Issue #07 July 29, 2010 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Message from Ray Washmera, President: Hello, All: YOU MISSED IT! If you are saying, “what did I miss?” Then you did miss it. We had a wonderful panel of sweetener experts at our July 19 th brunch at Maggiano’s Little Italy. Each did a superb job of describing and explaining their particular sweeteners and its functionality. They were Andrea McBride (Roquette USA), Dr. Ronald Deis (Corn Products International), Dr. Charles Baker (American Sugar Association), and William Sprague III (Sweetener Solutions). And guess what? You are in luck. We have their presentations and are making them available to you on our website. Take a look. Also, attached are July’s timely and informative articles and reports. Enjoy! Well, that is it for now. We/I hope this summer finds you enjoying your time and getting some rest and relaxation. Sincerely, Raymond A. Washmera, President Also in this issue: (Scroll down to the document) 00/00 - July Sugar Price Announcements 07/01 - American Sugar Refining to Acquire Tate & Lyle's European Sugar Operations 07/01 - (World wheat) Rust in the bread basket 07/05 - Frank Jenkins: World Sugar Analysis 07/06 - USDA says soda tax would reduce obesity 07/06 - Consider (Tate & Lyle's) syrup 07/07 - Sugar Output in India May Climb 34% to 25 Million Tons as Plantings Jump 07/08 - Ohio farmers hit by wheat crop toxin 07/08 - Coffee Falls as Brazil Crop May Avoid Frost Damage; Cocoa Drops 07/09 - New toxic milk powder scandal hits China 07/09 - Last year's corn crop lasting in storage 07/09 - Soybeans Rally on Speculation China Will Boost Purchases of U.S. Oilseeds 07/09 - ADM dedicates ethanol, power plants 07/13 - Sugar and Sweeteners Outlook 07/20 - FDA Gives Thumbs-Up to PureCircle Products 07/22 - (American Crystal) Sugar beet pre-pile begins two weeks early this year 07/26 - China Enters `New Era' of Buying Corn From Overseas, Grain Council Says 07/26 - Minnesota. crops continue to develop ahead of average 07/28 - U.S. farmers urge sanctions against EU's GM crop ban 07/28 - Monsanto hits back at claims over biotech beet 07/29 - China's Farmers Could Use Land as Collateral 07/29 - Wheat Heads for Biggest Monthly Climb Since 1973 on Concern About Drought
Transcript
Issue #07 July 29, 2010 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Message from Ray Washmera, President:
Hello, All:
YOU MISSED IT! If you are saying, “what did I miss?” Then you did miss it. We had a wonderful panel of sweetener experts at our July 19th brunch at Maggiano’s Little Italy. Each did a superb job of describing and explaining their particular sweeteners and its functionality. They were Andrea McBride (Roquette USA), Dr. Ronald Deis (Corn Products International), Dr. Charles Baker (American Sugar Association), and William Sprague III (Sweetener Solutions). And guess what? You are in luck. We have their presentations and are making them available to you on our website. Take a look. Also, attached are July’s timely and informative articles and reports. Enjoy! Well, that is it for now. We/I hope this summer finds you enjoying your time and getting some rest and relaxation. Sincerely, Raymond A. Washmera, President
Also in this issue: (Scroll down to the document)
00/00 - July Sugar Price Announcements 07/01 - American Sugar Refining to Acquire Tate & Lyle's European Sugar Operations 07/01 - (World wheat) Rust in the bread basket 07/05 - Frank Jenkins: World Sugar Analysis 07/06 - USDA says soda tax would reduce obesity 07/06 - Consider (Tate & Lyle's) syrup 07/07 - Sugar Output in India May Climb 34% to 25 Million Tons as Plantings Jump 07/08 - Ohio farmers hit by wheat crop toxin 07/08 - Coffee Falls as Brazil Crop May Avoid Frost Damage; Cocoa Drops 07/09 - New toxic milk powder scandal hits China 07/09 - Last year's corn crop lasting in storage 07/09 - Soybeans Rally on Speculation China Will Boost Purchases of U.S. Oilseeds 07/09 - ADM dedicates ethanol, power plants 07/13 - Sugar and Sweeteners Outlook 07/20 - FDA Gives Thumbs-Up to PureCircle Products 07/22 - (American Crystal) Sugar beet pre-pile begins two weeks early this year 07/26 - China Enters `New Era' of Buying Corn From Overseas, Grain Council Says 07/26 - Minnesota. crops continue to develop ahead of average 07/28 - U.S. farmers urge sanctions against EU's GM crop ban 07/28 - Monsanto hits back at claims over biotech beet 07/29 - China's Farmers Could Use Land as Collateral 07/29 - Wheat Heads for Biggest Monthly Climb Since 1973 on Concern About Drought
American Sugar Refining to Acquire Tate & Lyle's European Sugar Operations
YONKERS, N.Y., July 1 /PRNewswire/ -- American Sugar Refining (ASR), North America's largest cane sugar refiner, signed an agreement to acquire Tate & Lyle PLC's European cane sugar operations.
Tate & Lyle is the leading cane sugar producer in the European Union. The acquisition of its refineries in London, England, and Lisbon, Portugal, increases ASR's total refining capacity to six million metric tons per year. The 211 million pounds Sterling ($318 million) acquisition includes a license for use of the distinguished Tate & Lyle brand in connection with the sale of sugar.
"The acquisition of Tate & Lyle's European sugar operations is consistent with our strategic vision for expansion in the sugar refining sector," said Luis Fernandez, ASR Co-President. "Tate & Lyle is steeped in 130 years of tradition and consumer loyalty. We recognize the importance and history of the Tate & Lyle sugar brand and are proud to add it to our existing brand portfolio."
This acquisition marks the third large-scale transaction between the two companies. ASR purchased Tate & Lyle North American Sugars, Inc. (Domino Sugar) and its three refineries in 2001. More recently, ASR acquired Tate & Lyle Canada Ltd. (Redpath Sugar) in 2007, which included Canada's largest refinery. ASR's expertise lies in the operation of cane sugar refineries and the logistics of the related supply chain as well as the marketing of recognized retail sugar brands.
"Sugar is a global business," said Antonio L. Contreras, Jr., ASR Co-President. "This acquisition makes perfect sense for ASR. We're sugar people who are committed to and understand the sugar business. The European acquisition in many ways mirrors our North American operations and will complement our company."
Across North America, ASR owns and operates six cane sugar refineries, located in Yonkers, New York; Baltimore, Maryland; Chalmette, Louisiana; Crockett, California; Toronto, Canada; and Veracruz, Mexico. The company markets its industrial, consumer and specialty products through Domino Foods, Inc., with a brand portfolio of Domino®, C&H®, Florida Crystals® and Redpath®.
ASR is owned by Florida Crystals Corporation, a Fanjul Corp. company, of West Palm Beach, Florida, led by Alfonso Fanjul, Jr., Chairman & CEO, and J. Pepe Fanjul, Vice Chairman, President & COO, and Sugar Cane Growers Cooperative of Belle Glade, Florida led by George H. Wedgworth, Chairman of the Board and CEO.
About American Sugar Refining, Inc.
American Sugar Refining, headquartered in Yonkers, NY, is led by Luis J. Fernandez, co-president, and Antonio L. Contreras, Jr., co-president. The company owns six sugar refineries as well as specialty sugar production facilities and a strategic warehousing and distribution system that allows seamless production and delivery of its products to customers across North America.
