The world’s largest cocoa producers, Ivory Coast and Ghana, have halted or scaled down processing in major plants amid soaring bean costs, Reuters reported on Thursday, saying the situation has led to a global hike in chocolate prices.
The two West African nations produce nearly 60% of the world’s cocoa. However, both have been struggling with extreme weather changes and cocoa pod diseases for months, according to a report published on Tuesday by the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank). Cocoa supplies from the former French colony over the period of October 2023 to February 2024 were down by roughly 39% from the previous year, at 1.04 million metric tons, according to Afreximbank. Ghana’s exports dropped by about 35% to 341,000 metric tons between September 2023 and January 2024. Benchmark cocoa futures for March delivery on the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) in New York rose above $6,000 per metric ton last Friday before easing to around $5,880 per ton, still exceeding the previous record high of $5,379 set in 1977. Bean prices are expected to rise further due to the threat to the global supply posed by the weather phenomenon El Nino, which caused droughts in West Africa in the third quarter of 2023 and is expected to last until April, industry analysts have warned. “We need massive demand destruction to catch up with the supply destruction,” Reuters quoted Steve Wateridge, director of Tropical Research Services, as saying. State-owned cocoa processor Transcao, which is one of Ivory Coast’s nine plants, said it is unable to purchase beans at current prices and is relying on existing stock. Global trader Cargill has also struggled to source beans for its major processing plant in Ivory Coast, shutting down operations for about a week last month, anonymous sources told Reuters. Ghana, the world’s second-largest cocoa grower, has seen the majority of its eight plants, including the state-owned Cocoa Processing Company (CPC), repeatedly suspend operations for weeks since last October, the news agency reported. CPC has said it is only operating at about 20% capacity due to the shortage. Last week, Michele Buck, CEO of American candy giant Hershey and one of the world’s largest chocolate manufacturers, predicted that “historic cocoa prices” will limit earnings growth in 2024, resulting in product price increases.
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World Obesity Day was marked last week (March 4) and with over a billion people afflicted worldwide, obesity is now considered more dangerous to global health than hunger. The numbers are staggering.
Sometime in the mid-20th century a cameraman captured an unforgettable black-and-white photo depicting thousands of American sunworshippers crowded onto Coney Island, New York City. What is most conspicuous about the iconic photograph, aside from the sheer number of beachgoers, is the lack of excessive cellulite packed into the assorted bathing suits and bikinis. Sadly and not a little tragically, those halcyon days are over. While hunger overwhelmingly afflicts the poverty-stricken nations of the world, obesity represents a unique type of affliction in that it targets both rich and poor alike. Between 1990 and 2022, global obesity rates quadrupled for children and doubled for adults, according to a new study by the Lancet (The World Health Organization classifies obesity as having a body-mass index equal to or greater than 30 kilograms per square meter). In the WHO's top-ten 'hefty' list, it may come as some surprise that the tiny Polynesian nations of Tonga and American Samoa had the highest prevalence of obesity in 2022 for women, while American Samoa and [nearby] Nauru had the highest rates among men. In those picturesque island paradises, more than 60% of the adult population were clinically obese. Other surprises included Egypt, weighing in at number ten in the female category, while Qatar took tenth place in boys’ obesity levels. Among the wealthy countries, the United States was the heavyweight representative and is tenth in the world for obesity among men. Shockingly, the US adult obesity rate increased from 21.2% in 1990 to 43.8% in 2022 for women, and from 16.9% to 41.6% in 2022 for men, placing the nation of 330 million fast-food consumers 36th in the world for highest obesity rates among women and, for men, tenth in the world. By contrast, the adult obesity rate in the United Kingdom increased from 13.8% in 1990 to 28.3% in 2022 among females, ranking it 87th highest in the world, while the obesity rate for males surged from 10.7% to 26.9%, placing Britain at 55th. Among children, the study found the US obesity rates increased from 11.6% in 1990 to 19.4% in 2022 for girls, 11.5% to 21.7% for boys. In 2022, the US ranked 22nd in the world for obesity among girls, 26th for boys. Considering the rapid rates of change among Americans, the US will be predictably dominating the charts in just a few years, creating what could be considered a national emergency. None of this should have been unpredictable. After all, what does a society expect that can’t even park the car and walk several steps into the restaurant? And it’s not like consumers are ordering homemade soup and salads at the drive-thru window. The junk food served at fast food enterprises is loaded with sodium content in order to prolong its shelf life, as well as saturated fatty acids that increase cholesterol levels in the body, clog the blood vessels and restrict normal blood flow, leading to heart disease. And that’s not even mentioning the high-fructose corn syrup found in the cola drinks. The real challenge, however, is how to combat obesity at a time when so many people have become addicted to a sedentary, order-online lifestyle. It probably comes as no surprise that the same people who demand their food fast and fried, will also expect an easy cure as well. Americans anxious about having to purchase a new wardrobe have taken to various diet pills, like Ozempic, a diabetes drug that is being used off-label as an appetite suppressant, and which got a shout out by none other than Elon Musk. The investment bank Morgan Stanley was panicked enough by the potential dent in junk-food profits that it released a white paper detailing how the diet pills could make Americans’ consumption of snack foods around 3% lower. But do the American people really need another drug to combat the battle of the bulge, or is there a better, more natural way forward? Back in 2022, the World Health Organization adopted an obesity response plan that includes a number of lifestyle changes, including the promotion of breastfeeding, restrictions on marketing unhealthy food and drinks to children, nutrition labelling, and physical activity standards for schools. Now, if the WHO can just get Big Business behind the initiative, it just might make an impact. Asia’s bountiful rice fields have fed the world for centuries, but the industry now faces a threat from a weedy “cousin” of the staple that has proliferated due in part to poor farming practices.
