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March 5, 2020

Commodity Conversations Weekly Press Summary

Michelin has been accused of “greenwashing” with its restaurant guide’s new sustainable gastronomy award. The chef of Michelin star restaurant Relae in Denmark complained it had been awarded the label without any independent audit being conducted. Environmentalists added that the label was vague and without any clear requirements. To top it off, some were quick to point out the irony of a tire company handing out sustainability awards.

In any case, the traditional concept of restaurant dining could be on its way out. A deep-dive by The Counter looked at US data which, although confusing, pointed to the increasing number of restaurants closing down every year. While this is partly because more restaurants are opening up in the first place, with the chef and restaurateur culture becoming increasingly cool, it is mainly due to new eating habits. People either prefer to order in or eat on the go. As such, venture capital is being poured into so-called “cloud kitchens” that only cater to deliveries.

The water bottle industry, too, could be facing significant changes going forward. In Washington, the Senate approved a bill banning new permits for water bottling operations and other states, such as Maine and Michigan, are looking to follow suit. Congress has set up an oversight committee to look into the operations of the bottled water industry, under which Nestle has been asked to submit data on sales, water extraction and the amount of plastic used, among other things.

Nestle announced a USD 700 million investment to “meet the nutritional needs of Mexicans.” Under the plan, its 17 factories in Mexico will be upgraded to focus on products that either have lower sugar and fat content or are fortified with vitamins and probiotics, among other wellness food and beverage products. It will open a new coffee plant too but it hopes to offset the carbon emissions from that factory by planting 3 million trees in Mexico and Brazil within the next 18 months.

In Australia, Nestle tied up with recycling company iQ Renew to collect and recycle soft plastics from homes. The trial will include around 2,000 homes with the aim of reaching 100,000 by the end of the year. Similarly, Unilever said it was working on creating a market for recycled plastics in Australia and New Zealand. It aims to use half as many new plastics and collect more than it uses by 2025. McDonald’s announced it was phasing out plastic cutlery by the end of the year and replacing it with fibre-based cutlery. The timing is probably good because 10 of the major food and beverage companies are being sued in the US by Earth Island Institute for their use of single-use plastics. The organisation hopes that the companies will be forced to clean up and recycle. Besides, supermarkets, in Australia and elsewhere, are worried they might eventually run out of food packaging because of the supply disruption out of China due to the coronavirus.

Olam reported a net profit of SGD 313 million (USD 225 million) for Oct-Dec, four times as much as the previous year, thanks to divestments as well as better performance in several segments, such as coffee and grains. This brought the total 2019 net profit to SGD 564 million (USD 405 million), up 62% on year. The CEO said the group’s exposure to the new coronavirus and China was limited but added that it had affected consumption on a global scale, causing lower prices across commodities. In Nigeria, Olam is investing in tomato farming and finding better seeds. In Indonesia, it agreed to sell its 50% stake in Indonesian sugar refinery Far East Agri to Mitr Phol as part of its strategy to exit the sugar market.

In Brazil, meat producers JBS and Marfrig have been accused of sourcing cattle from a farmer who murdered people trying to protect the Amazon forest in 2017. This is the emerging part of a much bigger issue known as “cattle laundering.” While the likes of JBS say they do everything they can to check that their direct suppliers are not involved in deforestation, the indirect suppliers are able to go around these checks by selling their cattle to companies that are vetted to supply directly.

In the UK, meanwhile, a study found that the anti-meat lobby is contributing to growing mental health issues among livestock farmers. Part of the problem, however, is that meat farmers are stuck between shaming on platforms such as social media and pressure from big supermarkets to provide cheap meat. Greenpeace argued that livestock farmers should not be blamed. On the contrary, they should be helped to switch to farming something else. In the same vein, the European Commission is looking into its subsidy system designed to help promote agricultural products. It faced a backlash after data showed that EUR 60 million (USD 67 million) had been spent over three years to subsidise the marketing of meat products.

Finally, Belgian researchers are taking the quest to replace dairy products to a new level. They are testing using larva fat to replace butter in bakery products. Apparently it tastes exactly the same.