About Florida Crystals Corporation
Florida Crystals, a Fanjul Corp. company headquartered in West Palm Beach, Fla., is led by Alfonso Fanjul, Jr., Chairman & CEO, and J. Pepe Fanjul, Vice Chairman, President & COO, whose family has been leaders in the sugar industry for five generations. Florida Crystals is the only producer of certified organic sugar grown and harvested in the United States. In Florida, the company owns 155,000 acres of land, two sugar mills, a sugar refinery, a packaging and distribution center, a rice mill and the largest biomass renewable power plant in North America. Another Fanjul company, Central Romana Corporation, owns 240,000 acres, a sugar mill, refinery, deep sea port, marina, international airport and the Casa de Campo resort in the Dominican Republic as well as a furfural plant in Belgium. This latest acquisition would further solidify Florida Crystals Corporation and Fanjul Corp. as leaders in the sugar business.
About Sugar Cane Growers Cooperative
Sugar Cane Growers Cooperative of Florida, headquartered in Belle Glade, Fla., is led by George H. Wedgworth, Chairman of the Board and CEO. The Cooperative is comprised of 46 grower-members who grow sugarcane on approximately 65,000 acres of land. The primary functions of the Cooperative are the harvesting, transporting, and processing of sugarcane and the marketing of raw sugar through American Sugar Refining.
Rust in the bread basket A crop-killing fungus is spreading out of Africa towards the world’s great wheat-growing areas
IT IS sometimes called the “polio of agriculture”: a terrifying but almost forgotten disease. Wheat rust is not just back after a 50-year absence, but spreading in new and scary forms. In some ways it is worse than child-crippling polio, still lingering in parts of Nigeria. Wheat rust has spread silently and speedily by 5,000 miles in a decade. It is now camped at the gates of one of the world’s breadbaskets, Punjab. In June scientists announced the discovery of two new strains in South Africa, the most important food producer yet infected.
Wheat rust is a fungal infection. Its most devastating form (Puccinia graminis) attacks the plant’s stem, forming lethal, scaly red pustules. It has plagued crops for centuries. The Romans deified it, and believed that sacrificing dogs warded it off. It was the worst wheat disease of the first half of the 20th century, killing about a fifth of America’s harvest in periodic epidemics.
Wheat rust once spurred the Green Revolution, the huge increase in crop yields that started in the 1940s. Now it could threaten those great gains. Norman Borlaug, the great American agronomist who died last year, conducted his original research into wheat rust. After ten years of painstaking crossbreeding, he isolated a gene, Sr31 (Sr for stem rust) that resisted P. graminis. By wonderful good fortune, Sr31 also boosted yields (and not only because plants were impervious to rust). Farmers everywhere adopted his seeds enthusiastically, saving millions of lives. So fast did his new varieties spread that by the 1970s, stem rust seemed to have been wiped out.
But in 1998 William Wagoire, a pupil of Borlaug’s, was in south-western Uganda researching stripe rust, a less-deadly form of the disease that remains endemic there. While testing a new variety’s resistance, he was alarmed to find stems scarred not by the yellow streaks of stripe rust but the angry pustules of stem rust.
At first neither he nor Borlaug’s International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT) in Mexico could believe their eyes: stem rust could not have survived all those years. The awful truth dawned only after a second opinion, by Zak Pretorius of the University of the Free State in South Africa: stem rust had not only lived on in a remote corner of Africa’s Great Lakes. It had evolved to overcome the previously unconquered Sr31. After decades without infection, most of the world’s wheat crop was defenceless.
Wheat rusts spread as billions of spores in the wind. They usually move incrementally, from field to adjoining field, needing wet weather to thrive. But they can make larger leaps. They also mutate as they go. Rust, Borlaug once said, “never sleeps.”
The new variant is called Ug99: Ug for its country of origin; 99 for the year it was confirmed. It soon spread to Kenya and Ethiopia. In 2006 it made a leap over the Red Sea into Yemen, where it appeared in a more deadly form. In 2007 it showed up in Iran, apparently blown from Yemen. In June scientists announced they had found four new mutations of rust (making seven in all) and Mr Pretorius confirmed its presence in a harmful form in South Africa.
This could mark a final stage before disaster strikes. Rust’s appearance in South Africa means the disease has pushed deep into the southern hemisphere for the first time. Mr Pretorius worries that westerly winds might blow spores as far as Australia, which is one of the world’s top five wheat exporters. Iran borders Pakistan, which is among the top ten wheat producers and where roughly 100m people depend on the cereal to survive. David Hodson of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation’s Wheat Rust Disease Global Programme thinks it is only a matter of time before Ug99 appears in Pakistan.
To make matters worse, the threat from stripe rust (Puccinia striiformis) has also been worsening. Scientists at the International Centre for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) reckon it could affect 50m hectares and that some farmers could lose a third of their crops. Both figures are far worse than previously thought.
So far, wheat rust has not caused the disaster that scientists fear. But that, says Ronnie Coffman of Cornell University, has been mainly a matter of luck. So far, no giant producer (China, India, America, Russia) has been infected. The humid conditions that spread rust most readily have recently been lacking in most places. But where the weather was to its liking—Kenya in 2007, for instance—rust destroyed a quarter of the crop and affected four-fifths of all farms. Fungicides afford some protection but huge quantities of chemicals are an expensive and limited answer. Most small farmers in poor regions, including Punjab, cannot afford them anyway.
When the good luck runs out, stem rust can destroy the entire harvest in an infected area. A full-blown epidemic in a big wheat-growing area could therefore be catastrophic. Only a handful of wheat varieties
have any resistance to Ug99, implying that harvests could fail even more completely than during earlier epidemics.
Such a failure would be felt on a vast scale. Wheat is the world’s most widely planted crop and accounts for a fifth of humanity’s calorie intake (rice has a similar share; all other foods combined account for the rest). Since its discovery, Ug99 and its descendants have shown up in eight countries ranging from South Africa to the Middle East; 26 others are on the FAO’s danger list, accounting for about a third of wheat production. Kathy Kahn of the Gates Foundation says the disease is potentially “devastating”.
Scientists such as Mr Coffman say they know how to attack stem rust. The question is how fast and how completely they can do it, and at what cost. Borlaug used a mighty rust-resisting gene that lasted 40 years. The new approach uses four or five weaker defences, for example reducing the area of the wheat plant that Ug99 destroys, or slowing down the spread of the fungus. Each would be inadequate on its own. But put together, they achieve something close to full resistance. Multiple barriers also make it harder for Ug99 to overcome them all. A single gene will eventually be defeated—as Sr31 was. Knocking down a series of obstacles is much harder.
So far, researchers have developed about 60 experimental wheat varieties with multiple low-resistance genes. CIMMYT sent out a first batch of 15 for development and nine have made it into production and distribution on a wide scale. ICARDA has sent out two more seed lines and India and Pakistan have released rust-resistant seeds of their own. Scientists are also investigating how rust secretes the substances that enable it to break into the plant’s cells. If the wheat can learn to recognise this as it is happening, it might also be engineered to generate its own Ug99- resistant proteins.
Separately, researchers have cracked the mystery of how stripe rust is able to overcome resistance in wheat so quickly. Until recently it was thought that stripe rust reproduces asexually. But new research found that, like stem rust, stripe rust increases its genetic variability by reproducing sexually on the leaves of another host plant (the barberry), making itself more adaptable—and more deadly.
Advances like these suggest the march of wheat rust can be halted, though at a cost. That is not just money, but a trade-off of lower yields for more resistance (ie, the opposite of what Borlaug achieved).
