Jason Clay heads up WWF-US’ work on global markets and trends related to food. He launched WWF’s global work on agriculture, aquaculture, and market transformation for food and soft commodities companies. I spoke to him by phone from Washington DC.

The WWF seems to be an organization that looks for solutions to problems rather than just naming and shaming. Is that a fair assessment?

Naming and shaming is also very broad brush; you can name and shame a lot of people who aren’t actually the problem. If you want to find solutions you have to build coalitions, working quietly and more behind-the-scenes. This is WWF’s strategy. To solve most global problems, everyone should be part of the solution. At least that makes change happen faster.

WWF is a science-based organization. We base our programs on science and research. For us, it is “Get informed, and then get involved.”

WWF has been involved in setting up a number of sustainability certification programs such as the Round Table of Responsible Soy and the Round Table of Sustainable Palm Oil.

The fundamental question is, “Why do we have certification bodies?” The answer is “Because governments aren’t doing their job to protect the planet for future generations.”

Certification is not the best option, but right now it’s the one we have. Can it be better? Sure.

But you once said that the certification agencies are about certifying the top 10 percent, while it’s really the bottom 25 percent that is causing most of the damage and needs the most help.

Unfortunately we are often quite willing to let the perfect get in the way of the good. But once producers start seeing that better practices achieve better results they begin to ask how they can implement them too.

But, at the end of the day the biggest environmental impacts come from the bottom 25 percent. That’s where we need governments. The poorest performing producers either need to improve, or get out. Only governments can make that happen.

What is the role of traders, if any, in this?

Most people don’t understand that commodity traders are very efficient at what they do. The problem is that we’re asking traders to do more than the commodity trading system was designed to do. Commodity trading allowed buyers to purchase a product that is interchangeable with any other ton of the same product. If you buy number two yellow corn, you receive number two yellow corn.

From about 1860 to the 1970s, commodities were defined by physical properties, weights, moisture content, foreign matter, broken pieces, and other physically verified attributes.

Since the 1970s, however, people have begun to ask commodity traders to address such issues as labour conditions (e.g. minimum wages; child labour) and environmental impacts (e.g. pesticides, deforestation, soil health, etc). Buyers are asking traders to verify specific traits that pose reputational risks to retailers and brands that are more inclusive than weights and measures and physical properties.

What are the challenges traders face to make these changes happen?

Trading companies are trying to find ways to put such verification systems in place, but they have two problems. First, they need buyers to commit to more than one off purchases. Depending on the commodity, they need multi-year commitments.

If a trader puts systems in place to verify how a product is produced, it costs money. They need multi-year contracts to offset those costs. Otherwise, the trader could be stuck with this initial cost. If traders could get a five-year contract from a company to buy more sustainable palm oil, soy or whatever, they could amortize their one-off costs over that five-year period.

A trading company may make 1.5 to 3 percent on a single trade. If the verification cost is 1 percent, then on a 1.5 percent margin you’ve already lost more that half of your profit. But if the initial cost can be amortized over five years it gets down to a point where it is negligible. But for that to happen the downstream buyers have to put the money where their mouth is, but most have not done that. That is the issue that traders are facing.

So we have two issues to address. One: how do we turn retailer and brand commitments into actual purchases? Two: how do we get traders to work together without risk of collusion?

From a sustainability point of view we need companies to work together. Companies have to work together to solve sustainability issues. This is not about price fixing. It’s about internalizing environmental externalities into prices.

We have to work together to manage the planet. We can’t manage it one producer, one trader, one retailer, one brand or one government at a time.

You mentioned externalities. Although consumers say they will pay for externalities, they don’t. What could be done there?

If all commodities were produced more sustainably, consumers wouldn’t have a choice. Changing the definition of a commodity could help. Number two yellow corn could also be more sustainable. It is not clear that the price would go up, especially if producer prices for less sustainable products declined because they cost society more. We need to get the price signals right—today sustainable products cost more, but unsustainable products cost society far more. But ultimately, the consumer is the polluter. And the principle is that the polluter pays.

When you see what’s happening, how we’re living at 1.3 or 1.5 planets per year, do you get pessimistic?

Sure, but we only have one planet, and we have to address sustainability issues one way or another. My main motivator is my children’s future, but also the future of all other living things on the planet. This is literally about life on earth.

Thank you Jason for your time.

This is an extract of an interview with Jason, which I will publish in full in my upcoming book, “Out of the Shadows: The New Merchants of Grain”

© Commodity Conversations ®

Part Two of a Conversation with Howard Jay O’Neil

“Let’s talk a little about ASF, African Swine Fever,” I suggested. “Isn’t that a bigger problem for US farmers than the trade wars?