This summary was produced by ECRUU

March 4, 2020

AgriCensus Report

China’s soymeal, rapeseed meal futures soar on ASF vaccine report

2 Mar 2020 | Johnny Huang

Soymeal and rapeseed futures in China rallied sharply on Monday, as the market responded to an academic report detailing the successful test of a potential vaccine for African swine fever (ASF).

A medical team at the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS) successfully trialled the ASF vaccine, releasing its findings in a research paper published in Science China’s journal.

“Our study shows that HLJ/-18-7GD is a safe and effective vaccine against ASF, and as such is expected to play an important role in controlling the spread of ASF,” the paper said.

The virus has killed million of hogs in China since August 2018, when it was first identified, and spread rapidly to claim the millions more hogs in neighbouring Vietnam before spreading further afield.

The report was enough to drive both soymeal and rapeseed meal futures – key sources of protein in animal feed – to reach a multi-month high on Monday.

The most liquid soymeal futures on the Dalian Commodity Exchange surged nearly 4% from the Friday close to hit a two-month higher of CNY2,719/mt ($390.66/mt).

For rapeseed meal, the most active future on the Zhengzhou Commodity Exchange jumped to its highest level in four months at CNY2,370/mt ($340.52/mt).

“These facts demonstrate that ASF cannot be controlled by culling infected pigs alone, and the development and application of an efficacious vaccine is urgently needed,” the paper added.

However, the rollout and use of such a vaccine across the market remains a long way off, with researchers emphasising that it is early days and there remains uncertainty ahead.

“The media had a misleading interpretation of the results,” said Zhu Zengyong, a researcher from CAAS, referring to the early media coverage that accompanied the first reports of the vaccine.

“The research and application of vaccine still has uncertainty in the future,” Zhu said.

Many market sources also believe that the rally lacks strong fundamental support.

“The rally was started by the vaccine rumour, but it was then dismissed. There were repercussions from equity and commodity markets today, along with a correction of crush margins,” said an analyst at a major Chinese crusher.

“The bullish trend today was not reasonable. It exceeded expectations,” one soymeal purchasing manager told Agricensus, adding that low soybean vessel arrivals and decent physical soymeal demand may have supported the futures.

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March 2, 2020

More on government intervention

Continuing on the theme from last week of government intervention, the following is an extract from my book The Sugar Casino, published in 2015:

In a freely functioning market supply and demand is, in theory at least, matched by price. If demand increases or supply falls, prices rise to encourage supply while at the same time reducing demand. If supply increases or demand drops then prices fall, sending a signal to producers to reduce output or to consumers to increase demand.

This process is what is often described as the “invisible hand”, the unobservable market force that helps the demand and supply of goods in a free market to reach equilibrium automatically. Adam Smith introduced the phrase in 1759 in reference to income distribution and then used it again in “The Wealth of Nations” in 1776. He argued that an economy works best in a free market scenario where everyone works for his or her own interest – and where the government leaves people to buy and sell freely among themselves.

The American baseball player Yogi Berra once said, “In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is”.

In practice, markets may not always be efficient, and governments may need to interfere to correct those inefficiencies. This might happen if producers club together into a cartel to raise prices, requiring the government to intervene to break up the cartel. But even without a cartel a sugar mill might be so big in a particularly region that it could in its own right be a monopoly employer or buyer of cane, forcing down wages and cane prices, or a monopoly seller, forcing sugar prices higher.

In addition, sugar producers might not correctly price what economists call “collective goods”: these could be the environmental costs of factory pollution or heavy traffic on the roads at harvest time. Individual producers might not also correctly value the benefits of research into new cane varieties or of infrastructure investment such as railways or ports. On a wider scale governments, rather than markets, may better provide collective goods such as education and health services.

Inefficiencies sometimes creep into markets due to a lack of information. To counter that a government could encourage the setting up of commodity exchanges to facilitate trade and improve price transparency.