But if the signs in the laboratory look propitious, out in the fields the distribution problems are formidable. Over 47,000 hectares have been planted with the new seeds. But that is only 0.1% of the total area planted to wheat in the countries on the FAO’s danger list. The astonishing spread of wheat rust makes quick containment impossible. In some places stem rust may become endemic before the outside world even spots it.
The high-yield seeds of the Green Revolution were not only developed but often marketed by state-financed agricultural institutions. In many poor African countries such institutions barely exist, whereas in wealthier ones spending on them has fallen over the years. Worst of all, farmers in earlier generations had a big incentive to get their hands on high-yielding seeds. Now, the vast majority have no experience of wheat rust. They may therefore see no reason for sowing rust-resistant seeds when they first appear—until the disease destroys their harvest. By then it will be too late.
The following sugar market analysis is used by permission of Frank Jenkins of The
Jenkins Sugar Group:
The USDA will formally announce a 300,000 short ton (272,155 metric tonne) increase in the 2009-10 Tariff Rate Quota tomorrow. The Increase is for raw sugar only and is for the period from when the Certificates of Quota Eligibility are allocated through September 30, 2010. Traders in London seemed to like the announcement, as prices on the LIFFE whites contract improved by $11.20 to finish the day at $572.00 after peaking earlier at $574.70. This would indicate an October price in excess of 17.00 when trading opens on the ICE futures and a new 10-week high. To the extent that the USDA„s announcement is responsible for the excitement in London, it is knock-on effect and boosted sentiment on additional evidence that the nearby market remains extremely tight, with the US joining Thailand, the DR and the Philippines as extraordinary importers. The announcement all but precludes the US being an importer of whites this summer, at least under a refined sugar TRQ. As the USDA announcement came immediately following the July #11 expiry, any stress will be confined to the spot cash market once the US Trade Rep allocated the CQE‟s in the next few days (hopefully). In word market fundamentals, Unica reported that the center-south has produced 8.95 million tonnes of sugar through June 16, a 31 % increase over last season. In the first half of June 2.3 million tonnes of sugar were produced – also 31 % up on last year. Impressively, the 31 % increase comes from 173.7 million tonnes of cane – a 20 % increase over last year.
India‟s Farm Ministry stated that it plans on imposing an import tax on while sugar in the new crop year, but will wait until more is known about the size and state of the 2010-11 crop before setting a level. While India‟s monsoon is achieving better coverage, the rains were 13 % below normal in the June 1-July 5 period. Rains are expected to spread to Uttar Pradesh in the next two to three days. In a late-game upset, Singapore’s Wilmar International, the world‟s largest listed palm oil trader, agreed to buy CSR‟s sugar arm, Sucrogen, which had been expected to go to Chin‟s Bright Food Group. In the NAFTA region: The following is our projection of the S&D for this year and next, adding the TRQ increase adjusted for a further 21,000 ton shortfall. The all-but-ample ending stocks/use ratio for 2009-10 of 13.27 % suggests to us that the July WASDE report, due out Thursday, will include a further upward revision in domestic food use number, tipping the scales back towards the “marginally sufficiently supplied” zone. We may be cynical, but the timing “preview” will leave the USDA looking at least somewhat proactive instead of having to react to a screwed-down stocks/use ratio should the use number indeed be increased again. The S&D currently shows no high tier raw sugar imports and in no way reflects the difficulty traders will have in sourcing raw sugar in the current environment. We believe that there will be an outsized TRQ shortfall and that high tier imports, mainly for the badly congested center-south of Brazil, will at the end of the day be the source that ultimately keeps the US raws market in supply. The issue is it seems that the center-south is already overstressed by its role as the sole entity responsible for bridging from the past few year‟s deficit markets to the anticipated surplus. Read more at Jenkins Sugar Group.
July 06, 2010; By Caroline Scott-Thomas, FoodNavigator-usa.com
USDA says soda tax would reduce obesity The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has added its voice to the debate on soda tax and the prevalence of overweight and obesity, saying that a 20 percent price increase would make a significant difference.
The USDA’s Economic Research Service (ERS) said it was prompted to examine the health effects of taxing calorically sweetened beverages after the Institute of Medicine and the National Academies of Sciences among others suggested that such a tax could help combat soaring obesity rates in the United States. The USDA said that 66.9 percent of US adults are overweight, and 33.4 percent are obese – but found that a 20 percent soda tax could reduce overweight prevalence to 62.4 percent and prevalence of obesity to 30.4 percent over a year.
Its study, drawing on National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) data, found that increasing the price of sugary sodas by 20 percent could cause an average reduction of 37 calories per day, equivalent to 3.8 pounds of body weight over a year for adults, and an average of 43 calories per day, or 4.5 pounds over a year, for children.
The ERS report said that the potential reduction in the number of overweight or obese individuals is due to a large number of adults being overweight or obese by only a few pounds, meaning that even a small weight loss would shift them to a different category; and also because caloric sweetened beverages are disproportionately consumed by overweight people. The report noted that 10.6 percent of overweight adults consume more than 450 calories a day from caloric sweetened beverages – nearly three times the average of 152 calories.
The report used NHANES data on beverage consumption and body mass index (BMI), and then used price elasticity approximates to estimate changes in caloric intake for each beverage category in response to a tax-induced 20-percent increase in the price of caloric sweetened beverages. The researchers assumed that one pound of body fat is equivalent to 3,500 calories.
In addition to the potential effects for adults, the USDA said a beverage tax could have a major effect on children’s weight.
“For children, the at-risk-for-overweight prevalence could decline from 32.3 to 27.0 percent, and the prevalence of overweight children could decline from 16.6 to 13.7 percent,” the researchers wrote.
However, they cautioned that the effectiveness of a soda tax would depend on how much of the expense is passed on to the consumer.
“Responsiveness at the individual or household level could vary across other elements, such as personal preference and income level. The ultimate outcome would depend on many factors, including the size of the tax, the type of tax, and the competitive strategies of beverage manufacturers and food retailers,” the report concluded.
The American Beverage Association has vociferously opposed soda taxes, calling them ‘simplistic and ineffective’ for dealing with public health challenges.
It's not only Lyle's golden syrup that's been the subject of a takeover, the word itself has been subverted many times. Does syrup still have a place in your kitchen?
A golden oldie - Lyle's Golden Syrup is the oldest brand in the world. Photograph: Foodfolio/Alamy
So the Americans have bought Tate & Lyle's sugar business, and with it one of the last, limp legacies of industrial Britain. Mr Tate gave this country the sugar cube and a damn fine art gallery: Abram Lyle began selling syrup from his East End sugar refinery 130 years ago. After the disgraceful Kraft-work on Cadbury, you might be tempted to feel a patriotic twinge of regret at the sale. But, as one experienced City observer put it to me, "It's not really bad news: it's just another cut with the Victorian age where enterprising people did enterprising things. Tate & Lyle make all sorts of other stuff [including Splenda sweetener and a great deal of corn syrup]: their sugar business is almost an irrelevance."
Do you remember what's on the Lyle's syrup tin? A swarm of bees and a dead lion. Not something Saatchi & Saatchi would dream up today. Beneath the rotting beast is the oblique legend "Out of the strong came forth sweetness". It's the riddle with which Samson teased his wife in the Book of Judges, having earlier chanced upon this rather tawdry 'miracle'. Abram Lyle designed his tins in 1885, and no one knows why he chose the verse. Dr Kate Thomas, an expert in Victoriana at Bryn Mawr College in Philadelphia, believes that the lion, the bees and quotation "testify to a peculiarly Victorian mix of moralism, industrial drive, and budding concern for social welfare". Our distance from Tate & Lyle grows ever wider.