Mealy in texture with dark pigmentation and unfit for consumption, weedy rice can grow rapidly and taller than the regular crop varieties, depriving the latter of soil nutrients and sunlight. As a result of the invasive weedy rice, harvest quality, yields and in turn market value of regular rice have declined significantly in recent years. “They have become feral through a sort of accidental selection. They will eventually stick out over a crop field, but the problem is that by the time they are visible, there can often be quite an infestation,” Kenneth Olsen, Professor of Biology at Washington University, told This Week in Asia. “A major weedy rice infestation can reduce crop harvests in a given field by over 80 per cent,” he said. According to the World Economic Forum, Asian rice producers account for more than 80 per cent of global supply. Olsen was part of an international team including biologists in the United States, Thailand, Malaysia and China who have analysed the menace in a new study. The origins of weedy rice are unclear, although farmers first reported its presence about two decades ago. A high proportion of its varieties in East Asia appears to be directly descended from hybrid rice varieties introduced in the 1980s, Olsen said. Other varieties of weedy rice have also crossbred with wild rice varieties in Asia. “These very aggressive weedy forms can outcompete other rice crops [in terms of growth],” he said. According to several studies, weedy rice appears to be linked to certain cultivated rice varieties in Japan, South Korea and China. It only requires a small amount of weedy rice plants per square metre to cause huge damage to the harvest of cultivated rice, Olsen said. For instance, the US saw crop losses equivalent to an amount that was sufficient to feed 12 million people due to the damage caused by weedy rice in the last few years, he added. Some of the weedy varieties are highly effective at dispersing their seeds in rice fields because of a certain genetic mutation. “These seeds can lie dormant and be perfectly viable for 20 years,” Olsen said. Major rice producer Thailand had reported losses of about 10 per cent of its output as a result of the weedy rice problem in recent years, said Tonapha Pusadee, one of the study’s co-authors. Some studies show that weedy rice varieties found in Southeast Asia have branched off into different evolutionary pathways, including several that originated from cultivated rice. Thai farmers have resorted to several ways to deal with weedy rice, such as cutting the panicles, or the top portions, of their rice crops, using a chemical in a bid to eliminate the problem and planting rice for only one season, Pusadee said.
Similar rallies were held across Poland in January. A separate protest by another group of farmers and truckers blocking a key border crossing with Ukraine saw Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s government capitulate to the protesters’ demands, which included reinstating a permit system for Ukrainian truckers, adopting government subsidies for Polish corn, and a moratorium on tax hikes. Last Thursday, the European Commission proposed extending the suspension of customs duties on agricultural goods from Ukraine and Moldova through 2025. The measure was originally scheduled to expire this year. Thousands of farmers from across the bloc descended on Brussels ahead of that summit, throwing eggs, rocks, and fireworks at the EU Parliament building and setting huge piles of manure on fire.
Cocoa prices have roughly doubled since the start of last year. Experts attribute the spike to poor crops in Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana, the countries together responsible for two-thirds of the world’s cocoa beans. Both countries have been struggling with extreme weather changes and cocoa pod diseases for months. Shipments of cocoa from Cote d’Ivoire were down by roughly 39% from the previous year over the period of October 2023 to February 2024, at 1.04 million metric tons, Euronews reported. Exports from Ghana also plunged by some 35% to 341,000 metric tons during the period of September 2023 through January 2024. A Reuters cocoa poll last week projected the global cocoa bean deficit reaching 375,000 tons in the current agricultural season. Industry analysts note that bean costs are likely to keep growing due to the threat to global supply posed by the weather phenomenon El Nino, which caused draughts in West Africa during the third quarter of 2023, and is expected to continue at least until April.