But governments also interfere in markets, not to correct market inefficiencies, but to obtain specific policy objectives such as the alleviation of poverty or a fairer distribution of wealth. Interfering in the market in this way can however have a cost: it can create price distortions that prevent the most productive and efficient allocation of resources. This “economic loss” has to be measured against the “social gain”, say, of a more equal income distribution.

Governments may also interfere in markets for diplomatic reasons, for example by applying a lower import tariff on sugar from one country compared to sugar from another. Lower import tariffs might be applied to curry favour from a neighbour or in exchange for lower tariffs on other goods within the framework of a Free Trade Area (FTA). Altruistic governments may also reduce or remove import tariffs on sugar imports as part of a policy to promote growth in developing countries. Such an example would be the EU’s “Everything But Arms” agreements.

In the agricultural markets some governments, in particular China, may try to keep cane prices high in order to maintain rural incomes and to slow down the migration of the population to the cities. Other governments (or more correctly politicians) may try to keep cane prices high for less altruistic reasons: to win political votes. India is an obvious example of this; perhaps Thailand is a less obvious example.

Governments may also often interfere in markets to maintain employment. It would certainly be more cost efficient, say, for Bangladesh to close down their few remaining sugar mills and import the sugar they need from Brazil or Thailand. (The same also applies, but on a much larger scale, to China.) However, closing factories can result in a politically unacceptable increase in unemployment. Sugar industry employees in Bangladesh and China might be better off making something else other than sugar, but a reallocation of that sort takes time. It would involve short-term hardship for the employees concerned and would be a difficult “political sell” in the short term. And everyone knows that politicians operate in the short term: their time frame is the next election.

February 27, 2020

Commodity Conversations Weekly Press Summary

As the spread of the new coronavirus is expected to impact global trade flows, the US President said the government might offer farmers more trade aid in 2020 to compensate for the lack of purchases from China. The USDA said the news, announced on Twitter in all-caps, was a surprise. Meanwhile, lawmakers are looking at how the trade aid money – over USD 23 billion since 2018 – is being distributed. Critics point to the fact that foreign firms like Brazil’s JBS are receiving hundreds of millions of dollars in government funds.

The giant meat processor JBS received some more good news this week as the USDA ended a ban on raw beef imports from Brazil. The agency blocked Brazilian imports in 2017 on health and safety concerns. Otherwise, US efforts to isolate Iran have allowed it to take the position of biggest pistachio grower in the world. This deep-dive by Bloomberg looks at how geopolitics, climate change and resource mismanagement created challenges for Iranian producers, along with how investors are looking at new potential pistachio-growing countries, like Georgia, Uzbekistan, and Azerbaijan.

China’s virus outbreak is having indirect but impactful consequences for the food industry worldwide, such as the fall in Chinese fertiliser production. India usually imports 50% of its diammonium phosphate from China but the lockdown of Hubei province is forcing India to look for alternative suppliers. In North Korea, the price of many basic goods started to fall again after a spike caused by the closure of the border with China. Sources reported that the price of imported goods dropped as distributors were forced to release their stocks.

China is also one of the largest producers of alternative sweeteners and Coca-Cola warned that the ongoing virus will lead to a shortage. Although China is the group’s third-biggest market, it expects that the coronavirus will only affect revenues by 1-2% in the quarter. Likewise, Danone said sales will be down about USD 100 million in the first quarter because of the virus. Danone also pledged to spend USD 2.2 billion over the next three years in order to “build climate change resilience” into the business. The money will go to reduce plastic waste and to lower the carbon footprint of its supply chain.

The environment was also on the minds of British people as the UK is looking to launch post-Brexit trade talks. A YouGov poll showed that 57% of respondents thought the UK should enforce stricter environmental laws once it leaves the EU, while 37% said food safety standards should be strengthened, compared to 6% who thought they should be loosened. Moreover, farmers are worried as the environment secretary said he could not guarantee that food standards will not be lowered. British farmers are afraid they will be unable to compete amid cheap imports, funding cuts and a restriction on hiring immigrant workers.

