tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-46875950576335509722024-03-13T05:50:29.625-07:00Regia Russia Agro InvestmentMedia About Investing in FarmlandEric deCarbonnelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08023745289801416061noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4687595057633550972.post-1627775449817885552010-04-29T05:18:00.000-07:002010-04-29T05:19:37.786-07:00Middle East still keen to snap up foreign farmland<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Tahoma, Verdana, Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 20px;"></span><br />
<h1 style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: #464646; font-size: 29px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 1; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 20px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Middle East still keen to snap up foreign farmland</h1><div id="chat_button" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; float: right; height: 300px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: center; width: 279px;"><a href="http://server.iad.liveperson.net/hc/87503916/?cmd=file&file=visitorWantsToChat&site=87503916&byhref=1&imageUrl=http://static.forexyard.com/images/liveperson/en" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: #993300; letter-spacing: 1px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="chat87503916"><img alt="Live Chat!" src="http://static.forexyard.com/images/home/en/chat.png" style="border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; border-width: initial; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></a><br />
<div class="gform" style="background-attachment: scroll; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: url(http://static.forexyard.com/css/images/news/bottom.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 100%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; max-width: 279px; padding-bottom: 4px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left; width: 279px;"><form action="http://www.forexyard.com/en/open-demo-account-forex-course" class="gform" id="fxcourse5" method="post" name="fxcourse5" style="background-attachment: scroll; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: url(http://static.forexyard.com/css/images/news/bottom.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 100%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; max-width: 279px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left; width: 279px;"></form></div></div><div class="dateline" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: black; font-size: 11px; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 6px; max-width: 382px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: justify; width: 382px;">Wednesday April 28, 2010 10:39:19 PM GMT</div><img alt="Reuters News" src="http://static.forexyard.com/images/home/reuters_white.jpg" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /> <a class="addthis_button" href="http://addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=250&username=xa-4b3b289a78ad3f92" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: #993300; cursor: pointer; letter-spacing: 1px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="Bookmark and Share" height="16" src="http://s7.addthis.com/static/btn/v2/lg-share-en.gif" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; border-width: initial; border-width: initial; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" width="125" /></a><br />
<div class="slugline" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 20px; max-width: 382px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; width: 382px;">FARMLAND-ARAB/INVESTMENT</div><div class="short" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: black; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 12px; max-width: 382px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: justify; width: 382px;">* Saudi Arabia eyeing investment in Algerian agriculture</div><div class="short" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: black; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 12px; max-width: 382px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: justify; width: 382px;">* Libya says has acquired land in Mali</div><div class="short" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: black; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 12px; max-width: 382px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: justify; width: 382px;">* Libya's Ukraine lease deal on hold</div><div class="short" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: black; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 12px; max-width: 382px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: justify; width: 382px;">* Sudan expects to lease more land to foreign investors</div><div class="short" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: black; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 12px; max-width: 382px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: justify; width: 382px;">By Hamid Ould Ahmed and Lamine Chikhi</div><div class="short_clear" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; clear: both; color: black; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 56px; margin-top: 12px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: justify;">ALGIERS, April 28 (Reuters) - Middle Eastern countries, undeterred by low world wheat prices, plan a fresh wave of deals to lease farmland abroad, Arab agriculture officials said on Wednesday.</div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: black; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 56px; margin-top: 12px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: justify;">Driven by high world cereals prices that peaked in 2008, farmland in developing countries has become a target, especially for Middle Eastern energy producers with large cash reserves but small areas of land suitable for cultivation.<br />
<a name='more'></a></div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: black; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 56px; margin-top: 12px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: justify;">International grain prices have turned onto a downward trend because of a glut of supply -- a change that makes it cheaper to import cereals and is likely reduce returns on investment from leasing farmland.</div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: black; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 56px; margin-top: 12px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: justify;">But officials at a meeting of the Arab Organization for Agricultural Development (AOAD) in the Algerian capital said their countries were still seeking new opportunities.</div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: black; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 56px; margin-top: 12px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: justify;">"Some of our farmers from the private sector have started investing in countries including Egypt and Sudan. We hope to do the same thing in Algeria," Saudi Arabian Agriculture Minister Fahad Abdul-Rahman Balghunaim told Reuters. [ID:nLDE63R2DY]</div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: black; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 56px; margin-top: 12px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: justify;">Algeria had not been on investors' radar screens, but an agriculture official told Reuters this month the government would for the first time invite bids from foreign investors to lease farmland. [ID:nAHM845686]</div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: black; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 56px; margin-top: 12px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: justify;">Oil exporter Libya last year joined the farmland-leasing trend when it announced a deal to lease 100,000 hectares of land in ex-Soviet Ukraine.</div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: black; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 56px; margin-top: 12px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: justify;">"Libya wants to invest in the agricultural sector abroad, mainly in Arab countries and eastern Europe," said Ali Ahmed Al-Rahouma, an advisor to Libya's Agriculture Ministry.</div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: black; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 56px; margin-top: 12px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: justify;">"We have started investments in African countries including 100,000 hectares in Mali ... There are other deals with Sudan," he told Reuters. [ID:nLDE63R1EI]</div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: black; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 56px; margin-top: 12px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: justify;">He said low prices would not be a factor in the long-term. "Regarding cereals we have seen a decline but all indicators show that the prices will go back up," he said.</div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: black; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 56px; margin-top: 12px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: justify;">UKRAINIAN HITCH</div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: black; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 56px; margin-top: 12px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: justify;">He said the lease agreement with Ukraine had been signed but its implementation has not started yet because "things are not appropriate for the moment."</div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: black; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 56px; margin-top: 12px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: justify;">He gave no details about reasons for the delay. The deal was brokered on a visit to Libya by then Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, who has been voted out of office by parliament.</div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: black; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 56px; margin-top: 12px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: justify;">Outside the Middle East, South Korea and China have also invested in foreign farmland in Africa and Asia.</div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: black; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 56px; margin-top: 12px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: justify;">Aid agencies and the United Nations have warned that a "land grab" by rich countries in fragile regions like sub-Saharan Africa could feed resentment and conflict.</div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: black; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 56px; margin-top: 12px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: justify;">Sudan, Africa's biggest country by area, has been a major recipient of farmland investment.</div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: black; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 56px; margin-top: 12px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: justify;">It is keen to attract more, Tahar Sadik Ali, deputy head of Sudan's Agricultural Research Establishment, told Reuters.</div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: black; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 56px; margin-top: 12px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: justify;">"We have signed farmland leasing deals with countries including Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Jordan to grow mainly wheat and maize," he said.</div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: black; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 56px; margin-top: 12px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: justify;">"We expect similar deals with other countries including Egypt to invest in farmland in the eastern and southern areas."</div><hr style="margin-right: 56px;" /><div class="copyright" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: black; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 56px; margin-top: 12px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: justify;">(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2010. Click For Restrictions. http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4687595057633550972.post-56131170978024258562010-04-27T15:23:00.001-07:002010-04-27T15:23:59.553-07:00<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"></span><br />