Chocolate manufacturers have been warning that rising cocoa bean costs may force them to pass on the changes to consumers. On an earnings call on Thursday, the CEO of US candy giant Hershey, Michele Buck, said she expects “historic cocoa prices” to limit earnings growth in 2024 and translate into price rises on products. “We will be using every tool in our toolbox, including pricing, as a way to manage the business,” Buck stated. The company Mondelez, the owner of candy maker Cadbury, last month also warned that it would be hiking prices as a “last resort” to manage costs. Earlier this week, the head of the European Cocoa Association, Paul Davis, warned that the global cocoa market is likely to remain tight for another 18 months to three years. “We’ve got headwinds all over the place at the moment. Very expensive fertilizers, tough conditions for farmers, tough conditions for consumers… We are in a very tight balance. There is no cavalry that’s coming to the rescue,” he stated, as cited by the Business Insider. EDITORIAL: Von der Leyen celebrates ‘a great day for Europe’ as farmers protest in Brussels3/2/2024 “Agreement! The European Council delivered on our priorities. Supporting Ukraine…. A good day for Europe,” tweeted unelected European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Thursday, as EU farmers “high-fived” her by throwing eggs, lighting fires and dumping manure in Brussels, where a reported 1,300 tractors had gathered in protest.
Surely it must have been in anticipation of this “great day for Europe” that Brussels rolled out the barbed wire to keep the bloc’s own struggling farmers at bay while its leaders cut yet another check for Ukraine — after threatening the one anticipated holdout with national economic “blackmail,” as Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban qualified it. It’s hard to believe that this meeting actually took place in Brussels. These officials are so disconnected from reality that it may as well have been held on a whole other planet. Unlike the Ukrainian products making their way onto Western European dinner plates to stick it to Russian President Vladimir Putin (because turtlenecks and short, cold showers apparently failed to do the job), this crisis is certifiably EU-made. No one knows this better than the farmers, who also realize that it makes more sense to blockade the streets of Brussels than the national highways of their home countries, which they’ve been doing with overwhelming public support – from nine out of every ten citizens in the case of France, according to a recent Odoxa poll. It was the EU with its climate change obsession that imposed a Common Agricultural Policy on farmers across the entire bloc, managed by bureaucrats divorced from the reality on the ground. Pencil pushers use EU Copernicus satellite images to spy and crack down on farmers whose paperwork doesn’t match – even if any discrepancies can be chalked up to uncontrollable but temporary conditions like the weather. It was also the EU that piled on regulations under the pretext of ensuring the quality of farm products, while at the same time flooding the bloc with grain, poultry, and other imports from Ukraine. Does “Chernobyl chicken” mass-produced by workers who are paid a pittance represent a threat to the physical health of citizens and economic health of farmers? If not, then why can’t Brussels take its jackboot off the necks of its own farmers so they can compete on a level playing field? The EU has also suddenly decided to ease up on some pesticide bans, angering greens. Paris is promoting the idea that ideologically-driven bans need to end, which seems like a tacit admission of their uselessness. So what should we be more worried about now – ideologically-driven authoritarianism under the guise of health consciousness, or an actual health threat? And what about that Ukrainian grain that EU officials demanded Russia unblock to feed the poor in developing countries? It turns out that Turkey and Russia were right when they raised the alarm about it just being dumped right next door in Europe, and it sounds like Russian President Vladimir Putin was effectively a bigger defender of EU farmers’ interests than Brussels was. But who’s even surprised anymore by Brussels’ misplaced priorities, given the image that has now emerged of another €50 billion ($54 billion) going out the door to Kiev, in support of a country that’s undercutting the EU’s own farmers without even being in the EU itself? It was also the EU that screwed itself, its entire population, industry, and farmers out of cheap Russian energy, driving inflation that caused consumers to turn to cheaper food products and, in turn, driving industrial distributors to buy more cheaply, favoring Ukrainian imports. French President Emmanuel Macron said that he’d now be merciless with those industrials, as he limbers up to toss them under the tractors instead of taking responsibility for his own inaction or blaming Brussels for a top-down anti-Russia policy that’s doing far more harm than good. The farmers’ problems are existential. And while some French farming union chiefs have called for the suspension of blockades in light of the most recent series of promised reforms announced by Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, it’s not clear whether the rank and file will actually listen in the long term. These are people who don’t talk much, but when they do, they’re direct and concrete. As one farmer told me, “Our feet may be in the dirt, but the dirt is clean” – in contrast to some politicians who have different narratives depending on their audience. Even with the suspension of the blockades on Friday, union reps admit that if government action and implementation doesn’t follow shortly, then the blowback from the same farmers risks being “catastrophic.” For many farmers I’ve spoken with, it’s far too little, and way too late. The average French farmer’s income, estimated by government statistics back in 2021 at around €17,700 a year (for people who regularly work 70 hours a week), has since been subjected to even more blows. Yet governments have insisted on milking this