world in brief
Livestock
A study by researchers at the University of Arizona and Northwest Missouri State University shows that heat stressed cows are more likely to stand.
Dr. Jamison Allen explained during a presentation at the 2013 American Dairy Science Association midwest branch meeting that predicting heat stress is vital for keeping cows healthy and productive. Cows will pant, eat less and produce less milk when their core body temperature increases.
Allen said cows prefer standing to lying on hot days. Cows stand to allow more of their surface area to disperse.
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Researchers fitted each cow with an intra-vaginal sensor to measure core body temperature. They also fitted each cow with a special leg sensor to measure the angle of the leg and tracked whether the cow was standing or lying.
After comparing data from cows in Arizona, California and Minnesota, the researchers concluded that standing and core body temperature are strongly correlated. Allen said cows stood for longer amounts of time as their core body temperatures rose from 38.3 C to above 38.9 C.
Allen said producers could use coolers and misting devises to target a specific core body temperature. By encouraging cows to lie down, producers would also help their cows conserve energy.
Allen recommended future studies to see how cows respond to different cooling systems.
International Trade
WASHINGTON, D.C. Reuters — The United States is concerned that World Trade Organization talks to help developing countries boost trade by removing customs barriers could fail because negotiators are stuck on basic issues.
“We’re very worried about the current pace of work in Geneva,” U.S. ambassador to the WTO Michael Punke said in an interview last week, referring to discussions on a “trade facilitation” package that WTO members hope to reach in December in Bali at their ninth ministerial meeting.
“What trade facilitation does in a very mundane, but vital way is remove red tape” that impedes trade, Punke said.
While some of the issues are complicated, negotiators are hung up on even simple ideas, like a proposal to require countries to put their customs forms on the internet so they can be easily downloaded by businesses, he said.
WTO members in 2001 launched the Doha round of world trade talks with the goal of helping poor countries by tearing down barriers to trade in agriculture, manufacturing and services.
MARKETS
SINGAPORE (Reuters) — Ukraine’s grain production is likely to climb to 55 million tonnes in the year to June 2014 on favourable growing conditions, the country’s leading grains exporter said last week.
Ukraine harvested 46.2 million tonnes of grain in 2012 versus 56.7 million tonnes in 2011.
“The weather is very good so we expect our grains output to rise,” Andrew Druzyaka, director of the foreign department at Khlib Investbud, told reporters at an industry seminar.
Wheat Production
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (Reuters) — Argentina is pushing farmers to produce more wheat by threatening to crack down on the fast-expanding barley sector, which growers are using as a hedge against wheat export curbs, sources told Reuters.
With national inflation seen by private economists at 30 percent this year and global food demand rising, Argentina limits wheat and corn exports to ensure ample domestic supplies.
But farmers say this policy hurts their profits and have shifted to planting barley, which is not subject to the curbs. While Argentine barley cultivation is soaring, the wheat crop is forecast at 9.4 million tonnes this season — way under the 2011-12 crop year’s 14.1 million tonnes, partly because of drought but also due to reduced seeding.
At 8.6 million acres, Argentina’s 2012-13 wheat area was the lowest since the government adopted its modern record-keeping system 44 years ago.
Domestic commerce secretary Guillermo Moreno, feared by business as chief enforcer of the government’s frequent market interventions, told exporters that further growth in barley farming at the expense of wheat would not be tolerated.
Food
NEW YORK, New York (Reuters) — The new owner of Hostess Brands Inc.’s snack cakes hopes to have Twinkies back on U.S. store shelves this summer, according to a member of the purchasing group.
“Our family is thrilled to have the opportunity to re-establish these iconic brands with new creative marketing ideas and renewed sales efforts and investment,” Daren Metropoulos, a principal at his family’s private equity firm, told Reuters in an email last week.
Daren’s father, Dean Metropoulos, teamed up with Apollo Global Management to offer Hostess $410 million US for Twinkies and other snack cakes. Hostess had discontinued the snack last November.
GMO
BEIJING, China (Reuters) — China has delayed the introduction of genetically modified rice and corn citing public fears, government scientists said.
The world’s largest rice producer and consumer gave safety approvals to B.t. rice and phytase corn in 2009, but has not yet begun commercial production, even though it has spent billions of yuan on research.
“There are some debates …. We have not given the public enough knowledge about GMO crops,” Peng Yufa, a member of the GM crop biosafety committee under the ministry of agriculture, told reporters.
“The crops have to be accepted by consumers who are willing to buy and by farmers who are willing to grow,” Peng said, adding that the process may take five years.
The public remains concerned about the safety of GM crops, top agricultural official Chen Xiwen said last week, but he added it was inevitable that China would import GM crops in the future to meet the supply gap.
The large-scale introduction of GM crops has been seen as a crucial part of China’s efforts to feed a fifth of the world’s population using less than a tenth of the world’s arable land.
Research
Milk from goats genetically modified to produce higher levels of a human antimicrobial protein has proven effective in treating diarrhea in young pigs.
The findings show a potential for food products from transgenic animals to one day also benefit human health, said researchers at the University of California, Davis.
The study shows that goats’ milk carrying elevated levels of the antimicrobial lysozyme, a protein found in human breast milk, can treat diarrhea caused by bacterial infection in the gastrointestinal tract.
The findings offer hope that such milk may help prevent human diarrheal diseases that each year claim the lives of 1.8 million children around the world and impair the physical and mental development of millions more.
Pigs were chosen for this study as a research model because their gastrointestinal physiology is similar to humans and because pigs already produce a moderate amount of lysozyme in their milk.
Environment
LONDON, U.K. (Reuters) — There are now more deer in Britain than at any time since the Ice Age, said scientists at the University of East Anglia.
The scientists said management efforts are not enough to stop deer populations spreading out of control.
Without natural predators, deer populations are continuing to rise, causing a threat to biodiversity, scientists said in a report from the university.
The research team studied the numbers, sex ratio and fertility of roe and muntjac deer across 234 sq. kilometres of forested land and heathland in Breckland, in Norfolk, north of London.
The team found that while deer management appeared to control numbers at a stable level, it was only because thousands of deer are pushed out to the surrounding countryside each year, helping to drive the further spread of the animals.
In the Breckland area studied, 53 percent of muntjac from the estimated population need to be culled and 60 percent of roe deer just to offset reproduction, the scientists said.
Processing
SAO PAULO, Brazil (Reuters) — Brazil’s JBS is opting to invest more cautiously this year as the world’s No. 1 meatpacker seeks to protect profits and scale down debt, chief executive officer Wesley Batista said last week.
JBS plans capital expenditures of up to 1.2 billion reais ($609 million), Batista told analysts in a conference call to discuss fourth-quarter earnings. Last year, the company earmarked 1.6 billion reais for investments, way above the 900 million to one billion reais originally budgeted for capital spending.
Batista pledged to further reduce JBS’s high debt and prioritize cash generation as a way to shore up confidence in the company’s growth strategy. Net debt fell to the equivalent of 3.4 times earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) in the fourth quarter and could reach as low as 2.5 times of EBITDA by year-end, he noted.
“In general, compared to 2012, we are confident that in 2013 we will generate more cash and reduce leverage,” Batista said.
JBS posted a fourth-quarter profit of 66.4 million reais ($33.85 million) last week.
Shares rose 2.3 percent as fourth-quarter earnings showed some resilience in the company’s top line despite the challenging outlook for meat packers, analysts said. While results underscored strong sales and favorable costs trends in JBS’s Mercosur beef division, it unmasked problems at the U.S. unit.
