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In what some commentators suggest might be the beginning of the end of the recent commodity boom, the Chinese government is tightening credit in the domestic market. It has also announced a ‘zero tolerance for monopoly behaviour’ in the spot and futures markets and the ‘hoarding’ of commodities’. The moves are likely to impact the oil and metals markets more than agriculture, but they could make it harder for the country’s smaller agricultural commodity importers.

Even so, China has already bought 8.2 million tonnes of corn for 2021/22, nearly one-third of their expected new-crop corn purchases.

Thousands of people attended the funeral last week of Yuan Longping, the Chinese ‘Father of Rice’.  Yuan, who did for rice what the Nobel prize winner Norman Borlaug did for wheat, developed the world’s first commercially viable hybrid rice varieties in 1973, saving millions of people from starvation.

Indonesia’s plans for food self-sufficiency by increasing rice acreage have raised worries over increased GHG (methane) emissions.

California’s drought was in the news again last week, with almond farmers looking to uproot older trees to save water for younger, higher-yielding trees. Water shortages were also a topic in France where citizens accuse Volvic, the mineral water bottler, of drying up rivers and lowering the water table.

Britain’s heir to the throne has stepped into the debate over renewable agriculture, emphasizing small farmers’ role in rural communities and ensuring a sustainable supply chain. The EU agrees. It has announced plans to reform its current subsidy schemes to halt the decline in the number of small farms. The EU agriculture commissioner said: “The European food sector in the past was based on small farms, and it should be in the future as well.” *

Moving in the opposite direction (as usual), the UK is on the verge of signing a trade deal with Australia that critics claim will push the UK’s small livestock farmers into bankruptcy.

The first shot has been fired in the next ‘food versus fuel’ war with an article entitled ‘Global Food Prices Soaring as Demand for Biofuels Continues to Climb’. We expect to see many similar articles in the months ahead. (However, the award for the most alarming headline of the week goes to Bloomberg with ‘Cannibal Mice Plague Threatens Sydney Homes and Australian Farms’.)

Argentina’s port workers went on strike last week over work conditions and pay, temporarily interrupting grain and oilseed shipments. Water levels in the Parana River continue to drop, reducing the draft and limiting the tonnage loaded on each vessel in Rosario.

Lamu, Kenya’s new Indian Ocean container port, began operations last week. Once finished, the port will have 32 berths.

An Egyptian court has refused an appeal by the owner of the Ever-Given container ship to let it leave the country. The Suez Canal Authority claims more than $900 million in damages, while the vessel’s owners have offered to pay $150 million.

In bad news for fish eaters, a recent study has found that fish are less carbon-friendly than previously thought. The study found that bottom trawling emits about the same amount of carbon dioxide globally as the aviation industry. Salmon farming is environmentally friendlier.

Bloomberg reports that Cargill made almost $4.3 billion in net income during the first nine months of its fiscal year, surpassing its best-ever total annual profit.

A planned €150 million cheese factory in Ireland has hit the headlines as Dutch dairy manufacturers try to bypass limits on the size of their herds by outsourcing production to other countries.

Bowery Farming, an indoor-agriculture company, has raised $300 million in a funding round that sets its value at $2.3 billion. It brings the total raised by the company to $472 million.

US President Biden is taking a careful approach to the livestock industry’s GHG emissions. In an interview with the BBC, John Kerry, the President’s environment tsar, said that the US government would not tell Americans to eat less meat. He said, ‘there’s a lot of research being done now that will change the way meat is produced, cattle are herded and fed’.

Australia’s meat consumption is the lowest it has been in the past 25 years, primarily driven by a reduction in pork consumption.

Chinese wholesale pork prices have plunged more than 40 per cent this year on slow demand, increased imports and panic selling by domestic farmers after fresh outbreaks of African swine fever.

For ADM’s take on the future of plant-based protein, take a look at this Bloomberg interview with the company’s CEO.

It seems that everyone wants to revolutionize agriculture. Greta Thunberg has taken up the cause. The Rockefeller Foundation has launched what they call the ‘Food Systems Game Changers Lab’, inviting ideas, initiatives and innovations for change in the way food systems operate. The Foundation will present the best ideas at the UN Food Systems Summit in September.