The Netherlands only narrowly approved the free-trade agreement with Canada, in force since 2017, amid pressure from local farmers afraid of competition from imports. Farmers across the bloc have also opposed efforts to sign new deals with Mercosur, Australia and New Zealand. Otherwise, the EU’s efforts to punish Cambodia for human rights violations are being challenged as the Cambodian Prime Minister said the state will compensate for losses faced by local companies. The EU ended about 20% of the preferential duties under the Everything But Arms scheme but the PM said he will offer tax breaks to affected exporters.

Pakistan declared a state of emergency due to a locust outbreak that has destroyed crops, including wheat and cotton. The Prime Minister approved a plan which includes buying planes to spray pesticides. India’s agriculture ministry blamed the country for not reacting fast enough and letting the invasion spread, adding that some 400,000ha of crops in northern India had been affected. In response to a video of locusts in Xinjiang, China, the agriculture department said this was a desert variety which was unlikely to survive in China. Besides, the Himalaya provides an efficient wall against the migration of locusts, while the country has among the world’s best locust monitoring and extermination systems, it said.

The situation is more serious in Africa, however, as locusts are devastating crops in South Sudan, having crossed over from Uganda. Locusts have also been reported in Kenya, where farmers asked the government to intervene to avoid significant crop losses. The UN warned that the locust invasion could spread to more countries which could potentially create a food crisis. Somalia has declared a national emergency and the UN is appealing for funds to fight the locusts with aerial spraying. Climate change is likely behind the outbreak, which is the worst in 25 years, the UN said.

As farmers struggle with volatile weather patterns and unpredictable trade development, a new tool appeared to help them generate more income: YouTube. The website revealed that farming videos have seen their popularity grow twice as fast as cosmetic videos. While some channels focus on sustainable or organic practices, the most popular YouTubers are young, large-scale, conventional farmers. We particularly liked this video on how to farm Rice Krispies.

This summary was produced by ECRUU

February 24, 2020February 23, 2020

Are governments back at the table?

Bloomberg published an interesting opinion piece last week on the resurgence of government in our daily lives.

Since the Reagan / Thatcher era, government has been seen as `the problem not the solution`, particularly in terms of the economy. Over the past 40 years, privatisation and other market liberalising measures have reduced the role of government, leaving space for `market-based solutions`.

The international commodity trade benefited from this trend. When I started in the commodity business in the late 1970s, it was dominated by state agencies. Prodintorg was the monopoly importer in the USSR, as was COFCO in China and BULOG in Indonesia, along with a host of other government agencies in many other countries. If you wanted to buy sugar from Brazil you could only buy it from the IAA, a stage agency. And if you wanted to buy sugar from Australia you had to deal with QSC, a quasi-state agency.

Most of these agencies were dismantled during the 1980s and 1990s as governments withdrew from the international agricultural commodity trade; our business was effectively privatised.

If the Bloomberg opinion writer is correct, the pendulum is now swinging the other way. Governments now have the support of voters to be increasingly interventionist.

Once again, international agricultural commodity markets are not immune from this trend. The Chinese government, through COFCO, is an increasingly important player in managing China’s food imports. The Russian government, through VTB, is becoming an increasingly important player in Russian grain exports. Meanwhile, other countries are becoming more interventionist in imposing tariffs and other trade barriers.

What effect might this have on our business?

First, politics could become more important than price as a market driver. Although not perfect, markets do a reasonable job of sending the right signals to producers and consumers, importers and exporters. When governments interfere, these market signals become distorted: farmers end up growing the wrong crops while importers import the wrong quantities or the wrong commodities. Markets are better than government committees at balancing supply and demand all along the food supply chain.

Second, the trade in food could be weaponized. Less democratic governments have sometimes used food supplies as leverage to gain power over dissenting groups, using starvation and famine as a political weapon. More solid democracies happily no longer do that, but they do use food as a weapon in their international relations. Look at Russia’s ban on food imports from the EU, or China’s import tariffs on agricultural imports from the US. These types of intervention can distort markets and lead to an inefficient allocation of resources.

Third, we may see the return of corruption, both institutional and local. Putting a poorly-paid government bureaucrat in charge of a country’s food imports could lead him to favour one supplier over another – or to grant an import licence to a ‘friend or relation’.

