Agricultural Investments - Fulfilling the Global Food Security Concerns

In the last three years, there has been a rebound in agricultural profitability as the global demand for fibre, fuel and food entered a golden era where agriculture gave highest profits as the market risks in agriculture soared amidst highly volatility and raising stuff prices. Although there has been a high volatility in the sector investors are happy about investing in agricultural land being of the balanced food consumptions and the increasing income of global population which is expanding the appetite for agricultural products.

Some of the circuitous problems matching as global warming, changes in food habits, climate change and poor agricultural outturn resulted in sharp increase in food prices across the world and the number of people who are either malnourished or hungry is increasing which has been a concern for policy makers.

Hunger crisis in Africa

For the third time Sahel region in West Africa is suffering poor harvest, droughts and soaring food prices. Last year Kenya, Somalia, Djibouti and Ethiopia were affected by worst hunger crisis and the government of the countries are promoting investment in agricultural land. Investors are seeing great values in investing in agricultural land and they are buying either farmlands outrights or targeting the subsectors in farming such as fertilizers. The main trick in investment is to be part of farming production which helps to generate high returns in the form of regular harvests as there is increasing demand for food grain harvests in the global market and also you get returns from the increasing price of the farmlands.

Increasing food demands

Investment in agriculture involves commodity trading and farmers are using agricultural contracts to offset losses in crop production. Agriculture has been a link for increasing friendship between China and Africa. By the year 2050 the global population will be 34 % higher than today ' s population as it will reach 9. 1 billion and the demand for food grains will increase by 50 % by 2030 as per UN statistics. Poor weather conditions and rising demand from the emerging market will make it difficult to regulate food prices.

The dangers of climate change and urbanisation

Climate change poses the major risk over long term food security. Climate change is having a negative impact on agricultural output and urbanisation also affects 70 % of the world population as it reduces the number of people who are into rural agricultural sector. To feed the growing population, which will get richer and earn more, an increased amount of food grains production is required and the world will need at least 70 % more food grains.

Capital Alternatives: Invest in agricultural land in Sierra Leone

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Food Scarcity Can Be Tackled With Global Innovation and Knowledge Sharing in Agriculture

Among the Millennium Goals that were set at the turn of the century were specific goals set for significant agriculture and food production and reducing global hunger and malnutrition.

The UN ' s Food and Agriculture Organisation ( FAO ) highlighted some specific areas on which attention needed to be focused including working closely with civil society organizations, the domestic private sector and international yoke to improve fertiliser supply and demand, ensuring a massive replenishment of soil nutrients on lands with nutrient - depleted soils worked by smallholder farmers, and conducting a massive training program for community - based partners to nail down expertise in soil nutrients, water supply and environmental management.

Following a year ( 2010 ) of high weather, food stuff price speculation and renewed fears of high food prices and food scarcity in 2011, one periodical hearsay in the UK seems to suggest that things are not obtaining element better. It reported that a study by the UK ' s Commission for Rural Communities had erect that 25 % of the country ' s farmers were living below the poverty line with an income of less than 20, 000 a year and of these a third had made no profit for the last three years. Tenant farmers were particularly badly affected, especially those whose businesses depended on grazing livestock.

It is a situation that would be recognised by the many small farmers in developing countries across Africa and S Asia and presents a bleak picture. But there are a number of organisations working hard to develop more sustainable, environmentally friendly and affordable techniques for small farmers.

They include the not for profit organisation Commonwealth Agricultural Bureaux International ( CABI ) which has many projects across the world and recently celebrated its centenary at a two - day workshop in Delhi, India. CABI has worked with the Indian Government to help the country ' s improve their yields and the quality of their crops - by helping them with techniques to manage pests and diseases, and by making sure they have access markets plus the knowledge and skills to meet international export standards. The work echoes on of the areas the FAO highlighted ( see above ).

The Worldwatch Institute is another independent research organization working on issues around the environment and sustainability. It plans a comprehensive project for 2011, to be called The Nourishing of the Planet, which will assess the the state of agricultural innovations - from cropping methods to irrigation technology to agricultural policy - emphasising sustainability, diversity, and ecosystem health, as well as productivity.

Both CABI and Worldwatch include private sector research, for example from Biopesticides Developers, as innovative thinkers and potential sources of solutions for improving agricultural productivity in a sustainable way - using low - chem agricultural products such as biopesticides, biofungicides and yield enhancers using materials from natural sources.