<h1 style="color: #0066b3; font-size: 26px; font: normal normal normal 140%/normal Georgia, serif; line-height: 26px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">John Deere Opens Factory in $500M Russian Initiative</h1><div class="article_date" style="font-size: 11px; font-style: italic; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 5px;">28 April 2010</div><div class="autors" style="color: #999999; font-size: 10px; font-weight: bold; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 5px;">By Maria Antonova</div><div class="text" style="line-height: 19px;"><div style="margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 1em;"></div><div class="phototext2" id="article_photos" style="border-top-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; color: #666666; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 10px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 10px;"><center><img alt="A tractor driving through fog and flashing lights at the opening of John Deere’s Domodedovo plant Tuesday." height="410" src="http://www.themoscowtimes.com/upload/iblock/a9c/deer.jpg" title="John Deere Opens Factory in $500M Russian Initiative" width="585" /></center><div class="photoautors" style="color: #999999; font-size: 10px; font-weight: bold; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: right;">Sergei Karpukhin / Reuters</div><div style="font-size: 11px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">A tractor driving through fog and flashing lights at the opening of John Deere’s Domodedovo plant Tuesday.</div></div><div style="margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 1em;"></div><div style="margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 1em;">U.S.-based tractor maker <a class="related_dotted" href="http://www.themoscowtimes.com/mt_profile/John_Deere/" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 102, 186); border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: #0066b3; text-decoration: none;">John Deere</a> opened a factory in Domodedovo on Tuesday, in the first step of its plan to invest $500 million in the country.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 1em;">John Deere is betting that Russia, with a rapidly growing supply of cultivated land, will become a key market for its agricultural equipment and other capital goods. Much of that land has lain fallow, however, since the fall of the Soviet Union left many farmers unable to develop the land.</div><a name='more'></a><br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 1em;">Russia will be able to bring an additional 20 million to 30 million hectares back into production in the coming years. The country "has potential to become one of the world's breadbaskets," said CEO Samuel Allen, who recited a famous Russian poem.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 1em;">"Russia cannot be understood by the mind alone. … In Russia one can only believe," Allen said, quoting poet Fyodor Tyutchev, in an opening ceremony that featured a tractor rolling out in a dramatic fog and light show.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 1em;">The Domodedovo site will include production lines, where it will build tractors and combines to start with, and a parts distribution center for regional operations, the company said.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 1em;">John Deere will assemble tractors and other agricultural, forestry and construction machinery from imported knockdown kits, but will increase its level of localization by doing welding, metal fabrication and cab assembly on-site once demand picks up, Allen said. "Once volume goes back to 2008 levels, then localization will happen," he said, adding that he does not expect low demand to last for many years.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 1em;">"We would like to do more manufacturing here, as long as it's cost effective," Allen said. Once volume increases and production is further localized, John Deere will look into exporting from Russia to other countries in the Commonwealth of Independent States, he said.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 1em;">Although he declined to provide any production figures, Allen said the company already has orders for tractors and combines this year, and plans to assemble motor graders, four-wheel drive loaders, back hoe loaders, as well as forestry equipment on its Domodedovo lines within 12 to 24 months.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 1em;">John Deere is the first tenant at South Gates, a 575,000-square-meter warehouse facility developed by Canada's Giffels. Giffels is leasing 47,000 square meters of the 76,550 square meters already available on a long-term basis, or at least five years, said vice president Ruslan Suvorov, who declined to give any other details of the deal.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 1em;">Giffels bought land in 2006 from <a class="related_dotted" href="http://www.themoscowtimes.com/mt_profile/Coalco/" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 102, 186); border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: #0066b3; text-decoration: none;">Coalco</a>, which has stayed on as a partner and is currently building a railroad track to the complex, Coalco said in a press release.</div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4687595057633550972.post-33607829903325742862010-04-14T08:58:00.000-07:002010-04-14T09:01:36.249-07:00Farmland Fever<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"></span><br />
<h2 style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; clear: both; font-size: 18px; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 8px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 12px; padding-bottom: 6px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #970000; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold;">Is Farmland the Trade of the Century?</span></h2><div style="line-height: 13pt; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 12px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><b>By Chris Nelder</b><br />
<span style="color: grey; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-weight: bold;"><i>Friday, July 17th, 2009</i></span></div><div id="article" style="font-size: 14px;"><div style="line-height: 13pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 12px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">What should a long-term investor invest in when stocks and bonds aren't working very well?</div><div style="line-height: 13pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 12px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">I've been asking that question a lot lately.<br />
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<div style="line-height: 13pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 12px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><b>"What, then, are they putting their money into?</b></div></div><div style="line-height: 13pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 12px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><b>The answer may surprise you: farmland.</b></div></div><h3 style="color: #970000; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 8px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Follow the Smart Money</h3><div style="line-height: 13pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 12px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><b>Legendary investor Jim Rogers has been all over the investing press this year, saying that farmland is his preferred vehicle. "If I'm right, agriculture is going to be one of the greatest industries in the next 20 years, 30 years," he said in a March interview with CNBC. He is now the director of two funds which are developing new farmland in Brazil and Canada.</b></div></div><div style="line-height: 13pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 12px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><b>Major investors who have caught the farmland fever include George Soros and Richard Rainwater. A host investing houses like TIAA-CREF and BlackRock Investment Management have plowed serious cash into the sector as well."</b></div></div><div style="line-height: 13pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 12px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><b><br />
</b></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">----------------------------------------------------------------------------------</div></div></div><div style="line-height: 13pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 12px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Bonds continue to be hostage to the Fed's monetary policy manipulations, and as such are entangled in the complex web of the global currency trade. It's a hot area for smart forex traders (and about to get a whole lot hotter) but for most mortals, it's just another way to get burned.<br />
<a name='more'></a></div><div style="line-height: 13pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 12px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Equities continue to struggle through the recession, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average exactly where it started the year, and the S&P 500 index up a paltry 4%. The NASDAQ is up 20% YTD but I think much of that growth is predicated on "green shoots" hallucinations, and it's probably headed for a fall.</div><div style="line-height: 13pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 12px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">A few stalwarts of the commodity trade have fared considerably better this year, with the Market Vectors-Coal ETF (NYSE: <u><a href="http://www.google.com/finance?q=NYSE:KOL" style="color: #336699; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">KOL</a></u>) up a smart 62% YTD and the Oil Service HOLDRS ETF (NYSE: <u><a href="http://www.google.com/finance?q=NYSE:OIH" style="color: #336699; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">OIH</a></u>) up 36%. However, the United States Natural Gas Fund (NYSE: <u><a href="http://www.google.com/finance?q=NYSE:UNG" style="color: #336699; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">UNG</a></u>) is down 47% on the year, the PowerShares DB Agricultural Fund (NYSE: <u><a href="http://www.google.com/finance?q=NYSE:DBA" style="color: #336699; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">DBA</a></u>) is down 8% and the PowerShares DB Corn Index Tracking Fund ETF (NYSE: <u><a href="http://www.google.com/finance?q=NYSE:DBC" style="color: #336699; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">DBC</a></u>) sports a mere 1% gain on the year so far.</div><div style="line-height: 13pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 12px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Even gold, the most traditional safe haven, seems to have lost its luster (though some argue its trade has been manipulated). The SPDR Gold Trust ETF (NYSE: <u><a href="http://www.google.com/finance?q=NYSE:GLD" style="color: #336699; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">GLD</a></u>) is up only 6% on a year in which the fear of inflation has loomed over-large.</div><div style="line-height: 13pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 12px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">In my view, oil and coal have gained largely as anti-inflation trades this year, and both could take a good haircut here due to a strengthening dollar, incipient carbon pricing and waning inflationary fears.</div><div style="line-height: 13pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 12px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Conversely, natural gas and agriculture have been shunned this year as the ugly stepchilds of the commodity trade, and both look ripe for a rebound. While those opportunities are interesting, they are probably good trades for a few months at best. I would not call them safe havens for traditional buy-and-hold investors.</div><div style="line-height: 13pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 12px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">In fact, there may be no such thing. In private conversations with numerous associates of mine, it would appear that the really successful investors—multimillionaire and billionaire money managers with decades of experience-are taking their marbles and going home. In their judgment, the markets are simply too corrupt to play anymore, and Goldman Sachs is Public Enemy #1 with alumni now staffing all the key posts at the Fed, Treasury, SEC, and on down the line. (I will spare you the links on this topic, but a little Googling around should give your blood pressure a good bump.) The unprecedented moves that these entities have made over the last 18 months in an effort to stave off collapse have utterly destroyed what little remained of the "full faith and credit" of the U.S. Government.</div><div style="line-height: 13pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 12px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">What, then, are they putting their money into?</div><div style="line-height: 13pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 12px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">The answer may surprise you: farmland.</div><h3 style="color: #970000; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 8px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Follow the Smart Money</h3><div style="line-height: 13pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 12px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Legendary investor Jim Rogers has been all over the investing press this year, saying that farmland is his preferred vehicle. "If I'm right, agriculture is going to be one of the greatest industries in the next 20 years, 30 years," he said in a March interview with CNBC. He is now the director of two funds which are developing new farmland in Brazil and Canada.</div><div style="line-height: 13pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 12px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Major investors who have caught the farmland fever include George Soros and Richard Rainwater. A host investing houses like TIAA-CREF and BlackRock Investment Management have plowed serious cash into the sector as well.</div><div style="line-height: 13pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 12px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Most recently, Qatar, Abu Dhabi, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, China, South Korea, and Egypt have all made the investing press for taking multi-billion dollar stakes in large tracts of farmland in relatively unexploited areas of the world, primarily in Africa and Asia. Not just because they like the investment outlook, but because they are worried about securing enough food to feed their own populations.</div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4687595057633550972.post-18797350263360940722010-04-10T02:08:00.000-07:002010-04-10T02:11:48.174-07:00The Topsoil Crisis<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"></span><br />
