Click on the headline (link) for the full text.
Many more articles are available through the Energy Bulletin homepage
Global food crisis looms as climate change and fuel shortages bite
John Vidal, The Guardian
Soaring crop prices and demand for biofuels raise fears of political instability
—
Empty shelves in Caracas. Food riots in West Bengal and Mexico. Warnings of hunger in Jamaica, Nepal, the Philippines and sub-Saharan Africa. Soaring prices for basic foods are beginning to lead to political instability, with governments being forced to step in to artificially control the cost of bread, maize, rice and dairy products.
Record world prices for most staple foods have led to 18% food price inflation in China, 13% in Indonesia and Pakistan, and 10% or more in Latin America, Russia and India, according to the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO). Wheat has doubled in price, maize is nearly 50% higher than a year ago and rice is 20% more expensive, says the UN. Next week the FAO is expected to say that global food reserves are at their lowest in 25 years and that prices will remain high for years.
Last week the Kremlin forced Russian companies to freeze the price of milk, bread and other foods until January 31, for fear of a public backlash with a parliamentary election looming. “The price of goods has risen sharply and that has hit the poor particularly hard,” said Oleg Savelyev, of the Levada Centre polling institute.
India, Yemen, Mexico, Burkina Faso and several other countries have had, or been close to, food riots in the last year, something not seen in decades of low global food commodity prices. Meanwhile, there are shortages of beef, chicken and milk in Venezuela and other countries as governments try to keep a lid on food price inflation.
(3 November 2007)
U.S. Climate Bill Would Pay Farmers to Store Carbon in Soil
Jim Efstathiou Jr., Bloomberg
Nov. 1 (Bloomberg) — U.S. farmers can turn their dirt into cash under climate change legislation that pays them to bury pollution blamed for global warming.
The bill would create a potential $24 billion-a-year market for credits representing carbon dioxide stored in soil. Senators Joseph Lieberman, an Independent from Connecticut, and John Warner, a Virginia Republican, are co-sponsoring the measure.
“There is a political calculation here to try to increase support for climate change legislation by providing these offset subsidies, in effect, to agricultural concerns,” said Tyson Slocum, director of the energy program at consumer advocacy group Public Citizen.
(2 November 2007)
A French Picnic (But Not Quite In Manet’s Style)
Gene Logsdon, Organic To Be
By the most curious of circumstances, I was a guest recently at a sumptuous “French picnic” hosted by one the most famous chefs in America and at the behest of one of the most successful farmer’s markets in America. But for the sake of complete transparency, as they say, I must admit right up front that I am not a gourmet of French cooking, and in fact my first thought upon being invited to a French picnic was to wonder, apprehensively, if it might be like Edouard Manet’s famously controversial painting, The Picnic in which the female participants are naked. Alas it was not to be, but the event was in every other respect, exciting, exquisite and enjoyable.
The chef was Parker Bosley, whom I like to refer to as the Alice Waters of Ohio, but really, (no harm meant, Alice) I think it would be just as accurate to say that Alice Waters is the Parker Bosley of the West Coast. I have known Parker a long time and have written about him several times, although that is not why I was invited to the picnic, as I will explain by and by. Parker was raised on a dairy farm in Ohio, as I was, and never lost either his taste for good, fresh, seasonal food straight from the farm or garden, nor the ability to work long and hard, as farm life instilled in him. Parker had a dream inspired by the time he spent as a young man in southern France. One of his favorite pastimes then was to dine at little village restaurants there. The food was invariably good. Very often it was locally grown and identified, casually or on the menu, by the farmer who produced it. One might even possibly meet the farmer, also dining at the restaurant. Parker was sure that idea would work in America too, and set out to make it happen.
He apprenticed himself to famous chefs in Paris and then back in Cleveland, which was close to the rural area where he grew up. He opened his own restaurant in Cleveland, which eventually, at another location, became known far and wide as Parker’s New American Bistro. He searched unceasingly to find local growers for his food and often worked with them to grow the varieties and breeds that he wanted in the way that he wanted them raised, that is by organic and ecological methods. His restaurant became a mecca for gourmets from all over, and won about as much acclaim as any restaurant could.