particular cow until there’s nothing left. How else to explain the careless decision to raise taxes on farm fuel by 3 cents a liter, every year, and the insistence on maintaining such a policy at a time when the price of energy had skyrocketed as a result of knee-jerk anti-Russian ideological choices imposed by the EU? Until the tractors spilled onto the highways in France, Paris showed no interest in reversing this tax policy, which was implemented to drive the “green transition” away from conventional energy, and against all pragmatic reality. Clearly French officials knew of its devastating impact, as it was one of the very first concessions that Attal tried tossing like a speed bump in front of the advancing tractors on January 26 – and which the farmers rolled right over, demanding more. Then there’s Queen Ursula briefly breaking from her fawning over the EU farmers’ current nemesis, Ukraine, to propose easing their “administrative burden.” Too bad she didn’t do that before letting Ukraine into the market in the first place. Guess she could always just blame Putin for making her do it. The bureaucracy is so overwhelming at this point that her proposal to the farmers is like offering to save people drowning in the ocean by tossing them a bucket. She could have stopped the paperwork pile-on at any time, but didn’t. And how exactly could she know this demagoguery was killing European farming? You’d think that the first clue would have been the fact that EU policies ended up strong-arming Dutch farmers to sell their land to the government because their cattle’s nitrogen emissions exceeded climate policy limits. Macron has now started to lobby the EU to restrict Ukrainian imports. Wow. You’d think these tractors were Decepticon Transformers about to rise up and kick their behinds, the way that all these EU leaders are suddenly springing into action. But the fact that an elected president even has to go cap in hand to plead with unelected Brussels bureaucrats, rather than make sovereign decisions in the best interests of his own country, is pathetic. Like, what if they say no? Then what? Does Macron think that he’s going to single-handedly and permanently derail the new Mercosur free trade deal, ready for signature, and set to flood the EU with even more farm products from Brazil and the rest of South America? If Macron, or any other EU leader had any courage, they would have vetoed the €50 billion for Ukraine and demanded that it be used in consultation with EU farmers to ease their burden and “unscrew” the bloc. That’s a lot of bought time for the EU to figure out how to deconstruct the mess that it has made of its own house through corruption and special interests – all in hope that one day, people doing honest work can also make a commensurately decent living. The French government is scrambling to get a whole lot of tractors off the nation’s major highways. Good luck with that when 89% of French citizens back the protesting farmers, according to a new Odoxa poll.
France is joining a movement that now encompasses nearly 20% of the EU, with farmers in five of the bloc’s 27 countries convoying and blockading major roads. Farmers in Poland, Romania, Germany, and the Netherlands have now been joined by their counterparts from the country virtually synonymous with revolution. And one particular incident here in France has just shifted the nascent movement into overdrive. Alexandra Sonac, a 35-year-old cattle and corn farmer from the south of France, and two of her three family members were struck by a car in the dark early morning hours at a farmers’ highway blockade near Toulouse. Sonac and her 12-year-old daughter were killed, while her husband is in intensive care. The incident is still under investigation, but to add insult to injury, the three Armenian occupants of the vehicle that struck the family were reportedly under an expulsion order. The symbolism here is glaring. A productive farmer resisting government economic oppression was killed by someone who has enjoyed the benefits of government laxity. Just 12% of expulsion orders were carried out by France between 2015 and 2021, one of the lowest rates in Europe, according to recent statistics. French farmers’ complaints converge with those of their counterparts across the EU. They’re angry with their own governments, but only because these elected officials have insisted on sliding into the fitted straitjacket imposed on them by the unelected technocratic tyrants in Brussels and their top-down, ideologically driven policies. There’s a good reason why French farmers this week have ripped up and burned the same EU flag that President Emmanuel Macron insists on placing alongside the French tricolor in his various appearances. Farmers all across the bloc have similar demands. They want a fair price for energy while the EU not only has imposed costly climate policies that treat fossil fuels like the plague, but has also decided, “for Ukraine,” to destroy its own supply of cheap Russian gas that drove Europe’s economy. Then, again for Ukraine, they decided to lift import duties on goods and services from Ukraine, allowing the EU to be flooded with truckers who undercut local providers and with equally undercutting farm products that don’t even meet the EU standards with which European farmers are forced to comply at their own expense. Farmers don’t want handouts, but they want governments to lay off the increasingly heavy taxation as their solution to filling state coffers emptied as a result of their constantly misplaced priorities. They also want their national governments to defend their interests against Brussels’ attempts to replace them with cheap foreign imports through endless free trade deals with countries whose farmers don’t operate under the same regulatory diktats, all while Brussels pushes member states (notably the Netherlands) to buy out farms whose cattle waste doesn’t serve its climate change policies. It’s no surprise that the average person sympathizes, since they’re equally fed up with their incompetent heavy-handed government serving as a white glove for Brussels’ iron fist. They see that their gas and