Tag Archives: latin-america
Emerging Economies Poised to Increase Renewables Market Share
August 23, 2013 by Energy Manager Today Staff There is clear evidence that emerging economies will gradually take a larger share of the renewable energy market, according to research by Frost & Sullivan . Economic development and revised energy priorities in the regions of Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa will drive a more sustained increase in the adoption of wind, solar and biofuel generation technologies, according to Frost & Sullivan’s Annual Renewable Energy Outlook 2013 . For example, from 2010 to 2015 EU countries will account for 27.3 percent of global renewable energy capacity additions. From 2015 to 2020 EU countries will account for just 20.7 percent of such additions, the report says. In contrast, from 2010 to 2015 India will account for 6.2 percent of global renewable energy capacity additions. That figure will rise to 9.9 percent from 2015 to 2020, the report says. The Middle East’s share of global renewable energy capacity additions will rise from 3.6 percent to 5.2 percent in the same time period, the report says. As a result of technological innovation and mass deployment leading to scale economies, the cost of renewable energy has declined dramatically in recent years, the report says. Solar photovoltaic module prices declined by up to 75 percent between 2008 and 2012 and the price of wind turbines has declined by 25 percent during the past three years. Such falls, combined with the need to diversify away from a high reliance on fossil fuels, enable developing countries to accelerate the adoption of new energy sources, the report says. Urbanization, population growth, and energy security concerns are other key drivers for the rise of renewable energy capacity in emerging regions, according to Frost & Sullivan. By 2014, 55 percent of energy decision-makers at large firms operating in emerging economies believe there will be significant to transformative changes in the way their firm manages energy, according to a Verdantix report released in September . This figure is eight percent higher than energy leaders in developed economies. Global Energy Leaders Survey 2012: Emerging Economies also found firms from emerging economies move energy management up the corporate ladder, with 75 percent of executives surveyed saying they make energy-management decisions at a global, national or divisional level — 4 percent higher than those from developed nations. Continue reading
There’s Money to Be Made in Food and Agriculture Stocks
By Selena Maranjian July 23, 2013 Exchange-traded funds offer a convenient way to invest in sectors or niches that interest you. If you’d like to add some agriculture-related stocks to your portfolio but don’t have the time or expertise to hand-pick a few, the cutely tickered Market Vectors Agribusiness ETF ( NYSEMKT: MOO ) could save you a lot of trouble. Instead of trying to figure out which companies will perform best , you can use this ETF to invest in lots of them simultaneously. The basics ETFs often sport lower expense ratios than their mutual fund cousins. The Market Vectors ETF’s expense ratio — its annual fee — is 0.54 %, and it recently yielded about 1.8%. This ETF has underperformed the world market over the past three and five years. It’s the future that matters most, though. And as with most investments, of course, we can’t expect outstanding performances in every quarter or year. Investors with conviction need to wait for their holdings to deliver . Why agriculture? It’s hard to say with much certainty what many industries will look like in the future, but we can be pretty sure that our planet’s growing population will continue to require food. More than a handful of agriculture-related companies had strong performances over the past year. Archer Daniels Midland ( NYSE: ADM ) , for example, surged 37%, and is admired for its vertical integration, featuring farms, processing plants, and more. Its last quarter featured revenue slightly up, but earnings down, in part due to last year’s droughts. The company remains a solid dividend payer , though (recently yielding 2.1%), and is looking to expand in Asia via its purchase of GrainCorp , Australia’s leading agribusiness. It has also been upgraded from underweight to neutral by analysts at JPMorgan Chase , who think it will benefit from lower corn prices, but it still features low margins and doesn’t seem very undervalued right now. ADM is considering selling its cocoa business amid falling cocoa prices. Deere ( NYSE: DE ) gained 14% and yields 2.4%. The stock seems attractively valued, with its current and forward P/E ratios of 10 and 9, respectively, well below its five-year average of 15. The company is posting robust growth, though its free cash flow has been in the red. Deere expects continued equipment sales growth , particularly from Latin America, but construction and forestry sales are projected to fall this year. Deere faces competition, too, such as from Japan, and some are looking for cost-cutting from the company. Other companies didn’t do as well last year, but could see their fortunes change in the coming years. Fertilizer giant PotashCorp ( NYSE: POT ) dropped 13% and yields 3.7%. (Its dividend has been hiked 25% this year and some 700% over the past few years.) With its current and forward P/E ratios well below its five-year average, the stock seems appealingly priced . Bulls like its low-cost structure and solid profit margins. Some of its fate is tied to massive developing economies such as China, where growth has slowed, and India, where there is reportedly a potash oversupply . Potash carries a lot more debt than cash, but it’s also generating more than $1 billion in free cash flow annually. Some worry about major fertilizer Brazil’s plans