Friday, February 29, 2008

Economist on 'Agflation'

This story appeared in The Economist in Dec 07. Here are the main points:
  • Food prices (real) fell by 3/4 during 1974-2005
  • Since 2005 prices have jumped 75%
  • Underlying reason for agflation is diet changes caused by growing wealth of emerging economies
  • Meat consumption of Chinese consumer 20Kg in 1985 and 50Kg in 2007
  • 8Kg grain used to produce 1Kg beef
  • Additional 200m-250m tons of grain is fed to cattle now compared to 1980
  • Another reason, US ethanol subsidies - 30m tons of extra maize in 2007
  • In 2000 15m tons of maize was used to make ethanol, now it is 85m tons
  • In 2007 US maize harvest has been 335m tons a lot of it at the expense of other crops
  • Result - it will hurt urban consumers but will benefit farmers and ag communities
  • High grain prices persuading people to clean more forests
  • Share of public spending on agriculture in developing countries has fallen by half since 1980

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

A Big Oil Discovery

Here is a link to Economist report on oil discovery in Brazil:

... If the government’s early estimates are confirmed—that the broader area where the recent discoveries were made might hold as much as 70bn-100bn barrels—Brazil will be able to boast of holding among the world's ten-largest oil reserves in the medium to the long term ...