“It is a major problem. In 2017, China imported 95 million tonnes of soybeans and we were expecting Chinese demand to exceed 100 million tonnes in 2019. But that was prior to ASF and the tariffs. We now expect China to import 80-84 million tonnes, a substantial drop.

“Both the U.S. and South America have been ramping up soybean production to supply a 95 to 100 million tonne China market, and now we have only 80-84 million. I don’t know whether you would call it a perfect storm, but ASF and the trade wars coming together at the same time are having a major impact on trade.”

“So the situation is similar to the 1980s,” I argued. “We have too many beans and too much infrastructure.”

“I don’t see it as being as bad as the 1980s and early 1990s when margins were negative across the whole industry. It is true we are going through a downturn in export demand. We have surplus transportation, surplus export capacity and surplus ocean transportation. You only have to read the financial results of the big grain companies to see that profits are challenged. But it is not as dark as it was in the 1980s and early 1990s when profits were negative. Although profits now are poor, they are not negative.”

“What do you think about the idea of giving beans away to poor countries as food aid?” I asked Jay.

“It is always a question of scale and volumes. We have a 900 million bushel carryout on soybeans this year and most expect that to grow to one billion bushels.  That is the largest surplus of soybeans that we have ever had in the US: a 23/25 percent stocks-to-use ratio.  We also have surpluses in wheat and corn. It will take time to solve this problem; it is a multi-year problem. Giving away a few cargoes here and there of beans is not going to solve the problem.”

“What about the introduction of GM crops,” I asked Jay. “Have these contributed to the surpluses?”

“Very much so! As well as improving yields, farmers tell me that when they plant GM seeds they are more confident that they will do well even if the weather is bad. By giving farmers a certain comfort level GM crops have encouraged them to plant a larger acreage and to get more production per acre.

“In addition, we are now planting beans further north and further west than they were planted in the past. Historically in the US we didn’t plant large quantities of corn or beans in North or South Dakota; now we do. The same applies to Western Kansas or Western Nebraska. In the last 15 years GM technology has led to a dramatic expansion of production into areas that previously couldn’t profitably grow these crops.

“Previously these areas could only grow wheat or barley because of the lack of rainfall and the soil type. Now farmers plant GM corn and beans, and they have been displacing barley and wheat areas. The same applies to Canada where the new short season seeds have led to an expansion of soybean production; it may even double in a few years, although admittedly from a low level.

“GM technology has enabled farmers to grow corn and beans in areas that historically they have not been able to. GM technology has also contributed to yield improvements in the traditional growing areas. So GM technology has had a very significant impact—and will continue to have an impact.”

“Why isn’t there any GM wheat?” I wondered.

“If you ask the seed companies they will tell you that corn and beans are much bigger crops by planted acres, and are commercially more attractive to them than wheat. In addition soy meal and corn are largely used for animal feed. Wheat is mainly consumed by humans.

“In 2008/2009 the US farmers did ask the seed companies to develop GM wheat; yields were not increasing as much as in corn and beans, and the US was losing wheat acreage to those two crops. But when they asked the Japanese flour millers, who are major buyers of US wheat, they said they would not buy US wheat if it were GM. As a result, GM wheat was put on the back shelf; as it was considered too market disrupting.

“Some test-plot research on GM wheat has been done in US, Canada and Australia, but so far there has been no commercial production. There have been three what you might call “outbreaks” of GM wheat, one in Canada, one in Oregon and now one in Washington State. An environmental group discovered a few GM wheat plants in among non-GM wheat and alongside a dirt road, but admittedly a significant distance—hundreds of miles—from any GM test sites. No one knows how those plants got there.

“The Japanese put a temporary embargo on US wheat when it was discovered in Oregon, and later on Canadian wheat when it was discovered there. They introduced a testing protocol, but no GM wheat was ever found in any shipment and the embargoes were short-lived.”

“Going slightly off subject, you recently retweeted a cartoon on Twitter showing organic farming using more land because of lower yields. Is that your view?” I asked.

“Organic farming has lower yields than non-organic farming, so you obviously need more land to get a similar production. More carbon is released in the process. A greater agricultural area also means less forest and less biodiversity. Many people believe that organic food is better for them health wise than non-organic. I don’t personally agree with that, but that is the perception among some people and that has created a small percentage of specialized demand for those commodities and products.

“Now changing the subject completely, would you recommend your children to become farmers or merchants, or neither?”

