Tag: agra

A growing global appetite for agricultural assets is revolutionising farming in Australia and spawning new investment models that depart from the traditional family-run farm. The Australian Financial Review reports that even as the most talked about model for city investors to take a stake in agriculture - through managed investment schemes - is under challenge after high-profile collapses, new alternatives are emerging. NFF president David Crombie told AFR that "there's a lot of interest at the moment from funds from Europe, Asia, the Middle East, the United States. They're all looking at Australian agriculture." A partner at business advisory firm PKF, John Kelly, said this interest was motivated by the opportunities for long-term capital growth, the sense that global food security concerns supported a positive future for farming and that Australia was a stable investment environment. "On the one hand, you've got capital circulating around looking to land on a farm. Then on the other hand, you've got a farmer who may need some...

Author: GREGOR HEARD IT’S BEEN a tough few months for grain prices, but the last two weeks have seen a rebound from Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) December 09 futures contract lows. Futures had slipped by early October to US456 cents a bushel, but have risen sharply to US520c/bushel this week. This has resulted a mild rebound in Australian contract prices, although the sky-high Aussie dollar has absorbed much of the CBOT rise. Nominally, the spike is due to weather concerns in the US. “The weather hasn’t been great in the US, and the production estimates have come off from that real top-end scenario,” said Australian Crop Forecasters’ managing director Ron Storey. “There’s also a bit of an issue with the winter red wheat plant in southern areas through the Mississippi Delta, due to wet conditions.” He said the wet, combined with pricing, has steered southern US growers out of cereals and back into soybeans. AWB acquisitions manager, Jon White, said his company’s take on the situation...

WA seems to have dodged the global bullet and is set to power ahead, but there are a couple of flies in the ointment, a leading economic forecaster says. Access Economics' latest business outlook says the state, despite its international focus, is benefiting more than usual from domestic economic measures, such as the stimulus package and low interest rates. While the effects of the former subside, and the latter start to rise, other factors such as strong population growth - and the effects of the $43 billion Gorgon gas project - would keep the WA economy ticking along nicely. But while Gorgon might have helped WA sidestep the worst effects of the global financial crisis, it also served as a timely reminder. "That crises come and go, whereas the demand to feed industrial developments in Asia will be with us for many decades to come," the report says. "But you'd have thought that the worst year in the global economy since the global economy since...

(AFP) – 1 day ago PARIS — Feeding Earth's expected population of nine billion by 2050 will need a switch in eating habits and farming practices if inequalities and environmental overload are to be avoided, French researchers said on Wednesday. Teams from two institutes sketched projections for what could happen over the next four decades as the world's population swells by around 2.5 billion. The statistical basis for their study was food production between 1961 and 2003, a period that included the "green revolution" of rice production that especially benefited Third World countries. The researchers put forward one scenario that followed historical trends in food output and use of land in an open-market manner. Under this projection, production would grow by 2050 thanks to intensive farming. However, the movement towards meat production would also accelerate, inequalities between the nutritionally rich and nutritionally poor would widen, and environmental issues -- as today -- would only be addressed after they have become a problem. A rival scenario sees low-intensity,...

Ensuring the world’s population is able to eat healthily and sustainably is one of the ongoing dilemmas facing national governments and global organisations, with the events of the past two years meaning food security has become headline news. Changes in the nature of the world’s food production and supply have, in part, led to Britain’s first comprehensive review of food security and sustainability since the Second World War. After decades of relatively inexpensive and readily available food – until the surge in oil and commodity prices in 2007–08, food prices (relative to general inflation) fell for over 25 years – there are now tough choices to be made if the UK’s population is to continue enjoying healthy and affordable food without degrading the natural resources on which food production depends. It was in light of these future challenges in food production and supply that Defra Secretary of State Hilary Benn presented the first assessment of the UK’s food security in August. This will...

Hilary Benn launched The Future of our Farming pamphlet at the Royal Show earlier this year. This has been written for the farming community and outlines shared aims for, and actions towards, achieving a thriving and environmentally sustainable farming industry. In his introduction to the pamphlet Hilary Benn addresses the two main global challenges that we face – food security and climate change. “I want British farmers to produce as much food as possible – and this is very important to maintaining our food security. But how will we feed nine billion people in 40 years time if a damaged environment and changing climate hit yields and increase the risk from disease? The answer is: we will have to produce more food, but we will also have to change the way we do things.” Hilary Benn stresses that Defra and the farming community need to embrace a new approach – based on co-operation to meet the challenges that lie ahead, with the farming...

THE use of corn cobs as feedstock for the production of cellulosic ethanol after the corn has been removed is receiving additional financial support from the US Department of Energy (DOE). The $US6.85 million will help POET, the world's largest ethanol producer, fund the production of 700 tons of cellulosic biomass per day of operation. Cobs are the feedstock for POET's effort to commercialise cellulosic ethanol, Project LIBERTY, which will be built in Emmetsburg, Iowa. The grant increases will play a key role in establishing corn cobs as a viable commodity and setting the stage for corn cob harvesting across the United States. POET will work with equipment manufacturers to help speed the process of getting cob-harvesting technology into fields around Emmetsburg and will provide incentives for early adopters of cob harvesting. Project LIBERTY is a 25 million-gallon-per-year cellulosic ethanol plant that will be attached to the current grain ethanol plant in Emmetsburg. Operations are scheduled to begin in late 2011. POET has operated a...