<h1 class="entry-title" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: #111111; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', Georgia, Garamond, Baskerville, serif; font-size: 2em; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1; margin-bottom: 0.375em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://dailyreckoning.com/the-topsoil-crisis/" rel="bookmark" rev="post-23295" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: black; font-size: 24px; font-weight: bold; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" title="Permanent link to The Topsoil Crisis">The Topsoil Crisis</a></h1><div class="byline" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="by" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">By</span> <a class="url fn" href="http://dailyreckoning.com/author/chrismayer/" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: blue; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" title="View all posts by Chris Mayer">Chris Mayer</a></div><div class="entry-content" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; float: left; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://dailyreckoning.com/the-topsoil-crisis/" rel="bookmark" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: blue; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" title="The Topsoil Crisis"><img alt="leadimage" id="leadpic" src="http://dailyreckoning.com/files/2010/02/Commodities.jpg" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" /></a></div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="date" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: black; font-size: 12px; font-weight: bold; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><abbr class="published" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: black; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" title="2010-02-17T15:25:32+0000">02/17/10</abbr> Gaithersburg, Maryland – </span>“All life is a process of breaking down,” the great F. Scott Fitzgerald once wrote. “But the blows that do the dramatic side of the work…don’t show their effect all at once.” These other blows you don’t feel until it is too late to do anything. Fitzgerald was writing about his own famous crackup in the 1930s, but his comments also apply to the agricultural scene circa 2010.</div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">We return to a theme in last month’s letter. The world will need to boost its production of food. The UN estimates that the world will need to boost<a href="http://dailyreckoning.com/invest-in-agriculture/" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: blue; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" title="invest in agriculture">investment in agriculture</a> by $83 billion a year – that’s a 50% <em>annual</em> increase – to feed a growing population. Its estimate may prove an errant shot from an uncertain bow into an unpredictable future. But it doesn’t matter. Investing is more like horseshoes and hand grenades, as the old saying goes – close counts.</div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">If the UN is half right – others have done similar work with similar conclusions – then we’re talking about a healthy bull market in all things green. The question is where does the boost in production largely come from? The answer is Brazil, as we discussed last month. We’ll explore the idea a little further here from a different angle.</div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">In my last letter, I noted how lack of electricity in India leads people to heat their homes and cook with dung cakes, crop residue and firewood. Why is this a bad thing?</div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Because the soil needs that precious manure and crop residue. It nourishes the soil and allows it to hold water. Without this natural replenishment, the soil deteriorates. It compacts and turns to dust. When the next monsoon season rolls around, it washes away. And the burning of firewood, on such a scale as the Indian population requires, leads to the disappearance of forests. A similar cycle ensues.</div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">This is the “topsoil crisis” that we first talked about more than a year ago. The world continues to deplete its base of arable land. Though it’s been going on for some time, the dramatic blows are only now showing their effect. In East and North Africa, in the plains of India all the way to Turkey, the story is the same. Some of it is just human carelessness about the land. Some of it is climate driven: the declining snow melts of the Himalayas and more frequent crop-killing heat waves in places such as India.</div><a name='more'></a>Climate change has been going on for a long time, too. As Peter Matthiessen points out in<em>The Snow Leopard</em>, the Gobi Desert was once fertile. In Central Asia, he writes, “broad lakes vanished in dry pans and grasslands turned into shifting sands.” Many of these changes happened in only a few hundred years. “The death of a civilization can come quickly; the change in climate that dried up rivers and destroyed the savannas of the central Sahara scattered the great pastoral civilizations of [Africa] in just a few centuries after 2500 B.C.”<br />
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Such changes impact economics as well. Already, we are close to passing some giant milestones of our own. China, you may recall, is now the largest net importer of soybeans in the world. A mere 15 years ago, it made more than it needed and exported soybeans. Now India may import rice. Some think that India could import as much as 2 million metric tons, the most in the world. Traditionally, India has been the world’s third largest exporter. (It’s already banned overseas rice sales in an effort to keep rice at home.)</div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Philippines, thanks to typhoon damage, will also be a net buyer of rice this year. South America will produce less, and there is potential trouble with the crop in the Mississippi Delta. Yes, Thailand and Vietnam appear to have healthy rice supplies. But it won’t be enough.</div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">All of this puts Brazil in the catbird seat, as more people are starting to figure out. “Superpower Is Ready to Feed the World,” reads a <em>Financial Times</em> headline. You may quibble with the <em>FT’s</em> exuberant labeling of Brazil as a superpower. But Brazil is now the top exporter of chicken and beef, orange juice, green coffee, sugar, ethanol, tobacco and the soya complex of beans, meal and oil. It is No. 4 in maize and pork. It is, agriculturally speaking, deserving of the superpower label.</div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">However, expansion is not so easy, and here lies the treasure for investors. As the <em>FT</em>reports: “In Brazil, analysts say [that] output is reaching its limit and the investment needed for growth, especially in transport infrastructure, is falling short.” This jibes with the UN’s report I mentioned above.</div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">On-the-ground reports from farmers in Brazil add further confirmation and make the hurdles clear. There is a lack of rail and water transport infrastructure. As author and traveler Roy Nash wrote in 1926 – and it is still true today – “Space is Brazil’s pride. Space is equally Brazil’s weakness.”</div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Most of those crops must make a tortuous 2,000-kilometer trek over bad roads to congested ports. (Brazil has the world’s third largest road network, but only 12% is paved.) The cost of transportation is often north of a $100 a tonne, more than three times what farmers pay in the US to bring their goods to market.</div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Brazilians have a national history that ought to give them hints that infrastructure is critically important. The history of the city of São Paulo is one example.</div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Founded by Jesuits in 1554, São Paulo was one of the few cities that did not sit on the coast. Instead, São Paulo was inland, perched on the confluence of four rivers. From here Paulistas would search inland for gold. But the city didn’t really boom until the end of the 19th century. Then coffee became the cash crop. The coffee boom set off an investment boom in railways and ports. São Paulo soon passed Rio de Janeiro as Brazil’s most important metropolis. And wealthy Paulistas and coffee barons invested in the city. Today, São Paulo is one of the largest cities in the world, with some 20 million people.</div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">So perhaps the new boom in all things agricultural will spur similar investment boomlets in Brazilian cities and towns.</div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">This is why Roberto Rodrigues, an agribusiness consultant and former Brazilian ag minister, says: “If I were an investor, I would put my money in logistics and fertilizer. The opportunities are fantastic.”</div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">We are amply represented here with our fertilizer stocks, though only one remains close to my buy price as I write: Mosaic <strong style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">(NYSE:<a href="http://finance.google.com/finance?q=MOS" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: blue; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank" title="MOS">MOS</a>)</strong>. This one is particularly fitting for the Brazil angle because it is the world’s largest producer of phosphate, of which Brazil is in particular need. Mosaic has phosphate plants in Florida, in places such as Riverview and Hopewell and Wingate. It ships these to Brazil, where it has seven warehouses and blenders and two production facilities. It also has a major office in Brazil – in São Paulo.</div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Unlike the crackup Fitzgerald describes, it’s not too late for agriculture to do anything about its long process of breaking down. Prices of grains and agricultural commodities will rise to attract the needed investment. That will be good especially for the fertilizer companies, who sell a product needed to replenish the world’s tired soils.</div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Regards,</div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Chris Mayer<br />
for <em>The Daily Reckoning</em></div><div class="aboutauthor aboutauthor-9" id="chrismayer" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-color: rgb(230, 227, 211); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 2px; clear: both; color: #797979; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 10px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><div class="authorimage authorimage-9" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; float: right; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; max-width: 80px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 10px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 10px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://dailyreckoning.com/author/chrismayer/" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: blue; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="Author Image for Chris Mayer" src="http://dailyreckoning.com/wp-content/author-photos/ChrisMayer.jpg" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" width="80px" /></a></div><div class="authordata authordata-9" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; float: left; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 370px;"><div class="authorbio authorbio-9" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><h3 class="authorname authorname-9" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', Georgia, Garamond, Baskerville, serif; font-size: 1.166667em; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.285714; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 5px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://dailyreckoning.com/author/chrismayer/" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: black; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Chris Mayer</a></h3>Chris Mayer studied finance at the University of Maryland, graduating magna cum laude. He went on to earn his MBA while embarking on a decade-long career in corporate banking. Chris is the editor of <a href="https://www.web-purchases.com/FST_Paycheck/WFSTK100/landing.html" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: blue; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Capital and Crisis</a> and <a href="https://www.web-purchases.com/MSS_Chaffee_Royalty/WMSSK100/landing.html" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: blue; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Mayer’s Special Situations</a> , a monthly report that unearths unique and unconventional opportunities in smaller-cap stocks. In 2008, Chris authored<em> <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0470180919?ie=UTF8&tag=dailyreckonin-20&linkCode=xm2&camp=1789&creativeASIN=0470180919" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: blue; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" title="Invest Like A Dealmaker">Invest Like a Dealmaker: Secrets From a Former Banking Insider</a> .</em><strong style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">SPECIAL REPORT</strong> - <a href="https://www.web-purchases.com/FST_Paycheck/WFSTK100/landing.html" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: blue; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">The Endless PAYCHECK PORTFOLIO</a> : In three simple steps, unleash a steady flow of work-free income... starting with up to 75 automatic "paychecks" deposited directly into your account.</div><div class="authorlink authorlink-9" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">View <a href="http://dailyreckoning.com/author/chrismayer/" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: blue; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">articles by Chris Mayer</a></div></div><div class="clear" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; clear: both; float: none; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></div></div><div class="aboutdr" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-color: rgb(230, 227, 211); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 2px; clear: both; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 5px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px; vertical-align: baseline;">The articles and commentary featured on the <i>Daily Reckoning</i> are presented by <a href="http://www.agorafinancial.com/" rel="nofollow" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: blue; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">Agora Financial</a>.