“I have two kids, neither of them have an interest in either farming or grain merchandising. Farming is not a business. It is a lifestyle. It takes place in rural areas, often in isolated areas, takes long hours of hard work, and that is not for everyone. As a result many young people don’t want to continue family farming. They want the social life and types of jobs that can be found in metropolitan areas.

“From an economic standpoint, farming is cyclical. We are currently in a down-cycle with low profitability. As a result, it is difficult to obtain capital to buy land or equipment. The farmers that are doing OK now have been farming for generations; they have low debt. It is not a positive economic proposition to buy a farm now and equip it. You have to like the lifestyle and be in it for the long run.

“As for grain merchandising, yes I would recommend a young person to go into it. In the long-term I  expect it to be a financially worthwhile and intellectually interesting career. But a lot of the grain companies are currently going through restructuring and laying off staff. We are at that stage in the cycle, but we have been through many cycles before, and I trust that we come through it as in the past.

“Having said that, the rise of the US ethanol industry had increased competition for grain in the countryside and made things more difficult for the grain merchants. They are no longer the only buyers.

“Another thing that has changed is that farmers are now storing their crops in their own on-farm storage facilities. Today 55 percent of grain storage capacity in the US is on-farm; only 45 percent is commercial. It used to be easy for merchants to buy cheap grain at harvest time, store it and sell it later. Domestic, as well as export, markets are more competitive now, and handling margins have narrowed.

“An additional problem today is that political interference is difficult to predict. It is impossible to guess how long the trade wars will last. Some trade houses expected the trade war with China to be short-lived; they were wrong-footed when it persisted.

“But taking everything together I have had—and continue to have—a fascinating career in the grain merchandising business. It has been challenging, but it has also been rewarding both intellectually and financially. So yes, I would absolutely recommend young people to join the sector.”

“Thank you, Jay for your time and your input”.

© Commodity Conversations ®

Part One of a Conversation with Howard Jay O’Neil

I spoke with Jay by phone from his home in Southern Oregon. He has recently taken semi-retirement from the faculty at Kansas State University, where he managed the commercial operations of the International Grains Program; he now operates his own private consulting business. When I spoke with him, Jay had recently returned from speaking at a buyers’ conference in Thailand organized by the USSEC, the US soybean export council. Prior to that he was doing similar workshops in Central America for the US Grains Council.

Jay told me that he started in the business in January 1973 straight out of college. “I joined Continental Grain in Orinda California,” he continued. “It was right at the beginning of what was later described as “The Great Russian Grain Robbery,” and I was right in the middle of it.

“I stayed with Conti until May 1977, when I was hired by Pillsbury to work as a grain merchandiser in the export grain organization they had at that time.

I worked in Omaha, Nebraska for one year, moved briefly to St Louis Missouri, their regional office for export trading, and then to their Minneapolis headquarters. I stayed with Pillsbury until 1984, when they sold their grain origination business to Cargill. Pillsbury had quite a sizeable operation at the time with over 90 domestic facilities.

“When the Soviets came in for grain in the 1970s, the US just didn’t have the transportation logistics to handle the volumes that they wanted to buy. The US agricultural industry was not ready or equipped for that much demand. There simply weren’t enough rail cars, barges, or export facility capacity to handle the volumes.

“By the early to mid-eighties the U.S. had built the export capacity needed to meet what we expected to be long-lasting Soviet grain demand. But then the Russian demand slowed down. They didn’t have enough money to continue buying the volumes that they had been buying.

“The industry found itself in a horrendous position with an over capacity of transport equipment and export capacity.  People were driving around the US looking for empty rail sidetracks where they could store their surplus railcars. We were using old military sites, unused industrial sites, anywhere we could find to store them.  We parked our empty railcars in the expectation that we would need them one day. But it would be many years, and hundreds of millions of dollars in industry losses, before the excess rail and barge capacity would diminish and balance out with cargo demand.

“I remember one particular meeting at Pillsbury in Minneapolis where the management group turned to the Vice President of our barge division, and told him to send out teams to look for trees along the Mississippi and its tributaries that were big enough to tie off barges to let them sit.

“Everyone was shouldering excess transportation assets, as well as export assets, and everyone was hemorrhaging red ink. In the mid-eighties the grain division in Pillsbury lost more than $200 million in a single year; that was a huge sum at the time. I imagine that many of our competitors were in the same position. We were only a medium sized grain company: the bigger companies must have lost even more. Every single company in the grain business at that time was losing money.

