Posts

The US President signed an executive order this week to simplify and accelerate the process to approve genetically modified livestock and seeds. According to the order, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) need to set up “common sense regulations.” Earlier, the US Department of Agriculture had already proposed to significantly relax genetically engineered rules in a bid to make it cheaper for companies to develop new crops and for farmers to have more options. The idea was that companies would no longer need the FDA and EPA approvals for genetically engineered crops that are similar to crops that could be made through traditional breeding – leaving it up to the companies to determine whether this was the case or not.

An area where US farmers do want more regulation, on the other hand, is to limit foreign ownership of US land. As of 2016, the USDA estimated that some 2.3 million acres of land was in foreign hands, including 190,000ha under Chinese investments. However, some say the numbers are inaccurate and could be higher. This is also expected to be an issue in the presidential race with at least one candidate proposing to ban foreigners from buying farmland at a federal level.

In an interview with Forbes, Cargill’s recently appointed chairman of Asia Pacific (the group’s first board-level executive not to be based in the US) said that Asia was increasingly important as a home for food grown in the US where yields are growing faster than consumption. He said the group was focusing on developing “Asian run” businesses and was looking to build more partnerships with both governments and private organisations.

Cargill’s Aqua Nutrition is 43% on track to being entirely Marine Stewardship Council certified, a goal it has set for 2025. The division, which produces almost 5% of the world’s aquafeed, managed to reduce its freshwater usage by 15% and its greenhouse gas emissions by 6% in 2018. Cargill also managed to cut CO2 emissions from its chartered shipping fleet by 12.1% in 2018, on track to reach 15% in 2020 and part of the International Maritime Organisation’s target of a 50% reduction by 2050. The head of the ocean transportation business said, however, that “we must do more.”

In the US, Cargill has launched several high-protein low-carb meat snacks after a survey showed that almost everyone snacks during the day, with some people eating 4-5 snacks a day. Close to half of those surveyed are looking – and ready to pay a premium – for healthier options.

Wilmar is looking for opportunities in China’s struggling animal feed market – in part due to the African swine fever – to invest in building new soybean crushing plants. A source said the strategy was to focus on poultry feed instead of hogs as chicken demand is growing faster. The group could also be looking at setting up an oilseed plant in Vietnam. In Australia, Wilmar, which is Queensland’s third largest rail network owner-operator, has installed cameras on all the sugarcane trains so that footage can be used in case of an accident with pedestrians.

Via its Prize for Innovation in Food Security award, Olam is investing in Innovation Mapping for Food Security (IM4FS), a technology that is being developed to help small farmers work out which is the best crop to grow on a field at a given time. Olam’s CEO said this was exactly the kind of technology required at a time of climate change and biodiversity loss.

Global chocolate producers are likely to miss their 2020 deadline to eradicate child labour from their supply chain, the fourth time they miss the deadline after trying in 2005, 2008 and 2010. A report in the Washington Post said that none of the main chocolate producers could guarantee that their supply chain was child labour free and that they felt the existing certification agencies were insufficient. Part of the problem is that traceability from farms is a major challenge and that small farms often found a way around the certification criteria. Similarly, most companies’ “no deforestation” pledge by 2020 deadline is going to be missed, with Greenpeace estimating that 50 million ha of forest has been lost in the last 10 years. However, with the Global Forest Watch platform launching a real-time platform using satellite imagery to track deforestation, “there are no more excuses,” the organisation said. They added that companies like Cargill and Louis Dreyfus are already using it for a wide range of commodities, including beef.

A new study found that the average adult in America ingests at least 50,000 microplastic particles every year through food, with actual numbers likely to be close to three times that amount. The worst is for those who drink water from plastic bottles, which have 22 times more microplastic than tap water. No one really knows how bad the plastic is, however, and some scientists say the risk could be overplayed. But better be safe than sorry – the Canadian government is apparently going to ban single-use plastics by 2021. That would include straws, cotton swabs and single-use cutlery, among many other things. Plastic is also a major issue in organic farming which uses more plastic mulch to compensate for not using weed killers. One organic farmer in the US said that the plastic film used on a 30-acre plot would spread over 58km in a straight line, all of which ends up in landfills later on.