</div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4687595057633550972.post-11842397537794297792010-04-07T05:06:00.001-07:002010-04-07T05:07:38.332-07:00Daily Telegraph on Future of Agriculture<div id="tmglHeader" style="width: 940px;"><div id="tmglBrandSmall" style="float: left; padding-bottom: 8px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 8px;"><div id="search" style="float: left; padding-bottom: 5px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 6px; width: 490px;"><form action="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/search/" id="tg_search" method="get" name="tg_search" style="display: inline;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666; font-size: x-large; font-weight: bold; line-height: 52px;">Food will never be so cheap again</span></div></form></div></div></div><div id="tmglBody" style="padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; width: 940px;"><div class="twoThirds gutter" style="float: left; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 20px; margin-top: 0px; width: 620px;"><div class="storyHead" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><h2 style="color: #444444; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.18em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Biofuel refineries in the US have set fresh records for grain use every month since May. Almost a third of the US corn harvest will be diverted into ethanol for motors this year, or 12pc of the global crop.</span></span></h2></div><div class="oneHalf gutter" style="float: left; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 20px; margin-top: 0px; width: 460px;"><div class="headerOne" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: url(http://www.telegraph.co.uk/telegraph/template/ver1-0/i/headerBlueBG.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 0px 2px; background-repeat: repeat no-repeat; padding-bottom: 7px;"></div><div class="story" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-width: 1px; margin-bottom: 5px; padding-bottom: 5px;"><div class="byline" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-width: 1px; margin-bottom: 5px;"><div style="color: #404040; font-size: 1.3em; line-height: 1.38em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 1em; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">By </span><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/" style="color: #234b7b; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; text-decoration: none;" title="Ambrose Evans-Pritchard"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Ambrose Evans-Pritchard</span></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Published: 7:53PM GMT 25 Oct 2009</span></div></div><div style="color: #404040; font-size: 1.3em; line-height: 1.38em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 1em; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Comments </span><span class="num"><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/6432538/Food-will-never-be-so-cheap-again.html#comments" style="color: #234b7b; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">70</span></a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> | </span><span class="placeComment"><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/6432538/Food-will-never-be-so-cheap-again.html#postComment" style="color: #234b7b; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Comment on this article</span></a></span></div></div></div><div class="slideshow"><div class="ssImg" style="display: block; padding-bottom: 5px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><img alt="Wheat prices have tumbled 70pc since 2008 but demand is not going to go away" height="287" src="http://i.telegraph.co.uk/telegraph/multimedia/archive/01509/wheat_1509369c.jpg" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; display: block;" width="460" /></div><div class="imageExtras" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 5px; width: 460px;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="caption" style="color: #666666; line-height: 1.38em; padding-bottom: 5px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 2px;">Wheat prices have tumbled 70pc since 2008 but demand is not going to go away</span></div></div></div></div><div style="color: #404040; font-size: 1.3em; line-height: 1.38em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 1em; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The world's grain stocks have dropped from four to 2.6 months cover since 2000, despite two bumper harvests in North America. China's inventories are at a 30-year low. Asian rice stocks are near danger level.</span></div></div><div style="color: #404040; line-height: 1.38em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 1em; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Yet farm commodities have largely missed out on Bernanke's reflation rally in metals, oil, and everything else. Dylan Grice from Société Générale sees "bargain basement" prices.</div></div><div style="color: #404040; line-height: 1.38em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 1em; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">For investors wishing to rotate out of overstretched rallies – Wall Street's Transport index and the Russell 2000 broke down last week – this is a rare chance to buy cheap into a story that will dominate the rest of our lives.Wheat has crashed 70pc from early 2008. Corn has halved. The "Ags" have mostly drifted sideways over the last six months. This divergence within the commodity family is untenable, given the bio-ethanol linkage to oil.<br />
<a name='more'></a></div></div><div style="color: #404040; line-height: 1.38em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 1em; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Barack Obama has not reversed the Bush policy on biofuels, despite food riots in a string of poor countries last year and calls for a moratorium. The subsidy of 45 cents per gallon remains.</div></div><div style="color: #404040; line-height: 1.38em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 1em; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">The motive is strategic. America is weaning itself off imported energy at breakneck speed. It will not again be held hostage by oil demagogues, or humiliated by states that cannot feed themselves. Those Beijing students who laughed at US Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner may not enjoy the last laugh. The US is the agricultural superpower. Foes will discover why that matters.</div></div><div style="color: #404040; line-height: 1.38em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 1em; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">The world population is adding "another Britain" every year. This will continue until mid-century. By then we will have an extra 2.4bn mouths to feed.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div></div><div style="color: #404040; line-height: 1.38em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 1em; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">China and Southeast Asia are switching to animal-protein diets as they grow wealthy, as the Koreans did before them. It takes roughly 3-5kgs of animal feed from grains to produce 1kg of meat.</div></div><div style="color: #404040; line-height: 1.38em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 1em; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">A report by Standard Chartered, <i>The End of Cheap Food</i>, said North Africa and the Middle East have already hit the buffers. The region imports 71pc of its rice and 58pc of its corn. It lacks water to boost output. The population is growing fast. It will have to import, and cross fingers.</div></div><div style="color: #404040; line-height: 1.38em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 1em; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">The UN says global farm yields must rise 77pc, which means redoubling Norman Borlaug's "green revolution". It will not be easy. China's trend growth in crops yields has slipped from 3.1pc a year in the early 1960s to 0.9pc over the last decade</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">"We've all heard the stark anecdotes: precious topsoil weakened by over-farming, dust clouds darkening the Asian skies, parched land becoming desert and rivers running dry," said Mr Grice.</div></div><div style="color: #404040; line-height: 1.38em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 1em; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Since 2000, China has lost nearly 1,400 square miles each year to desert. Urban sprawl is paving over fertile land in the East. Water supply from Himalayan glaciers is ebbing. The Yellow River has been reduced to "an agonising trickle". It no longer reaches the sea for 200 days a year.</div></div><div style="color: #404040; line-height: 1.38em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 1em; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Farmers are draining the aquifers. Environmentalist Ma Jun says in <i>China's Water Crisis </i>that they are drilling as deep as 1,000 metres into non-replenishable reserves. The grain region of the Hai River Basin relies on groundwater for 70pc of irrigation.</div></div><div style="color: #404040; line-height: 1.38em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 1em; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">China's water troubles are not unique. North India lives off Himalayan snows as well. Nor can we take fertiliser supply for granted any longer since "peak phosphates" threatens.</div></div><div style="color: #404040; line-height: 1.38em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 1em; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">One can be Malthusian about this. Grizzled commodity guru Jim Rogers certainly is. "The world is going to have a period when we cannot get food at any price, in some parts." He advises youth to opt for a farm degree rather than an MBA, if they want to make serious money.</div></div><div style="color: #404040; line-height: 1.38em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 1em; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Mr Grice remains an optimist, believing that human ingenuity will rescue us. You can trade the "Ag" rally by investing in exchange traded funds (ETFs), but this amounts to speculation on food. There are ancient taboos against this practice.</div></div><div style="color: #404040; line-height: 1.38em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 1em; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Or you can invest in the bio-tech, fertiliser, and land services companies that will both make money and help to solve the problem. Monsanto, Syngenta, and Potash are popular, but trade at high price to book values. Golden Agri-Resources, Yara, Agrium, and Bunge are at better multiples.</div></div><div style="color: #404040; line-height: 1.38em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 1em; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Kingsmill Bond at Moscow's Troika Dialog suggests the Baltic company Trigon Agri as a way to play the catch-up story in the Eurasian steppe. He likes sunflower processor Kernel, grain group Razgulay, and fertiliser firm Uralkali.</div></div><div style="color: #404040; line-height: 1.38em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 1em; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Strictly speaking, the world has enough land to feed everybody. The Soviet Union farmed 240m hectares in Khrushchev's era. The same territory now farms 207m hectares. Troika says crop yields could be doubled in Russia, and tripled in the Ukraine using modern know-how. Africa's farms could come alive with land registers, allowing villagers to use property as collateral for credit.</div></div><div style="color: #404040; font-size: 1.3em; line-height: 1.38em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 1em; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">None of this can be done with a flick of the fingers. What seems certain is that the terms of trade between country and city will revert to the norms of the Middle Ages. Landowners will be barons again.</span></div></div></div></div></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4687595057633550972.post-35024187548368908442010-04-07T05:01:00.001-07:002010-04-07T05:04:21.045-07:00Spectator UK article on farmland investing<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 130%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 130%;">Dominic Midgley looks at funds investing in farmland that will feed a population explosion</span></b><br />
