Australian Shares Sparty's Blog
Comments on this blog should never be taken as investment advice
Posts on this website are general "tips" and nothing more than that and should never be used to make an investment or trading decision. All information should be carefully cross-checked against official sources for accuracy.
Main Forum•ASX: MAK - UCL, China PORK and Phosphate
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Today's spate of articles (The Australian and Reuters etc) re the shift in China's diet towards more meat based protein as outlined below (snippet from Reuters) indicates that China will become a net importer of corn and that China and the world's pork exporters will strive to grow more corn to feed their herd of pigs.
Joining the dots: To grow more corn on the same amount of land you need to add more phosphate and nitrogen.
Since the GFC phosphate fertilizers usage dropped markedly and now farmers are trying to grow crops on phosphate depleted lands. Hence there are many predictions that phosphate usage is going to increase... if this comes to pass there will be a supply deficit that will drive up prices....
. This brings into focus Australia's emerging phosphate producers.
Read about Australia's Phosphate stocks etc
I hold MAK, UCL, KRB, AGO, LYC.
Reuters snippet: Translated from Beijing Times China, the world's second-largest consumer of corn and top consumer of pork as well as a major consumer of sugar, has already increased imports of these commodities this year as domestic production falls behind fast growing demand.China has said it aims to remain largely self-sufficient in grains over the next five years.
To cope with the country's rapidly growing demand for farm products, the country's top state-owned trading house, COFCO Co. Ltd., will spend more than $10 billion to fund overseas mergers and acquisitions in the next five years, the China Daily reported last week.
"Because of the nation's limited agricultural resources, we have to look overseas," the paper cited Jiang Hua, a board member, as saying. "The next 10 years will be a period of fast growth in China's consumption of foodstuffs, including poultry, meat, eggs and dairy products."
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Sparty, Long term I do not doubt that China and India will want to get as fat as many of us in the western world. But I think that time will have to wait for an adjustment in the credit world in Europe and China to play out... which will take time. I believe MAK will had its time... just not yet
Alite
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Hi Alite, I think that the "fat" part has already started to happen... Perhaps the best way to play the "fat" trend would to be to invest in diabetes care as diabetes is now soaring in China.
"(Reuters Health) - China now has more people with diabetes than any other country, a new report shows, making it clear that the nation's soaring economic growth is taking a toll on public health.
According to the report, more than 92 million adults in China have diabetes, and nearly 150 million more are well on their way to developing it. The disease is more common in people with large waistlines and in those who live in cities, the report indicates." SOURCE: The New England Journal of Medicine, March 25, 2010
India is said to have the world's second largest diabetic population. -
Beautifully done. :-)