True syrup, of course, is sugar dissolved in water; the ideal concentration for the kitchen is around 1650g of sugar per litre of water. Golden syrup, like treacle (of which it is a variant) is a by-product of sugar manufacture. In the factory, they split the sugar molecule glucose into fructose and dextrose, a process known as 'inversion', then add glucose back into the mixture. The process accounts for the smoothness and stability of golden syrup.
In fact, the food industry has repeatedly hijacked the term 'syrup' for use in a number of dubious guises. Corn syrup is made from maize starch and comes sweet and light, in the manner of golden syrup, or a treacle brown; high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS), however, is the infamous and ubiquitous synthetic goo blamed by some health campaigners for a number of America's dietary ills, not least billowing obesity and growing rates of diabetes and diseases of the heart and liver. Nor is Britain unscathed. Subsidies to American corn farmers and protectionist quotas on sugar imports mean that HFCS is cheaper than sugar – the consequences for American waistlines and hospital bills are, it seems, of secondary importance.
The finest syrup, of course, is rendered from the sap of the maple tree. Its delicious amber is certainly Canada's noblest contribution to gastronomy, a finer product than the heinous and repugnant poutine of Quebec. In the 1600s, the Algonquin tribe taught European settlers how to tap the maple tree and to drain and boil its sap, the only source of concentrated sugar in those deep, dark woods. Maple syrup predictably tastes miles better than golden and corn syrups which are, respectively, a sickly waste from industrial sugar refining and a potentially lethal creation of laboratories and accountants.
Syrup, it turns out, is one of the most maligned foods of all. The revolting concoctions dribbled into high street coffees, the saccharine thud of cheap squash, the slurp and crunch of a Slush Puppie, the murky hiss of stateside Coke. Just look what happens to Bart and Milhouse when they risk an all-syrup squishy. Harry Potter's or Heston's treacle tarts aside, I wonder sometimes whether we'd all be better off with honey. Does syrup still have a place in your kitchen?
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-07-07/sugar-output-in-india-may-climb-34-to-25-million-tons-as-plantings-jump.html July 7, 2010; By Pratik Parija, Bloomberg
Sugar Output in India May Climb 34% to 25 Million Tons as Plantings Jump
Sugar output in India, the world’s largest user, may be more than a government forecast because of an increase in the area planted to cane, a millers’ group said.
Production may total 25 million metric tons in the year starting Oct. 1, from 18.7 million tons estimated this season, M.N. Rao, deputy director general of the Indian Sugar Mills Association, or ISMA, said today. Output may be 23 million tons, the government said last month.
Increased output from the second-biggest producer may add to a forecast for a global surplus of 5.64 million tons for the 2010-11 season by Fortis Bank Nederland and VM Group. A bigger cane crop may prompt the government to levy a tax on imports in August or September, Farm Minister Sharad Pawar said this week. The nation allowed duty-free imports as prices doubled last year after dry weather cut local production and excess rainfall damaged crops in Brazil, the biggest grower.
White sugar for October delivery declined as much as 1.6 percent to $494.1 a ton in London. Raw sugar for delivery in October dropped as much as 1.7 percent to 16.41 cents a pound in after-hours trading on ICE Futures U.S.
The price at Vashi in Mumbai, the nation’s biggest market for sugar, fell 0.9 percent to 2,686.35 rupees for 100 kilograms, extending this year’s loss to 26 percent.
Farmers planted cane in 4.72 million hectares as of July 2, up 13 percent from the same date a year ago, the farm ministry said July 2. The crop area is 22 percent larger than a year ago, and higher than the increase estimated by the government, Vinay Kumar, managing director of a producers’ group that accounts for almost half of the nation’s production, said July 1.
India’s sugar stockpiles will jump 53 percent in the year ending Sept. 30, according to ISMA. Mills will end the season with 4.9 million tons, compared with 3.2 million tons a year earlier, the group said on June 14.
Ohio farmers hit by wheat crop toxin COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - A toxin found at high levels this season in wheat has meant lower income for some Ohio farmers. Levels of vomitoxin are the worst in seven to 10 years in some areas, said Pierce Paul, a plant pathologist and small-grains specialist with the Ohio State University Extension Service. He says the toxin has thrived in parts of the state due to a cool, wet May that allowed fungus to grow.
(MORE: Fulton Co Expositor: Vomitoxin damaged crop, upset dynamics of markets; 2009 corn crop lasting in storage).
The pathogen limits use of the wheat for humans, and Paul said producers should be wary of feeding the infected wheat to livestock, particularly swine.
Roland Sink, who raises wheat in Newberry Township in southwest Ohio, said this year’s crop is the worst he’s harvested in 40 years. He says he’s lost about $9,000 on this year’s 125-acre crop.
Sink, 60, said he lost an average of $1.25 per bushel because of vomitoxin and the wheat’s low weight. The current bushel price is $4 and his worst load of wheat was docked by almost $3 per bushel, he said.
Vomitoxin can decrease the appetite of animals and long-term exposure can lead to gastrointestinal and immune system problems in people, according to information about wheat damage on the extension service’s web site. The site says milling and manufacturing can reduce levels of the toxin, and that finished products – such as flour- must have less than 1 part per million of the toxin if being used as food for people.
Tri-State Grain Inspection Service Inc. in Cincinnati tests wheat harvests for vomitoxin, and generally does fewer than 10 tests each day.
On Thursday, the company did nearly 50 tests, and it expected to do dozens more, said agency manager Damon Sampson. Tests have shown levels of the toxin ranging from 5 parts per million to 19 ppm.
Jim Routzahn, plant superintendent at the Troy Elevator, said levels are the highest he’s seen in 38 years. Some farmers have lost $2 or more per bushel, and many are disgruntled.
“It’s taking a lot of money out of their pockets,” he said.
At Brubaker Grain & Chemical in West Alexandria, Gary Brubaker said this year’s crop has the poorest quality in three decades, and he’s not sure where the company will sell the most damaged wheat.
Coffee Falls as Brazil Crop May Avoid Frost Damage; Cocoa Drops
Arabica-coffee futures fell for the third time in four sessions after a weather forecaster said Brazil’s crop, the world’s largest, should be undamaged by frost this month. Cocoa also declined.
The prospect of freezing weather in the South American country sent coffee prices to a 12-year high in New York last month. The risk was lowered yesterday when Sao Paulo-based forecaster Somar Meteorologia predicted that Brazil’s main producing area probably will be frost-free through July.
“There were a lot of jitters off of the fact that some cold weather moved into the area earlier than usual,” said Tom Mikulski, a senior market strategist at Lind-Waldock, a broker in Chicago. “With no weather premium and the harvest moving along as scheduled, it’s hard not to be a little bearish right now.”
Arabica coffee for September delivery fell 0.95 cent, or 0.6 percent, to $1.621 a pound on ICE Futures U.S. in New York. Prices have jumped 19 percent this year.
Global coffee output will probably be 133 million to 135 million bags in the year that begins Oct. 1, the International Coffee Organization said today in an e-mailed report from London. That’s up at least 10 percent from the 120.6 million bags estimated for the current year.
Bigger Crops?
“There are indications that production levels are gradually increasing,” Nestor Osorio, ICO’s executive director, said in the report. “A return to normal production levels in a number of producing countries could contribute to the application of corrections as supplies of new crop arrive on the market.”