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</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Food security is the new energy security. So says Susan Payne, chief executive of Emergent Asset Management, a Surrey-based company which claims to run the biggest agricultural fund in Africa following the launch of its first fund less than 18 months ago.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Payne, a Canadian who cut her teeth as an emerging-markets expert first at JPMorgan and then at Goldman Sachs, attracts investors by conjuring up the Malthusian devil. The world’s population is set to grow by 2 billion to 9.1 billion over the next 40 years; feeding the children of tomorrow will require a 50 per cent increase in farm output by 2025 and a doubling by 2050.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Meanwhile, the price of staple crops has risen by more than 80 per cent since 2005, pushing 100 million people into poverty, according to the World Bank. And Payne is fond of pointing out that there were food riots in 15 countries during a period of soaring prices in 2008. This scenario, coupled with a growing demand for biofuels, means — Payne and others argue — that there has never been a better time to invest in agricultural land.</span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><a name='more'></a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">In December, Dixon Boardman, chief executive of Optima, a New York fund-of-funds business, announced plans for a $100 million fund to invest in American farmland. In the same month, the London-based Agro-Ecological Investment Management announced that it is raising $60 million to buy land in New Zealand. Others already established in this market include Deutsche Bank (pig breeding and chicken farming in China) and Russia’s Renaissance Capital, with 100,000 hectares of farmland in the Ukraine.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Emergent, meanwhile, specialises in countries where land is cheap. ‘A number of factors made sub-Saharan Africa optimal,’ says Payne. ‘It offers fertile soil, secure and plentiful water resources and very good, technically trained farmers, particularly in Zimbabwe, South Africa and Zambia. It also offers large tracts of inexpensive agricultural land — one seventh the price of Brazilian or Argentine land and a fraction of the cost of land in Europe. Land in sub-Saharan Africa is under $1,000 a hectare whereas it’s $25,000 per hectare in Denmark and $20,000 per hectare in the UK. We are active across sub-Saharan Africa — we’ll soon be in 10 countries.’<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">The minimum investment for private investors is E500,000 and for institutional investors, E5 million, with a projected return ‘in excess of 25 per cent per annum over the fund’s five-year term’, according to Emergent’s website. Such returns are to be achieved partly through generating higher yields. This involves the planting of GM crops, a revolutionary technique called ‘no-till farming’ which helps to conserve soil nutrients and reduce erosion, and the use of a sort of farmer’s satnav that helps optimise the use of fuel and seed by mapping the gradient of the land and the position of trees.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Payne comes across as almost messianic in her quest. ‘My father was a senior director at the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation in Rome and he used to say that giving aid outright to Africa was a little like spitting on a fire,’ she recalls. ‘The real answer lay in the education of local populations to learn the best available techniques to feed and sustain themselves. His ideology resonates continually with me. It’s exactly what we are trying to do: go to a country like Mozambique, war- ravaged and with a decimated economy after 25 years of civil war, acquire land, and hire and train hundreds of Mozambicans.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">‘In one case, we have, in a sense, “adopted” a local village of 3,000 and hired its citizens to help clear 2,000 hectares of greenfield land and then farm it with us. We expect soon to build a farm school in the village, as well as a clinic. This model we are repeating elsewhere, which is why governments are supportive of what we do. We represent private pools of capital that make a positive impact across various countries. Africa is currently a net importer of food, and this should — and can — cease. It could be a breadbasket for itself and others.’<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Listening to Susan Payne you could be forgiven for thinking land funds are a holy grail for the ethical investor: money-making opportunities with a sanctifying air of do-goodery. But critics of the less scrupulous investors in this sector argue that all too often the land acquired is confiscated from small farmers who may not have formal title to it but have farmed it for generations. Doubters also predict long-term damage in the form of over-fertilising, deforestation, over-consumption of water, and reduction in eco-diversity.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">The presence of investors such as the Saudi Arabian government and New York fund Jarch Capital in famine-ridden countries such as Ethiopia and southern Sudan also raises uncomfortable questions about what would happen in the event of drought. The Saudis are expected to take delivery of their first rice harvest from Ethiopia in the spring. Will the fields be surrounded by electrified fences and will armed escorts accompany shipments for export? Pakistan has already announced plans to deploy 100,000 members of its security forces to protect foreign-owned agricultural land.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">There are risks for investors too. Last March, the emergence of a new president in Madagascar led to the cancellation of a deal that had given Daewoo Logistics a 99-year lease on half the country’s arable land — 1.3 million hectares. It was a popular move in a country where 70 per cent of the population depend on agriculture for income. The multinational conglomerate charged with securing the food security of its native South Korea by growing corn and palm oil, however, now finds itself back at square one.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Developing nations are not the only growth areas. Unlike Emergent, Agro-Ecological is investing in a developed country with a view to exploiting a niche market. It will buy conventionally managed farms in New Zealand — the homeland of the company’s managing director Geoff Burke — and convert them to organic production.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">The conventional view is that yields suffer when farms go organic, but Burke disputes this. ‘I don’t think there’s much yield difference and it becomes more financially viable because there’s not the same vulnerability to fossil fuel prices that nitrogenous fertiliser has,’ he says. ‘If you’re not using fertilisers, chemicals and feed, you’re not exposed to those inputs as their prices increase. There is a very tight correlation between oil and fertiliser prices.’<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">The global market for organic produce is growing at a rate of around 15 per cent a year and Burke expects to earn that level of return for his investors. ‘This is a medium- to longterm asset and we’re looking at a return in the mid-teens in terms of capital appreciation and cash yield,’ he adds. ‘We would certainly look to exit after seven to ten years. We could list the portfolio, sell to pension fund investors, or sell to farmers we’re partnering with at the moment.’ Within a year to 18 months he expects to launch a second fund, possibly in Uruguay.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">A growing global population means rising demand for fertile land on which to grow food: it’s a simple investment proposition that could become an arable Klondike.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 13.5pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 7.5pt;">The Spectator, 22 Old Queen Street, London, SW1H 9HP. All Articles and Content Copyright ©2010 by The Spectator (1828) Ltd. </span></b><b><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 7.5pt;">All Rights Reserved</span></b><b><span style="color: #cc0000; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4687595057633550972.post-36684451249631682512010-04-07T03:43:00.000-07:002010-04-07T03:47:16.667-07:00Marc Faber FT interview Feb 23. 2010. - Grains will go up. Likes agriculture.<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/quE-RSnjOv0&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/quE-RSnjOv0&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4687595057633550972.post-25580803535729684302010-04-07T03:07:00.000-07:002010-04-07T03:11:33.589-07:00Jim Rogers - Agricultural Commodities Set to Soar<span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 17px; font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:12px;"><h1 style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 20px; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, Verdana; font-weight: bold; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 2px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 24px; ">Jim Rogers: Agricultural Commodity Prices Set to “Go Through the Roof”</h1><div class="date"><p style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 15px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">By <strong><a href="http://wallstreetpit.com/author/editor/" title="Posts by editor" style="color: rgb(0, 86, 137); text-decoration: none; ">editor</a></strong><span class="color-CCCCCC" style="color: rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 5px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 5px; ">|</span><span class="color-DD4725" style="color: rgb(221, 71, 37); ">Jan 15, 2010, 10:52 AM</span><span class="color-CCCCCC" style="color: rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 5px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 5px; ">|</span><a href="http://wallstreetpit.com/14022-jim-rogers-agricultural-commodity-prices-set-to-go-through-the-roof" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(0, 86, 137); text-decoration: none; ">Author's Website</a> </p></div><div class="postarea" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.5em; font-weight: normal; "><p style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 15px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Buying distressed commodities is a better way to make money than investing in stocks, billionaire investor Jim Rogers told CNBC Friday.</p><p style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 15px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">“The fundamentals [for agriculture] have gotten better,” Rogers said. “The inventories are now at the lowest they’ve been in decades, not in years.”</p><p style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 15px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">“Sometimes in the next few years we’re going to have very serious shortages of food everywhere in the world and prices are going to go through the roof.”</p><p style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 15px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">According to Rogers, the problems of the world are not yet behind us ; which is why he believes that commodities are likely to win in both the optimistic and the pessimistic scenario. If the world economy gets better, commodities prices will rise as a result of increased demand caused by shortages, while if the world economy continues to remain weak, central banks will keep printing money and commodities will be used as a hedge against inflation, Rogers explained.</p><p style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 15px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">When asked about other commodities, Rogers said he is holding on to oil and he is also holding on to gold, adding “If you want to buy precious metals I’d rather buy silver and palladium, just because they’re cheaper.”</p></div></span><object id="cnbcplayer" height="380" width="400" classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=9,0,0,0"><br /><param name="type" value="application/x-shockwave-flash"><br /><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true"><br /><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><br /><param name="quality" value="best"><br /><param name="scale" value="noscale"><br /><param name="wmode" value="transparent"><br /><param name="bgcolor" value="#000000"><br /><param name="salign" value="lt"><br /><param name="movie" value="http://plus.cnbc.com/rssvideosearch/action/player/id/1386246206/code/cnbcplayershare"><br /><embed name="cnbcplayer" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" bgcolor="#000000" height="380" width="400" quality="best" wmode="transparent" scale="noscale" salign="lt" src="http://plus.cnbc.com/rssvideosearch/action/player/id/1386246206/code/cnbcplayershare" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"></embed><br /></object>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4687595057633550972.post-85464292530828432212010-04-04T23:15:00.001-07:002010-04-07T04:45:12.081-07:00Major drought in China<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 10px; line-height: 15px;"></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 10px; line-height: 15px;"><div class="columnGroup first" style="clear: both; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 7px; width: auto !important;"><h6 class="kicker" style="color: black; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1em; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.4em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-transform: uppercase;">WANGZHI JOURNAL</h6><h1 class="articleHeadline" style="color: black; font-size: 2.4em; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.083em; margin-bottom: 8px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><nyt_headline type=" " version="1.0">Spring Harvest of Debt for Parched Farms in Southern China</nyt_headline></h1><div class="articleSpanImage" style="margin-bottom: 8px; width: 600px;"><img alt="" border="0" height="350" src="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2010/04/05/world/05china01/05china_CA0-articleLarge.jpg" width="600" /><br />
<div class="credit" style="color: #909090; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.9em; line-height: 1.223em; margin-bottom: 3px; text-align: right;">Ariana Lindquist for The New York Times</div><div class="caption" style="color: #666666; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1.1em; line-height: 1.2727em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Huang Jianxue's wheat normally brings $585. This year, it will be lucky to sell for $30. The drought is southern China's worst in 80 to 100 years.</div></div><nyt_byline></nyt_byline><br />
<h6 class="byline" style="color: grey; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1em; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.2em; margin-bottom: 2px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 2px;">By <a class="meta-per" href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/w/michael_wines/index.html?inline=nyt-per" style="color: #004276; text-decoration: none;" title="More Articles by Michael Wines">MICHAEL WINES</a></h6><br />
