Impacto de la crisis global en el comercio agricola internacional

La crisis economica global sigue siendo analizada por investigadores en su relación al impacto que tendrá sobre el intercambio internacional agrícola de bienes. En este caso presentamos un análisis del USDA en donde se concluye que la depreciación del dólar beneficiaría a los productores de EE.UU. debido al incremento que tendrían las exportaciones agrícolas y al incremento que tendrían los precios de los productos de este sector

The global economic crisis that started in late 2008 has led to a sharp curtailment of international trade, including a short-term decline in the value of global agricultural trade of around 20 percent. After slowing, global agricultural trade will continue to grow in the future. The crisis is leading to a realignment of exchange rates, and the ultimate resolution of the crisis will depend on adjustments in the exchange value of the U.S. dollar. The U.S. agricultural sector would benefit from a depreciating dollar, which results in high export earnings, high agricultural commodity prices, increased production, and increased farm income.
Released Thursday, August 20, 2009
See http://www.ers.usda.gov/Publications/WRS0905/

Source USDA

Estudio sobre Cambio Climatico por el ERS.

This brief highlights the ERS (Economic Research Service) climate change research program, which builds on extensive expertise on the economics of land use, land management, technology adoption, conservation program design, and biofuels production and distribution. ERS research is underway to estimate the likely responses of farmers to possible climate policies and to assess the likely impacts of policies on agricultural markets, farm incomes, land and water use, and the carbon balance. Landowner responses to carbon policies are a key factor in establishing the costs of greenhouse gas offsets from agriculture.

Released Monday, August 31, 2009

See http://www.ers.usda.gov/Briefing/GlobalClimate/

Sent from Janet Meeling for AGRIFOODTHINKTANK

China’s wealthy description. Descripción de la riqueza China

China will soon be home to the world’s fourth-largest population of wealthy households. Companies that hope to reach them must understand how they differ from their counterparts elsewhere.

Talking about wealthy consumers in China may seem odd during the middle of a global economic crisis. Despite the global downturn, the number of wealthy households in China continues to grow. By 2015, the country will hold the world’s fourth-largest concentration of wealthy people. Companies that better understand the factors behind their purchases could steal a march on the competition. A McKinsey research shows that their behavior is very different from that of their counterparts in other countries and of consumers in other income classes inside China. The wealthy Chinese households, with an average annual income of about $80,000, represented the top 1 percent of earners in China’s cities.

Source: McKinsey Marketing & Sales Practice Yuval Atsmon and Vinay Dixit

How US consumer spending is changing Como está cambiando el gasto en consumo en EEUU

After two decades of unsustainably high spending, US consumers are suddenly behaving pretty much as they have in the past.

A recent McKinsey survey indicates that US households have reduced their spending as a result of the recession.
Consumers are spending less across all categories, and more than half plan to keep spending down even when the economy recovers.
The majority of consumers do not expect stock market returns above the inflation rate over the next 30 years.

US consumers have responded to the global economic crisis by curtailing their expenditures, paying down debt, and saving more—all logical responses to a recession. Yet most consumers have acted by choice, not necessity. Spending, saving, and debt averages are not at abnormal levels today but rather returning to long-term trends. The return to traditional spending patterns will cause companies to adjust to a fundamentally altered playing field.

In a McKinsey survey conducted in March 2009, 90 percent of the US respondents said that their households had reduced spending as a result of the recession—33 percent of them “significantly” so. The survey, which included 600 households in three consumer segments comprising around 40 percent of all US homes,found that 45 percent of those who reduced spending did so by necessity, 55 percent by choice

Source: Financial Services Practice

The difficult to find Chinese Agricultural Data

Everybody know how difficult it is to gather reliable Agricultural info from China. This released data from the USDA helps researchers and readers of AgriFoodd Think Tank.

The China agricultural and economic database is a collection of agricultural-related data from official statistical publications of the People's Republic of China. Statistics are often published only in China and sometimes only in Chinese-language publications. This product assembles a wide variety of data items covering agricultural production, inputs, prices, food consumption, output of industrial products relevant to the agricultural sector, and macroeconomic data.

See http://www.ers.usda.gov/Data/China/

Source USDA sent by Dr. Chaneer Lin

Despite financial crisis, Brazilian farm land values continue growing

Average price of land in Brazil rises and reaches records high in August 2009.

The average price of farm land in Brazil reached a record average of R$ 4,446 (US$ 2,429) per hectare, according to AgraFNP consultancy. The value exceeds the R$ 4,434 per hectare recorded in March and April 2004 (already deflated value), during the first Brazilian soybean boom.

By region, the price of land was:

South: R$ 9,046 p/ha
Central-Western: R$ 3,354 p/ha
Northeast: R$1,986 p/ha
North: awaiting Federal Environmental Law to be passed

Source GOAGRO for AgrifoodThink Tank

Manure use for Fertilizer and Energy in US Congress

The Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008 directed the U.S. Department of Agriculture to evaluate the role of animal manure as a source of fertilizer, and its other uses. About 5 percent of all U.S. cropland is currently fertilized with livestock manure, and corn accounts for over half of the acreage to which manure is applied. Expanded environmental regulation through nutrient management plans will likely lead to wider use of manure on cropland, at higher production costs, but with only modest impacts on production costs, commodity demand, or farm structure.

While current use is quite limited, expanded government support, either direct or indirectly, could lead to a substantial increase in manure use as a feedstock. However, current energy processes are unlikely to compete with fertilizer uses of manure, because they leave fertilizer nutrients as residues, in more marketable form, and because manure-to-energy projects will be most profitable in regions where raw manure is in excess supply, with the least value as fertilizer.
Released July , 2009
See http://www.ers.usda.gov/Publications/AP/AP037/

Source USDA