ADM reported a USD 315 million profit in the fourth quarter, down from USD 788 million in the same period last year. The drop was due to lower revenue in its origination business and ethanol segment as well as increased costs in the North America liquid-sweeteners segment. The company noted, however, that it managed to stay profitable despite the US-China trade war and subsequent collapse in US origination to China. The CEO forecast that the trade war will be resolved within the first half of 2019, as he noted that China has already started buying US soybean again, which should help the company recover in the second half of the year.
Otherwise, ADM has officially acquired French animal feed group Neovia for USD 1.8 billion, its biggest acquisition in 5 years. The company announced last week that the move was part of the strategy to gain market share in the nutrition segment. ADM’s investment arm, ADM Venture, has also invested in Sustainable Bioproducts, a technology company looking at ways to produce a protein with a minimal impact on the environment. At the same time, ADM has committed to gender parity in its senior leadership structure by 2030.
Nestle has bought the rights to Ferri Pro, a technology that will allow them to fortify food products with iron without affecting the taste and help the estimated 1.6 billion people who have iron deficiencies. Nestle also tied up with Swiss universities to create The Future Food Initiative which aims to accelerate research in creating nutritious, tasty and sustainable food. As part of the efforts to improve transparency in the supply chain, it will make public the list of suppliers of 15 priority commodities – the equivalent of 95% of all its raw materials.
In a similar bid, a US group launched Indigo Transport, a network of independent carriers for transporting grain throughout the US, which will hopefully make crop transport more transparent and efficient. The technology, which is already being dubbed the ‘Uber for US crops’ has already 3,000 registered trucks. It will complement its e-commerce platform which has seen grains transactions worth USD 10 billion since it launched in the middle of 2018.
However, high costs and insufficient network coverage means that farmers are still slow to pick on these smart tools. Figures from 2016 suggest that close to 40% of US rural areas don’t have high-speed broadband. The Farm Bill that was passed in December includes the Precision Agriculture Connectivity Act as well as some funds to boost connectivity in the countryside. But Telecom companies say that low population density and tough natural conditions make it very expensive to do so.
Brazil, meanwhile, should see investments close to USD 35 million in 2018/19 towards the development of internet connectivity and smart agriculture. The country’s biggest sugar producer is carrying out a test project using 4G to transmit data on agriculture operations which could reduce costs. The Brazilian Association of the Internet of Things (Abinc) estimates that better connectivity could help improve productivity by as much as 20% by improving soil, weather predictions, field management and transport logistics, among other things. Similarly, IBM expects that better technology, notably on weather forecasting, could help reduce yield losses by 25%.
Meanwhile, a new Australian project is trying to make people more aware of the importance of bees and the role they play in our food production by building a camera designed to show us how bees see the world. You’ll learn that bees need to get very close to an object to see it clearly. You can check it out here.
Finally, a new study argues that food companies have been using the wrong language to encourage consumers to switch to eating more plant-based products. The World Resources Institute found that terms such as ‘low fat’ or ‘meat-free’ tend to make food less appealing and that switching to a more enticing marketing vocabulary could increase sales by 70% and help reduce meat consumption.
This summary was produced by ECRUU