Last but certainly not least, a Mongolian NGO is re-introducing the traditional guard and shepherd Bhankar dog which was phased out during the Soviet era. The number of livestock in the grasslands has increased threefold in the last 17 years in part because herders want to anticipate the loss of animals to predators. This, in turn, accelerates desertification. Bhankar dogs are such a source of pride that some families who had moved to the city are reportedly being convinced back into herding life just to be given one. Check them out here.

Louis Dreyfus Company (LDC) announced that it has renewed a USD 750 million loan which will be linked to how the company performs based on a number of sustainability goals. The interest rate will be based on its carbon emissions, waste disposal and electricity and water consumption. The concept is gaining in popularity, especially in Europe, and Moody’s estimated that a total of USD 36 billion worth of sustainable loans were issued last year. Starbucks and Mercon Coffee Group announced similar loans earlier this month, as they noted that the coffee supply chain was particularly vulnerable to climate change.

In China, LDC has partnered with Guangdong Haid Group to produce high-end aquatic feeds and fermented soybean meal, the first investment by LDC in the aquafeed sector. The Haid group is currently the largest aquafeed producer in the world and will help LDC take advantage of the growing demand for healthy protein, LDC’s chairperson noted. Similarly, sources reported that Nutreco NV, an aqua-feed supplier, was looking to purchase the assets of South Korea’s CJ CheilJedang Corp for USD 1.7 billion. Most of the major players in agricultural commodities are investing in the sector, following the advice given by Cargill’s CEO to “go long [on] fish and short [on] pork”.

In contrast, large export companies will be less interested in investing in Ukraine’s grain industry following the fraud and ensuing bankruptcy of the Agroinvest Group, the head of the Ukrainian Grain Association warned. Bunge Ukraine might lose up to 20% of its market share in the sunflower seeds market, while agribusinesses have lost up to USD 200 million because of the Agroinvest Group case, the association estimated.

Ukraine’s leading food maker, Chumak, was purchased by Delta Wilmar, a joint venture between Wilmar International and Delta Exports. A Wilmar spokesperson said the acquisition will help move further downstream into the high value-added food processing sector. Otherwise, analysts warned that low palm and palm kernel oil prices should affect the performance of plantations companies in the first half of 2019, although Wilmar reported better than expected results thanks to the tropical oils and sugar segments.

In Malaysia, the world’s largest producer of crude palm oil, FGV Holdings, said it was looking at ways to reduce its dependency on palm oil, as high stocks levels and the competition from alternatives oilseeds like soybean and sunflower were expected to continue to push down prices. Nonetheless, the biodiesel mandate in Malaysia was increased which could help draw down inventories, the group noted.

Banana experts are gathering this week in Miami to discuss some of the major issues facing the world’s most popular fruit. One of the main concerns remains the Panama disease which threatens to wipe out the Cavendish variety, the single most popular banana type grown as a monoculture around the world. But people are pointing to another less obvious problem: bananas are too cheap. Surveys estimate that it is the cheapest product on the fresh food aisle, which is a mystery considering how fast they rot and how far they have to travel. One explication, according to Equal Exchange, is that the real price is being paid for by the environment and labour forces. Only cotton has a more damaging impact on the societies where it is grown, the group estimates.

The FDA in the US published a new guidance on expiry dates which will hopefully reduce the amount of food that is unnecessarily wasted. The agency recommends that the food industry uses the term “Best If Used By” to illustrate that labels are placed for quality and not safety purposes. A majority of food products can be consumed safely beyond the date indicated on the packaging and the law only imposes a sell-by date for safety reasons on one product: infant formula. For more information, check out this video which explains that even if products are expired and smell really bad, like milk, they are still completely safe to consume.