electricity costs are endlessly climbing, and their buying power is circling the drain, all while the French defense minister, for example, talks about how the Ukraine conflict, that has served as a convenient pretext for Europe’s transfer of wealth from the people to the elites, is such a wonderful opportunity for the military industrial complex. And when the French National Assembly approved themselves a €300 ($327) a month increase in their own allowances this week, just to offset the inflation that’s crushing the average citizen, it serves as yet another example of their total tone-deafness. On the afternoon of January 24, a massive row of tires and manure was set ablaze by angry French farmers right in front of the prefecture of Agen, in southwest France. Some farmers present denounced the move, others voiced their support, but all agreed to being fed up. More tellingly, police and firefighters on the scene dragged their feet in reacting as the smoke extended almost to the height of the adjacent building, considered a symbol of the French state. Apparently, even frontline workers who serve the state’s institutions are getting fed up with the establishment elites. And not just in Europe, but elsewhere in the West. Canadian Freedom Convoy truckers and their supporters were vindicated in Canadian Federal Court this week when a judge ruled that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government constitutionally violated fundamental rights and freedoms when it evoked the Emergency Act against protesting opponents to the government’s Covid mandates, which they considered a violation of basic rights and freedoms. The fact that the government ordered bank accounts blocked as a deterrent against protesting should have been the first big hint of growing authoritarianism, but apparently it took a federal judge to spell it out. German farmers and truckers who began convoying across the country earlier this month told me in Berlin that they were inspired by the Freedom Convoy as they railed against the German government’s imposition of more taxes on the diesel that fuels their farm vehicles, already pricy as a result of the government’s misguided energy policies driven by ideological, knee-jerk opposition to fossil fuels and to cheap gas from Russia. In both the Freedom Convoy and farmer cases, grotesque attempts by government officials to portray protesters as some kind of right-wing radicals, to absolve elites from responsibility, have fallen flat among the general population. I spent a week with farmers protesting near the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. Too bad Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government didn’t get down off its high horse and do the same. It was a missed opportunity to benefit from a much-needed mugging by reality.
Instead, the Interior Ministry contented itself by preemptively framing the protesters as susceptible to far-right infiltration. Scholz said that “rage is being stoked deliberately” by “extremists”. When asked about this concept, the unanimous response among the farmers was laughter, eye rolling, or one-line jokes. If you want to put down a dog, just say it has rabies – or has been hanging out with the far-right. Despite the protest taking place right across the street from the German parliament, farmers said the only officials whose presence was noticed, as they inquired about the protesters’ concerns, were from the right-wing Alternative for Deutschland. Oh no, looks they’re co-opting already! Or maybe they’re just doing their jobs in trying to actually grasp the “ground truth” of the situation rather than framing it up with a convenient narrative in an effort to dismiss it. When a government official finally graced the protest with his presence on January 15, at the apex of the week-long protest, it was Finance Minister Christian Lindner, who took to the stage and loudly proclaimed that the government basically had no money. “I can't promise you more state aid from the federal budget. But we can fight together for you to enjoy more freedom and respect for your work,” he said. I’m not even a farmer – although I was raised on a farm in the Netherlands – and still I find this infuriating. Mostly just as a woman, though. Because Lindner sounds like a guy on a date who says that he’s broke, but instead of just splitting the check, he wants you to pay for the whole thing. The farmers aren’t asking Berlin to pay their bills. What they want is for Team Scholz to refrain from taking even more of their hard-earned money in the form of taxes on diesel fuel for their farm vehicles, particularly at a time when government efforts to stick it to Russia and to the climate-change bogeyman, by making fossil fuel energy less available and affordable, is making it increasingly harder for them to do the job of feeding the country. As if farmers aren’t already paying this government enough. One farmhand told me that his boss has a budget of €3,300 a month for his job, and that by the time all the taxes are paid to the German government, the final salary paid to the worker tops out at €1,400. Where’s all that cash going? Here’s a clue. Scholz said last fall that Germany had to “be able to help Ukraine on the basis of solidarity. We support Ukraine in its defense struggle, with financial resources and weapons.” Yet German farmers are not only told to eat cake, Marie Antoinette style, but also to pay up for the government’s screw-ups. Team Scholz blasted a hole in its own budget when it transferred cash from a Covid fund into a “climate and transformation fund,” but then couldn’t pay it all back, leaving a €17 billion ($18.5 billion) deficit and a scramble to somehow recoup the funds through austerity measures. So Scholz wants the farmers to pay his bills, but also to pay for his mistakes. And if they refuse, they must have been infiltrated by far-right extremists. Unlike this government, farmers pride themselves on productivity and self-sufficiency, which is why they’re juicy targets for the gold diggers in the Bundestag. When floods hit Germany, it was farmers, they say, who were on the front lines rescuing people even before