The AGROPOLICS Blog

As the coronavirus spreads across the globe, it is forcing world leaders to tread on unfamiliar territory. Starkly different strategies are being employed to manage both the virus and the economic wreckage left in its wake. Only time will tell what the optimal path through this crisis would have been. For the meantime, however, I believe there is value in understanding the approach that different countries, and especially their food and agriculture industries, are taking to confront COVID-19..

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Since the earliest days of livestock domestication, the people who raise cattle have been striving to increase their productivity. Over the millennia, this mission has included adopting improved management practices and incorporating new technologies. But perhaps no shift has had such a profound impact as the active use of genetics to achieve the expression of certain sought-after characteristics in these bovines…

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As consumers, we engage with food labels every time we make a purchasing decision. We rely on these labels to properly convey data so that we can make informed choices about the foods we buy. But the subject of food labeling is far from black and white. We know that the content included on labels, as well as the way they are laid out, can have a heavy influence on the selections consumers make. As such, food labeling is a powerful tool.

Many stakeholders, both internal and external to the food industry, have a strong desire to control product labeling. Their rationales, ranging from altruism to profitability, create a complicated backdrop against which labeling laws have evolved in recent years. While developed markets have led the debate around food labels, more recently the issue has become front and center in Latin America.

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Every year, Christmas comes early for polo fans across the world. In the final months of the year, polo enthusiasts flock to Argentina to witness the sport’s top athletes – horse and human alike – battle it out for the title of the Argentine Open. But behind the fanfare of polo’s most prestigious tournament, there is a unique and thriving industry that has come to represent an important element of Argentina’s agricultural economy…

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On October 27, Argentines went to the polls and selected Alberto Fernández as their new president. Fernández ran on behalf of the ‘Frente de Todos’ party, the most recent incarnation of Argentinean Peronism. Even more significant then Fernández himself was his running mate, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, who served as Argentina’s president between 2007 and 2015 and presided over a period of economic decay…

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Most of us are aware of the crisis gripping Venezuela. We’ve seen the tragic images of residents facing empty grocery store shelves and of mothers desperate to find medicine for their children. While media coverage of the crisis ebbs and flows, competing with other international stories, the situation in Venezuela becomes more dire each day.

 

A lack of basic resources, combined with suffocating economic circumstances, have forced scores of Venezuelans to leave their country – striking out to settle abroad in hopes of creating a better life for their families. This mass migration has created a strain on the resources of recipient countries and raised familiar but important questions about the bureaucratic barriers to migration. In addition to the alarming humanitarian implications, the Venezuelan migration will have a profound and lasting impact on cultural norms across the region – especially when it comes to diet and eating patterns…

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There are no winners in a trade war. The global economy is witnessing the truth of this expression as the escalating conflict between China and the United States weighs on the indicators of economic performance worldwide. But even as we recognize that the long-term cost of the trade war will be spread across the globe, in the short term, the tension will also create opportunities for those nations which are poised to capitalize on the emerging commercial gaps…

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There is perhaps no part of Argentine cuisine as iconic as beef. Cooked slowly over hot coals on a parilla, the authentic asado is relished by locals and tourists alike. Of course, Argentina’s cattle culture reaches beyond the grill, with herds of tranquilly grazing beef cattle having become synonymous with any mention of the Argentine Pampas…

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Competing for airtime with the ongoing Copa América, the news began to bubble to the surface on June 28th. After decades of negotiation, Mercosur and the European Union had finally signed a trade agreement. Complementing previously agreed upon political and cooperative treaties, this accord is the final piece of the trifecta of deals composing the comprehensive Association Agreement between the two blocs…

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Over the past few years we’ve seen the same cycle play out many times. Threatening tweet leads to market hysteria, leads to harried impact analysis. Sometimes action follows, sometimes not. Regardless of the actual outcome, since 2016 it feels like we have all dedicated significant portions of our lives to following what the potential fallout from the trade war du jour might be.

 

Perhaps there is no country with which this drama has been more noticeable than with Mexico. Repeated swipes at NAFTA (now USMCA for those keeping score at home), followed by retaliatory steel and aluminum tariffs, and of late the potential for tariffs tied to inaction on immigration, have become seemingly commonplace. Agricultural products play a key role in trade between the US and Mexico (for more details see our earlier blog on the subject). And as such, it is not surprising that they have been a dominant topic during trade discussions. But amid all the commotion, an unlikely figure has really taken center stage…

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For foreign private investors, the direct investment model is proving the best way to access the Peruvian permanent crop opportunity, says Roberto Vitón, managing director at Valoral Advisors, a food and agri specialist advisory firm based in Luxembourg...

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We put it in our coffee, use it when baking a cake, and more than likely, you are trying to control how much of it is in your diet. But for such a ubiquitous product, you may not know a lot about what sugar is and where it comes from. Today’s blog will explore sugarcane, a crop that has molded the social, economic, and agricultural development of Latin America and beyond...

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