One positive news story that appeared this week ( November 29 2010 ) was about an innovative thinker, a retired Dutch inventor called Pieter Hoff with a potential innovative solution to the problem of growing plants in dry regions. It ' s a simple container, a bucket, fitted with a convex cover in which are two holes. It allows water to be trapped and for a plant to grow in what is effectively a microclimate. Water is dripped onto the plant at 50cc per day, which allows the plant to survive but not to grow properly which encourages it to develop tap roots so that it can search out water by itself. It has been proven to work better than daily watering and allows plants to grow in challenging areas where there may be little ground water or energy supply.

It is innovators like these that could make all the difference in tackling the issues of increasing crop production to meet the projected growing world population in ways that are sustainable and that farmers can understand and afford.

Copyright ( c ) 2010 Alison Withers

Global Warming Myth or Reality

Global warming. For the last few years it has become a very much talked about and hotly debated topic. Is it real or is it honorable so much flightiness generated by unlettered scare tacticians challenging to suppress free enterprise? Changing weather patterns around the globe seem to indicate that the earth may in actuality be in the midst of a global warming rotation. Scientific data shows that the earth ' s temperature is gradually rising and climate changes are being empirical in areas all around the world as a denouement. We are present seeing moderate rising of sea levels. Storms are becoming more severe. Areas which don ' t normally receive much precipitation are documenting higher than typical rainfall. Areas which would normally experience good rainfall levels are receipt less and less. The ozone layer over the south pole is being depleted allowing more radiation from the sun to enter earth ' s ambience factor to up thrust global temperatures, causing the arctic and antarctic cool caps to join to levels not published of in thousands and thousands of years. Glaciers in various locations around the world once thinking to be semi lasting are clement off and receding at hairy rates. The implications to kinsmen are enormous and potentially devastating. One half to two thirds of the worlds population live in coastal or low lying areas which could be totally eliminated by rising sea levels brought about by the heated of earth ' s polar solidify caps. Society as we know it could be totally devastated. Dominant coastal cities totally wiped out or at the very primeval fabricated nearly or completely uninhabitable. Agriculture severely crippled. World commerce severely disrupted. And the more the earth ' s temperature rises the faster the effect is amplified. Scientists are predicting that global temperatures could rise by ten to twenty degrees and sea levels rise as much as twenty feet or more by the middle of this century due to accelerated global warming.

Quite a scary scenario for our future and our coming generations future. But what is causing this phenomena? Is it all part of some sort of natural cycle of the earth or is it somehow being caused or at least intensified by the way we live and use and abuse the resources of our planet? It is very possible that it is part of a normal cycle of climate changes that the earth has experienced since it was created. The earth has gone through numerous climate changes including ice ages and periods of tropic and Sub - tropic forestation since it was created and started to evolve. But it is also quite possible that this warming cycle is being amplified by human interaction with the atmosphere which protects the earth. Interaction in the form of fossil fuels which emit carbon dioxide and other pollutants into the air which help trap greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere. Industrial air pollution and pollution from the cars we drive are very possibly the main culprits in the effects we are seeing and experiencing with our atmosphere. Since the beginning of the twentieth century and the birth of the industrial age, pollution levels in our atmosphere have been steadily rising and as more of the world becomes industrialized the problem only gets worse as long as that industrialization relies on fossil fuels.

What can we as individuals do to help stem this rise in the pollution of our atmosphere and the possible contribution to global warming caused by the use of fossil fuels as our principal means of running our societies? First we can demand that our governments work on developing more earth friendly forms of energy. Wind, solar, geothermal, and other forms of energy which don ' t emit harmful toxins into the atmosphere. Second, we can make changes in our personal lives which will help reduce the amount of pollution we as individuals create. The largest culprit among us is the cars we drive. Cars which use fuels which are improperly formulated to burn properly because oil companies formulate their fuels to only burn efficiently enough to actually allow our cars to operate, so that they can make as much money as they can off of their products without regard to the consequences to our planet. Slowly alternative fuels and fuel alternatives are being developed. Ethanol, Natural gas, hydrogen, biodeisel along with electric and solar powered vehicles. Hybrid cars which combine part time electric drives with conventional gas powered engines. These are all potential solutions to the pollution problems caused by our automobiles. Yet their full potential remains years away from full commercial development. However there are ways to actually make our present cars run better by improving the fuel mixture so it burns more completely thus eliminating the vast majority of pollution caused by the unburned fuel emitted as unburned hydrocarbon pollution. This can, thanks to committed independent inventors be easily and economically accomplished by incorporating hydroxy gas systems into our present cars. Hydroxy gas systems break down H2O into a burnable gas which when combined with the gasoline / air mixture creates a much better and cleaner burning fuel mixture which will eliminate almost all of the pollution emitted by our cars, but also increase the car ' s gas milage substantially because these systems cause the gasoline to be almost completely burned up in the engine the way it should be if it was properly formulated to begin with by the oil companies. These systems can be purchased pre built for a few hundred dollars or with proper plans can be easily constructed from readily obtainable materials for under a hundred dollars. There are numerous people and commercial entities who try to dispel and suppress this information either because they are too disbelieving that these systems can actually work or more importantly are the commercial entities who realize that these systems do in fact work and if people implemented this technology into their cars that these entities profits would be drastically affected.

