Afgelopen vrijdag berichtte de NRC reeds over het toen nog niet verschenen rapport. Na de presentatie gisteren tijdens de jaarvergaderingen van het IMF en de Wereldbank in Washington kwamen de berichten verder los.

Voedsel wordt schaars en duur. Boerenbedrijven, zo voorziet de bank, zullen moeten groeien om niet plat te worden gedrukt door grote toeleveranciers. De wereld is in verandering, vermeldt het rapport heel duidelijk. Er is geen sprake van incidentele prijsverhogingen, maar van een structurele verandering van de Voedsel en Agri-economie. Er is te lang geaarzeld met het opvoeren van de productie in nieuw in ontwikkeling te brengen massaproductie gebieden in de 2e en 3e wereld.

Twee citaten uit het rapport dat hier gedownload kan worden:

Feast and famine cycles are not a new phenomenon. World history is littered with examples of cycles of agri-commodity abundance and scarcity and the impacts they have had on food systems and indeed on civilisations. As the world’s food systems have steadily moved towards becoming a single global system, it was assumed that the risk of a scarcity cycle having a profound and lasting effect on the way food is produced and supplied to consumers around the world was diminished.

Yet this is not the case; the world is facing increased agri-commodity scarcity. In Rabobank’s view the world is facing a period of significant agri-commodity scarcity that is set to last for at least this decade. A number of important factors might change in the coming months and years such as a double-dip economic recession or the rolling back of biofuels legislation. Although these changes may impact the timing of the outlook, they do not undermine the conclusion that global agri-commodity prices are expected to shift higher and become more volatile. This in itself is not a new phenomenon — there are many prior instances of agri-commodity price spikes being met with a strong supply response and a subsequent re-levelling.
But what is happening this time is genuinely different.

Farmers are clearly vulnerable in this change. They are usually price-takers at the upstream end of supply chains, left with whatever margin is available given farm-gate prices and input costs. They will be squeezed from upstream farm input suppliers — chemical, fertiliser, seed and machinery companies — who will be seeking to maximise their returns from new investments designed to enhance productivity. Farmers will also be squeezed by downstream customers — processors and traders — who will be seeking to capitalise on strong demand and minimise the margin they pass back upstream. Farmers without market power gained through scale and without adequate balance sheet strength to navigate their way through the volatility will be most vulnerable to these changes.
The good news for farmers is that F&A companies are increasingly recognising the need to work with farmers and support them — after all, without primary production there is no market. F&A companies downstream and upstream of farmers are increasingly looking to put the farmer first to de-risk their businesses.
In most cases, larger producers will be best placed, and over time we believe there will be a shift to larger farms.


Nederland en West-Europa bewegen zich op dit moment naar een verkleining van de productie. Niet alleen maatschappelijk, maar ook economisch kunnen vergrotingen nauwelijks meer uit. Het laatste is het gevolg van lagere kostprijzen in ideale massaproductiegebieden zoals Brazilië. Dit leidt tot de paradoxale situatie dat productievolume wegvalt om economische redenen, terwijl tekorten voorzien worden. De NRC schrijft dan ook in de subkop bij zijn bericht van vrijdag over het rapport: "Rabobank slaat alarm over voedselzekerheid en vraagt om lange-termijnvisie'.
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