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January 7, 2010
· Monsanto posts loss as herbicide sales slide
· Renewed global focus on helping the hungry
· Japanese cities cater to small-scale growers
· Nestles tomato tablets promise youthful skin
· Would-be farmers flock to California fields
Monsanto posts loss as herbicide sales slide
(Reuters
via Yahoo! News)
Monsanto, the world's largest seed company, reported a net loss of $19 million, or 3 cents a share, for the first quarter ended on November 30, compared with a year-earlier profit of $556 million, or $1.00 a share.
The results fell short of estimates as analysts were expecting a break-even quarter, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. The results pushed shares down 2.8 percent to $82.85 in trading before the market opened.
Monsanto said net sales decreased $952 million, or 36
percent, in the quarter, mainly because of decreased sales of its
glyphosate-based herbicides, primarily in
Roundup and other glyphosate-based herbicide sales were off 63 percent in the quarter as volume and pricing slid, Monsanto said.
Gross profit for the total company totaled $739 million, down 52 percent, while the margin dropped 15 percentage points to 44 percent, largely driven by pricing adjustments for Roundup and other glyphosate-based herbicides.
St. Louis-based Monsanto has been shifting its focus away from the herbicide business, which has been suffering from growing competition and price pressure, to its more profitable seeds and traits business.
On Wednesday the company said it continues to see good growth ahead and cited strong demand for new corn and soybean seed products in the market this year, including its Genuity SmartStax corn, which is expected to be planted on more than 4 million acres.
Still, corn seed and traits net sales decreased 9 percent or
$59 million in the quarter, the company said, due partly to a decrease in
planted acres in
Soybean seed sales were depressed in the first quarter due to delays in harvesting last year's soybean crop, with volume expected to pick up in the second quarter, Monsanto said.
The company is targeting its new Genuity Roundup Ready 2 Yield soybeans for plantings on 8 million to 10 million acres, and said that sales to date were on pace to meet that target.
Monsanto Chairman Hugh Grant said 2010 would be a "critical year" to helping the company meet a growth plan set for 2011 and 2012.
"We believe it will only get better from here," Grant said in a statement.
Monsanto reiterated ongoing earnings per share guidance of $3.10 to $3.30 for 2010 and said it expected free cash flow in the range of $900 million to $1 billion.
Renewed global focus on helping the hungry
(Kiplinger)
– With world hunger a growing problem, the
They’ve pledged to provide $22 billion by 2012, including
$3.5 billion from the
But the goal of rich nations to halve world hunger by 2015 is a pipe dream. Developed nations have plenty of problems at home that require attention, preventing them from doing even more to help hungry people around the world.
Private interests are pitching in, too. Bayer CropScience, for example, is teaming up with Asia’s largest
agricultural research institute, based in the
Rebounding global ag commodity prices will make it even harder for poor nations to feed hungry people. The index kept by the United Nations’ Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) is at its highest level since September 2008. For dairy items, it’s up 80%. Even the recent recession hasn’t had much impact on prices in poor nations, according to a second FAO index that tracks the prices of 864 basic foods in 68 developing nations. In that food market measure, prices remain about 25% higher than two years ago in two-thirds of the countries included in the index.
Note that the FAO is also actively involved in helping
developing nations overcome hunger. A joint effort by the FAO and
Long term, ramped-up efforts will do more than just address
hunger. They’ll help developing nations to expand their wealth, which in turn
will allow them to expand trade with the
Japanese cities cater to small-scale growers
(Kyodo News via The Japan Times) – City dwellers are increasingly gaining exposure to growing crops in urban areas, including on building roofs and in vacant land near train stations.
The novice farmers are trying their hand at cultivating
healthy food at convenient, well-equipped facilities in
One urban farming facility, Agris Seijo, operates a 5,000-sq.-meter tract divided into 307
6-sq.-meter plots next to a railway station in the upscale Seijo
Gakuen neighborhood in Setagaya Ward,
Various crops are grown at the site, including daikon, leaf lettuce and strawberries. The plots are tended by numerous tenants, particularly on weekends, when farming becomes a family affair.
Fumie Okano, a hospital employee who lives in Koto Ward,
began growing food in the central
The facility has shower rooms, a lounge and a clubhouse furnished with saplings, fertilizer and farming tools, and its staff is ready to offer rookie farmers advice on how to get started or help in keeping up their plots.
Run by Odakyu Electric Railway Co., over the last three years it has attracted some 170 registered members who pay a monthly fee of around ¥12,000.
"We strove to create a facility different from conventional rental farms," an Odakyu official said.
In September, Ginza Farm Inc. began renting out a
100-sq.-meter space atop a three-story building in the Omotesando
district, the popular area in
Yumi Yoshida is an early bird who drops by her plot before turning up for work. The place is open around the clock and farm implements are on hand so growers don't have to bring equipment from home.
"I think it's quite a luxury to be able to grow things you eat yourself," Yoshida said.
The number of such tenant farm patches grew 70 percent to about 3,300 in the 10 years through fiscal 2007 and is believed to still be rising.
Nankai Electric Railway Co. has
opened a growing patch on a building roof in the Namba
Parks shopping complex next to a train station in Naniwa Ward,
By opening such facilities, firms not only make extra money by collecting rent for what would have been idle space, they can also improve their image because the tenant farm business is "more than just an ordinary greenery project," an Odakyu official said.
Nestles tomato tablets promise youthful skin
(The Standard UK) – A pill that promises youthful skin has hit the market.
The sugar-coated tablet has been shown in trials to bring a dramatic slowdown in the aging of the skin, according to The Times newspaper.