Some would argue that agriculture and food distribution systems have been in a state of permanent revolution for the past half-century, if not longer. Artificial Intelligence is another stage in that revolution.

* Jason Clay from the WWF once told me: “We have a lot of well-meaning people who’ve never set foot on a farm but have strong opinions about maintaining small farmers, and by extension, whether they realize it or not, poverty.”

© Commodity Conversations ® 2021

Researchers at Aalto University in Finland have warned that a third of global food production will be at risk by the end of this century if greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise at their current rate.

As part of a recently published roadmap on reaching net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, the International Energy Agency (IEA) has called for a 60 per cent increase in the use of energy from biomass. The IEA says that this will require an additional 410 million ha of land under crops but argues that farmers can achieve this by using currently unproductive marginal land.

Farmers in Brazil’s Centre-South region are concerned that, they may run out of water to irrigate their coffee and orange juice trees if the current drought continues. Analysts are already marking down sugar cane production but expect the lack of rainfall to impact ethanol more than sugar. Drought is also affecting farmers in some areas of California.

After a blocked Suez Canal and a hacked pipeline, a crack in a road bridge near Memphis, Tennessee, has highlighted the fragility of global supply chains.  Authorities closed the Mississippi River for four days, blocking more than 60 vessels and 1,000 barges, before reopening it last Friday.

In Australia, a plague of mice is creating havoc across New South Wales and Queensland, contaminating grain stocks and threatening new crop planting. Farmers are concerned that the mice will eat newly sown seeds before they can germinate.

China is looking to join the CPTPP, the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, and has already held informal talks with member nations. The CPTPP is the successor to the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The US is also considering (re)joining.

Oatly, a plant-based milk company, plans to raise $1.65 billion in their IPO this week: $1.1 billion in new shares and the rest from current investor share sales. If it succeeds, the IPO will value the company at $10 billion, five times more than at the time of its most recent round of fundraising last year.

Cofeed, a Chinese agricultural data provider, has suspended operations without explanation. Traders relied on Cofeed for data on China’s soybean and soymeal stocks, crushing volumes, crushing margins and corn pricing.

Vicentin, the cash strapped Argentine soy crusher, is talking with Viterra, Molinos Agro and the Argentine cooperative ACA to sell a majority stake in the company. Vicentin owes more than $1 billion to banks and farmers. Still in Argentina, the government has banned beef exports for one month to dampen an inflation rate approaching 50 per cent.

The US ethanol producer POET is in talks with Flint Hill Resources to purchase the firm’s six ethanol plants with a combined capacity of 800 million gals/year. The purchase would increase POET’s total capacity to 3 billion gals/year.

Ivory Coast has asked the EU to be flexible when it introduces new legislation later this year to remove deforestation and child labour from the cocoa supply chain. Ivory Coast has asked the EU to phase in the measures over five years.  The EU buys almost 70 per cent of the Ivory Coast’s cocoa. However, in a good news story, Ivory Coast’s cocoa farmers are finding increased demand in the EU for organic cocoa.

A Seattle-based start-up is developing fake coffee made from sunflower seed husks and watermelon seeds. The company says that the resulting grounds are brewed just like a regular cup of coffee and contain caffeine. (I think I will stick with the real thing.)

Meanwhile, Canadian coffee lovers can now appreciate two unusual (real) coffee varieties: Liberica beans from Malaysia and Racemosa from South Africa.

In a ‘Farm to Face’ situation, Global Bioenergies has launched a range of cosmetics made from sugar beet residue. Meanwhile – in what could be called ‘Root to Race’ – some Formula One teams are pushing for a delay in an increase in the sport’s use of ethanol.

US households are consuming less cow’s milk. Sales dropped by 12.2 per cent from 2013 to 2017, the latest year data is available. The sales of plant-based alternatives such as almond and soy milk increased by 35.7 per cent over the same period.

Meat producers are worried that beef is the new coal. As previously reported, the Boston Consulting Group has forecast that meat alternatives will make up 11-22 per cent of the global protein market by 2035. A recent Kearney study has projected global meat sales to peak in 2025 and decline by 33 per cent by 2040.