Brazil’s production may total about 50 million bags, the trade group said. A bag of coffee weighs 60 kilograms (132 pounds).
“Once the harvest is done, you’re going to see a large influx of coffee into the market,” Mikulski said. “If production numbers hold up, I don’t see any reason how this market could hang onto these levels.”
Cocoa futures for September delivery fell $12, or 0.4 percent, to $2,969 a metric ton in New York. Prices have gained 17 percent in the past year.
(Reuters) - Chinese authorities seized 64 tonnes of milk powder and products laced with the same deadly toxic additive that sparked an uproar in 2008, officials and state media said, underscoring the persistence of food safety breaches. Samples of milk powder found in northwest China's Gansu and Qinghai provinces had levels of the chemical melamine up to 500 times the permitted limit, and suspected tainted powder also turned up in the country's northeast, said a report from the Xinhua news agency on Friday.
As well seizing 38 tonnes of milk powder found with 500 times the limit, police in Qinghai seized 26 tonnes of dairy powder with lower amounts of melamine and 12 tonnes of finished products, an official in the Qinghai quality watchdog told Reuters. He would not give his name and did not specify the products.
The exposure of tainted milk products in a poor and remote parts of China's northwest has underscored the persistence of food safety problems that have alarmed consumers and sparked criminal scandals that led to executions and official sackings.
Two years ago, at least six children died and nearly 300,000 children fell ill from drinking powdered milk laced with melamine, an industrial compound added to fool inspectors by giving misleadingly high results in protein tests.
Faced with outrage from consumers and anguished parents and an international outcry, Beijing blamed officials in north China's Hebei province for covering up the problem dairy products, sold mainly by Hebei's now bankrupt Sanlu Group, which was partly owned by New Zealand dairy giant Fonterra.
China executed two people last November for their role in the scandal.
The latest report did not mention any deaths or illnesses blamed on the latest batches of toxic dairy products. "The authorities have demanded strict investigations and punishment, and the preventing of any problem milk powder entering the market," it said.
Inspectors found samples of milk powder from a dairy company worker operating in northwest Gansu province had melamine levels as high as 559 percent above the government-mandated limit.
Police traced the tainted milk powder to a dairy factory in neighboring Qinghai province. The company had bought the powder from elsewhere and kept it in a village near the factory.
"Tests showed levels of melamine 500 times above the accepted level," said the report.
Traders had bought the tainted milk from Hebei province, possibly buying up batches supposed to have been destroyed after the 2008 scandal, said Xinhua.
Melamine can cause kidney stones, and is used to make plastics, fertilizers and concrete. Its high nitrogen content allows protein levels to appear higher when added to milk or animal feed, allowing traders to disguise substandard products.
July 9, 2010; By Norris Ledyard, Fulton County Expositor
Last year's corn crop lasting in storage Vomitoxin damaged the crop, upset dynamics of markets
Real soon, there will be a rite of summer upon us. Various farm stands and local grocery stores will be touting fresh sweet corn. Boiled just right with butter (or spread to reduce cholesterol) with fresh cracked pepper and salt. Stick the ear holders into the ends of the cobs and nibble off some niblets. And cook additional ears as the corn can be sliced off and frozen and saved for another time.
The rest of this article will deal with corn grown for feed and other uses. The 2009 corn crop continues to cause some problems.
During the ripening process of the field corn growing process, cool, damp weather can set conditions where blight has the wherewithal to spread. It really does not matter the volume of rain; it is all in the timing of the rain. It's when the ears trap the moisture and the weather remains cool and still.
Lacking heat to encourage evaporation and without the breezes to whisk away the trapped water, some fungi can begin to grow. In the case of the 2009 crop, the presence and persistent nature of vomitoxin, a mycotoxin, damaged the crop and upset the dynamics of the market.
The 2009 crop and the presence of vomitoxin that Pettisville Elevators says, "... either you got it or you got it really bad." The entire eastern region of the United States Corn Belt felt the effects.
"The entire 2009 corn crop in these parts had elevated levels of vomitoxin present," said Neil Rupp, President of Pettisville Elevator. "In a standard good crop of corn, we'll experience 1 to 1.5 ppm (parts per million) or less.
Normally, this part of the country has the corn crop that is very much in demand by pork producers. Pigs are very sensitive to the presence of toxins which may appear in their diet. A pig's tolerance of vomitoxin is limited to 5 ppm.
"The pigs may eat some of the grain which has too high of levels of vomitoxin," said Rupp. "They get sick and their gullet becomes irritated. The pigs realize what caused their distress and will then refuse to eat anything. Pigs are very smart animals; there is no fooling them."
Once a pig begins to refuse their feed, they lose weight. It becomes very difficult to get the best results of raising hogs for market.
"In the case of the 2009 crop, we averaged 7 ppm for vomitoxin," shared Rupp. "Some of the corn we purchased showed 3 ppm. In the extreme, there was some corn tested that showed 14 ppm."
The USDA, as well as the Food and Drug Administration, allows for no more than 1 ppm for human consumption, 5 ppm for hogs and pigs and 10 ppm for cattle, dairy and poultry.
Pettisville Elevator sees the 'better' avenue of shipping 2009 corn eastward to chicken and dairy farmers. Chicken and dairy animals can handle near 10 ppm in their feed. Each individual in the agribusiness of animal husbandry will need to test the feed, keep feed stocks separate and blend their grains carefully to maximize their results.
According to Rupp, this eastern edge of the Corn Belt was not hit by the presence of vomitoxin as bad as Indiana. Levels of the fungi were very high throughout Indiana; in some areas of Indiana, their 2009 corn crop tested between 15 to 20 ppm. Then, as you travel west, Illinois fared better in avoiding the fungi. It is all in the timing of moisture and the stage of growth the ears of corn are.
When asked if the infested corn could be channeled as fuel into feeding corn stoves, Rupp had to chuckle. "The 50 to 75 bushels per heating season does not use up a degree of sampling error in the volume of corn I'm talking about.
"Even if the infested crop could go towards ethanol production, the process of cooking and processing the grain can triple the levels of vomitoxin," said Rupp. "Then, the ethanol processing centers can not resell the processed corn cake. If a load of corn had 5 ppm, the process of ethanol extraction will produce 15 ppm in the cake. It becomes a waste which has no where to go."
Now, about the 2010 wheat crop...
Currently, Rupp is anxious to see and test the local wheat crop. Reports from Dayton - area crops of wheat are showing significant levels of head scab. Again, it is when the grain head is flowering and moisture upsets the healthy conditions of a crop.
"It is not the last couple weeks of weather that concerns me," said Rupp. "It was the weather we experienced in the middle of May that will affect the wheat harvest. We will rush some samples to get tested and wait on the results." It keeps life on the farm and in the elevators interesting.
Soybeans Rally on Speculation China Will Boost Purchases of U.S. Oilseeds
Soybeans rose to an eight-week high on speculation that China, the biggest consumer, will purchase more of the oilseed from the U.S. to make up for reduced domestic output.
U.S. exporters sold 116,000 metric tons to China for delivery after Aug. 31, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said today. China’s soybean crop was hurt by temperatures that reached 106 degrees Fahrenheit (41 degrees Celsius) in northeast regions during the past seven days and too much rain in the south during the past month, said Fred Gesser, a senior meteorologist at Planalytics Inc. in Berwyn, Pennsylvania.
“Chinese crops have been damaged,” said David Smoldt, the vice president of operations for FCStone LLC in West Des Moines, Iowa. “China will be buying more soybeans” to feed an expanding livestock herd and as more processing plants are built, Smoldt said.