to wean itself off foreign fertilizer, but others doubt that it will succeed anytime soon. Fellow fertilizer concern CF Industries ( NYSE: CF ) shed 9%, and looks attractive with its forward P/E ratio below 7. Like Potash and others, the nitrogen and phosphate specialist may be hurt if Brazil stops importing fertilizer, but that’s not likely to happen soon. Meanwhile, some peers may be hurt by changes in India, but CF is better positioned there due to its product and sales mix. It has also been benefiting from low natural gas prices, as that’s used in nitrogen fertilizer. Rising nitrogen prices have helped , too. The big picture Demand for agriculture isn’t going away anytime soon. A well-chosen ETF can grant you instant diversification across any industry or group of companies — and make investing in and profiting from it that much easier. This agriculture ETF is quite intriguing, but there are others you might find even more compelling. To learn more about a few ETFs that have great promise for delivering profits to shareholders, check out The Motley Fool’s special free report ” 3 ETFs Set to Soar .” Just click here to access it now. Longtime Fool contributor Selena Maranjian owns shares of JPMorgan Chase. The Motley Fool owns shares of CF Industries Holdings and JPMorgan Chase. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days . We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy . Continue reading
Biotechnology Is Panacea For Africa’s Green Revolution
Page last updated at Sunday, August 11, 2013 gm-cropsAfrica missed the Green Revolution, which helped Asia and Latin America achieve self-sufficiency in food production, missed the Industrial Revolution, but Africa cannot afford to miss another major global ‘technological revolution’, which can help boost our agricultural sector. Africa is often described by derogatory remarks such as the “dark continent, the hungry continent, the disease-plagued continent” and these remarks are further reinforced by scaring statistics produced by global bodies such as the World Health Organisation and UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, which rate Africa as the continent with the highest disease burden and mortality from malnutrition, absence of protein and non-availability/shortage of food. “For me, I think the time has come for us to use this new technology availed us to change that perception and unfortunate remarks”. These were very strong statements that came from Mrs Shakirat O. Ajenifujah-Solebo, Chief Scientific Officer and Head of the Plant Biotech and Tissue Culture Laboratory of Nigeria’s National Biotechnology Development Agency during an interaction with the Ghana News Agency at the ongoing International Environmental Biosafety Training for 22 research scientists and regulators from 11 countries across the globe. The training course organised by the Michigan State University (MSU) College of Agriculture and Natural Resources in Collaboration with the Plant Breeding and Genetics Program, is to offer participants science-based information, skills, and resources to help them evaluate and address biosafety issues in their respective countries. The knowledge, information, and experience gained through this course would help participants contribute towards the development of environmentally sound and safe use of agricultural biotechnology. Using a participatory approach, the course will foster linkages and provide opportunities for networking among participants to exchange their experiences and establish regional collaborations. Answering a question on whether Africa really needs such a technology, Mrs Ajenifujah-Solebo said with passion that Africa must embrace agricultural biotechnology or risk being excluded from a major technological revolution that has resulted in increased food production in South America, North America and Asia. To her, the technology was already with Africans because some countries in Africa like South Africa, Burkina Faso, Egypt and Sudan had already commercializing Genetically Modified (GM) crops whilst other countries like Nigeria, Uganda, Ghana, Cameroon and Kenya were undergoing Confined Field Trials (CFTs) backed by some form of legislation. She explained that with emergence of climate change, crop pests and high production costs, it was urgent that Africa invested in developing agriculture biotechnology if the challenges were to be addressed. “In the coming years, growing populations, stagnating agricultural productivity and increasing climate change will make it more difficult for Africa to fight poverty and malnutrition. And to confront these challenges, many African countries are assessing a range of tools and technologies, including agricultural biotechnologies which hold great promise for improving crop yields,” she added. Dr Mojisola O. Edema, Associate Professor (Food Microbiology/ Biotechnology) of the Federal University of Technology, Akure, told the GNA Africa needs not re-invent the wheel but can borrow the technology and domesticate it to suit the needs of various African countries. Though biotechnology is not the panacea to the world problems it is to complement existing technologies and also help avoid the environmental damage caused by conventional methods of agricultural production. With the efforts being made to push biotech in African agriculture, the adoption of it has been slow in most places, due to what she described as the lack of political will from most governments, but was quick to commend Burkina Faso who started with a Presidential Decree and subsequently developed their regulations. “I think we will need the drivers or the promoters to drum it into the ears of our decision-makers that we are losing a lot of benefits by not adapting these technologies and we must also encourage the “Seeing is Believing” strategy to reinforce