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<div style="color: black; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">WANGZHI, China — Odds are that the drought that is parching southwest <a class="meta-loc" href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/china/index.html?inline=nyt-geo" style="color: #004276; text-decoration: underline;" title="More news and information about China.">China</a>’s Yunnan Province and its neighbors will break sometime in the next month, as the region’s usually dry winter gives way to an abundance of summer rains.</div></div><div class="articleInline runaroundLeft" style="clear: left; display: inline; float: left; margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 15px; margin-top: 4px; width: 190px;"><div class="columnGroup doubleRule" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; background-image: url(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/global/borders/doubleRule.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 0% 0%; background-repeat: repeat no-repeat; border-bottom-width: 0px !important; border-left-width: 0px !important; border-right-width: 0px !important; border-top-width: 0px !important; clear: both; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 7px; padding-top: 12px; width: auto !important;"><h3 class="sectionHeader" style="color: black; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1.4em; font-weight: bold; line-height: 1.2857em; margin-bottom: 8px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Related</h3><ul class="headlinesOnly multiline flush" style="list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px;"><li style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-size: 1.2em; line-height: 1.25em; margin-bottom: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><br />
<h6 style="color: black; font-size: 1em; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.25em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/02/world/asia/02drought.html?ref=asia" style="color: #004276; font-size: 1em; text-decoration: none;">Countries Blame China, Not Nature, for Water Shortage</a>(April 2, 2010)</h6></li>
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<h6 style="color: black; font-size: 1em; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.25em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Times Topic: <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/china/index.html" style="color: #004276; font-size: 1em; text-decoration: none;">China</a></h6></li>
</ul></div><div class="inlineImage module" style="clear: both; margin-bottom: 12px; width: 190px;"><div class="image" style="margin-bottom: 2px;"><img alt="" height="263" src="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2010/04/05/world/05china_CA1/05china_CA1-articleInline.jpg" width="190" /></div><h6 class="credit" style="color: #909090; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.9em; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.223em; margin-bottom: 3px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: right;">The New York Times</h6><div class="caption" style="color: #666666; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1.1em; line-height: 1.2727em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">There has been no rainfall in Luliang County since August.</div></div></div><div class="articleBody" style="margin-bottom: 1.7em; margin-top: 1.5em;"><div style="color: black; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">But Huang Jianxue, already weathered at 37 from years in the fields, has stopped betting on rain. In a normal year, his plot of winter wheat brings perhaps $585. This year, he said, it will be lucky to sell for $30.</div><div style="color: black; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">“It’s only good for the pigs,” he said, brushing perhaps six or eight wheat kernels from a stunted stalk that, in a normal year, would hold dozens. “After this, if it doesn’t rain by May, I will plant nothing this year.”</div><div style="color: black; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">This drought is southern China’s worst, climatologists say, in 80 to 100 years. From Yunnan eastward through Sichuan and Guizhou Provinces and the Guangxi region, the soil on roughly 30,000 square miles of farmland is too dry to plant crops, the vice minister of water resources, Liu Ning, said last Wednesday. Around 24 million people are short of water. Agricultural losses already total $3.5 billion.</div><div style="color: black; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Many areas have not had rain since at least October. Here in Luliang County, about 70 miles east of Yunnan’s capital, Kunming, no rain has fallen since August. The drought’s effects have also reached beyond China, stirring up tensions with its neighbors over energy and environmental concerns.</div><div style="color: black; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"></div><a name='more'></a><br />
<br />
<div style="color: black; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">For those like Mr. Huang whose crops and animals are starved for water, the suffering is palpable. Already he has had to borrow money to send his 7-year-old son and 12-year-old daughter to school. Looking for work in the city is out of the question, he said; he cannot read, and leaving his family would wipe out any chance to plant crops should the rains return.</div><div style="color: black; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">With virtually no money from the spring harvest, he said, his only plan to repay his debt is to kill the family pig and sell the meat.</div><div style="color: black; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Across parts of the region, the government is rationing drinking water to millions, digging 1,600 emergency wells and shooting silver iodide into the air in a marginally successful rainmaking effort. In mid-March, China’s premier, <a class="meta-per" href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/w/wen_jiabao/index.html?inline=nyt-per" style="color: #004276; text-decoration: underline;" title="More articles about Wen Jiabao.">Wen Jiabao</a>, made a three-day tour of Yunnan, including Luliang County, to pledge government help and urge new water-conservation efforts.</div><div style="color: black; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Government officials say reaction to the drought has been swift, and they denied that there had been an exodus of farmers from parched cropland to the cities, where they could search for jobs. Hong Kong’s major newspaper, The South China Morning Post, reported last month that many adults had left villages in Guangxi, and that many of those who remained behind were elderly residents and children who had difficulty finding drinking water.</div><div style="color: black; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">A several-hour tour of Luliang County last Monday suggested the drought had struck in patchwork fashion. Residents said some reservoirs were dry basins of cracked mud, while others could be seen filled with water and surrounded by green crops.</div><div style="color: black; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">In Shizikou, a village Mr. Wen visited on his tour of drought sites, verdant acres of rapeseed plants and other crops lined a dirty-looking river that had been tapped for irrigation. But yards away from the river, 44-year-old Liu Hong said her entire wheat crop had grown only about a foot high before dying for lack of water, wiping out the $440 she had hoped to earn.</div><div style="color: black; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Ms. Liu said she had been forced to borrow more than $700 from a local bank to send her two sons to high school. “I don’t know what will happen if I can’t repay it,” she said.</div><div style="color: black; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">And just down the road, 38-year-old Zhang Weixing’s crop of wendou, a type of pea used to make noodles, was so shrunken that his family was harvesting it to use as seeds rather than food. A crop that brought $440 in a normal year would be lucky to fetch $15 this time, he said.</div><div style="color: black; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Serious as the dry spell is, it affects only about 6 percent of China’s farmland and a tiny portion of its 1.3 billion people. Government officials say that its impact on inflation and food supplies is expected to be minimal.</div><div style="color: black; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">But it has drawn unusually pointed comments among some scholars and China’s neighbors over whether official land- and water-conservation practices have contributed to the shortage.</div><div style="color: black; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Meeting in Thailand last week, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/02/world/asia/02drought.html" style="color: #004276; text-decoration: underline;" title="Times article">China’s southern neighbors sharply questioned</a> whether the drought’s effect on the Mekong River — at its lowest in a half-century — had been worsened by dams along its upper reaches, known as the Lancang, in western Yunnan.</div><div style="color: black; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">The <a class="meta-classifier" href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/h/hydroelectric_power/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier" style="color: #004276; text-decoration: underline;" title="More articles about hydroelectric power.">hydroelectric</a> dams store water that otherwise would flow naturally in wet and dry seasons. The Chinese deny the charge and say that they released dammed water during this dry season to raise the Mekong’s level.</div><div style="color: black; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Environmentalists have raised other questions in the drought’s wake. Wang Yongchen, the senior environmental writer for China National Radio, asked in a March journal article in Beijing whether the reservoirs and rapid industrialization had permanently changed the climate in Yunnan. She said that the wholesale replacement of Yunnan’s forests with plantations — especially thirsty rubber and eucalyptus trees — may have lowered the region’s water table, dried the atmosphere and worsened water shortages.</div><div style="color: black; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">A blunt editorial last week in The South China Morning Post said that China, which has more than a fifth of the world’s population but only 7 percent of its fresh water, had mismanaged its vast system of 87,000 reservoirs, 43 percent of which it said were in poor condition.</div><div style="color: black; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">In Wangzhi, Mr. Huang, the farmer, offered personal evidence of the falling water table: the well that supplies his family normally has 33 feet of water during the dry season. On Monday, he said, it held barely a foot.</div><div style="color: black; font-size: 1.5em; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">“We have almost no drinking water left,” he said. “There are 30 other wells in this area, and all the others are dry. I am the only one with anything left.”</div><nyt_author_id></nyt_author_id><br />
<div class="authorIdentification" style="margin-bottom: 2.8em;"><div style="color: black; font-size: 1.5em; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"></div><div style="color: black; font-size: 1.5em; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Li Bibo contributed research from Beijing.</div><div style="color: black; font-size: 1.5em; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.467em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"></div></div><nyt_correction_bottom></nyt_correction_bottom><br />
<div class="articleCorrection" style="margin-bottom: 2.8em;"></div><nyt_update_bottom></nyt_update_bottom></div></div><div class="columnGroup " style="clear: both; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 7px; width: auto !important;"><div class="articleFooter"><div class="articleMeta"><div class="opposingFloatControl wrap" style="display: block;"><div class="element1" style="float: left;"><h6 class="metaFootnote" style="color: #aaaaaa; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1.1em; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.273em; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; width: 350px;">A version of this article appeared in print on April 5, 2010, on page A4 of the New York edition.</h6></div></div></div></div></div></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4687595057633550972.post-60039056974678756622010-04-02T04:17:00.000-07:002010-04-07T04:49:15.497-07:00Fortune Magazine on Farmland Investing<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;"></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;"><div id="storyBrandingBanner" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(182, 29, 29); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Arial; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 15px; padding-bottom: 6px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span class="storyBrandingBanner_Title" style="text-transform: uppercase;"><a href="http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/retirementguide/2009/" style="color: #b61d1d; text-decoration: none;">FORTUNE MAGAZINE <span class="storyBrandingBanner_SubTitle" style="color: #004276; margin-left: 3px; text-transform: none;">Retire Rich 2009</span></a></span></div><div class="storySponsorSmall"></div><h1 class="storyheadline" style="color: black; font-size: 32px; font-weight: bold; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 15px;">Betting the farm</h1><h2 class="storysubhead" style="color: black; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 18px;">As world population expands, the demand for arable land should soar. At least that's what George Soros, Lord Rothschild, and other investors believe.</h2><div id="clickIncludeBox" style="float: right; line-height: 16px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><div style="font: normal normal normal 11px/normal arial; vertical-align: middle;"><a href="http://money.cnn.com/2009/06/08/retirement/betting_the_farm.fortune/index.htm?postversion=2009061611" style="color: #004276; text-decoration: none;">EMAIL</a> | <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2009/06/08/retirement/betting_the_farm.fortune/index.htm?postversion=2009061611" style="color: #004276; text-decoration: none;">PRINT</a> | <span id="shareIcon" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: url(http://i.cdn.turner.com/money/.element/img/2.0/buttons/plus.icon.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 0% 0%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; cursor: pointer; padding-left: 16px;"><a href="http://money.cnn.com/2009/06/08/retirement/betting_the_farm.fortune/index.htm?postversion=2009061611" style="color: #004276; text-decoration: none;">SHARE</a></span> | <span id="rssIcon" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-image: url(http://i.cdn.turner.com/money/.element/img/2.0/buttons/rss.gif); background-origin: initial; background-position: 0% 0%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; cursor: pointer; padding-left: 18px;"><a href="http://money.cnn.com/services/rss/" style="color: #004276; text-decoration: none;">RSS</a></span></div></div><div id="shareMenuContainer" style="position: absolute; z-index: 1000;"></div><div id="rssMenuContainer" style="position: absolute; z-index: 1000;"></div><div class="storybyline" style="color: #575757; font-size: 11px; padding-bottom: 3px;">By <a href="mailto:bokeefe@fortunemail.com" style="color: #004276; text-decoration: none;">Brian O'Keefe</a>, senior editor</div><div class="storytimestamp" style="color: #575757; font-size: 11px;">Last Updated: June 16, 2009: 11:17 AM ET</div><br />