…The table was set decorously with flowers from the surrounding gardens. There were about a dozen people in attendance, all my family. The scene was so dreamlike and heavenly, we never once got into an argument which is very unusual for the Logsdon family. As I have warned you, I do not know a fromage from a cabbage, but relying on Patti Gill, a more civilized member of our family, here’s what we ate: Hors d’oeuvres: mini-tarts of caramelized onion and Roquefort cheese topping, puff pastry basil bread sticks, and freshly-picked (from the garden nearby) yellow cherry tomatoes. Next came cold tomato soup with basil and fresh baguette slices. I would have preferred the soup warm, but this was a French picnic, my wife reminded me through gimlet eyes, and you have to be prepared to rough it a little on a picnic, right, Gene? That was followed by a flan, yes, a flan, (look it up-I had to) of shrimp and fish with a homemade mayonnaise topping drizzled on. Next, the main entree: pork tenderloin with a parsley-olive oil-and-garlic topping, dilled, crisp carrots, and fingerling and new potatoes with a mustard sauce over them. All washed down by excellent wines that David provided. (Is it proper to use the verb “washed down” referring to wine at a French picnic?) By now I figured I had really been transported back into the heavenly, dreamy world of a Manet painting even if everyone did have clothes on, but the best was yet to come: a dessert of pear tart with a lemon verbena dressing. The verbena came from Parker’s own gardens, and the rest of the food from local farms and Don Vanderbook’s gardens, so I was obviously still not quite in paradise. Or would it be more appropriate to say that what I learned on this lovely day was that we could all have paradise on earth if we really put our minds to it.
(2 November 2007)
Photos, links and more of the article at original.
Fertilizer costs and production risk
Aaron Edmonds, AgWeb
Farmers are all too aware of the manner in which fertilizer prices have risen over the last 12 months. Inflationary trends in the cost of agricultural inputs are immense as a burgeoning demand base builds under record high agricultural commodity prices, and capacity constraints emerge that will likely restrict input availability. So what can farmers expect as we move toward a new production season and how will they react?
Firstly we have to appreciate that a major bull market has emerged for fertilizer commodities. This is reinforced by the stock price appreciation in all the major fertilizer producing stocks around the world. Potash Corp. being the most impressive mover. Equities markets are of the clear view that fertilizer demand will be robust and fertilizer pricing pressures remain to the upside. Further price rises are highly likely across all N, P, K and S based fertilizers.
What is interesting for nitrogen prices is that they have rallied without an associated natural gas price rise. Prior to October 2006 and the subsequent price run up, 80% of the variable cost of urea production came from the natural gas feedstock required. This meant that urea and other common nitrogen fertilizers closely tracked the price movements of natural gas. Natural gas markets have remained relatively stable with the recent run in oil prices but it is hard to see this trend continuing. At some point natural gas prices will push to the upside and increase the likelihood of further nitrogen price rises.
Potassium will likely be the big mover as we head into 2008. Global inventories are reducing significantly as demand ratchets. More and more crop waste is being removed from fields as livestock producers reel under the weight of expensive grain.
The fertilizer bull market will take years of investment in production capacity before we see any evidence of downward pressure on prices. Bull markets take years to build and years to be beaten.
For those farmers able to capitalise on high grain prices this year there will be some who bring forward much higher than normal fertilizer purchasing programs both as a means to manage tax issues but also to avoid anticipated price rises. This creates a doubling up of demand as it compounds two years into one.
Farmers will have to accept that expensive fertilizer increases the risk associated with producing grains. Risk in this context defined as the ability to generate profitable cropping outcomes. It is perceivable that this increase in risk will dramatically alter the way in which farmers operate into the future, particularly in marginal production areas and where irrigation is not available. They will be keen to meet the slightest hint of bullish demand for legume grain crops to reduce nitrogen use. They will also trend away from expensive compound blends to the more basic fertilizer commodities (superphosphate, MOP and urea) to get more units for the same cost. You may even find more farmers owning fertilizer stocks offsetting their cost base with fertilizer company dividends and likely capital growth in those stocks.
(15 October 2007)
We’re having problems linking to this article (apparently the site is having technical problems). The site seems to be oriented towards agri-business, but it has good information, as in this article. -BA
