The potential new trend now is land rights, or at least land acquisition. While not a primary issue for U.S agriculture yet, it is a new, complicating factor on the horizon.Over the past several months, we have periodically discussed the trends in consumer demands for food products, usually as applicable to meat. The major ones have centered on battery cages for layers, gestation stalls for swine, antibiotics for livestock, etc. The potential new trend now is land rights, or at least land acquisition, which we have already seen on a small scale in fair trade coffee. However, Oxfam (an NGO) targeted food and beverage companies late last year for buying tropical commodities, primarily sugar and palm oil, from plantations that exploited proper...

TAGS – Feed Grains, Soy & Oilseeds, Livestock, Biofuels, Energy, Softs, Asia