Agriprods Forum

1st Agriprods Forum

9th September 2008

Bishopsgate and Chancery Room
Andaz Hotel, Liverpool Street EC1
(Formerly Great Eastern Hotel)

Registration - 9am
Presentations beginning at 9.30am

The background against which we are arranging our first Agriprods Forum is a fascinating one. Record food prices have been put on the agenda for the next G8 meeting. It’s the first time the G8 group - or General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, as it used to be known – has discussed the issue of food prices in almost 30 years. The International Monetary Fund, meanwhile, warned that food and oil prices “risk becoming a destabilising force in the global economy.” There have been riots in a number of countries, from Bangladesh to Cameroon, and the government in Haiti fell as a result of rice price riots.

The list of soft commodities in which there are futures markets range from sugar to rubber, palm oil to orange juice and corn to coffee, but companies involved in agriprods go an awful lot wider than that. The most vital constituent is water, but this tends just to be placed in a sector called Utilities which includes power generators and electricity suppliers. The need to clean up water to potable and crop irrigation standards is vital in huge countries like China and this means that a whole new generation of companies is developing technology for this purpose.

So how far do we go in defining agriprods? The answer to that is how long is a piece of string. Wine producers, fish meat and vegetable processors and packagers, ranchers, timber companies, fertiliser manufacturers, agricultural machinery, plantations, fruit growers, food wholesalers and retailers, producers of all types of vegetable oil, pesticide manufacturers, arable farmers, livestock farmers, milk producers, fish farming etc etc. As prices of food products rise, more private companies will list in order to capitalise on past achievements and fund future expansion.

It happened in mining. In 2000 there were only ten junior mining companies listed on AIM. Now there are over 200. Back in the 60s the London Stock Exchange had a thriving plantations section which is starting to re-emerge. New Britain Palm Oil is a classic example and it has nearly doubled since listing last year. These rises in food and ancillary products are not a temporary phenomenon. Two of the biggest countries in the world are undergoing industrial revolutions. With more prosperity comes demand for more and higher standard food. Biofuels is another matter and this is the only mention we are likely to make of competition for cultivated acreage for a product that politicians totally misjudged.

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For further information about presenting please contact Emma Milton emma[at]agriprods.com.

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