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<div class="storytext" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; width: 618px !important;"><div id="IEContainerR" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 10px; max-width: 220px;"><div class="IErow" style="clear: both; padding-bottom: 15px; width: 220px;"><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="width: 220px;"><tbody>
<tr><td align="center"><img alt="gmiller_farm.03.jpg" border="0" height="181" src="http://i2.cdn.turner.com/money/2009/06/08/retirement/betting_the_farm.fortune/gmiller_farm.03.jpg" width="220" /></td></tr>
<tr><td align="left" valign="top"><span class="captionname" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(235, 235, 235); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-left-color: rgb(235, 235, 235); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: rgb(235, 235, 235); border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-top-color: initial; border-top-style: none; border-top-width: initial; color: #575757; display: block; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal Arial; padding-bottom: 6px; padding-left: 6px; padding-right: 6px; padding-top: 12px; position: relative; top: -7px; z-index: 100;"><b style="color: #575757; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal Arial;">Harvesting profits: Shonda Warner left the hedge fund industry to start a firm that invests in agricultural land like this acreage near Clarksdale, Miss.</b></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table></div><div class="IErow" style="clear: both; padding-bottom: 15px; width: 220px;"><img alt="chart_acres.gif" border="0" height="412" src="http://i2.cdn.turner.com/money/2009/06/08/retirement/betting_the_farm.fortune/chart_acres.gif" width="220" /></div><div class="IErow" style="clear: both; padding-bottom: 15px; width: 220px;"><div class="galleryWidget" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(232, 232, 232); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-left-color: rgb(232, 232, 232); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: rgb(232, 232, 232); border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(232, 232, 232); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; width: 218px;"><div class="galleryWidgetHeader" style="clear: both; color: black; font: normal normal bold 16px/normal Arial; padding-bottom: 4px; padding-left: 7px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 3px;"><a href="http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/retirementguide/2009/flyp_bettingfarm/index.html" style="color: #004276; font: normal normal bold 16px/normal Arial; text-decoration: none;">Betting the farm</a></div><div class="imageContainer" style="height: 120px; width: 218px;"><a href="http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/retirementguide/2009/flyp_bettingfarm/index.html" style="color: #004276; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="Betting the farm" border="0" class="show" height="120" src="http://i2.cdn.turner.com/money/.element/img/1.0/sections/mag/fortune/retirementguide/2009/launcher.jpg" style="display: block; position: absolute;" width="218" /></a></div><div class="galleryHedDek" style="color: #575757; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal Arial; padding-bottom: 7px; padding-left: 7px; padding-right: 7px; padding-top: 7px;">A rich media presentation created by Fortune and Flyp</div></div></div><div class="IErow" style="clear: both; padding-bottom: 15px; width: 220px;"><form action="http://polls.money.cnn.com/poll" method="POST"><div id="pollCNNMoney" style="margin-bottom: 15px;"><div class="moneyMainGreyBnr" style="font: normal normal bold 19px/normal Arial; letter-spacing: -1px; padding-bottom: 5px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-align: left;"><br />
</div></div></form></div></div><div style="margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">(Fortune) -- On a sunny Friday morning, Shonda Warner and I are in her red Toyota pickup heading southwest on Highway 61 out of Clarksdale, Miss., on our way to see one of her farms. While her black standard poodle, Walter, naps in the back seat, she's explaining the pitfalls of being an institutional land investor.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">"It's really hard to buy property at the right price," says Warner as we roll past the famous crossroads where Robert Johnson is said to have sold his soul to the devil to get the secret of the blues. "Half of all farmland that trades in the United States never sees a broker. We believe you've got to have a lot of local knowledge of the marketplace. Farmers are smart and they talk. And if one Town Car full of Wall Street types rolls into town and makes a bid, suddenly all of the prices go up."</div><div style="margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">A Nebraska farm girl who went on to a globetrotting career as a derivatives trader for Goldman Sachs (<a href="http://money.cnn.com/quote/quote.html?symb=GS&source=story_quote_link" style="color: #004276; text-decoration: none;">GS</a>, <a href="http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/2009/snapshots/10777.html?source=story_f500_link" style="color: #004276; text-decoration: none;">Fortune 500</a>) and then as a hedge fund executive in London, Warner, 45, is back on the farm pursuing what she believes is a huge moneymaking opportunity. Two years ago Warner launched an investment firm, called Chess Ag Full Harvest Partners, with a fairly simple underlying strategy: Buy undervalued farmland in the U.S. and profit from the coming global agriculture boom.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Last June she closed her first fund with $30 million from wealthy individuals and institutional investors such as the pension fund of Dow Chemical (<a href="http://money.cnn.com/quote/quote.html?symb=DOW&source=story_quote_link" style="color: #004276; text-decoration: none;">DOW</a>, <a href="http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/2009/snapshots/134.html?source=story_f500_link" style="color: #004276; text-decoration: none;">Fortune 500</a>). (See correction, below.) She says her ultimate goal is to take the company public as the first farmland-only real estate investment trust in the U.S. "The returns in agriculture haven't looked sexy for a long time, but I think that's about to change," she says. <br />
<br />
Warner is just one of many financiers around the world making that same bet. Over the past few years hedge fund gurus like George Soros, investment powerhouses like BlackRock, and retirement plan giants like TIAA-CREF have begun to plow money into farmland - everywhere from the Midwest to Ukraine to Brazil. Canadian private equity firm AgCapita, which raised $18 million in 2008 to invest in Saskatchewan cropland, estimates that as of the first quarter of 2009, more than $2 billion of private equity money had been raised for farmland investments globally, and another $500 million was planned.<br />
<a name='more'></a></div><div style="margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">The growing flow of money into farms has persisted despite a major drop in the commodities markets last fall, prompted in part by the global financial crisis. In the spring of 2008 spiking grain prices caused food shortages and rioting in dozens of countries before falling some 50% by December. In fact, that crash has obscured a broader trend. Even after the correction, grain prices remain above their 20-year average, and food stocks around the world are still near 40-year lows. For many investors, last year's shortages are a preview of what could lie ahead.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">The fundamentals remain in place for a long-term boom in the prices of everything ag-related. The simplest metric to consider is the amount of farmland per person worldwide: In 1960 there were 1.1 acres of arable farmland per capita globally, according to data from the United Nations. By 2000 that had fallen to 0.6 acre<b> </b>(see chart above, "Precious Acres"). And over the next 40 years the population of the world is projected to grow from 6 billion to 9 billion.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">"Land is scarce and will become scarcer as the world has to double food output to satisfy increased demand by 2050," says Joachim von Braun, director general at the International Food Policy Research Institute. "With limited land and water resources, this will automatically lead to increased valuations of productive land. And it goes hand in hand with water. Water scarcity will probably increase even more than land."</div><div style="margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Improving diets in the developing world will also help drive up prices. As per capita incomes rise in China, India, and other parts of Asia, hundreds of millions of people will be adding meat to their daily fare. In the coming decades that will have a multiplier effect on demand because of the massive amounts of grain used to feed livestock. The USDA estimates that it takes seven pounds of grain to produce one pound of beef. Even with better crop yields from new seed technology, a supply crunch is looming. And the effects of climate change - rising sea levels, more droughts - could only amplify the problem.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">"I'm convinced that farmland is going to be one of the best investments of our time," says commodities guru Jim Rogers, who serves as an adviser to AgCapita. "Eventually, of course, food prices will get high enough that the market probably will be flooded with supply through development of new land or technology or both, and the bull market will end. But that's a long ways away yet."</div><div style="margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">The biggest investors in farmland over the next decade will probably be sovereign wealth funds and governments of crop-starved countries eager to secure food supplies for their rapidly growing populations. In 2008, China announced a $5 billion plan to develop agricultural assets in Africa. That's just a start. Given that it has 20% of the world's population but only 7% of its arable land and 7% of its freshwater resources, China has no choice but to look beyond its borders. And the global recession has hardly slowed its appetite for crops. In the first four months of 2009, China imported a record 13.9 million tons of soybeans.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">The Gulf States of Qatar, Abu Dhabi, and Saudi Arabia have already begun making deals to acquire or lease large tracts of farmland in Africa and Asia at bargain prices. That in turn has led to spate of headlines recently about a "land grab" by rich countries. When South Korea's Daewoo Logistics announced a $6 billion deal last November to lease roughly half the arable land in Madagascar - a plot about twice the size of Delaware - it caused so much anger that it helped spur a coup d'etat. In May a UN-sponsored study concluded that too many farmland deals were giveaways by leaders of poor countries, with only vague promises of jobs and investment in return.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">The farmland phenomenon is almost certainly still in the early stages and is playing itself out in many ways around the globe. To get some insight into those strategies, Fortune focused on three investors with vastly different approaches - a British lord who's putting his money on Brazil, an American who is playing on political tensions in war-torn Sudan, and Warner, who is bargain hunting in the U.S. "Farming might not look sophisticated," says Warner. "It might wear overalls and talk funny. But it's older than Wall Street, it's a fine-tuned machine, and it's a very difficult business." Still, she says, if you execute right, "there is a big opportunity here."</div><div style="margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Warner comes from a long line of farmers. The original deed on her family's land in Dakota County, Neb., in the northeastern corner of the state, was signed by Abraham Lincoln in 1861. By the time she was 14, she had earned her grain grader's license and was managing the grain elevator her father had built in Dakota City. Even when she was living abroad, she says, she loved to get home and ride a tractor. But it was the blues that originally brought Warner to the delta.