Soybean futures for November delivery rose 7.25 cents, or 0.8 percent, to $9.5325 a bushel on the Chicago Board of Trade after earlier touching $9.5875, the highest price since May 14. The most-active futures rose 5.2 percent this week, the biggest gain since November.
Soybeans are the second-biggest U.S. crop, valued at $31.8 billion last year, behind corn at $48.6 billion, government figures show.
ADM dedicates ethanol, power plants COLUMBUS - The Archer Daniels Midland Company's ethanol dry mill and a coal-fired cogeneration facility officially opened Friday with a ribbon cutting ceremony. The two operations join a wet corn mill that was already in place.
The expansion allows ADM to produce 300 million more gallons of ethanol annually in Columbus. ADM announced Columbus and Cedar Rapids, Iowa, would be sites for new dry mills in early 2006.
Columbus Plant Manager Steve Dewald said Columbus was chosen because of its strong work force, the large supply of corn in the area and the existence of a wet mill.
ADM operates more than 230 processing plants that turn corn and other grains into products such as ethanol and animal feed. The Columbus facility is the second largest behind the global headquarters in Decatur, Ill.
ADM CEO and President Patricia Woertz said the new plant in Columbus is having an impact locally and nationally.
"The ethanol plant here in Columbus ... produces cleaning burning renewable ethanol and also increases ADM's annual production by 300 million gallons," Woertz said.
Nationally, she said, increased ethanol use helps our country lessen its dependency on fuel from other countries. Last year, Woertz said, the ethanol used in the United States saved importing 350 million barrels of foreign oil.
Locally, the expansion has had an economic impact with more jobs being created. The addition of the dry mill and cogeneration facility has added 150 job. During the expansion, more than 1,400 contractors were also on site at one time.
Columbus Mayor Mike Moser said ADM has created many positives in Columbus.
"I really appreciate the impact ADM has had to the local economy. It makes business for truckers to haul grain in and out. It makes a cash market for farmer's products where they can sell to ADM at sometimes a slight premium, and it gives feeders a product to feed their animals," Moser said.
The additions in Columbus make the plant unique as it has both a wet and dry mill. The trend for most facilities is to move away from wet mills when making fuel ethanol because it is less cost effective than dry mills, Dewald said.
The wet mill and dry mill are different processes, but combined produce more than 1 million gallons of ethanol per day.
When corn is brought into the facility to the wet mill, it is first saturated in water and sulfur dioxide and then ground up to extract the oil and the fiber. The fiber is sold as cattle feed.
After the oil and fiber is removed, starch and gluten remain. The gluten is used mostly as chicken feed and dog food. The starch is what Dewald said they are really after.
"Here in Columbus we make three different products from the starch. We make dry starch which is used in the pulp and paper industry to make paper and cardboard. We make fuel ethanol and we make high fructose corn syrup," Dewald said.
The dry mill doesn't separate the parts of the corn kernel as is done in the wet mill. Only two products are make from dry mill: fuel ethanol and feed products.
Processing started at the dry mill in late 2009. The capacity of the dry mill is about 300 million gallons of ethanol per year.
Columbus ADM receives most of its corn via truck. On average 500-600 trucks come to ADM each day. The facility does receive corn by unit trains, but that grain typically comes from out of state. Dewald said they like to purchase most of their corn from farmers in Nebraska to support local and area producers.
When the facility was built in 1992, it was owned by Minnesota Corn Processors. Then it was a 40,000 bushel per day facility. ADM acquired MCP in 2002. The operation has since grown to a 500,000 bushel per day operation.
"In the last 17-1/2 years this facility has grown over 10 times in size, which has been a very large contribution to the community here in Columbus," Dewald said.
The grain that comes in is stored on site. Grain storage can hold about 3 million bushels of grain, or 5-6 days worth of corn.
The cogeneration facility is responsible for generating electricity and providing heat for some of the processes.
A huge, white on-site coal dome, which measures 300 feet across and 165 feet tall, stores coal that is used for the cogeneration facility. The coal is burned in boilers to produce steam. The steam drives turbines that are connected to a generator.
"We produce some of our own electricity. We can produce up to about half of the electricity that this entire complex takes to run every day," Dewald said.
The steam is also used to heat products, convert starches and drive distillation columns throughout the complex. Condensation that is created goes back to the boiler house and is converted into steam again.
The July issue of the SUGAR AND SWEETENERS OUTLOOK is available in PDF format. You are able to view this publication at: http://usda.mannlib.cornell.edu/MannUsda/viewDocumentInfo.do?documentID=1386 Acrobat Reader 5.0 or higher is required to view and print this document. To download and get help using the Adobe Acrobat Reader, please go to: http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html The next issue of SUGAR AND SWEETENERS OUTLOOK will be released on August 16, 2010. This report examines world and U.S. production, consumption, trade, stocks, and prices for beet and cane sugar, and high fructose corn syrup. To unsubscribe, change the reports you subscribe to, or change your e-mail address, go to: http://usda.mannlib.cornell.edu/MannUsda/aboutEmailService.do
FDA Gives Thumbs-Up to PureCircle Products PureCircle has announced that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued a No Objection letter for the use of PureCircle’s SG95 product as a Food and Beverage ingredient in the USA. This will enable PureCircle to offer a wider and more flexible array of stevia solutions to manufacturers in the US market.
PureCircle is working with Imperial Sugar Company through a joint venture – Natural Sweet Ventures, L.L.C. – to develop stevia – cane sugar products in the U.S.
PureCircle’s high purity SG95 product is a further example of the company’s leadership in innovation. Along with seven previously approved steviol glycosides, SG95 includes two new steviol glycosides, Rebaudioside D and Rebaudioside F, both of which are receiving GRAS No Objection for the first time.
The new high purity sweetener delivers great taste and consistency, as well as pricing well below sugar. The product is suited for applications formulated with both sugar and SG95 to achieve a low cost solution to partial sugar and calorie reduction. Together with PureCircle’s successful high purity Reb A 97, SG95 will provide customers with an expanded range of options to improve products across their portfolios.
With GRAS affirmation, PureCircle is prepared for immediate commercialization of SG95. Magomet Malsagov, CEO and Managing Director of PureCircle, stated “The launch of SG95 is a very exciting development for PureCircle in the United States with considerable future potential in global markets. Expanded use of sweet glycosides from the stevia plant provides both formulation and economic benefits to our customers.
“PureCircle’s Reb A 97 continues to play a major role in the company’s portfolio, particularly as investments yield continued efficiencies that will be shared with customers. Now, SG95 will provide an additional compelling product today in many applications.”
http://www.agweek.com/event/article/id/169566/publisher_ID/40/ July 22 2010; By Sherri Keaton, Forum Communications
Sugar beet pre-pile begins two weeks early this year
Because the sugar beet crop is so large, American Crystal’s pre-pile harvest will most likely start Aug. 17, which is about two weeks earlier than normal. David Berg knows a thing or two about the white, powdery, sweet stuff his company produces. As president of American Crystal Sugar Co., he knows when the sugar beet crops are good and when the harvest is plentiful.
This year is one of those times. Because the sugar beet crop is so large, American Crystal’s pre-pile harvest will most likely start Aug. 17, which is about two weeks earlier than normal.
The pre-pile harvest allows growers to bring in a small amount of the crop to prepare factories for the full harvest. “Like many crops, it’s been a favorable growing season, and that is reflective in the fact that we’ll be starting the factories two weeks early,” Berg said.