It is ultimately up to each one of us to change the way we do things and do what we can to help reverse the damage which we as a race of people have done to the health of the planet which sustains us and all living things on this planet. Whether though real shortage of oil supplies or due to market speculation, if something like the cost of gas rising to five or ten dollars a gallon forces us to make those changes then ultimately that is a good thing regardless of how much it forces us to change our lifestyles or the short term hardships it might impose on us compared to the effect of killing the only atmosphere we have.

International Agriculture And Rural Development Affect Global Well - being

According to the Association for International Agriculture and Rural Development ( AIARD ), the world ' s population is around 5. 7 billion. In thirty years it is expected to increase to approximately 8 billion. The bulk of this increase is expected to arise in the poorer regions of the world, agnate as Africa and Asia. To generalize, today ' s arable and reach lands and water resources must generate present and future food, and for most of the poorer countries, the jobs required to supply projected employment needs. Much more productive and sustainable uses of the resource bases will be required to felicitous dramatically changing needs resolute by increased urbanization, income, and trade liberalization trends. Unfortunately, in most of the poorer countries, the capacities and systems to prepare these countries for compatible unprecedented change is not present ( www. aiard. org ).

AIARD, a United States - based professional association representing international development professionals in every state and with growing numbers of international members, outline the global seat, trends, and daunting challenges in the world from which its role and errand statements evolve.

First, AIARD states that the relationship between agriculture and rural development affects global well - being tremendously. Roughly thirty percent of the population of the world ' s poorer countries ( or 1. 1 billion people ) live in absolute poverty. Over 1 billion of world population lives on less than 1 dollar per day. The majority of these people lives in rural areas and depends on agriculture as the main source of family livelihood. There is growing consensus among the countries in the world that the world ' s food supplies will have to double by 2025. As for employment, new employment rates in poorer countries are falling behind population increases, causing political unrest and migration to already over - burdened urban centers and adjacent countries.

About 1 / 2 of the world ' s poorest live in rural areas which are characterized as environmentally fragile. Limited incomes and employment prospects force poorer families to deforest land and to expand agriculture. Currently, over 37 million acres are deforested annually. Such destruction also generates an additional 1 billion metric tons of carbon to the atmosphere and is a major contributor to what some scientists say is the daily extinction of 100 different types of plant and animals.

According to AIARD, dynamic agricultural and rural Sectors are key to national development because as agriculture becomes more productive and dynamic, broader economic, social, and political development takes place. Reducing real food prices is the most important initial contribution for reducing poverty around the world.

In poorer countries, the agriculture sector is the most important sector in terms of employment and income generation. Increased agricultural productivity unleashes a powerful engine of labor - intensive growth and improved household incomes. To generalize, the more favorable macroeconomic policy and revolutionary global trade liberalization initiatives, which include GATT and NAFTA, offer increased opportunities for all countries to appropriately utilize their comparative advantages.

AIARD also suggests that a long - term food security strategy should not be too dependent on the public sector. A longer - term vision is required to address food security to more effectively mobilize the private sector to assist in addressing food insecurity especially in the developing world.

A Lebanese family business Saranabu Sa, based in West Africa, is one of these private sector initiatives, delivering excellence and quality with five generations of experience in trading, industry, and investment. Founded by two brothers, Mr. Ramses R. Najem and Mr. Sammy R. Najem, the Saranabu Group, fifteen years ago, the Saranabu Sa Groups has earned its reputation in the Oils and Fats trade as reliable suppliers to both industries and merchants, because it provides innovative and cost effective solutions to its customers in the precarious African business environment.