Localised corruption is rare in advanced democracies, but institutionalised corruption is widespread. If governments become more involved in our business, the power of the lobbyists will grow. It will be increasingly worthwhile, and profitable, to lobby for or against a tariff, or for or against an import or export ban. Politicians need money to get elected even in the most transparent democracies.

If the Bloomberg article is right, it could become even harder for the world’s grain and agricultural commodity traders to make a living.

First, trading companies got out of the business of bribing government officials long ago, and for both ethical and good business reasons they won’t want to get back into it.

Second, western agricultural trade houses may be handicapped if government-owned competitors trade for political rather than price reasons.

Third, politics increases risk. Throughout 2019, for example, the price differential between Brazilian and US soybeans could – and did – change at the click of a tweet. Traders like volatility as long as it is not political.

If the world wants to feed the estimated almost 10 billion people that will be will living on this planet in 2050, then it will need international free trade in agriculture. Let’s hope that the pendulum doesn’t swing too far in the wrong direction.

February 20, 2020

Commodity Conversations Weekly Press Summary

The US is looking at resetting its tariff commitments under the WTO’s Government Procurement Agreement (GPA), or even exiting it altogether, according to sources who spoke with Bloomberg. The administration is reportedly blaming the WTO’s most-favored-nation (MFN) system for its trade deficit with areas like the EU and China but some analysts warn that US businesses could be hurt if they lost access to GPA tenders.

The USDA launched its “Science Blueprint” this month, a 5-year plan designed, among other things, to mitigate the effects of climate change on agriculture. Some advocacy groups welcomed the news, saying that the simple act of mentioning climate change was a step forward. However, critics have been quick to point out that it will not be easy to undo the efforts to undermine the USDA’s scientific research over the last few years which led to around two-thirds of agency researchers quitting.

The situation at the USDA seems to reflect what is going with the general public in the country. A survey by Yale University found that only 30% of Americans talked about the environmental impact of what they eat, while the rest said they didn’t know they should eat more plant-based food. Over half, however, said they would be willing to adjust their diets if they got more information on the topic.

An ongoing lawsuit in Texas might help with that. The National Press Photographers Association sued the Department of Public Safety over a ban on taking photographs of feedlots with drones. Separately, an investigation by the Food & Environment Reporting Network found that residents of Texas’ cattle feedlot belt say they are suffering from “fecal dust storms” when the wind blows on the millions of tons of manure produced by the cattle, sometimes thick enough to create smog-like conditions. The haze, as well as the amonia, could cause health problems such as asthma. However, Texas’ “right to farm” law, which was initially designed to protect farmers from growing cities, protects the feedlots from any legal action from local residents.

Nestle reported a net profit of CHF 12.6 billion (USD 12.89 billion) in 2019, up 24% on year and beating forecasts. The organic growth was up 3.5%, driven in part by strong demand for their Starbucks and Nescafe products. The group said it was working hard to guarantee a stable supply of food in China where most of its 30 factories have started operating again. It is still too early to assess the impact of the coronavirus, however, as China represents 8% of its global sales.
Looking forward, the CEO warned that organic growth would likely slow in 2020, adding that the group was planning more acquisitions in high-margin and “trendy” segments. The plant-based meat segment represents a “once in a generation opportunity,” he added, saying that plant-based tuna would be released later this year. On the other hand, Nestle may look to dispose of its US frozen food and water businesses which have not been doing well. In Nigeria, the company is due to start domestic production of milk following pressure from the government to reduce imports.

Unilever said it would stop advertising its food and beverage products to children below 12 years to help reduce child obesity. It will also launch a “Responsibly Made for Kids” logo for products with lower calories and sugar content. Similarly, the UN is calling on regulating ads to children, especially fast food ads on social media.

A report by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) analysed by The Guardian suggests that the cleaning systems (known as “scrubbers”) installed in ships to meet 2020 IMO pollution regulations, could result in more pollutants being released in the sea instead, contaminating seafood in the process. Some environmentalists have urged the IMO to ban the use of scrubbers until data, which the IMO says is currently insufficient to really assess risk, is clearer. The WWF, meanwhile, found that the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, China and Vietnam were responsible for 60% of the world’s annual ocean pollution, noting that Malaysia was the biggest consumer of single-use plastics.