The pre-piling process will feed the five factories in Drayton and Hillsboro, N.D., and Moorhead, East Grand Forks and Crookston. These five sugar beet plants are within a 60- to 70-mile-wide band that starts south of Moorhead and ends at the Canadian border.
The full stockpile harvest will begin normally about Oct. 1, when the sugar beets are stored for processing, Berg said.
An early spring meant sugar beet farmers got their crops in early, he said.
Some of the beets were planted April 15, and the larger share of them were planted in late April, which added two to three weeks to the growing season. “Having those extra days to grow means opportunity to have significant additional tons,” Berg said.
“Like anything else, the longer the beet is in the ground, the longer it has the opportunity to grow,” he said. Last year’s beet harvest was poor because they weren’t planted until the middle of June, “and you just know you are not going to have very good results planting that late,” Berg said.
Two factors define a good beet crop: tons of beets per acre and sugar content, he said.
Last year, the beets produced 22.3 tons per acre, and it was OK, Berg said. “This year, our projection is 25½ (for all acres), which would be near record, the largest ever. We want to harvest a lot of tons.”
A good year for sugar content in the beets is 17.5 to 18 percent, Berg said. It’s too early to tell what the content will be this year, “but we’re hoping to have the percent in a normal to higher range.”
American Crystal is now replacing the roofs of two football-sized storage facilities in north Moorhead. Berg said the work should be done in time to receive the pre-pile harvest. The roofs of the 25-year-old facilities collapsed in January because of the weight of snow and frozen rain.
The collapses didn’t damage beets in the facilities. Beets were removed in April as they normally would have been, said Dan Bernhardson, director of agriculture for American Crystal.
China Enters `New Era' of Buying Corn From Overseas, Grain Council Says
China may import as much as 15 million tons of corn in 2015 as demand outstrips local supply and the country enters a “new era” of buying from overseas, the U.S. Grains Council said, citing Shanghai JC Intelligence Co.
Imports may total 1.7 million tons this year and 5.8 million tons next year, the council said, citing Shanghai JC Chairman Hanver Li. Even with normal weather, the second-largest corn consumer won’t be able produce enough to meet demand as incomes rise, the council said on its website, citing Li.
China’s reemergence as a net corn buyer may help to drive global prices higher. Imports of 5.8 million tons would surpass China’s previous record purchases in the 1990s, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data. Corn is used to make animal feed, with demand rising as consumers buy more meat and dairy products.
“The natural market to supply China in the corn space is certainly the U.S.,” Luke Mathews, a commodity strategist at Commonwealth Bank of Australia said, referring to the top producer and exporter. “China buying is certainly something that’s going to be supportive for global grain prices.”
Corn has risen 8.5 percent since April 27, a day before the USDA reported the first corn sales to China by U.S. exporters of at least 100,000 tons since 2001. The December contract on the Chicago Board of Trade narrowed losses today, trading 0.2 percent lower at $3.8375 a bushel at 1:15 p.m. in Beijing.
‘New Era’
“Demand for corn in China is simply outstripping the country’s production trend,” the council’s statement said, citing Li, who spoke through an interpreter. “A new era of China importing corn is here,” Li was cited as saying. A phone call by Bloomberg News to the head office of Shanghai JC Intelligence today was not answered.
The Asian nation had been a net exporter of the grain in recent years, including last year, when it sold 172,000 tons, compared with purchases of 47,000 tons, according to USDA data. China’s corn harvest totaled 164 million tons last year, down 1.2 percent, the statistics bureau said in May.
China’s previous record imports totaled 4.29 million tons in the year to September 1995, according to data from the USDA. Imports of 5.8 million tons may make the nation the fourth- largest buyer, overtaking Egypt, according to the department.
Corn imports by China, the world’s most populous nation, may surge to 10 million tons in 2015, according to a forecast earlier this month from Akio Shibata, chief representative for trading company Marubeni Corp.’s research institute. The company is Japan’s biggest grain trader.
Meat and Eggs
China’s expanding economy is boosting demand for meat, milk and eggs because as incomes rise people buy more food, Li said, according to the council’s Global Update report, dated July 22. Li was speaking at the group’s 50th annual board of delegates meeting. The council develops export markets for U.S. harvests.
The country had reached a “turning point,” Shanghai JC’s Li was cited as saying, referring to the period when China becomes a regular importer. Bad weather this year had cut output, local prices were rising and stockpiles were dropping, Li said.
The rising demand for food in China offered “an excellent opportunity” for increased corn shipments, Thomas Dorr, the grain council’s president, said last month. China may buy as much as 1 million tons over the next 18 months, Dorr forecast.
China has been selling corn from state stockpiles this year to cool local prices for immediate delivery that have risen 8.8 percent, according to data from Shanghai JC. At the same time, the nation has stepped up overseas purchases amid concern that the year’s crop may drop after bad weather.
“For now, imported corn will be limited, and will have limited impact on China’s domestic market,” said Yu Xiaomeng, an analyst at research company Beijing Shennong Net. Domestic crops looked fine, even with some weather concerns, she said.
Minnesota crops continue to develop ahead of average
ST. PAUL, Minn. - Minnesota crops continue to thrive as the small grain harvest gets underway and 89 percent of the corn crop is in good or excellent condition.
In its weekly crop and weather report for Minnesota, the U.S. Department of Agriculture says 85 percent of the corn crop is at or beyond the silking stage. That's 45 percentage points ahead of last year and 18 points ahead of the five-year average.
The report says 85 percent of the soybean crop is in good or excellent condition and crop development remains well ahead of last year.
Statewide precipitation was more than .5 inches above normal last week. There were five days suitable for fieldwork.
The report says the harvest has started for spring wheat, barley and oats. The harvest was ahead of last year for all the crops, but about on pace with the five-year averages.
U.S. farmers urge sanctions against EU's GM crop ban
(Reuters) - The largest U.S. farm group has urged the Obama administration to begin steps towards imposing sanctions on the European Union in a long running dispute over the EU's treatment of genetically modified crops.
The American Farm Bureau Federation, in comments given to the administration on Monday, complained the EU still has not complied with a 2006 World Trade Organization ruling against its "de facto" moratorium on approving new varieties of biotech crops for sale in the 27-nation bloc.
"The inability of the EU to operate a timely and predictable regulatory process ended U.S. corn exports (to the EU) in 1998 and has reduced corn byproducts substantially," the Farm Bureau said in its recommendations for President Barack Obama's National Export Initiative.
"If the EU does not immediately begin to make timely, science-based regulatory decisions on pending and future applications, soybean exports also are at serious risk," the farm group said.
"USTR should initiate a retaliation proceeding against the EU to force compliance with the WTO ruling on GMOs (genetically-modified organisms)," the group said.
The request comes just a few days before U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk is due to give a speech in Pittsburgh on the Obama administration's efforts to ensure other countries live up to trade agreements.
U.S. farmers have widely embraced genetically modified crops, which offer higher yields with reduced pesticides. But the technology is viewed with suspicion by many European consumers because of perceived safety concerns.
The United States first challenged the EU's de facto moratorium and other policies that impeded sales of U.S. genetically modified crops at the WTO in 2003 and was joined by Canada and Argentina.
The WTO's 2006 ruling largely backed the complaint brought by the three countries, who argued the EU was failing to apply its own scientific approval procedures to GM products.
Since then, the United States has agreed at least twice to give the EU more time to comply with the ruling.
Washington also began steps in January 2008 to retaliate against the European Union, but later suspended that action.
The Farm Bureau initially supported the U.S. government decision not to retaliate in the case in the hope the two sides would find a way to "normalize" trade in biotech crops.
