• South China Morning Post reported that China has expanded the commercial adoption of genetic modification (GM) to 2 staple crops, making major strides in its plan to ensure food security despite persistent public controversy over the technology. A total of 37 GM corn varieties and 14 GM soybean varieties have been given green light for commercial planting. China previously limited the application of GM technology to papaya and cotton.

• Nikkei Asia quoted Musim Mas as saying that the group faces “a big challenge” over the EU’s new deforestation regulation, which will particularly affect Indonesia’s small individual farmers. A company official said that many small farmers’ output cannot be traced and some might not even possess land titles. She added that to meet EU’s regulation, Musim Mas recently halted the export of palm oil from small farmers to the region. Palm oil produced by independent small farmers is now used to meet demand from the Asia Pacific markets as the region “cares about quality but probably not traceability”.

• Bloomberg reported that Argentine farmers are shifting to soybean from corn due to the drought. The Rosario Board of Trade said that in a key sliver of the Argenine Pampas known as “zona nucleo”, farmers are changing their plans for an early-corn crop to plant soybean instead on 200,000 hectares. Soybean is usually planted in November or December, hence, there is time to wait for rains to moisten the fields for seeding. The shift to soybean in zona nucleo could increase as some farmers with plans to sow 510,000 hectares of late-corn may switch to soybean.

• Bloomberg cited Louis Dreyfus Co as saying that it is building a soybean processing plant in Ohio to boost production of the vegetable oil that has been increasingly used as cooking oil and fuel. Construction of the US$500mil plant is set to begin next year with an annual processing capacity of 1.5mil tonnes of soybean.

• According to Reuters, India has extended its restriction on sugar exports beyond October, as it tries to bring down domestic prices by increasing supplies ahead of key state elections. India’s sugar export restrictions have been in place in the past 2 years. During this time, India allocated export quotas to mills. In the last season ending 30 September, India allowed mills to export only 6.2mil tonnes of sugar after permitting the mills to sell a record 11.1mil tonnes in 2021/2022. An industry player said that India is unlikely to allocate export quotas this year as its goal will be to reduce prices before the elections.

• Reuters also reported that India has raised the price at which it buys locally produced new season wheat by 150 rupees or 7% to encourage farmers to expand growing areas as New Delhi tries to increase production. India sets a price each year to protect domestic farmers from distress sales and stock the grain for emergency needs. It also uses grain to sell food to the poor at low prices. The revised purchase price for 2024 is 2,275 rupees (US$27.33) per 100kg compared to 2,125 rupees a year ago.

Source: AmInvest Research - 30 Oct 2023