The drive by supermarket chains to reduce the amount of plastic used is facing a major obstacle: consumers often choose convenience over sustainability. In the UK, Morrisons launched a program to encourage people to use their own containers for meat purchased at fresh food counters, but some chains like Tesco are now completely removing fresh food counters. The decision comes as consumers increasingly look to purchase products that are already sealed and ready to scan. One solution could be to work towards a middle way, such as shifting to recyclable aluminium trays which provide all the convenience of plastic packaging with a smaller environmental impact.

This summary was produced by ECRUU

Wilmar topped a 50-company list as the Singapore-based public company with the highest human rights disclosure standards. The group was ranked second – right after Sime Darby – in the ASEAN category. Wilmar’s chief sustainability officer pointed out that several of the highest ranking companies were involved in the palm oil business which showed that the industry was responding to consumer concern and becoming more sustainable.

Olam has issued USD 120 million in five-year fixed-rate notes to nine private investors and will use the funds to service its debt, among other things, the company said. Meanwhile, Cargill announced it was investing in cultured meat startup Aleph Farms, marking its third investment in the non-animal protein business after investing in Memphis Meats and Puris.

Nestle Brazil will be launching 25 new projects in 2019 and continues to look for potential acquisitions with a focus on organic and healthy products. A company official added that producing organic food on a large scale was a challenge, however.

In the US, organic food sales reached a record USD 48 million in 2018, up 6% on year. The Organic Trade Association said that thanks to millennials and social media the USDA Organic seal was becoming increasingly important. “Organic is now considered mainstream… In 2018, there was a notable shift in the mindset,” the association said. Interestingly, the organic market is also affected by the shift to vegetable protein with sales of organic animal protein almost stagnant.

In the UK, the ice cream brand Wall’s has tied up with two NGOs to launch a “Vanilla for Change” program to support sustainable vanilla production in Madagascar, help the farmers involved in growing the crop as well as support education in the UK. Each ice cream will have a “Track Your Impact” bar code that consumers can scan to get more information on the program. “Vanilla for Change is the first step to demonstrate our commitment to fairness across our supply chain,” Wall’s said.

Coca-Cola Amatil will be setting up some 10,000 rooftop solar panels across its bottling plants in Australia. This will help the group reduce carbon emissions but also save some AUD 1.3 million in electricity costs. By 2020, the aim is for 60% of the energy used to be from renewables or from low-carbon sources, up from 56.3% in 2018. Separately, Netflix has tied up with Coca-Cola to promote the former’s new season of Stranger Things as well as the latter’s relaunch of its New Coke. There won’t be any straightforward Coke ads on Netflix, however. Instead, the brand’s presence will be felt in the series.

US-based sustainable agriculture group Indigo Ag is working on building a ‘living map’ of the global food supply through satellite imaging and geospatial intelligence. The company said that the aim was to improve forecasting and market transparency to reduce the volatility and uncertainty of farming. The startup topped CNBC’s list of most disruptive companies last week.

A new study found that even if you’re careful when choosing your pre-prepared meals and look out for items that are low in sugar, falt and salt, you’re still likely to be consuming 500 calories per day more when eating ultra-processed foods. This is because the body produces fewer appetite suppressing hormone when ingesting processed food which means people tend to eat more of it. The scientists are not sure why this is the case, although they guessed it could be because processed food is easier and faster to eat, making it harder for the brain to register the quantities. Romania is one country looking to actively get people to shift to a healthier diet. The government just announced it would reduce the Value Added Tax (VAT) on healthy and local fresh foods from 9% to 5% to promote local agriculture and help reduce rising obesity rates.

The US Food and Drug Administration is set to start looking at how to regulate the cannabis component CBD in food on a federal level at the end of this month. Some food companies, such as Mondelez, already said they were looking into adding it to snacks and the substance is becoming increasingly popular in drinks and sweets. A Rabobank report argued that the new trend was blurring the line between the pharmaceutical and food markets. But with a 2018 study suggesting that almost half of Americans were keen to try edible cannabis, the market is expected to grow exponentially.

This summary was produced by ECRUU