Called Inneov Fermete, the pill was developed by confectionery giant Nestle and the world's biggest cosmetics company, L'Oreal.
It has gone on sale in parts of Europe and
"They used a compound found in tomatoes to promote the regeneration of new skin cells and protect old ones from damage," the British newspaper said.
Patricia Manissier, head of research and development at Inneov, the L'Oreal/Nestle joint venture behind the new drug, was quoted as saying that research shows the product works and teams are looking at ways of improving it.
"We know that good nutrition may prevent the skin from aging and there are clear links between certain nutrients and skin health," Manissier said.
The pill's active ingredient is lycopene, the red carotene pigment found in tomatoes. which is modified to make it readily absorbed by human cells, before being combined with Vitamin C and isoflavones, chemicals extracted from soya beans.
All three ingredients are powerful antioxidants which are believed to help protect tissue against damage.
"If there is a pill that can reverse the aging process, those who use it will have to be careful," he said.
Noting that wrinkles are caused by different factors, Shih said: "They may be due to sun damage, by untraviolet light causing destruction of collagen and elastic fiber. The damage is irreversible."
He added: "Damage may also be due to the aging process and there is, of course, gravity that causes wrinkles over the years."
The anti-wrinkle pill belongs to a new class of products called cosmeceuticals, beauty treatments that are swallowed and work from within, instead of being rubbed on the skin.
Inneov said it has tested the anti-wrinkle drug and a placebo on two groups of female volunteers: 90 post-menopausal women, aged 51-69, and 70 others with an average age of 45.
After six months, the skin of those taking the real drug showed an 8.7 percent better rate of elasticity, the rate at which the skin springs back into place instead of leaving wrinkles after being stretched or twisted.
Would-be farmers flock to California
(hmbreview.com) – It’s official: Farming is cool again.
So say local (
“Across the board we’re seeing more interest in sustainable agriculture,” said Nancy Vail, co-owner at Pie Ranch, the sustainable nonprofit farm in Pescadero, Calif. “With the environmental concerns and climate change, it’s all pointing in the directions of people asking, ‘How can I be of use in the world in a passionate way?’, ‘How can I connect with the land?’”
At Pie Ranch, the apprentice program was expanded this year to include five positions, which last for a full year. But Vail and other Pie Ranch organizers were still blindsided by a huge response — 45 applicants, about five times more than they had ever received before. Applicants were mostly young green-leaning people from across the country hoping for a chance to live and work on their farm.
Other farms are also seeing their educational programs
suddenly become very competitive. This year, a rigorous agriculture
apprenticeship program at the
“Sustainable, organic farming is more part of people’s everyday knowledge,” Nichols said. “The world is catching up.”
Much like a college internship, a farming apprenticeship operates by recruiting students to learn by working at a professional farm. Apprentices are usually provided room and board and given a modest pay.
Emma Fowler, 21, one of the new apprentices at Pie Ranch, says she was drawn to the small farm as a way to learn some of the classic craft skills for an agrarian household and community.
“I want to have a farm that will teach the skills we are losing and connect us to each other and to the land,” she wrote via e-mail. “The time I spent on farms instilled in me a need for family, community, hard work and honest relationships.”
On Friday morning at Pie Ranch, the nonprofit’s three graduating apprentices were sowing the seeds, figuratively, for Fowler and her four fellow newcomers to the farm.
Gathering around the warmth of a wood-burning furnace in her yurt, Vail and her team of apprentices sat in a circle and collaborated on their crop plan for the coming year — the blueprint for what, where, when and how to plant for 2010. The crop plan sets the course and becomes the pivotal step that determines the success of the farm for the year.
Compiling the crop plan for the 14-acre farm is sort of a capstone task for the three apprentices. But the actually seeding, cultivating and harvesting will fall to the new apprentice class, who will start in January.
“It’s the basis of the whole crop operation,” said Sky DeMuro, a 31-year-old apprentice finishing off an extended two-year stay at Pie Ranch. “There’s all these moving parts and factors at a farm – weather, soil mixture, heat, watering … there’s a million things that can happen.”
Unlike other farms, a bad harvest or an unforeseen setback isn’t so disastrous at Pie Ranch. A unique nonprofit farm, Pie Ranch draws its revenue from a variety of sources, including barn dances, donations and community-supported agriculture programs. That unorthodox model allows the farm to take some riskier steps, such as letting its apprentices have more control in how the farm operates.
Nuzzled up in a warm scarf, DeMuro walked outside around the fields with her colleague, Dede Boies, a 32-year-old apprentice who sported a “Punk Rock” armband and pink sunglasses on her pink, sunburned face.
Over their tenure at the farm, DeMuro
and Boies took charge on such projects as planting
more apple trees and purchasing the farm’s new dairy cow,
And DeMuro and Boies each have witnessed the popularity at Pie Ranch skyrocket. A volunteer farm day, an event in which anyone can come to help out harvest fruit and veggies, drew around a dozen people two years ago, but now it attracts about 100 people happy to work for free at a sustainable farm.
“Farming is cool now, and there’s something to be said about this becoming popular and mainstream,” Boies said.
DeMuro nodded in agreement and followed that point.
“Everything can be boiled down to food. We all eat it, and it’s really our common denominator,” she said.
But while they enjoyed living on a sustainable farm, both women agreed that the apprentice lifestyle wasn’t sustainable itself. Living on the farm’s modest stipend of $600 a month was suffocating, and both felt it was time to try something else.
The two aspire to one day own their own farm on the Coastside, but acquiring land and starting up a farm remains a daunting endeavor.
“This place has been wonderful. We got to handle so many different aspects of farming,” Boies said. “I hate that it comes down to money.”
End Transmission