Finally, two of Bloomberg’s top commodity journalists have written an opinion piece in the NY Times calling for increased government regulation of physical commodity trading. The article focuses on resource extraction in the oil and mining businesses, but it also contains the somewhat surprising misstatement that seven trading companies supply half the world’s food. As I wrote in my book – Out of the Shadows, The New Merchants of Grain – seven trading companies account for half of the world’s shipborne trade in grains and oilseeds, not half of the world’s food.

© Commodity Conversations ® 2021

The FT reports that the rising demand for commodities is having a dramatic impact on bulk freight rates. The Baltic Dry Index has risen to its highest level in more than a decade, soaring over 700 per cent since April 2020. Capesize rates have nearly doubled in the past month and are almost eight times last year’s average.

Although grain prices are rocketing to the moon, rice is being left behind on earth – good news for the more than 3 billion people that rely on the crop for most of their daily calories. Good harvests in Vietnam, Thailand, and India have helped keep prices relatively low. Also, as Bloomberg points out, rice is grown mainly for human consumption. In contrast, the surge in crop prices has been driven by China’s booming demand for livestock feed.

Road blockades and anti-government protests in Colombia have stopped coffee from reaching the country’s ports and halted exports during their main harvest. Nearly 50 people have died in the protests.

Still in Colombia, the country’s Coffee Growers Federation has identified six new subspecies of coffee leaf rust in the country, plus nine new variants of the fungus. Although approximately 84 per cent of Columbia’s coffee trees are disease-resistant varieties, the FNC is worried that the disease is constantly mutating.

The CME is closing – or not reopening – its last few remaining agricultural trading pits in Chicago. The Exchange had already replaced all futures transactions with electronic trading but kept its options pits open until March 2020, when it closed them due to Covid-19. The trading pits in Chicago date back 173 years; it is the end of an era.

ADM plans to build North Dakota’s first-ever dedicated soybean crushing plant and oil refinery. The plant will cost approximately $350 million and, once completed, can process 150,000 bushels of soybeans per day. ADM expect to complete the work in time for the 2023 harvest.

Cargill is expanding further in the gourmet food sector and has acquired Belgium-based Leman Decoration Group, a cake decoration company. Leman Decoration’s R&D hub is near Cargill’s House of Chocolate complex due to open in early 2022.

Glencore Agriculture in Australia has rebranded as Viterra in line with last year’s global rebrand. Viterra Australia has 800 employees and operates six ports in South Australia and one in western Victoria.

Bunge has announced that they are opening Vector – their Brazilian logistics and trucking platform – to outside companies. Vector is a joint venture between Bunge and Target, a logistics company. Bunge has been using the Vector app to digitize their in-house domestic grain trucking. Meanwhile, Bunge’s shareholders have voted for the company to evaluate and disclose its efforts to eliminate deforestation from its supply chains.

Unilever’s shareholders have voted to reduce greenhouse gas emissions “as much as possible” across the company’s supply chain to reach net-zero by 2039. Unilever plans to achieve this by focusing on reducing emissions rather than purchasing and retiring carbon credits.

Competition heated up in the alternative milk sector last week when Nestlé launched a new plant-based milk product called Wunda (nothing to do with the 1988 film, The Fish Called Wanda). Nestlé will make the drink with yellow peas, and they describe the product as “epic in everything”.

Nestlé is targeting Oatly, the “Wow! No Cow!” oat milk company that recently filed for an IPO in the US that may value the company at $10 billion. In July 2020, Oatly raised $200 million from a group of star investors, including Oprah Winfrey, Natalie Portman and former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz. At the time, the Wall Street Journal valued the company at $2 billion.

The FT takes an in-depth look at the global battle for plant-based milk. They suggest that protein content may prove key. Nestlé’s Wanda will contain 2.2g per 100ml compared to Oatly at 1g per 100ml. Cow’s milk contains 3g of protein per 100ml.

Reducing GHG emissions is one of the main arguments in favour of plant-based proteins. The FAO says animal agriculture is responsible for 14.5 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions. Still, a new paper in the Journal of Ecological Society argues that once you include the impact of deforestation, the figure is closer to (a hard to believe) 87 per cent.