The Saranabu Group has a regional presence through its established trading partners over the years, in the following countries: Nigeria, Niger, Togo, and Ghana. SARANABU plans to expand further to other West African countries in the next 3 years to better service its clients as it incorporates a strong portion of its Crude Oil sourcing from neighboring West African countries thanks to its established relationships with these countries.

Reviews On Agriculture And Health Related To Global Warming

Some studies appearance that the news of global warming is not all bad for farming, at cardinal not in the short lope. Go humans have at variance many environmental factors by their activities, the short term effects of these changes oftentimes model to better crops.

Global warming is unambiguous to bring about changes in precipitation. This will bob to changes in the soil moisture. Especially with the severe weather predicted with global warming, rain will come down hard when it does come. This will lead to more than usual soil erosion. These factors greatly affect agriculture.

There have always been many obstacles to farming. Global warming just makes them more intense. Now, it is even more likely that a farmer will face droughts, floods, heat waves, and hurricanes, to name a few. They will be harder to overcome than ever before and they will certainly be less rare.

Health concerns related to global warming

As global warming affects the environment, it should not be surprising that it affects the health of the people living in that environment. Changes in the climate are changes in the habitats not only for animals, but for people as well. Climate changes are already impacting people ' s health.

There have also been heat waves in North America. One in 2006 claimed 226 lives. Another probable result of global warming is increased pollen in the air. This happens because higher levels of carbon dioxide encourage the growth of more pollen - producing weeds. Because more pollen means worse air quality, those with allergies and asthma suffer.

Other health concerns related to global warming revolve around flooding. When sudden storms and flooding occur, it is often impossible to get ill or injured people to medical facilities in time to help them. Often, people take dangerous risks during floods. They drive into water, thinking that they can make it across. When they do not, they can get swept away and drowned. There is no graver consequence of global warming than death, of course.

Signs of Global Sanity Sharing of Innovative Agricultural Solutions to Help Farmers and Consumers

Agriculture is the direct or indirect livelihood of three rooms of the world ' s poor, who live in rural areas.

The 2008 food crisis and the subsequent global financial crisis, showed the severe vulnerability of developing countries to fluctuations in food prices and supplies.

But the impact was not peerless on developing world farmers - it affected consumers world - wide in food scarcities, eg rice in Thailand, and higher prices.

In Nov 2008 Egypt - UNIDO ( United Nations Industrial Development Organisation ) sponsored the first ever international conference on Sharing Innovative Agribusiness Solutions - From Farms to Markets: Providing Know - how and Finance.

If the conference activities can be continued it ' s an initiative that would potentially aid small farmers in developing world, consumers universal and the planet as a whole.

" Our perception is sustainable development "

In his opening speech Dr. Ibrahim Abouleish, Founder of SEKEM uttered that Sustainable development could satisfy our needs and aspirations without decreasing the chances for future generations...... but that we need to learn the basic principals of ecology.

"..... Being ecologically literate means compassionate the principles of organisations of ecological communities including our educational communities, political and business communities. So that principles of education, management and politics include the principles of ecology. "

A little about SEKEM

In 1977 the economic and social hardship of his countrymen galvanised Social Entrepreneur and medical doctor Dr Abouleish into buying 70 hectares of desert scrubland, 60 km north - east of Cairo and close to the River Nile.

He called the new experimental farm there SEKEM - from Ancient Egyptian: " vitality from the sun ".

SEKEM was able to transform the desert into a showcase example of sustainable agriculture and a healthy ecosystem through biodynamic farming methods.

Its efforts in organic cultivation led to the conversion of the entire Egyptian cotton industry to organic methods.

Starting off with a dairy and crop farm, SEKEM soon began to produce herbal teas and to market its biodynamic produce in Europe. This initiative helped other farms in Egypt to switch to biodynamic farming. A part of its mix of activities the farm uses bio - fertilizers.

The 2008 Cairo conference brought together over 400 agribusiness stakeholders from more than 65 countries, including representatives of private and public institutions ( technical and financial ), international organizations, donor countries, civil society, universities and research institutions to share innovative agribusiness solutions

Topics covered supply / value chains, market access and linkages, Compliance with standards and conformity assessment, Technology and value addition and Innovative forms of financing

Participants were enthusiastic about working together to achieve change. central to the debate were " Innovation and opportunity ", " partnerships based on trust " and " the need for commitment ", also the need for a holistic approach to agriculture taking into account the needs of specific groups, and avoiding the mistake of thinking that " one size fits all ".