Now the group said it has changed its mind.
"U.S. agriculture has suffered substantial damage from the EU's failure to abide by its WTO commitments and this damage will continue to grow as long as the EU does not comply with the WTO ruling," the Farm Bureau said.
Monsanto has hit back at claims that genetically-modified sugar beet is no better than conventional varieties, saying that it farmers have confirmed productivity benefits.
The seeds giant said that its Roundup Ready sugarbeet variety had been "successfully planted in North America for the past four years", with more than 1m acres sown in 10 US states and two Canadian provinces.
Indeed, the variety - which is resistant to generalist weedkiller, allowing farmers to spray off weeds without damaging the crop – accounted for 95% of the region's beet planting last year.
"Sugarbeet growers have confirmed that Roundup Ready sugar beets reduce impact on the environment, and make their operations more efficient and productive," the company said in a statement to Agrimoney.com.
'Increased cost of production'
The comments followed claims from US beet sugar figures at a conference in London that genetically modified crop had bought no improvements to yields, besides costing more than conventional crop.
"We have not seen an increase in production yield," Nicholas Sinner, executive director of the Red River Valley Sugarbeet Growers Association told the World Association of Beet and Cane Growers conference.
Indeed, some farmers were worse off, with yields flat, yet seed costs raised by 22% last year.
"There are some producers that have seen an increased cost of production," Mr Sinner said.
'Brutal' price rise
Mr Sinner, in comments to Agrimoney.com at the edge of the conference, said that he was "not disparaging" genetically modified crops, noting the potential for breeding in resistance to rhizomania.
Rhizomania is a viral beet disease that, according to the UK's Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, can cause yield losses of up to 80%.
However, current varieties had not proved the "yield pump" expected by many farmers, who had often adopted them after enjoying improved productivity in other biotech crops, such as corn.
"They have not seen a pick up in yields yet,"
His comments were echoed by William Baldwin, a director at the American Crystal Sugar Company, which refines Red River beet, who termed as "brutal" that last year's rise in seed prices.
US Department of Agriculture data show America's average beet yield at 25.8 tonnes per acre last year, below the 26.8 tonnes per acre the year before, but above 2007's 25.5 tonnes per acre.
July 29, 2010; by Victoria Ruan and Andrew Batson, The Wall Street Journal
China's Farmers Could Use Land as Collateral
BEIJING—China's financial regulators said Wednesday they will explore ways to allow farmers to use their rights to farming and residential land as collateral for loans, a change that would make it easier for the nation's 720 million rural residents to access the financial system.
Many economists have argued that farmers need to be able to make better use of their most valuable asset—their rights to farmland—in order to raise their living standards. But China's government has moved cautiously because of possible social repercussions—such a move would allow banks to confiscate farmland should farmers be unable to repay loans.
The carefully worded statement issued by China's central bank and financial regulators didn't seem to indicate that the government has found a way of resolving those competing priorities. The statement said they will "explore launching trial programs" that would allow farmers in some areas to use rights to farmland and residential land as collateral for loans.
Such pilot programs will be limited to regions with relatively high urbanization or commercialization, the statement said, emphasizing that participation by farmers would be voluntary. It also emphasized that land would continue to be collectively owned and used for current purposes, indicating policy makers' desire to prevent the loss of farmland to commercial development.
The statement didn't give a timetable for launch of the trial programs, or specify which regions could be selected.
In recent years, China's government has made improving the welfare of rural residents a priority, but the debate over the best way to help farmers get better access to bank credit has been long and inconclusive.
In a 2009 review of China's rural policies, the Organization for Economic and Development urged the government to allow farmers to mortgage their rights to farmland.
"In order for farmers to make long-term, productivity-enhancing and income-generating investments on land, enhanced access to medium-term or long-term credit is key. Secure property rights which can be pledged as collateral for loans would facilitate farmers' application for loans from financial institutions," the group said in its report.
But some prominent officials such as Chen Xiwen, who heads the government's office on rural policy, have publicly argued against allowing farmland to be used as collateral. Mr. Chen said China's laws don't permit farmland to be used as collateral precisely because farmland rights are the ultimate social support system for rural people, many of whom don't own other assets and have little else to fall back on.
Jul 29, 2010; By Rudy Ruitenberg and Luzi Ann Javier, Bloomberg.com
Wheat Heads for Biggest Monthly Climb Since 1973 on Concern About Drought Wheat rose in Chicago, heading for the biggest monthly gain since 1973, on concern that a crop- damaging drought in Russia and parts of Europe will curb exports, lifting demand for U.S. supplies.
September-delivery wheat climbed for a third day on the Chicago Board of Trade, adding 1.3 percent to $6.24 a bushel at 1:21 p.m. Paris time. Futures earlier rose to a 13-month high of $6.2425.
“Extreme heat and drought” will continue to affect wheat areas in Russia and Kazakhstan in coming days, Telvent DTN Inc. forecast yesterday. Russia’s wheat exports may fall by almost half this crop year as the drought causes a local shortage, the Institute for Agricultural Market Studies said today.
“If the market feels we’re losing large amounts of supply, the risk is heavily to the upside,” Alex Bos, an analyst at Macquarie Bank in London, said by phone today. “A lot of the rally has been driven by the fact that the market was so heavily short coming into this weather scare.”
The most-active wheat contract has climbed 30 percent in Chicago so far in July, on track for the biggest such gain since August 1973.
Milling wheat for November delivery traded on NYSE Liffe in Paris was last up 1.1 percent at 191.50 euros ($250.60) a metric ton, the sixth increase in seven sessions. The contract climbed as high as 193.75 euros, the highest level since it began trading in March 2009.
Russian Exports
Russia’s outbound wheat shipments may decline to 9.5 million tons from last year’s 18 million tons, Oleg Sukhanov, chief specialist for grain markets at the Moscow-based institute, also known as IKAR, said by phone today.
“It’s certainly the supply side of the market, which is really underpinning the gains that we’re seeing,” Toby Hassall, a research analyst at CWA Global Markets Pty, said by phone from Sydney today. “It’s a case of the wheat market leading corn and soybeans higher.”
December-delivery corn advanced 0.9 percent to $3.9425 a bushel in Chicago. Soybeans for November delivery rose 0.6 percent to $9.8425 a bushel.
“The world is starting to focus once again on agriculture” because of weather-related crop concerns, fertilizer producer Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan said today as it reported higher second-quarter profit. “As a result, prices for crop commodities are strengthening. Returns for key crops such as corn are expected to be the second-highest on record.”
24% Decline?
The wheat harvest in Russia, the world’s third-largest grower in the 2009-10 season, may fall 24 percent this year to as little as 47 million tons on drought and lower yields, according to IKAR, down from an earlier estimate of 51 million tons. Russia harvested about 62 million tons of wheat in 2009.
Grain exports from Ukraine, the second-largest wheat grower in the former Soviet Union, have been “slow” this month, Agriculture Minister Mykola Prysyazhnyuk said yesterday.
Ukraine’s grain exports including wheat may drop to 18.5 million tons or lower this season, from 21.2 million a year earlier, the Ukrainian Agrarian Confederation said last week.
India has 10 million tons of wheat and rice that are at risk of rotting because of a lack of storage capacity, the Financial Times reported, citing estimates “circulating within government.”
The South Asian nation is the second-largest grower and consumer of wheat and rice, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. India will sell 300,000 tons of wheat and rice to Bangladesh and Nepal, Farm Minister Sharad Pawar said yesterday.
