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Our planet is roughly 4.5 billion years old. Our human ancestors appeared on Earth around 66 million years ago. Still, as we know ourselves today, humans have only existed for the last 2 million years, the vast majority of that time as hunter-gatherers.

Humans may have begun to grow crops on the Sea of Galilee’s shores about 23,000 years ago. However, agriculture proper did not start to develop until 12,000 years ago when hunter-gatherers in the ‘Fertile Crescent’ began growing wild varieties of crops like peas, lentils and barley. They also herded wild animals like goats and oxen in the region.

Historians disagree as to why our ancestors made the structural shift from hunting and gathering to farming. Some argue that a changing climate left them no alternative but to seek alternative sources of foods. Some suggest the transition was more a result of our perpetual drive to improve our condition. Others even suggest that a love of beer drove them to give up their nomadic lifestyles. Archaeologists estimate that 40 per cent of early wheat production went to make beer—the oldest barley beer dates to 3400 BC.

In broad-brush terms, historians divide agricultural progress into three stages. The First Agricultural Revolution defines the move from hunting-gathering to farming that occurred 7-10,000 years ago. The Second Agricultural Revolution refers to the mineral fertilisers and the industrialisation of farming and farm processing in the 19^th century. We are still living through the Third Agricultural Revolution, or the ‘Green Revolution’, that began in the middle of the 20^th century. It involved improved crop yields through breeding and the introduction of agricultural inputs such as fertiliser and pesticides.

Farming changed little during the first 10,000 years of human history. Farmers regularly left fields fallow, and animal manure was the sole fertiliser. In the early 1800s, scientists began to understand that inorganic minerals such as nitrogen, potassium, lime, and phosphoric acid could replenish depleted soils.

The search for fertiliser led merchants and scientists to the dry seabird islands off the South American and South African coasts, where immense deposits of bird droppings, rich in nitrogen and phosphorus, had accumulated over centuries. Guano mining became a profitable business. Between 1840 and 1880, guano nitrogen made a vast difference to European agriculture, but the best deposits were soon exhausted. However, miners found rich mineral nitrate deposits in Chile, and nitrates gradually replaced guano in the late 19th century.

In The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Michael Pollan writes that the great turning point in the modern history of agriculture can be dated to the day in 1947 when a munitions plant in Alabama switched away from making explosives to make chemical fertiliser instead. He explains that at the end of World War II, the US government found itself with a surplus of ammonium nitrate, the principal ingredient in making explosives. Ammonium nitrate is an excellent source of nitrogen for plants. Chemical fertilisers and pesticides were the product of the US government’s effort to convert its war machine to peacetime purposes.

Even though the Earth’s atmosphere is about 80 per cent nitrogen, nitrogen atoms have to be split and joined to hydrogen atoms (‘fixed’) to make fertiliser or bombs. A German Jewish chemist named Fritz Haber worked out how to do that in 1909. Before he made that discovery, all the usable nitrogen on Earth had to be fixed by soil bacteria or electrical lightning, which breaks down nitrogen bonds in the atmosphere.

In his book, Enriching the Earth: Fritz Haber, Carl Bosch and the Transformation of World Food Production, Vaclav Smil explains that ‘there is no way to grow crops and human bodies without nitrogen’. Without Haber’s invention, the small amount of nitrogen that bacteria and lightning alone could release would have limited the number of people that agriculture could support.

In his book, Mr Smil argues that the Haber-Bosch process for fixing nitrogen (Bosch commercialised Haber’s idea) was the most important invention of the 20th century. He estimates that 40 per cent of the people on Earth today would not be alive without Haber’s invention. Without synthetic fertiliser, billions of people would never have been born.

Fritz Haber won the Nobel Prize in 1918 for ‘improving the standards of agriculture and the well-being of mankind’, but, since then, he has largely been airbrushed out of history. During the First World War, he helped the German war effort by making bombs from synthetic nitrate. Worse, he also developed poison gases, including Zyklon B, used in the Nazi concentration camps.

The Haber-Bosch process works by combining nitrogen and hydrogen gases under immense heat and pressure, supplied by electricity. The hydrogen is provided by oil, coal or, most commonly today, natural gas. As such, Michael Pollan argues that once humanity had acquired the power to fix nitrogen, the basis of soil fertility shifted from a total reliance on the energy of the sun to a new dependence on fossil fuel.

Farming, which had historically always been a process of converting sunlight into food, has become a process of converting fossil fuels into food. More than half of the world’s supply of usable nitrogen is now human-made—and farmers use more than half of all the synthetic nitrogen made today to grow just one crop: corn.

