Good time to invest in Latin America funds.
" Brazil is set to overtake the U.S. this year as the world’s top corn exporter, reflecting both a bumper harvest and logistical breakthroughs such as the consolidation of northern export routes, which are boosting the competitiveness of the South American grains powerhouse."
“Brazil’s farm industry, however, is not past all of its logistical woes. On-farm storage capacity still pales next to rival grain powers like Canada, the U.S. and Argentina.”
Has China bought up control of the grain? Is that why it is being exported? Does that mean Brazilians will face food inflation and shortages. Lulu will undo such deals if he needs to.
This can spell problems for the BRICS arrangments.
Brazil has long produced more corn than it consumes, just like the US. The article mentions production of 130 million tonnes with exports of 50 million tonnes. The Chinese do like their pork.
DB2
Agriculture takes a lot of water. The Chinese need to dominate global agriculture. Right now we need to kick the Chinese corporate landholders in the US out.
I think our industry will be buying back our farmlands at much lower prices from desperate Chinese corporations. Just like what happened with Pebble Beach.
Oh please. China owns less land than Bill Gates. If they had twice as much , they would still have less US land than the Cayman Islands owns. If they had three times as much they would still have less US land than Portugal owns.
China is 18th in “foreign land ownership” in the US. Not exactly a giant threat.
Fair enough on the actual land control. Oh and Goof notice when wrong I admit it? Intelligent people admit when they are wrong. Even on the internet.
BUT that is not really the story.
Chinese companies and individuals own farmland in the U.S. : NPR’%20largest%20pork%20processor.
Food companies China has bought a few according to NPR.
We have known for ages that farmers coming to market were at the whims of the food companies. You are kidding yourself if you think being right about the land is being in control of the food business.
Yup. A small local creamery just closed because they flooded a town’s sewer system with milk and cream. The town then cut off their sewer access, forcing them to close when they could not solve their problem. 20-30 small farms in two states lost market access because there is a current surplus of fresh milk in the Upper Midwest and there is no other place to sell their daily production.
The usual soluton to surplus milk is cheese and butter. Both store well.
Yes, the strategic cheese and butter reserve! I once saw a photo of a government storage facility for butter and cheese and it looked huge to me. Then I was told that there are a few of them scattered across the country! I think I heard something about a billion, yes, BILLION, pounds of government cheese!!!
Did the government shut down that program a while back? I remember the giveaways of “government cheese” in the late 70s or early 80s. Thing was, it wasn’t very good cheese. Something about it made it not usable for cooking, like it didn’t melt smoothly.
When I was in Jr High, in the mid 60s, I remember a display case near the cafeteria filled with the sort of ingredients they used: big packages with government markings on them.
Of course, the government distributing any surplus product that it buys up as ag industry welfare, brings howls about taking money away from the “JCs”.
Guess maybe the government would need to buy up all the stuff, then disintegrate it, so as to not “burden” anyone…sort of like what the Fed does hoovering up excess government bonds, then hoovering up the cash it pays for the bonds by paying interest on deposits. That way, the government money fountain doesn’t cause inflation, because the money is kept out of the hands of the proles that might spend it.
Maybe we should rewrite that phrase that “inflation is a monetary problem” to “inflation is always caused by the proles”
Steve
Government cheese is processed cheese provided to welfare beneficiaries, Food Stamp recipients, and the elderly receiving Social Security in the United States, as well as to food banks and churches . This processed cheese was used in military kitchens during World War II and has been used in schools since the 1950s.
Funny thing, in Venezuela graft, corruption, is called ‘cheese.’ One wit remarked that the value of Venezuelan ‘cheese’ in Switzerland was greater than the value of Swiss cheese in Venezuela.
One has to wonder whether government ‘cheese’ is better or worse than private ‘cheese.’
The Captain
The objective was to line the pockets of the dairy industry by artificially reducing supply. Quality of the cheese really didn’t matter.
Steve
The amount of cheese mattered. Higher rates of obesity followed according to one or two studies.
The Farm Lobby is powerful, back then it was dairy, now it’s corn.
The Captain
Ag commodities have a history of boom bust cycles. They can be devastating to all involved. Price stabilization helps. But of course some always want better prices.
We old phartz remember farmers demanding “100% of parity” meaning they wanted uncle sugar (the government) to guarantee they would recover their full costs of production for every bushel produced. Of course, by taking the risk out of overproduction, overproduction would be guaranteed.
Steve