Food has its own economy Potato Wor ld vision A much-heard quote these days is that the credit crunch won’t make people stop eating. This is the explanation for the relatively favourable figures from supermarket chains and producers of food. The entire economy has fallen by about five percent, but the food industry is up a few percent. In the cheaper segments, the hotel and catering industry is even growing, and the better cafeterias show an increase in their sales. Generally speaking, agriculture and horticulture have their own economic dynamics; they are sometimes even at odds. When the economy is going through a bad patch, the price of gas drops so that greenhouse farming has an advantage. The same applies to the cost of machinery and storehouses or the availability of labour. It would be sensible, though, for entrepreneurs in the agricultural sectors not to close their eyes to the situation in the rest of the world. Slowly but surely food markets are increasing because the world population is growing. But, together with this growth, efficiency in the entire food chain is also increasing. In all chain links, the number of players is going down, and the exchangeability of the commodities is going up. As a result, the margin in the first links in the chain remains under pressure. Time and again, the agricultural entrepreneurs have been warned about an increased volatility in the market. Exchangeability, weather influences, political action and market speculation can suddenly and inexplicably cause increases in prices. The last two years have taught us that prices can also inexplicably drop and that this downward trend is usually worse and lasts longer. For the primary sector and the cooperative processing industry, it will continue to be a challenge to keep on earning a living in times of rising costs, scale expansion and a call for efficiency. In the Netherlands, entrepreneurs from all the different agricultural and horticultural sectors are showing that they can meet these requirements even in the present difficult time. In the potato sector, I see an increase in competition among growers of seed potatoes worldwide, but the Dutch growers can still win this competition, of course with the support of their quality control services, their processing cooperatives and their cooperative bank. Dirk Duijzer Food & Agri director, Rabobank Nederland René van Diepen: ‘A lot of potato contracts a day, keeps the blues away’ On 1 July 2009, the German derivatives exchange Eurex in Frankfurt listed the potato futures market. Both the London listing and the European processed potatoes will be shown on the Eurex boards as from that date. René van Diepen of the Dutch Potato Organisation (NAO) expects that the Eurex will provide the potato futures market with an added impulse. Peter Reitz, a member of the Eurex Executive Board, tells us that the entry of the agricultural derivatives market is part of the systematic expansion plans to serve all important derivatives with their own Eurex products. ‘So far the potato futures market is mainly a local market. Our strong international focus will lead to serious growth’, is board member Reitz’s opinion. Moving to Eurex has led to the potato futures market being directly connected to a worldwide network of three hundred banks and financial institutions. The ball is now in the sector’s court The changeover from Europaïsche Warenterminbörse Beteiligungs AG (EWB) to Eurex has been meticulously prepared, together with key figures in the international potato sector. For the Netherlands it was NAO director René van Diepen who has been involved in the operation from the very beginning. ‘The potato futures market moved to Hannover, the so-called RMX, in 2005. This was good news for the Dutch potato sector. After all, the Netherlands had already shown a preference for the instrument futures market, although that could be much better, in my opinion. The NAO has put a great deal of energy into the RMX in order to promote Dutch interests as much as possible. This was realised – among other things – via the chairmanship of the Arbeitsgruppe. What we are not so happy about is the fact that, in addition to Commodities the RMX also trades in a debt product, the so-called PW-ACTUA Eurex provides potato futures 8 Potato World 2009 • number 3 Pagina 7
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