Four key issues were identified:

1. Financial: small producers need finance to bridge the gap between initial costs and eventual benefits to help them enhance their productivity and agricultural product distribution.

2. Up to date information: small farmers and SMEs need access to up - to - date market information to enable them to compete effectively in local, regional and international markets.

One example cited was an Indian project, an e - Choupal ( " choupal " means gathering place in Hindi ) programme that places computers with internet access in rural farming villages; e - Choupals acted as both a social gathering place for exchange of information and an e - commerce hub.

3. Investment in supply - chain infrastructure: Governments, the food industry, agribusiness and consumer goods retailers need to invesr in supply - chain infrstructures, which have a long economic life.

e - Choupal had a role here too: Out of an initial effort to re - engineer the procurement process for soy, tobacco, wheat, shrimp and other cropping systems in rural India grew a highly profitable distribution and product design channel for the company - an e - commerce platform and also a low - cost fulfilment system focused on the specific needs of rural India

4. Use of technology: using technological know - howfor improving yields, includingbio - fertilizers applied as soil or seed inoculants and foliar spray, reduction of post - harvest losses through better product preservation techniques, quality preservation processes and innovative ingredients to reduce microbial and toxin contamination, increased cost - efficiency related to local production, collective brands and quality criteria enhancement to strengthen small - scale producers, packaging technology and efficient logistics.

A range of follow - up activities was reportedly initiated, including a new project ( supported by the Italian Development Cooperation ) to extend ETRACE ( UNIDO ' s Egyptian Traceability Centre for Agro - Industrial Exports ) activities and help other developing countries to establish similar centres.

Further follow - up initiatives will focus on promotional and outreach activities such as the development of an interactive networking and matchmaking platform for agribusiness practitioners, which will allow continuous sharing of more innovative solutions and best practices with more participants and thus foster more business and development partnerships

If the momentum from this conference can be sustained the future could be brighter for all of us, consumers and farmers alike.

Copyright ( c ) 2010 Alison Withers

The Sunny Side To Global Warming

If you could vote for a change in climate, would you appetite a warmer or a colder one?

In my comment on Redens entry ( Going Around District, I vocal that there is a incontestable side to global warming. Well here you are.

When we hear the word global warming, we always get a gloomy picture of Whopping Earth. Scientists point the finger at us humans who are believed to be causing this potentially catastrophic climate change.

Hereafter another accumulation of academics, experts in the fields ranging from agriculture to medicine, swear by that global warming may following all have a express side to it. Adjoining studying the likely consequences for everything from crop yields to human health, they found that a hotter planet brings many benefits and that human beings can adapt perfectly well to it. This belief is a result of repeated analyses of past episodes of dramatic, though not entirely natural, climate change.

Philip Stott, emeritus professor of biogeography at th University of London, said that cold is nearly always worse for everythingthe economy, agriculture, disease, biodiversity. He cited two historical periods where prosperity had been tied to unusually warm periods. They were the so - called Medieval Warm Period between 1100 and 1300 and the Little Ice Age between 1450 and 1870. The latter was characterized by famines, pandemics, and social upheaval.

Scientists at the University of London published a review that pointed out a basic medical fact. In many countries, cold kills far more people each year than heat. For the kind of temperature rise predicted for the UK over the next 45 years, the team estimated that heat - related deaths would rise by about 2000 a year, but that this figure would be dwarfed by a cut in cold - related deaths of 20, 000.

In the field of agriculture, adaptabilityhuman or otherwiseplays a crucial role in the improved crop yields and forest cover. Prof. Richard Adams, an agricultural economist at Oregon State University, said that if you take an agronomic model and make conditions hotter and drier, then crop yields go down. But farmers make sure this does not happen. A farmer who sees his crops doing poorly under a drier climate, will plant a more heat - resistant type of crops. Because of this adaptation, another study by Prof. Robert Mendelsohn, an economist at Yale University, crop yield grows by more than 13 %.

The ever increasing presence of carbon dioxide in Earths atmosphere may be alarming, but some benefits are attributed to it. Global yields of wheat and rice are expected to rise by 18 %, while yields of clover are set to rise by 36 %. Global vegetation, in fact, has been enjoying net gains in growth since early 1980s across the whole planet. Even tropical forests and the Amazon are reportedly growing more luxuriant as carbon dioxide levels rise.

Your thoughts?

Source: Readers Digest - Asia, March 2006

ORIGINAL ARTICLE SOURCE:

http: / / www. gbwatch. com /? p=45