the squeeze on many consumers to become unbearably tight."

Food Egypt