the army was on-site. Throughout the entire protest week of sub-zero temperatures, farmers weathered the elements with several large wood-burning heaters fueled by a massive bin of chopped firewood. Many slept in their trucks or tractors all week. It’s hardly surprising that firefighters were captured on social media expressing their support and admiration for this group, as a large number of farmers also serve as volunteer firefighters in their communities. While he’s hiding across the street in his office, being serenaded by big-rig honking, Scholz’s popularity is hovering around 20%, while 69% of Germans support the farmers’ protests, according to an INSA poll from earlier this month. Has it dawned on the bundeskanzler that if such an overwhelmingly large swath of the population, from the right to the left, all agrees on something, then maybe he just has a “you” problem? The solidarity and unity witnessed in front of the Brandenburg Gate (a symbol of division once located in no man’s land between East and West Berlin) was astounding – from a woman in a hijab handing out soup from a basket to Berliners of migrant origin walking among the participants and expressing their support. Not only did trucks join the tractors, but word got out that farmers and truckers from the Netherlands were on the Autobahn’s A2 and heading towards Berlin. There was also buzz that Polish and Russian truckers were joining forces en route from the Polish border, just hours away. It’s not just farmers and truckers who are fed up. The folks who actually drive the Deutsche Bahn trains went on strike in the same week as the farmers. While the government is haggling with them over their union’s request of a €3,000 ($3,265) one-time employee bonus to cover government-driven inflation, it managed to nonetheless find several million more euros for each of nine top executives of the wholly government-owned company. German farmers have begun a week of nationwide demonstrations, blocking roads with tractors in protest against government plans to phase out agricultural subsidies.
As Joachim Rukwied, president of the German Farmers’ Association (DBV), put it last month, ‘We will be present everywhere in a way the country has never seen before’. And the farmers are not alone. Lorry drivers, hauliers and tradespeople have also joined in the protests. The current wave of unrest was prompted back in December. The German government announced plans to abolish tax breaks on agricultural diesel and introduce new taxes on farm vehicles – a move which would cost farmers on average €4,000 per year. The swift and organised response of the farmers has already frightened the government. On 4 January, it tried to backtrack by announcing that subsidies for new farm vehicles would remain, and that the tax breaks on diesel would be phased out gradually over the course of the next few years, rather than suddenly this year. But these moves have not assuaged farmers’ anger. They insist that the ‘future viability of our industry’ is at stake. And so, as Rukwied put it last week, farmers ‘remain committed’ to the ‘week of action’. It was naïve of the government to believe that its half-hearted compromise would ever appease the farmers. This conflict goes much deeper than a fight over taxes and subsidies. It is about farmers’ long-standing resentment of the green agenda that has been pursued by successive governments. This agenda now threatens the very future of German agriculture. Indeed, the farmers first engaged in mass protest back in 2019, after Angela Merkel’s government demanded a 20 per cent reduction in the use of fertilisers and pesticides as part of its ‘agriculture reform package’. Merkel’s successors have only increased the pressure on farmers. Plans to further reduce fertiliser and pesticide use were announced last summer, with the government keen to meet the EU’s strict directives on nitrates. At the same time, the government announced it planned to tighten animal-husbandry regulations, entangling farmers in even more red tape and paperwork. It is no exaggeration to say that the future of farming is at stake. In the space of just two decades, countless farms have already had to close. The number of farms in Germany during this period has almost halved – from nearly 450,000 in 2001 to 256,000 in 2022. Environmental restrictions and soaring energy costs haven’t just affected smaller farms, either. Bigger farms have also felt the squeeze. To make matters worse, the prices of fertilisers and pesticides have risen sharply, as the German chemical industry has cut back production due to high energy prices. Thanks to the government’s embrace of the green agenda, it is incapable of addressing farmers’ concerns. Over and over again, it pursues Net Zero objectives that are directly at odds with the interests of farmers. And just to rub salt into farmers’ wounds, Germany’s agriculture minister, Cem Özdemir, is a militant vegetarian. ‘If we all eat less meat together, we can all do our bit for the planet’, he told a TV talkshow last year. No wonder farmers have lost all trust in the government. Instead of addressing problems afflicting the agricultural sector, the government, backed by the green-leaning media, has tried to discredit the protesting farmers. It is regularly claimed that the strikes are being exploited by populists and the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD). But is it? According to the outlet, a spokesperson for France’s second biggest grocery has chain confirmed that it will place a note on shelves that have displayed PepsiCo goods which reads “We are no longer selling this brand due to unacceptable price increases.” It is unclear whether PepsiCo products already on Carrefour shelves will be withdrawn, the report added. In October, PepsiCo warned of “modest” price hikes in the new year amid steady demand. The US snacking and beverage giant has raised prices for seven consecutive quarters, hiking them by double digits in the July-September period last year. The company also reduced package sizes of some of its products claiming the aim was “to meet consumer demand for convenience and portion control.”
