News

May 21, 2008

Plant Impact In Talks With Major Manufacturers To Improve Pesticide And Fertiliser Products

By Charles Wyatt

One of the basic facts of agriculture is that most of the acreage that can be cultivated has been cultivated, though not necessarily very efficiently. A very large proportion of the world’s surface, after all, is covered by water, sand, mountains and forests. In addition to this it has to be remembered that crops have preferences regarding climate, water, and what the French call terroir. The English definition of terroir is rather loose, broadly speaking it means the variability of soil types, from sandy to rocky, dry and stoney, as favoured by certain grape varieties to wet, which is best for rice. Anyone starting to consider investing in agriprods has to remember that there are very few generalities that apply to all crops, though weather and disease can cause havoc to all of them.

But one example of a generality was to be found in the good old Financial Times over the weekend. A plethora of its teenage scribblers writing an article entitled ‘Seeds of Doubt over Agriculture’s Bull Market’ quote an analyst from UBS as saying that: “All it would take is one big crop to prove to the world that we have enough food – and these stocks would suffer.” What crop, pray, and where in the world?  Corn in the States, wheat in Australia, coffee in Brazil, or rice in the Irrawaddy...