Some excess nitrogen evaporates into the air, acidifying the rain and contributing to global warming. Some seep down to the water table and the rivers. Mr Pollan writes:

‘The ultimate fate of the nitrates spread in Iowa or Indiana is to flow down the Mississippi into the Gulf of Mexico, where their deadly fertility poisons the marine ecosystem. The nitrogen tide stimulates the wild growth of algae, and the algae smother the fish, creating a ‘hypoxic’, or dead, zone as big as New Jersey–and still growing. By fertilising the world, we alter the planet’s composition of species and shrink its biodiversity.’

He is right, of course. The world would be a very different place if it were not for the advances in agriculture and agricultural technology that occurred over the past century. Admittedly it would probably be less polluted, and we might eat better, but two out of five of us probably wouldn’t be here. And of the remaining three, at least one would go to bed hungry every night.

Some might argue that the world would be a better place if there were 40 per cent fewer of us on the planet. But, personally, I am happy to be here.

© Commodity Conversations ®

This is an extract from my next book: ‘Commodity Crops and the Merchants who Trade them.’

Image from Pixabay

No matter what historians claimed, BC really stood for ‘Before Coffee’.― Cherise Sinclair

The first reference to coffee as we know it today was in the early 15^th century when the Arab mystic al-Dhabhani saw Ethiopians drinking ‘qahwa’, now the Arab word for coffee. The Ethiopians, however, call coffee ‘buna’, which also means bean.

As coffee gained popularity throughout the Arab world, it began to be used less as a religious drink and more as a social stimulant. In 1511, Khair-Beg, the governor of Mecca, ruled that coffee was like wine and hence banned by the Koran. He ordered the city’s coffee houses to be closed, only to have the ban overturned by his boss, the Sultan of Cairo.

Despite its growing popularity, coffee production was slow to pick up; it was only after the Ottomans occupied Yemen in 1536 that they began to extensively cultivate the crop in the country. The Ottomans exported the coffee from the port of Mocha, and it became known as ‘mocha’.

When the first English sailor reached the port in 1606, he wrote that there were over thirty-five merchant ships, some from as far away as India, waiting to load the precious green beans.

Some of the coffee was shipped to Alexandria in Egypt and then on to Venice. Still, mostly it stayed within the Ottoman empire, reaching Damascus and Istanbul by the middle of the century. By then, coffee was no longer considered just a religious drink, but also a social one. By the end of the 16^th century, there were over 600 coffee shops operating in Istanbul.

The way of brewing coffee changed as it travelled. Arabic coffee (qahwa) is a light-coloured liquid made by lightly toasting the beans, crushing them with various spices such as cardamom, and then boiling them in water. Turkish coffee (kahve) is made with more darkly roasted beans and brought to the boil at least twice but without spices.

For a time, the Ottomans successfully prevented coffee cultivation from spreading outside the area of Mocha; they refused to let berries leave the country unless they were first boiled in water to prevent their germination. However, exports had grown to such a level that it was impossible to stop some un-boiled beans from getting through. As Muslim pilgrims returned to their homes, they took coffee beans with them.

One such pilgrim, Buba Budan, is credited in 1600 with smuggling out some beans by taping seven of them to his stomach. He took them back to India and planted the beans next to his hut at Chickmaglur in the mountains of Mysore. Buba Budan is now (rightly) revered as a saint, but it was not until 1840 that the English began the commercial cultivation of coffee in India; the plantations extend now from the extreme north of Mysore down to Tuticorin.

In 1614, Dutch traders brought a coffee plant from Mocha to Amsterdam, and by mid-century, they had taken plants to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and Dutch Malaba (now Cochin), where they started small plantations. From there, in 1696, the Dutch took cuttings from the plants to their colonial island of Java. A flood washed away the early seedlings, but the Dutch tried again three years later, this time successfully. In 1706, the first Java coffee had reached Amsterdam; some coffee plants were grown successfully in Amsterdam’s botanical gardens.

During the 17th century, ‘Mocha’ and ‘Java’ became synonyms for coffee; they are still so today.

© Commodity Conversations ®

This is a short extract from my book Crop to Cup – Conversations over Coffee now available on Amazon.

 

Good morning, Andrey. Could you tell me a little bit about yourself and your company?

After leaving university, I worked for ExportKleb, which at one time was the largest importer of grain into the Soviet Union. My father, Andrey Sizov Sr, founded Sovecon in 1991, and I joined in 1998.

Sovecon is the oldest established firm in the Black Sea analysing and closely following agricultural markets – mainly wheat, corn, some barley and oilseeds. In addition to our regular reports included in sizov.report service, we also do multi-client studies. We are a small company – about five people in total.

What is the biggest issue in the Black Sea grain markets today?