In Ukraine, the government gave the green light to Bunge, ADM, Cargill, Louis Dreyfus and Glencore to get together and create TechCo, a company designed to digitise documents related to the sale of agricultural products. There are no concerns about competition as this will only affect post-sales, it said. Something similar is happening in the sugar industry where Dubai-based sugar refiner Al Khaleej Sugar, Universa Block Chain and DMCC Tradeflow signed an agreement to collaborate over the development of a platform designed to boost international sugar trade volumes in Dubai.

This summary was produced by ECRUU

February 19, 2020

AgriCensus Report

OPINION: Will China purchase more US ag goods?

14 Feb 2020 | Jonathan Kingsman

It is still too early to tell how badly – and for how long – the Coronavirus outbreak will affect the Chinese economy. But even before the virus hit, many grain traders were questioning whether China would, or could, honour the obligations made under the recently negotiated Phase One trade deal to increase purchases of American agricultural products.

The conventional wisdom is that the trade wars will have a lasting negative effect on the US agricultural sector. Observers compare the current situation to the two successive US grain export embargoes imposed by the Carter and Nixon administrations. As a result of those embargoes, the Japanese – at that time the biggest buyers of US soybeans – realised that they could not rely on the US and invested in South America to develop soybean production there.

There is a strong argument to be made that history will repeat itself, and that China will reduce, rather than increase, its agricultural purchases from the US as it seeks to diversify supply. However, there are two counter arguments.

The first is that China’s diversification options are limited, at least as far as soybeans are concerned. Although genetic modification has allowed soybeans to be grown in a wider geographical area, Brazil and the US still dominate global exports with 77 million and 49 million tonnes respectively in 2018/19. The remaining 25 million tonnes of global exports were divided among just five other countries.

It will be difficult in the short to medium term for China to diversify away from Brazil and the US. China could take a strategic decision to import an even greater percentage of their needs from Brazil, but this would further increase their dependence on Brazil.

The second argument is that it was the Chinese who imposed tariffs on US agricultural imports; the US did not embargo, or tax, exports. This is an important distinction. The Chinese government imposed tariffs as a bargaining tool in the trade negotiations—one of the few bargaining tools that they had.

If the Chinese were now to reduce US imports they would not only be seen as unreliable and untrustworthy, they would also reduce their bargaining power in future trade negotiations. There is a wider trade picture to consider outside of agriculture.

This is not to say that US farmers should necessarily expect a rapid increase in their exports to China. It may take a while before soybean exports get back to the record of nearly 59 million tonnes shipped in 2016/17.

Just five years ago traders were expecting that China would by now be importing 100 million tonnes of soybeans per year. African Swine Fever and the Coronavirus knocked the wind out of those demand growth estimates. It will take a while before demand recovers.

But recover it will. There has been some fear expressed that Chinese soybean imports have peaked. However, the Chinese middle class will continue to grow in both size and wealth. Their appetite for meat will grow with it, as too will soybean imports.

But what about other agricultural imports?

Alarm bells were rung recently when it emerged that China had bought about one million tonnes of wheat under their tariff rate quota from Australia, Canada and France, rather than from the US. However, this may actually be good news if it is a sign that China intends to follow a recent WTO ruling to reallocate unused import quota tonnages.

Corn and ethanol may be harder nuts to crack. Although China has signalled its intention to increase ethanol use, the country is unlikely to import significant quantities to achieve that end. As for corn the US, along with Argentina and Brazil, face growing competition from the Black Sea region. Ukraine has expanded production and has the potential to grow further. This should not be underestimated.

Ultimately it will come down to a question of price. The extent to which the US will participate in renewed Chinese import demand growth will depend on the competitiveness of US farmers. Politics are important in the grain trade, but price is even more so.