Last year, amid high consumer inflation, grocery retailers in several EU countries challenged global food giants over prices. Carrefour started a “shrinkflation” campaign in September, sticking warnings on goods that have shrunk in size but cost more. Negotiations are underway in France between food manufacturers and retailers, with the latter demanding price cuts, as they say prices for raw materials and energy have recently come down. Food industry representatives argue that production costs remain high and that manufacturers have absorbed significant inflationary shocks. German farmers drove hundreds of tractors into the capital Berlin on Monday to protest government plans to abolish tax relief for agricultural diesel. Traffic ground to a halt for several hours in the government district and around the Brandenburg Gate as convoys of tractors moved into the city on major roads. Joachim Rukwied, president of the German Farmers' Association, described the government's decision as a "declaration of war," and said they would not accept it. He also warned that farmers would stage nationwide protests next month if the plan was not rolled back. "Then from January 8th we will be present everywhere in a way that the country has never experienced before,” he said in a statement. Chancellor Olaf Scholz's left-liberal coalition government announced austerity measures and spending cuts last week to fix a €17 billion (about $18.5 billion) gap in the 2024 budget. Under the scheme, German farmers will no longer receive tax breaks on the diesel they use and will no longer be exempt from car tax on farming vehicles. German agricultural associations have been warning that the subsidy cuts would make food even more expensive next year, as transport and energy costs are also expected to rise in 2024.
Sales of champagne in France have dropped by more than 20% this year due to skyrocketing prices for the sparkling beverage, the BFM Business TV channel reported on Tuesday.
The average price for a liter of champagne is reportedly hovering around €30 ($32), causing the French to opt for alternatives such as Alsace cremant and prosecco, which are up to five times cheaper. “Champagne is going through tough times because it’s too expensive for many French people,” Dominique Schelcher, CEO of retail cooperative Systeme U, told the media. “Other sparkling wines, such as Cremant d’Alsace, are on the rise.” Earlier this year, France’s Champagne Committee predicted that production of the sparkling beverage in the country would decline by about 6% to 130 million bottles by 2023, compared to 138.4 million bottles in 2022. The organization also forecast that champagne sales and exports would see a dramatic drop this year, pressured by inflation and a return to more typical trends after record demand in the past two years due to the lifting of pandemic-related curbs. If the pattern observed over the first 11 months of the current year continues in the coming weeks, champagne sales could decline to 110 million bottles for the whole of 2023, marking the lowest level in years. Food and energy have been particularly affected by inflation in France, which peaked at 6.3% in February, having been on the rise since the end of 2020. Although inflation has begun to ease in recent months, standing at 3.4% in November, food prices in France continue to increase. Whisky is perhaps Scotland’s finest export. However, in the Far East, whisky of the Japanese variety has been making a name for itself. At first these whiskies were murmuring in the background, then the ripples gradually became larger and now today, Japanese whiskies are highly sought after and revered worldwide. The history of Japanese whisky is one of fascination and charm, beginning in 1854. Commodore Matthew Perry was sent to Japan by command of US President Millard Fillmore. The aim of Perry’s mission was to reverse Japan’s 220-Year-old policy of national isolation under the Tokugawa shogunate and to secure new trading routes. After concluding the Japan-U.S. Treaty of Peace and Amity, Commodore Perry held a banquet on the deck of his flagship, USS Powhatan. Many of those in attendance were invited Japanese guests and this is where these guests first tasted the water of life. Other trade agreements consequently followed, and Japan officially opened for business, at least to the West. Imports flowed into Japan including beer, wine and spirits. Whisky inspired the Japanese people, but imports were expensive and in short supply. Domestic producers began creating products to try and capitalise on demand by mixing alcohol with sugar, spice and other flavourings, but these were a long, long way from authentic whisky! The Settsu Sake Company saw a gap in the market for authentic whisky so, in 1918, they sent chemistry student Masataka Taketsuru to Scotland to learn whisky distilling first hand. Taketsuru enrolled on a chemistry course at Glasgow University, then headed to Elgin to find the author of The Manufacture Of Spirit: As Conducted in The Distilleries Of The United Kingdom, J.A. Nettleton. Taketsuru translated the book into Japanese and when he located Nettleton, he asked for around £15 