that,” she added. In most parts of the continent, farmers are witnessing a rapid decline in crops yield and this is attributed to over use of the soil, pest and other infections that have drastically affected the ability of the crops to produce more. Recent development in biotechnology, especially genetic engineering, has made it possible for the inclusion of desired traits in staple foods that are common to the average Africans. The introduction of vitamin fortified Sorghum and Maruca-Resistant Cowpea are expected to assist farmers to improve on productivity as well as on income and their health conditions. She noted that the application of science and technology on agriculture has the potentials of solving the problems of food security in Africa and there was the need for Africa to prioritize properly to keep its citizens from hunger against the ever-growing population in the near future. “There are immense opportunities in biotechnology for the benefit of mankind. “Unlike what we now have, chemicals are used to control pests and diseases of plants, which are unsafe for consumption and environmentally not friendly, aside of it being expensive. But with science and technology, pest resistant plants are now bred. We have worked on the genes of cowpeas, tested them and seen that they are safe”, she spoke with confidence. With the current increasing world population serving as a major challenge for the future and predicting to hit 9 billion by 2050, 80 per cent of whom will live in developing and transition countries, each hectare of land in 2050 will need to feed 5 people compared to just 2 people in 1960. To feed this number, food production will have to increase by at least 70 percent on essentially the same area of land with less available water. This will then require ‘sustainable intensification – growing more from less’ by using land and resources more efficiently with the aim of meeting the current needs while improving the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. In addition we must conserve natural resources and preserve ecosystem function while minimizing, adapting to and where possible, reversing the affects of climate change. Experts argue that to address these challenges, genetic engineering and other technologies must be allowed to play a crucial role. As has been with many new technologies, people are keen to embrace the benefits but are concerned about the potential risks. Dr Ibrahim Atokple, a Senior Research Scientist at the Savannah Agricultural Research Institute, Tamale, Ghana, and the principal investigator for the Maruca-Resistant Cowpea project in Ghana, in an interaction with GNA earlier on, also agrees that Africa cannot be left behind on the global drive to take advantage of bioengineering. “All the argument we are hearing against GMOs are based on personal opinions and not science.” To him, the world is a global village and Africa can no longer live in isolation. Therefore, the time has come for African countries to open up to the technology as presently there is no scientific evidence that shows that the technology is dangerous to humans or the environment. Touring some Green Houses in the MSU and the CFTs, the African participants expressed their amazement at how the United States have invested so much in infrastructure and urged African governments to do likewise if we wish to catch up with the West. According to Samuel Timpo, Senior Programme Officer and Socio-Economics Specialist of AU/NEPAD Africa Biosafety Network of Expertise, although many African countries have developed some features of their biosafety systems to regulate agricultural biotechnology, a look across the continent reveals the need for regulatory capacity strengthening. This observation he says led to the political leadership of the continent endorsing the need for biotechnology and biosafety to co-evolve so that regulation promotes innovation while at the same time safeguards human health and the environment. “Efforts are currently ongoing towards creating an enabling legal environment in member states for the regulation of biotechnology and for the practice of good science to ensure that the benefits of biotechnology are safely harnessed”, he added. To him, African countries must move onto a path of sustainable growth and development and be effectual participants in the thriving global bioeconomy, which will require overcoming the challenges of food, feed and fibre that confronts sub-Saharan Africa today and biotechnology could provide the needed useful tools in agriculture, medicine and industry to address these. “Any good technology could potentially help improve the welfare of our people but must be utilized in a safe and responsible manner. The future for Africa should be one that sees member states with functional biosafety regulatory systems and harmonized processes that will ensure that advances in science and technology are safely and sustainably used to enhance agricultural productivity, food and nutritional security, and incomes”, he asserted. Africans are always complaining about what happens in the USA and some parts of Europe and yet we travel to these countries and consume their GM products. On our own market shelves we have imported GM products like cooking oil, tomato puree and other cereals but we criticize the technology. Why don’t we adopt the technology and domesticate it to address our own demands. To Dr William Hutchison of the Department of Entomology of the University of Minnesota, USA, “Much has been written, the Science is here with us, it is a matter of the Will to resolve to improve quality of life for smallholder farmers, on less land”. By Linda Asante-Agyei Source: GNA – See more at: http://www.ghanabusinessnews.com/2013/08/11/biotechnology-is-panacea-for-africas-green-revolution/#sthash.PljMavW1.dpuf Continue reading