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February 17, 2020

Cheap food and politics

As I wrote in a recent post, Stalin believed that the political and economic future of the Soviet Union lay in industrialisation. He set high prices for industrially produced goods and low prices for agriculturally produced goods in order to encourage a shift from agriculture to industry. He reasoned that surplus workers in the countryside would be better employed in industry, and that a policy of cheap food would drive economic growth.

This view has not disappeared. Within the developed world, most governments keep food prices low (to placate urbanites) while quietly transferring money back to rural areas through tax-funded subsidies. And in the developing world, many classical economists still believe that industry, and not agriculture, drives economic growth.

The data, at first sight, appears to support that view. The chart below shows how workers moved from farms to factories as the industrial revolution gathered speed in 19^th century Europe.

While this chart, again from ourworldindata.org, shows that the richer the country becomes the smaller the percentage of the workforce employed in agriculture.

This third chart shows how agricultural productivity increases as countries get richer. This could be because a shortage of labour in rural areas leaves farmers no choice but to improve productivity. It could also be because farmers get better access to information, finance and technology as their country develops.

The conclusion is therefore clear. Stalin was right: a country develops when farmers migrate from field to factory. This migration leads not only to GDP growth in the cities but also to greater productivity on the farms. Everyone gains.

As a result, development economists and politicians give this process a nudge through low food prices, forcing productivity gains in the countryside while subsidising workers’ wages in the cities. (This is known as ‘urban bias’.)

However, there may be some confusion here between causation and correlation. Forcing displaced rural workers into the cities does not guarantee that industrial activity will pick up. The industrial revolution in the UK ‘pulled’ workers into the cities; displaced rural workers did not ‘push’ industrialisation. People are ‘pulled’ from farms to factories once factories offer them better wages and a better future for their families. Pushing workers from their fields may lead to an increase in poor urban dwellers – and hence a fall in urban wages – but it does not directly ensure economic growth.

In a closing address to last years FT Global Foods System Conference, Pavan Sukhdev, President of WWF International, argued that the number of people employed in agriculture in developing countries is simply too large to be absorbed by industrialisation within any reasonable timeframe. He argues for a different approach, one driven by economic growth in the countryside fuelled by sustainable agriculture. He cites the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh in India as an example, where six million farmers practise what is called ‘zero-budget’ farming.

So why then do governments continue a policy of keeping food prices low? It seems redundant in developed countries where the shift in population from farms to factories has already occurred. Meanwhile in developing countries it can drive people from their farms without helping the country’s economic growth.

The answer can possibly be found in the way that governments quietly transfer money back to farmers through subsidies. City dwellers pay partly for their food through taxes. Governments do this because urban voters are better organised than rural ones, and there are more of them. Cheap food buys votes in democracies.

Cheap food also helps keep leaders in power in less democratic countries. Consumers protest – and riot – when food prices are increased. The Arab Spring may have started in Tunisia, but it was food price protests in Algeria that gave it momentum.

So everyone wins with cheap food. The farmers are happy; they get paid partly through the sale of their produce and partly through tax transfers. Consumers are happy: they get cheap food in the shops, blissfully unaware that they are actually paying for it through their taxes. Governments are happy, because they stay in power.

The problem is that not everyone wins. But more on that in future posts.

February 13, 2020

Commodity Conversations Weekly Press Summary

Bunge reported a net loss of USD 51 million in the last quarter of 2019, an improvement from a loss of USD 65 million the previous year. This was in part thanks to higher sales and margins out of South America and farmers in Argentina selling their crops early in anticipation of the increase in export taxes. The CEO said the company was benefiting from becoming more “nimble” as well as implementing a “more rigorous approach to risk management.” Overall, however, the group reported total net losses for 2019 of USD 1.28 billion, from an income of USD 267 million in 2018. The CEO warned that there remained a lot of uncertainty for US origination in terms of the US-China trade deal in 2020, in addition to the African Swine Fever and Coronavirus.

Olam, on the other hand, said it should see a net one-time post-tax gain of USD 52 million for the last quarter of 2019 as a result of the company’s restructuring, which included the sale of a number of assets and shares.