Argentina’s Environment Ministry has launched a “Green Mondays” campaign to encourage citizens to substitute meat with plant-based proteins. At 22 per cent, Argentina’s cattle ranching industry is the most significant contributor to the country’s greenhouse gas emissions. Argentinians eat an average of 49kg of beef per year, almost twice the amount that their US neighbours eat each year.

Rolling Stone Magazine has listed eleven foods that our changing climate is already affecting. Wheat tops the list, but coffee, corn and rice also feature. A researcher from the International Food Policy Research Institute says, “It’s a race between innovation and the impacts of climate.”

But if we want to save the planet, The Guardian argues that insects are the future of food – if not for ourselves but for pet and animal feed.

Cargill seems to agree and has extended its strategic partnership with InnovaFeed to expand the use of insects in fish and animal feed, particularly for pigs. Insect fatty acids provide an 80 per cent reduction in carbon footprint compared to vegetable oils.

Talking of insects, the EU Court of Justice last week dismissed an appeal by Bayer against the European Union’s ban on three neonicotinoid insecticides. Despite the ruling, some EU nations have already partially lifted the ban, allowing sugar beet farmers to use neonicotinoids on seeds coatings through 2023.

In little-reported but good environmental news, the US Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory found that, due to better corn and ethanol yields, the carbon intensity of ethanol fell by 23 per cent between 2005 and 2019. Ethanol can now reduce carbon emissions by 44-52 per cent compared to gasoline.

Finally, if you are looking to learn more about regenerative agriculture – what it is and what it isn’t – I recommend this well researched and well written long read from the Counter.

© Commodity Conversations ® 2021

In what may become big news, the EU is reconsidering whether to allow genetically modified organisms (GMOs). A study – requested by the European Council – argued that GMOs could play a role in the EU’s goal to be carbon neutral by 2050. They could also help the bloc’s Farm to Fork Strategy to make food systems ‘fair, healthy and environmentally friendly.

Rising soybean prices are resulting in a wave of farmer defaults in Brazil, where trade houses are finding it difficult to enforce contracts made when prices were lower. Farmers complain that trade houses are demanding delivery even when they struck a verbal agreement on Whatsapp, over the phone or by email.

High grain prices are impacting global trade flows. US chicken producers are buying Brazilian soybeans, and Brazilian chicken producers are buying corn from Argentina. Meanwhile, animal feed producers worldwide are increasing their wheat purchases.

Rising prices and disrupted trade flows may be bad news for the world’s consumers, but they boost revenues for the world’s trade houses. ADM’s quarterly profit to end March jumped 76 per cent on last year; their oilseed crushing unit saw a record quarter. As ethanol prices have risen, ADM has restarted two dry corn ethanol mills. However, the company has said that it still wants to sell them.

Bunge Ltd reported a 91 per cent rise in its third-quarter profit on strong soy processing margins and robust demand. Bunge agribusiness quarterly earnings more than doubled to $467 million and the company has raised its 2020 earnings outlook from $6.25 to $6.75 per share.

Cargill’s Brazilian unit has posted a record net profit of more than 2.1 billion reais ($385 million) and revenue of 68.6 billion reais for last year.

The French cooperative InVivo has agreed to acquire family-owned Soufflet in a deal that will create one of Europe’s biggest agricultural businesses. The takeover could be completed by the end of 2021, subject to regulatory clearance. InVivo’s CEO said he wants the combined company to be able to compete with global crop merchants.

State-owned Saudi Grains Organization (SAGO) – one of the world’s biggest buyers of wheat and barley – is preparing to sell some of its grain silos as part of the country’s privatization programme.  The company has 3.3 million tonnes of grain storage. SAGO sold its flour mills last year for about $1.5 billion.

Still on company news, Olam International has acquired California based spices and seasoning business Olde Thompson for $950 million.

Although container rates peaked in late 2020 – and have been relatively stable in 2021 – they are now heading higher again. Analysts warn that they could rise further as the world’s economic recovery gathers steam.

Meanwhile, Cargill has cut nearly 1.5 million tonnes of gross carbon emissions from its shipping fleet since 2017. Cargill’s gross CO2 emissions fell to 7.102 million tonnes in 2020 from 7.732 million tonnes in 2017. The company charters between 600 to 700 vessels each year.