Officials in both Russia and Ukraine have little faith in free markets. They don’t believe that price can balance supply and demand. They want to take administrative control of their domestic grain markets, primarily by limiting exports.

A few weeks ago, the Russian Ministry of Agriculture published a proposal that, if accepted, would limit total grain exports, including wheat, corn and barley, to 15 million mt for the current season. That tonnage was in line with expectations, and the market did not react.

Russian domestic grain consumers – flour millers, farmers and animal feed manufacturers – argue that export quotas won’t be enough to stop an increase in domestic prices.  They have written to the Prime Minister to ask instead for a tax on grain exports. They have requested the government set a threshold price in roubles, with a 50 per cent tax on anything above that threshold price.

I believe that both proposals are bad, but the second one will be tough to manage because of the currency risk between the threshold price in roubles and the export price in dollars.

How likely is it that the government will impose one or other of these restrictions?

There is a third possibility – that the government doesn’t do anything. I would rate the probability of export quotas at 60 per cent, export taxes at 30 per cent, and of the government doing neither, and perhaps proving some subsidies to local grain consumers, at 10 per cent.

The market is expecting export quotas; they are already in the price.  The market is not expecting export taxes; they are not on the radar. If the government introduced them, it would catch the market on the wrong foot; we could see a market reaction.

What about Ukraine?

Local consumers are also not happy with domestic grain prices and have written to the government to ask them to limit corn exports. The government has already imposed soft limits on wheat exports, but there are no set penalties if you over-export. If the Ukrainian government imposed rigid limits on corn exports, it would come as a shock to the market.

Exports have been the primary driver of the growth in the Russian and Ukrainian grain sector over the past 20 years, and I am afraid that restrictions on exports would be detrimental to further expansion. They could be harmful in the long term for everyone in the supply chain, farmers, traders and firms investing in sea terminals.

Going back to Russia, couldn’t traders get around the proposed system by declaring lower prices on their export contracts?

I believe that would be impossible given the transparency of prices all along the supply chain. However, it may mean that traders make sales basis FAS (Free Alongside Ship) rather than FOB (Free on Board), or that they ship more from the lower-draught ports in the Sea of Azov, which trade at a discount due to higher shipping costs.

When do you think any changes might come into effect?

The government may try to publish the necessary decrees by the end of this year for validity in 2021.

Isn’t this all part of the Russian government looking to take control of every aspect of grain exports? The state-owned bank VTB is already a significant terminal and port operator.

You shouldn’t confuse the two issues. VTB is majority state-owned, but it is in their interest is to maximise export flows through their infrastructure. The government may want, for domestic political reasons, to reduce exports. The two forces are opposing, not complementary.

Do you see Black Sea exports continuing to grow in the medium to long term?

Ukraine does not have much land on which to expand its grain area, but the country does have plenty of room to improve yields. Average wheat yields are around 4 mt/ha; this compares with 6-7 mt/ha in the EU. Wheat yields in Ukraine could improve to 5-6 mt/ha. As for corn, average yields are currently around 6-7 mt/ha; this compares to 10-11 mt/ha in North America.

Russia also has considerable room to increase yields. Global warming has been beneficial to Russian agriculture. Milder winters have meant that farmers could plant more area under winter, as opposed to spring, wheat. Average winter wheat yields are around 4 mt/ha compared to 2 mt/ha for spring wheat.

Russia also has a lot of area that they could bring back into production. Potentially, farmers could bring in an additional 300,000 to one million hectares into production every year. It will mostly be in the Volga Valley region, which has relatively easy access to the Caspian Sea. It will facilitate Russia’s exports to Iran, a significant wheat and corn importer.

There is also some potential for Russia to expand corn and soybean areas in the Far East of the country; Russia could become a significant competitor in Asia for Northern and Southern American farmers.

How much do you expect Russia and Ukraine to export in ten years?

We estimate that Russia, including Crimea, will produce 85.5 million mt of wheat this season. Our figure for Ukraine is 25 million mt. Aggregated production is 110 million mt. We could see that increasing to 150 million mt in ten years.

We estimate the total corn crop in 2020 at around 45 million mt (31 million mt in Ukraine and 14 million mt in Russia). In ten years, this number could increase to 60 million mt.

That additional production is likely to result in a substantial increase in exports. We expect local consumption to grow at a slower pace, something around 0.5-0.7 per cent annually.

There are two significant obstacles to this. The first one is the governments’ actions – we hope to see more freedom and less export control in both countries. Our industry doesn’t need subsidies, nor does it require state investment. All we need is the freedom to grow and remain competitive.

The second one is global warming – so far it has been beneficial for the region, but medium-long term things could start to change. It could put the southern areas of Ukraine and Russia in a risk zone with a higher probability of drought and crop failure.

