Agriculture: Fundamentals Strong at the Core

This week's Economist magazine provides a strong outlook for agricultural investment and commodities. The article, Green Shoots, dated March 19, 2009 discusses the fundamental strength of the global trend in increased consumption of grain, meat and milk. "There is reason to believe that this strength is more than just another of the many bubbles that have recently inflated, only to pop."

Here is an excerpt:

China’s role has been profound, reflecting its enormous economic progress and huge population. In the past decade, says Carlo Caiani of Caiani & Company, an investment-advisory firm based in Melbourne, the consumption of milk has grown seven-fold, and that of olive oil six-fold. China is consuming twice as much vegetable oil (instead of less healthy pork fat), 60% more poultry, 30% more beef and 25% more wheat, and these are merely the obvious foods. Scores of niches have expanded dramatically: people are drinking four times as much wine, for example.

And yet even with all this growth, people in China still, on average, consume only one-third as much milk and meat as people in wealthy countries such as Australia, America and Britain. The gap is even larger with India, which is also growing fast. Overall, protein intake in Europe and America is unlikely to expand much, but a combination of rising incomes and population in developing countries could increase demand by more than 5% annually for years to come. “Once people are accustomed to eating more protein, they won’t take it out of their diet,” says Mr Caiani.

Expanding supply at the same rate will be difficult, because the amount of arable land under cultivation is growing by only a fraction of a percentage point each year. In China and India many of the most fertile areas are the ones being developed for roads and factories. That means existing land is becoming more valuable, and must become more productive.

Read the whole story here.

Source: Green Shoots, The Economist, March 19, 2009
http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13331189&fsrc=rss