Low water levels in the Parana and Paraguay rivers are leaving barges grounded and disrupting shipments. Water levels in the port of Rosario are forecast to drop to about 1.17 metres this week versus an average for this time of the year of 3.58 metres.

Drought is also affecting river levels in the north of the continent. More than 15 million salmon raised at hatcheries in California’s Central Valley will hitch a ride to the Pacific Ocean in about 146 trucks. Following two years of drought, water levels in the state’s rivers are too low for the salmon to make the journey alone.

There was further bad news for fish lovers this week when we learned that wild salmon are getting smaller, apparently because they’re returning from the ocean at a younger age, with climate change and overfishing possibly to blame. As a result, Whole Foods has reduced its salmon buying size guidelines.

But, to curb overfishing, the World Trade Organization has said that it is accelerating an effort to end the $22 billion in government subsidies that support fishing industries worldwide. The new WTO Director-General has made the issue her top priority and has called a conference for July to discuss the issue.

But it is not just fish that are in difficulty; America’s bees are also under pressure. American beekeepers have filed a suit against the country’s honey importers, claiming that fake honey from Asia is pushing American beekeepers out of business. Honey is the most adulterated food after milk and olive oil.

Tyson Foods has launched a range of vegan meat products, joining other meat companies in the rapidly growing market for alternative proteins.  Consulting firm Kearney has forecast that meat demand will peak in 2025 and that the alternative protein market will grow to $450 billion by 2040, a quarter of the $1.8 trillion meat market.

However, a survey of 1,000 adults found that 73 per cent of Australian men would prefer to reduce their life expectancy by ten years rather than stop eating meat. The survey also found that 79 per cent of Australian men say they would not eliminate meat from their diets to help reduce their carbon footprint.

Meat is fast becoming a politically partisan issue in the US. Contrary to some media reports, President Biden will not limit meat consumption – or force you to drink ‘plant-based beer’. However, it appears the meat wars are only just beginning.

Finally, there was an excellent article in the FT this week about corruption in the commodity sector. It focuses on the energy and metals sectors, but it is still worth a read.

© Commodity Conversations ®

With wheat prices soaring, Bioceres, an Argentinian company, hopes that the world will change its mind about genetically modified wheat. Consumers have accepted genetically modified soybeans and corn, mainly because they are fed first to animals. Still, they have pushed back on genetically modified wheat, possibly because we consume it directly. Brazil’s government is due to vote next month whether to allow GM wheat; if it does, Bioceres will have its first market.

Rising vegoil prices, along with the US’s planned expansion in renewable diesel, are encouraging traders to expand their processing capacity. Cargill has announced that it will build an additional canola-crushing plant in Canada, adding one million tonnes to its Canadian capacity. Viterra has also announced that it will have a new canola plant up and running by 2024. Cargill is also investing directly in the production of renewable diesel with a new plant in Hastings, Nebraska, a joint venture with the Love group of companies.

We reported last week that skyrocketing corn prices have led to (perhaps overly optimistic) suggestions that China’s livestock farmers could replace imported corn and soy with domestically produced grains and oilseeds. This week, the Chinese government, concerned about a recent uptick in African Swine Fever, has announced new rules that control the movement of live hogs within the country. They could completely reshape the domestic pig-rearing industry.

But it is not just the domestic hog market that China is reshaping; COFCO’s growing importance in China’s imports is reshaping the competitive landscape for global grain traders.

Closer to home, Nestlé published its strongest quarterly results in a decade, primarily driven by solid demand in coffee. While presenting the results, the company’s CEO put a strong emphasis on sustainability, arguing that consumers now insist on it. Putting words into action, Nestlé confirmed that it is joining LEAF – the Lowering Emissions by Accelerating Forest finance Coalition – a public-private project that aims to raise at least $1 billion in initial financing to reduce or reverse deforestation.

Meanwhile, Nestlé has confirmed that it is in discussions to buy US-based nutritional supplement maker The Bountiful Company.

Not everyone is as bullish on coffee demand as Nestlé. Neumann, the world’s biggest coffee trader, expects demand to remain under pressure as Covid lockdowns come and go. There is, however, hope for coffee-lovers. A new wild coffee variety has been discovered that grows in warmer climates and is less vulnerable to climate change. It also, apparently, tastes delicious.