“The management group at Pillsbury did a study to answer the question, “When will the surplus railcars and barges rust away to the point where they go to scrap, or when will demand pick up enough to use those cars?” The answer the group came up with was sometime around 1999/2000! It was a surprisingly  good projection. The excess capacity situation continued through the 1990s as well, although of course to a lesser extent than in the 1980s. But boy, were the 1980s bad! We all suffered! We had all over-expanded!

“When Pillsbury sold their grain merchandising operations in 1984 I joined Ferruzzi down in New Orleans, managing their feed grain export business in Myrtle Grove Louisiana.

“We are all dependent on the market in this business. You can’t dictate what sort of profit margin you can obtain. You can only extract whatever profit margins the market will allow, and back then it wasn’t allowing any. During my time at Ferruzzi, many of the vessels we were loading had negative fobbing margins. The entire industry was in a down cycle and incurred negative profitability—negative fobbing margins. We were paying more for the barges and the railcars than we were getting back from many of the ships we were exporting.

“We closed our facility for two months in an attempt to stop the losses, but the fixed costs of maintaining the facility were higher than we expected. We found that it was better to continue throughput loading, and have at least some revenue coming through to cover some of our variable costs.

“That rule still applies today; it is better to keep facilities running, even at low throughput margins, than to close them. It is better to try to extract some revenue to, at least, cover something against variable expenses, than to have no revenue and still have to pay your full overhead costs. So we opened the elevator again, but things didn’t really get better.

I left Ferruzzi in 1986 and took  a job with Bartlett Grain Co in Kansas City Missouri, where I managed their cross-country grain trading group and export grain operations for 17 years.”

I asked Jay if the Carter grain embargo in January 1980 had made the situation worse.

“The US has had two grain embargoes,” he explained. “ One was under the Nixon administration, the other under Jimmy Carter. They were effectively soybean export embargoes. Both were very detrimental to the US grain industry. The Nixon and Carter embargoes motivated the Japanese to go to South America and invest capital in the development of the South American soybean industry.”

“Wouldn’t that have happened anyway?” I asked.

“It would have,” Jay replied, “but not as quickly, or on such scale. We created our own competition by imposing those two embargoes.

“Is history repeating itself now?” I asked.

“I have no doubts that history is repeating itself with the current trade war with China. We are once again helping to create our own competition. China has been put in a very difficult situation in terms of grain, both politically and economically. The Chinese are almost certainly saying to themselves that they can no longer depend on the US as a reliable supplier, and they will certainly try and diversify their buying options. China is already investing in South America, Sub-Saharan Africa, in Russia and the Black Sea looking to encourage soybean production outside of the US.

“We are once again creating our own competition and that won’t be reversible. We will see grain production increase around the world, and that will make it more difficult for US grain farmers for next ten or twenty years, and beyond.”

“But to what extent can China find alternative sources of supply of beans?” I asked. “I know that the Black Sea region, particularly Ukraine, has expanded corn production,” I continued, “but is corn a substitute for soy?”

“No they are not interchangeable. Animal feed has a percentage of starch, usually from corn, but you also need protein, and that comes from the soya meal.

“China has a substantial soybean crushing industry that has to be fed by imports. The country only produces 2-3 million tonnes of beans each year, pretty much all of which goes to direct human consumption. They must import the vast majority of their oil seed needs every year.

 “You can grow corn in a lot of places, but it is a  bit more difficult to grow soybeans. Then again, you have the seed technology companies that are coming up with better, shorter-season soybean varieties that can do well in colder climates such as Canada and Eastern Russia, areas that have previously not previously been able to grow soybeans.

“No one is predicting that these new areas will ever be major oilseed exporters. They will sell a few million tonnes here and there, but nowhere near the 85 plus million tonnes that China needs each year. China will have to depend on South America and the US, but with a growing percentage of that coming from South America.”

“After you left Ferruzzi they tried to squeeze the soybean futures market in Chicago. They failed, and the company went out of business. Is there is a danger that history repeats itself in that sense as well?”

“Unfortunately, squeezed margins may have prompted some trading companies to try and replace that lost income by taking bigger risks in the futures markets or on the flat price. This has rarely  worked.

“I have been in the business for 45 years and I have seen some great companies, Continental Grain, Cook Industries, and André either go bankrupt or exit the grain business. The ones that went out of business did so because someone speculated, took overly big risks, didn’t hedge. André got out of the business after big losses in their soybean department. Cook Industries went bankrupt because of bad positions on crush spreads in soybeans. Even Conti’s sale to Cargill followed losses in the Russian bond market.  It was always something foolish.”

© Commodity Conversations ®