We are possibly already seeing this. The 2020 crop was a disaster for many farmers in Odesa (southern Ukraine) and Kuban (south Russia) because of a lack of precipitation. The outlook for 2021 is rather grim again for Russian South after another dry autumn. This issue could be addressed by the rapid introduction of new drought-resistance varieties. Still, these new varieties are being developed with gene-editing methods which are officially forbidden in both countries.

Thank you, Andrey, for your time and inputs.

© Commodity Conversations ®

Jonathan’s book, ‘Out of the Shadows – The New Merchants of Grain’ is available on Amazon.

 

Coffee should be black as hell, strong as death and sweet as love. – Turkish Proverb

Coffee grows in tropical regions between the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn in what is known as the ‘bean belt’. Arabica generally likes higher altitudes of 550 to 1,950 metres (1,800 to 6,300 feet); anything above 1200 metres is ideal. Coffee grown below about 1,000 metres may be of inferior quality, although Hawaii is an exception. Robusta varieties prefer a lower elevation of 180 to 750 metres (600 to 2,400 feet) with warmer temperatures. Within those ranges, the altitude profoundly impacts the coffee. High elevation coffee will produce more acidic, aromatic and flavourful coffee; lower elevation coffee tends to have less acidity and a more muted character.

Coffee plants are evergreen shrubs that can grow up to 4-6 metres tall with broad, glossy leaves and white flowers. Older varietals take 3 to 4 years to bear fruit while recent varietals will bear their first crop two years after being planted out.

The fruit, the coffee cherry, ripens around eight months after the emergence of the flower. The cherries are harvested once they have changed colour from green to deep red. In most coffee-growing countries, there is one major harvest a year. A few countries, including Colombia, have a primary and secondary crop: the main harvest is from April to June and the smaller one from November to December.

Just as there are two main kinds of coffee, arabica and robusta, there are two main methods of coffee cultivation: sun-grown and shade-grown. Shade-grown coffee is the more traditional approach that mimics the natural way coffee trees grow in the wild, underneath a forest canopy. Farmers, particularly in Brazil, began growing coffee in full sun in the 1970s to increase yields and production.

Coffee trees growing in the shade of a forest maintain the forest’s biodiversity, particularly its wildlife, and shade-grown coffee often trades at a premium to full-sun coffee. However, the thick forest cover – combined with the steep mountain slopes where coffee grows – makes harvesting more difficult and costlier. It is much cheaper to produce coffee on open flat land, especially if it is mechanically harvested.

There are different degrees of shade-grown coffee production. Rustic shade-grown coffee is where the trees are planted in an existing forest with only the lowest levels of the original forest removed. Once planted, the coffee trees require little care and often no pesticides or herbicides. It is the least capital-intensive method of coffee production. It suffers from a low yield and is quite rare except in India and some of the western coffee areas of Ethiopia.

Traditional polyculture involves planting other (usually food-bearing) trees alongside the coffee trees under a natural forest’s canopy. Commercial polyculture consists of removing or pruning much of the native forest trees to allow sunlight to pass and to give space for the coffee and other crops to grow. The shaded monoculture system is where farmers plant and then prune a single species of tree to provide shade for the coffee trees, allowing them to be grown more densely.

Over the past half-century, growers have developed new sun-tolerant coffee trees and shrubs to combat disease (particularly rust-leaf disease) and provide higher yields. As a result, the percentage of coffee that is shade-grown has been steadily falling. The increase in global production over the past twenty years has almost all been full-sun coffee.  Shade-grown coffee fell from 43 per cent of the total cultivated area in 1996 to 24 per cent in 2014. It has almost certainly continued to fall since then.

Coffee is picked by hand in most countries. In Brazil, where the landscape is relatively flat and the coffee fields immense, the process has been mechanised. Mechanical harvesters strip-pick all the cherries from the trees in one go, whether they are unripe (green), ripe (red) or overripe (purple/black). Mechanical harvesting can stress and damage the trees, reducing the yield the following year.

Coffee is sometimes also strip-picked by hand, particularly the lower quality arabica or robusta varieties. Better quality coffees tend to be selectively picked by hand. The pickers rotate among the trees every eight to ten days, choosing only the cherries which are at the peak of ripeness.

Selective hand picking is more labour intensive and more costly; it is used primarily to harvest the higher quality arabica beans. Red berries, with their higher aromatic oil and lower organic acid content, are more fragrant, smooth and mellow. As such, coffee picking is one of the most critical stages of coffee production.

© Commodity Conversations ®

This is an extract from my book Crop to Cup – Conversations over Coffee now available on Amazon.