Still looking to the future, New Food Magazine has made some predictions about agricultural supply chains. They will increasingly be driven by data and technology, with a strong dose of transparency thrown in. Neither snack foods nor pet foods will be excluded from these trends.

Trade houses continue to adapt accordingly. This week, ADM opened a new plant-based food innovation laboratory in Singapore while Cargill announced an investment in Bflike, a Dutch start-up in plant-based meat and fish alternatives.  Even Epicurious, the online food magazine, made headlines (and undoubtedly some enemies) when they announced that they would no longer publish beef-based recipes.

© Commodity Conversations ® 2021

This is ECRUU’s last Commodity Conversations media report. 

Thank you to all of you who have supported and read this report over the last 5 years. We have decided to focus all our energy and attention on exciting developments for our core products (sugar & ethanol media monitoring – check it out here). 

Make sure you follow commodityconversations.com to continue receiving insights and updates on sustainable agriculture. 

Bad weather conditions around the world are threatening to tighten grain stocks which are already at their lowest in the past five years. Brazil’s corn crop is at risk because of the dry weather, a cold wave destroyed seedlings in Europe and now the US Midwest is expected to suffer from abnormally cold and dry weather over the next few days. Demand has been increasing at the same time and governments are now looking to control food inflation. For one, Brazil announced that the suspension of corn import duties, among other grains, had been extended until the end of the year.

China issued new feed guidelines in response to the rise in grain prices which could have long-term repercussions on global trade flows. The directive recommends that livestock operators reduce the amount of corn and soybeans used and replace them with cheaper alternatives, such as rice, cassava, barley, rapeseed meal, cottonseed meal or peanut meal. Some doubted whether this would actually change consumption patterns as cost will remain the main factor. One analyst also noted that soybeans and corn maintain a significant supply advantage as “the volume of soybeans the US can load in a single day is larger than the yearly global export volume of cottonseed meal”. 

New data revealed that consumers globally cooked and baked more during the pandemic as global grocery sales were up 10% in 2020. The data highlighted some regional differences, such as alcohol sales which grew 20-25% in Western Europe and Latin America but dropped 10% in Asia. In the UK, consumers are also focusing on their health as the sale of berries remains higher than usual. A researcher noted that shoppers were no longer focusing on calorie count but on holistic health and the importance of nutrients.

Nestle saw its strongest quarterly sales growth in a decade in the first quarter thanks to the rise​_ in at-home coffee consumption. Dairy and pet food sales also reported strong growth, while the firm expanded its ecommerce and health science portfolio. In contrast, Danone witnessed a fall in sales in the first quarter. Essential dairy and plant-based foods sales were up but not enough to offset the poor performance of the bottled water and special nutrition segments. 

The EU’s agriculture commissioner expressed his support for a citizens initiative called “End of cage age”  which seeks to ban the use of cages to improve animal welfare. The petition gained 1.4 million signatures and the commissioner said he would now work on drafting legislation. In response, the livestock industry argued that oversimplifying the concept of cages could actually have negative consequences. The idea that “all enclosures are inherently bad for animals” overshadows the complexity of animal welfare and the specificity of certain animals. Instead, animal well-being has more to do with “housing parameters, enrichments, animals’ ability to move freely, the risk of injuries and diseases”, according to the livestock industry. 

Major food firms are also worried that the EU will vote in favour of new restrictions on the marketing of plant-based meat alternatives. Under the proposal, plant-based products will not be allowed to be marketed as dairy alternatives. Nestle would have to rebrand its Almond Latte which is marketed as a “delicious alternative to dairy” and some worry that soy drink makers will even have to change their packaging to avoid comparison to milk cartons. 

Oatly argued that the proposal would place unfair restrictions on plant-based products and hinder the effort to decarbonise food production. Otherwise, the firm officially filed documents for an IPO in the US. The papers revealed that Oatly’s loss widened to USD 60.4 million in 2020. Meanwhile, the sector is due to get more crowded with the launch of Coca-Cola’s Simply Oat drink. And the world’s largest meat supplier, Brazil’s JBS, announced the acquisition of Vivera BV, Europe’s third-largest plant-based food producer. The Dutch firm was acquired for USD 408 million.