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">A lifelong "music nut," she started visiting Clarksdale to hit the local blues clubs after getting divorced in 2000. In 2004, after selling her share of a hedge-fund-of-funds business in London, on a whim she bought a two-story, 19th-century brick building on Delta Avenue downtown that housed a general store, renamed the shop Miss Del's (as in "Mississippi delta"), and added antique knickknacks and British chocolate to the inventory.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">When she decided to move from London to the U.S. full-time in 2006 to pursue farmland investing, Warner converted the second floor of the building to a loft-like apartment. For now, it doubles as the headquarters of her fund. When Warner's not traveling, she and a couple of employees work at a dining room table with a PC. Books like Food, Inc. and Trade Negotiations in Agriculture sit on shelves above, next to a copy of Graham and Dodd.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Although Warner's rationale for betting on farmland is very much rooted in the global demand picture, her strategy is strictly focused on the U.S. "Yeah, land might be cheap and plentiful in Russia, but if the price of wheat goes up, is your deed going to be honored?" she says by way of explanation. Rather than buy farms in what she calls the "Prada handbag" states of Illinois and Iowa, where land comes at premium prices, she concentrates on less-well-known farming areas. In addition to her home base in Clarksdale, she has an office in South Dakota, and so far the fund has bought land in Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, and Texas as well as Mississippi.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">To figure out how much to pay for land, Warner looks at a range of factors, from local cash rents to the area's 10-year crop-yield trend. She hires contractors to farm the land and splits the harvest, using her trading experience to hedge out price risk and lock in gains. In exchange for a seven-year lockup, a 2% management fee, and 20% of profits, she figures she can deliver the investors in her first fund an annual return of 13% to 16% - about 4% to 6% from crop yields, around 8% from land appreciation, and the rest from hedging.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Based on historical returns for farmland, that's an attainable goal. According to research by Terry Kastens and Kevin Dhuyvetter, professors of agricultural economics at Kansas State University whom Warner recruited to be advisory partners in her fund, the average annual return on U.S. farmland since 1950, including crop yield and land appreciation, is 11.5%, vs. a 12% annualized total return for the stock market. And the farm returns actually came with about half the volatility of stocks.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Despite the big price moves in grains, farmland values have stayed relatively stable. Land prices in the U.S. rose modestly last year (the final data from the USDA won't be out until August), but the picture this year is unclear. In May the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago estimated that farm prices in parts of the Midwest fell by 6% in the first quarter, the biggest such drop since 1985. However, Warner says that the markets she targets are still on the rise. "I hope we see some softening," she says. "I think it would be a great buying opportunity."</div><div style="margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">If any investor has a long view on world markets, it's Lord Jacob Rothschild. The 73-year-old scion of the world-famous European banking dynasty need only look to his own family history, which dates back some 200 years to the rise of patriarch Mayer Amschel Rothschild in Frankfurt. Even after losses in his investment trust last year, Rothschild has a personal fortune estimated at $600 million. He also has a strong opinion on the prospects for farmland. "We think right now is an excellent point of entry for taking a long-term position in agriculture," he tells Fortune.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Rothschild did just that last year when he invested $36 million for a 24% stake in a venture called Agrifirma Brazil. The company is the brainchild of Jim Slater, a longtime City of London investor and investing writer known in the 1970s as one of Britain's most feared corporate raiders, and Ian Watson, a Canadian investment banker. It is not the trio's first investment in commodities together. In 2003, Rothschild invested with Watson and Slater in a company called Galahad Gold, which snapped up gold and uranium assets just as metals prices began to move up, and then sold shares publicly through the London Stock Exchange's AIM market. With commodities booming in late 2007, they liquidated the company's assets, locking in a 66% annualized return over five years. Profits in hand, the trio decided that the next big opportunity was in agriculture.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">When asked about the case for buying farmland, Rothschild rattles off statistics on population growth before bringing up another issue of increasing importance: inflation. "If you look at the macro picture today," says Rothschild, "we have an extraordinary situation. If you take governments' printing money as fast as they are, borrowing as fast as they are, and bailing out white-elephant corporations, we're surely going to have an inflationary situation fairly soon." In that kind of environment, owning a hard asset like land is a good hedge.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Agrifirma has already acquired some 100,000 acres in the Brazilian state of Bahia and holds an option on another 60,000. This summer it will produce its first crops of soybeans, cotton, and corn. Rothschild and Watson say they chose Brazil in part because there was a large quantity of scrubland, or cerrado, that could be irrigated and converted to farmland, enhancing the value greatly. They also liked the fact that its economy has been growing robustly. And perhaps most important, Brazil has 14% of the world's freshwater resources, the most of any country. "The world is fully in a water crisis, and we haven't realized it yet," says Watson. "When you're exporting agriculture, you're de facto exporting water."</div><div style="margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">"They can't change the laws on me, because I've got the guns," says Phil Heilberg, pausing to take a bite of his turkey bacon. On a Monday morning in May the chairman and CEO of Jarch Capital is explaining his investment strategy over breakfast at the Regency Hotel near his office on Park Avenue in New York City. "As long as Gen. Matip is alive, my contract is good."</div><div style="margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">While Warner and Rothschild have focused on carving out a relatively risk-free way to profit from the farmland boom, Heilberg, 44, has taken the opposite tack. The American is putting his money into Sudan, Africa's largest country and one of its least stable. And he's hardly shy about the many ways his investment could go wrong. "I like to point out that it's a failed state, it's been sanctioned by the U.S., and it has a peace agreement that could unravel at any time and lead to armed conflict," he says. "The good thing is that you know what most of the risks are, and you can get paid for them."</div><div style="margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">With hundreds of thousands of acres of lush, undeveloped land in the Blue Nile and White Nile valleys, Sudan has the raw potential to develop into an agricultural powerhouse. Investors from Abu Dhabi, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait have already reportedly made deals to lease land in the predominantly Muslim northern part of the country. But in January, Heilberg raised a lot of eyebrows by announcing that he had agreed to lease roughly 1 million acres of undeveloped land - an area the size of Rhode Island - in Mayom County in southern Sudan.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">The deal has drawn all kinds of criticism - everything from cries of land grabbing to accusations that Heilberg is intentionally fomenting discord on behalf of the U.S. government to outrage that he is consorting with "warlords." Heilberg has cultivated connections to Washington. His vice chairman is former ambassador Joe Wilson, the husband of onetime CIA agent Valerie Plame and the man who blew the whistle on the Bush administration's obfuscations about Iraq and yellowcake uranium. Another executive is a former CIA operative.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">But Heilberg dismisses any suggestion that he's working with the U.S. government. And he makes no apologies for his associates on the ground, including the aforementioned Gen. Paulino Matip Nhial, 67, a hardened veteran of the long civil war between north and south Sudan who is now the deputy commander of the army in the south. Both Matip and one of his allies, Gen. Peter Gatdet, are on Jarch's advisory board. An Amnesty International report in 2000 recorded accusations that troops under Matip's command committed war atrocities. "One man's warlord is another man's freedom fighter," says Heilberg. "If you want to be in power over there you have to control territory, and listen, that involves tribal battles. You just have to recognize who is a good man and who isn't - who's doing it for power and who's trying to better his people. Matip is a good man."</div><div style="margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">The son of a coffee trader, Heilberg spent nine years working for the AIG Trading Group, doing metals and currency deals in the former Soviet republics and opening offices for the company in Hong Kong, Singapore, Moscow, and Tashkent before striking out on his own in 1999. He started Jarch (the name is formed from his children's initials) in 2002, and became captivated by the combination of political tension in Sudan and the abundance of natural resources in the southern part of the country. "There's a lot of wealth to be made when you have changes in sovereignty," he says.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">In addition to farmland, southern Sudan has oil, gold, zinc, and uranium, and Heilberg has long been looking for a way to profit from developing those resources. But he is constrained by, among other things, the fact that U.S. sanctions prevent him from exporting oil out of Sudan - not that the government in the northern capital of Khartoum would allow it anyway. (His ideal investment scenario involves southern Sudan's making a relatively bloodless split from the Muslim north and being recognized by the U.S. as an independent nation.)</div><div style="margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">So for now Heilberg is focusing on the farming opportunity, and he says that by the end of the year he will have more than doubled the amount of land that he's leasing. He is interviewing foreign farming contractors to develop the land, and hopes to begin growing tomatoes, corn, onions, and other vegetables by next summer. He anticipates taking on investment from a "major venture partner" within the year.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Heilberg has promised not only to create jobs but also to put 10% or more of his profits back into the Mayom County community. (Jarch's slogan: "Because it is your land, your natural resources!") And Wilson characterizes their approach as a version of doing well by doing good. "This is a deal that's certainly fraught with political risk," he says. "But we think that it has enormous potential to open an avenue of economic development for the southern Sudanese and make them shareholders in a positive outcome. That's my theory as I look at this." In theory, it sounds good. As an investment strategy, it's not for the faint of heart.</div><div style="margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Back on Highway 61, Warner is reflecting on the fact that the wider world is mimicking her own journey back to the farm. "I think it's fun to get Wall Street types and farmers talking," she says. "They might have a lot to offer each other. A couple of years ago when I started telling my buddies in New York my little story about row-crop agriculture, it seemed really exotic. But I think people have sort of been slapped around and gotten a wake-up call, and they're thinking, 'Oh, this kind of makes sense.'"</div><div style="margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">There's another thing she finds comforting about what she's doing. "I've always personally liked the idea," she says, "that even if the bottom dropped out of this whole credit bubble and the world blew up, that the farmland, while it might not make a return for two or three or four years, was going to be there down the road. Because in the end, people have to eat."</div><div style="margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><i>--Reporter Beth Kowitt contributed to this article.</i></div><div style="margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><i>An earlier version of this story said that the pension fund of Lockheed Martin has invested in Chess Ag Full Harvest Partners. It has not done so. Fortune regrets the error.</i> <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2009/06/08/retirement/betting_the_farm.fortune/index.htm?postversion=2009061611#TOP" style="color: #004276; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="To top of page" border="0" height="7" src="http://i.cdn.turner.com/money/images/bug.gif" width="7" /></a></div><div class="storytimestamp" style="color: #575757; font-size: 11px;">First Published: June 10, 2009: 9:47 AM ET</div><div style="margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"></div><div id="bottomTblSpace"></div><div style="clear: both;"></div><div id="quigo628" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; clear: both; overflow-x: hidden; overflow-y: hidden; padding-bottom: 5px; padding-left: 5px; padding-right: 5px; padding-top: 5px;"></div></div></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com