per month for training and accommodation. £15 per month might not sound like a lot of money, but it was a stretch beyond Taketsuru’s budget.This might have been the end of the story however a determined Taketsuru went on a quest with a map of Speyside’s distilleries to find an apprenticeship. The second distillery that he called at, Longmorn, took him for a short while and Taketsuru recorded every single minute detail in his journal before heading back to Glasgow to continue his studies. During his first year of study Taketsuru befriended medical student Ella Cowan and was soon invited to her family home where he then became their lodger. Taketsuru went on to form a strong relationship with Ella’s older sister Rita based on a shared passion for music and literature – just over a year later the happy couple got married in Glasgow. However, it wasn’t plain sailing at first as both sets of parents disapproved. Unphased, they started their married life in Campbeltown, around 100 miles west of Glasgow, beyond the Isle of Arran. The newlyweds eventually moved West over the Atlantic Ocean via steamship and across the United States, ultimately arriving in Taketsuru’s homeland. By this time The Settsu Brewery Co. was facing adversity due to a destabilised economy, inflation, and the recession that took place after World War I. Taketsuru continued to work but was left in a difficult place as Settsu considered it too much of a risk to act on Taketsuru’s knowledge. Taketsuru consequently parted ways with the company and went to work as a chemistry teacher at a high school. Meanwhile Shinjiro Torii had founded Torii Shoten (now Suntory). They were fairly successful with port wine being their staple product. They were also manufacturing cheap imitation whiskies due to the popularity of US and Scotch imports. Torii saw the gap in the market and knew that there needed to be an authentic whisky distilled in Japan. He approached Taketsuru to set up the country’s first whisky distillery – Yamazaki. Five years later, in 1929, The Yamazaki Distillery's first real malt whisky, Shirofuda 'White Label' went on sale. White Label didn’t sell well – its speculated that the smoky flavour wasn’t to the taste of the Japanese, who simply weren’t used to that sort of drink. In order to ensure his firm would be a success Torii wanted to create an expression more to the taste of the Japanese consumer. Taketsuru was against this idea and wanted to stay true to his passion – creating whisky the ways he had learned during his time in Scotland. At the end of Taketsuru’s 10 year contract his partnership with Torii dissolved. As a result, Taketsuru began a new chapter by forming Nikka. Staying true to his cause, Taketsuru chose the small town of Yoichi as the perfect spot for a distillery on Japanese soil, with the climate and crisp air of the region about as close to the climate of Scotland as he was going to get. Taketsuru started distillation in 1936 using the first pot still he designed, and in 1940 Nikka's first expression Nikka Whisky Rare Old was released. This was the beginning of the great Japanese whisky rivalry between Nikka and Suntory, a rivalry still going today. Moving forward, Japanese whisky became much more than an imitation of its Scottish cousin. There are so many elements that make Japanese whisky a completely different dram: some things that might explain the differences are the clear mineral-rich water of Japan; the Japanese climate and distinct seasons, which are thought to help the aging process due to much quicker maturation; and even the distinct flavours of Japanese oak– mizunara, with Japanese whiskies often matured in bourbon or sherry casks and then moved to mizunara casks to develop the flavour further. As Japanese whiskies grew in popularity more and more were awarded prestigious accolades, such as the Yamazaki Sherry Cask 2013 being awarded World’s Best Whisky in Jim Murray's Whisky Bible 2015, whisky connoisseurs and investors bought up stock, and push up the value. With a finite amount of aged whiskies in circulation, Japanese distillers needed to innovate with what they had and go beyond age statement single malt and single grain whiskies. Due to this some of the most exquisite blended whiskies came out of Japan. The rapid spike in popularity of Japanese whiskies has meant that some varieties are being discontinued as there simply isn’t enough liquid to meet demand. Suntory announced in 2018 that it would halt selling Hibiki 17 Year Old and Hakushu 12 Year Old for this reason. Traditional Japanese culture, attention to detail and ‘Kaizen’ – the philosophy of continuous, incremental improvement – can all be linked to the art of whisky making in Japan. This would go some way as to explain the subtle and delicate yet powerful characteristics of many Japanese whiskies. With more and more Japanese whiskies receiving international awards we expect their popularity to continue to grow. This is likely to send valuations up even further as supply tries to meet the global demand. Now certainly seems like the perfect time to either taste or invest in Japanese whisky.
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