Similarly, ADM was able to deliver a solid fourth quarter, with net earnings of USD 504 million, despite the challenging market environment. The company published its OutsideVoice Protein Perception & Awareness Study which suggested that plant-based food will continue to see impressive growth in 2020. The study found that 44% of US consumers now identified as flexitarian. In anticipation, ADM will expand its non-GMO soy protein factory in Europoort, Netherlands.

The decision might be particularly well-timed as members of the EU Parliament discussed a proposal to impose a tax on meat as part of the integrated food policy Farm to Fork (F2F) under the EU Green Deal. A recent report argued that a meat tax was essential to reach carbon neutrality and lower healthcare costs. Nonetheless, the farmer’s union Copa-Cogeca said the tax would impose a terrible burden on farmers, especially if it was only implemented in the EU.

Environmentalists added that the overall F2F effort would be jeopardised if the EU continued to negotiate new trade deals with countries like Brazil and the US. Some activists are concerned that the EU will not be able to stand up to pressure from the US, which recently threatened to target Germany’s auto industry with tariffs to push for concessions on agricultural trade.

Scientists continue to show evidence that eating red meat is linked to a small but increased risk of developing cardiovascular disease, such as this JAMA Internal Medicine paper which gathered data on 30,000 people over 30 years. Government guidelines against over-eating beef – which started as early as 1977 in the US – could have contributed to the growth of the chicken nugget, now infamous for being one of the most highly processed meat products. Right on cue, KFC and Beyond Meat launched Beyond Fried Chicken. Early reviewers say they are quite good, but food critics also note that “everything tastes like chicken”.

Besides, the Rothamsted Institute warned that tofu could actually have a bigger environmental impact than meat products in terms of protein content because it is highly processed and not as digestible. Danone is also reviewing how it is marketing its plant-based alternative to whippable cream after a Swedish group awarded the company the top prize for “food bluff of the year”. The product, called Alpro Cuisine Soya Whippable, only contains 2% soy but 25% palm oil. In response, Danone said it would change the packaging to highlight the palm oil content, pointing out that the palm oil was certified under the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil and one of the most sustainable sources of oil.

California-based Farmers Business Network (FBN), a small start up hoping to disrupt the agricultural world, complained to Canadian authorities that big commodity groups were abusing their dominant position to block its growth. FBN launched an online marketplace for farmers to buy agricultural inputs, thus cutting out the traditional middleman. The Canadian Competition Bureau confirmed it was investigating the case and had extended the claim to include Cargill and Bayer. In the EU, meanwhile, the Commission said it was looking into whether Mondelez had abused its dominant position by restricting the cross border trade of certain products, in breach of the EU’s Single Market rules.

This summary was produced by ECRUU

February 12, 2020

AgriCensus Report

Chinese animal feed production returns amid coronavirus: govt

Feed production at factories across China restarted on Monday after a near two-week shutdown, with operations reaching 50% of capacity, the government said Monday.

Regional shortages in animal feed have become a concern for the government, with many factories shut for an extended period of time for Chinese New Year as the country suffers from an outbreak of the respiratory virus.

“According to a survey, the operating rate of feed companies nationwide has reached more than 50%, among which Guangdong, Shandong, Hunan and other big feed-producing provinces have achieved more than 70% of the operating rate,” an official from the Ministry of Agriculture said Monday.

“Some large-size companies have operating rates of over 90%,” said Kong Liang of the Joint Prevention and Control Mechanism of the State Council.

Getting animal feed to farmers in the world’s most populous nation has become a priority for the government, after transport restrictions meant to contain the coronavirus outbreak created regional shortages, leaving animals malnourished and culled.

Hubei province, home to the city of Wuhan, which was the epicentre of the disease, has seen the most disruption, although China’s government said it was now focussing on this area as a priority.

Market sources confirmed that many soybean crushers and animal feed producers had restarted operations this week, although it is hard to confirm an exact figure.

“We never stopped operating,” said one major crusher in northern China, adding that many soybean crushers nearby started restoring operations early last week.

“Most of our factories have started working,” said one soybean trader at a major international crusher.

The market expects the majority of output capacity for feed and soymeal will return by the end of this week.

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