After years of debate on the proper ratio of cow to goat milk in halloumi, the EU granted the cheese a protected designation of origins (PDO) status. Perhaps surprisingly, the decision could potentially have geopolitical implications and help with the reunification of Cyprus. The documents also recognised hellim, the Turkish word for the halloumi produced on the Turkish enclave on the island. The local community is now calling for a new production control mechanism that would involve both the Cypriot and Turkish communities. 

This summary was produced by ECRUU

Sri Lanka banned the import of palm oil, effective immediately. The President instructed local palm oil companies to uproot their crops. His goal is to make the country palm oil-free and address deforestation. Coconut plantation owners were also told to progressively change crops. Farmers were advised to plant “rubber or other environmentally-friendly crops” instead. 

The country used to import most of its palm oil from Malaysia but the amount was too small to have a significant impact. Instead, palm oil prices grew last week amid a strong demand from India, Europe and Africa. The global vegetable oil supply is also expected to be tight as US farmers might plant fewer soybeans than expected. 

Global grain markets could be upended again with the resurgence of African swine fever in China, where 20-25% of the pig population in the north was reportedly lost. Local sources claim that the government is underreporting cases which have risen in the first quarter of 2021 because of the cold weather, a high density of new pig herds and new strains. The disease killed 50% of the country’s hog population in the first year after it was discovered in 2018.

Malaysia’s palm oil estates have been able to deal with the strong growth in demand thanks to huge improvements in yields. New research, however, argued that improvements in yields are being slowed by the changing climate. Farm productivity would be 21% higher when compared to 1961 if it wasn’t for the warming climate, the study claims. Ironically, one of the major culprits of global warming is the agricultural sector and its drive to boost productivity. Researchers suggested that farmers should aim to improve yields without relying on more inputs like land or water. 

The increasing prevalence of droughts, floods, heat and cold waves is also leading to more crop failures, according to another recently published paper. Europe lost 2.2% of its crop production in 1964-1990 because of extreme weather events, while losses in 1991-2015 were almost three times higher at 7.3%. Some crops, like cereals, are much more vulnerable because they are less likely to be irrigated. Nonetheless, average yields in Europe still increased by 150% between 1964-1990 and 1991-2015.

While a growing number of meat and dairy companies announced pledges to reach net-zero emissions, a paper from New York University noted that most firms still have no climate policy. And it argued that the pledges made so far are often inadequate. They do not contain details and focus mostly on carbon dioxide without addressing methane or land-use change. The paper also highlights the lobbying efforts by agricultural producers to fight climate change policies. The money spent to influence policy often exceeds the amounts paid by fossil fuel companies, although they come under less scrutiny. 

Consumers could help accelerate the switch to a sustainable agricultural supply chain as the food industry is catching up with the world of big data to quickly respond to consumer preference. Food producers used to lack information on customer purchases but the rise in delivery and direct-to-consumer sales is making large food firms much more responsive. Kraft Heinz, for example, launched a larger portion size for its mac and cheese only a few months after people started asking for it on social media. 

Evidence suggests that consumers are already buying more products they believe to be environmentally friendly. A survey of 42,768 shoppers found that they would choose a product with an ecolabel – like Rainforest Alliance or Certified Carbon Reduction label –  79% of the time. Income, age or education were not factors in purchases, although women were more likely to choose goods with ecolabels. However, not all ecolabels are strictly regulated or transparent. The industry should work on labels that “capture a product’s full environmental impact from farm to fork”, researchers suggested. 

Despite the huge amount of money invested in plant-based meat alternatives, the consumption of meat in the US is actually still increasing, according to USDA data. The per capita consumption of chicken, pork and beef were all up in 2020 when compared to 2016. 

Restaurants and investors have been experimenting with new kitchen concepts during the pandemic, like ghost kitchens that rent out space for cooks to make internet-only restaurants. A journalist discovered a new phenomenon when investigating a series of listings on delivery apps. Some restaurants are selling their menu items as if they came from different restaurants. The concept is being pushed by Future Foods – a unit of CloudKitchen which was created by the Uber cofounder – and relies on very flashy marketing. Some of the items were sold under restaurant names like Pimp My Pasta, Cheeky’s Cheesesteaks or OMG BBQ LOL. 

This summary was produced by ECRUU