Mais

[Benjamin]

In U.S., a sea of subsidies and mountains of corn
By Alexei Barrionuevo The New York Times

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 2005

RALSTON, Iowa As Iowa finishes harvesting its second-largest corn crop in history, Roger Fray is racing to cope with the most visible challenge arising from the ballooning U.S. farm-subsidy program: a giant pile of corn.


Soaring to a height of more than 60 feet, or 18 meters, and spreading the width of a soccer field, the mound of corn behind the headquarters of West Central Cooperative here resembles a little yellow ski hill.

"There is no engineering class that teaches you how to cover a pile like this," Fray, the company's executive vice president for grain marketing, said from the adjacent road. "This is country creativity."

At 2.7 million bushels, the huge pile illustrates the explosive growth in corn production by American farmers in recent years, which this year is estimated to reach a nationwide total of at least 10.9 billion bushels, second only to the 11.8 billion bushels last year.

But the bumper crop this season is too much of a good thing, underscoring what critics call a paradox at the heart of the government farm-subsidy program: America's efficient farmers may be encouraged to produce far more than the country can use, depressing prices and raising subsidy payments. In other words, because the U.S. government wants to help America's farmers, it essentially ends up paying them when they produce too much as well as when their crop prices are too low.

The huge volumes this season are weighing heavily on U.S. farmers, who already have suffered a string of misfortunes: a large overhang of grain from last year, soaring energy costs, two Gulf Coast hurricanes that stymied transportation in August and September and a severe drought that distorted prices. Taken together, these events have depressed corn prices and made this potentially the most expensive harvest ever for the federal government.

Even as the Bush administration tries to persuade member nations of the World Trade Organization that it is serious about trimming agricultural subsidies, federal spending on farm payments is closing in on the record of $22.9 billion set in 2000, when the effects of the Asian financial crisis caused American exports to fall and crop prices to sink, pushing the U.S. farm belt into a recession.

If export sales stay weak, the subsidies this year could break that record. Last week, the U.S. Agriculture Department raised its projection of payments to farmers by $1.3 billion, to $22.7 billion. In 2004, the subsidies were $13.3 billion.

In response to pressure, the Bush administration said last month that the United States was prepared to cut its most trade-distorting farm subsidies 60 percent over five years. The world's poor nations, which tend to be heavily dependent on agriculture, complain that American and European Union farm subsidies lead growers to produce gluts that depress crop prices around the world.

The Agriculture Department's $1.3 billion revision comes primarily from higher loan deficiency payments, which are now estimated to total $6.2 billion, said the Agriculture Department's chief economist, Keith Collins. Such payments are meant to cushion the blow for farmers who borrow money to raise crops but then have to sell them in the market for less.

Most of that money will flow to corn growers.

Based on loan-deficiency rates that have recently topped 50 cents a bushel, the government is likely to pay corn farmers about $4.5 billion this year in that subsidy category alone, said Bob Young, the chief economist for the American Farm Bureau Federation.

For critics of the American subsidy system, the record corn production highlights the tenuous assumptions underlying the program.

Farmers are encouraged to produce as much as they can, with the underlying idea being that greater exports will soak up the excess production. More recently, there have been high hopes for using corn to produce ethanol for gasoline, though the infrastructure to produce large amounts of ethanol will take time to build.

But the huge volumes in recent years have not been matched by greater demand for U.S. corn , and the problems created by two big harvests, along with the stifling effect of Hurricane Katrina on grain transportation after the storm struck in late August, have kept exports in check, analysts and grain traders said.

"We are still in a condition of grossly overproducing for what the market can pay, at least what the market can pay that is acceptable to our corn producers," said Ken Cook, president of the Environmental Working Group, a group based in Washington that has been critical of farm subsidies. "We can't make up the difference in the export market, and the taxpayers are on the hook."

The past two years of bumper harvests have shown how skilled American farmers have become at producing corn. More drought-resistant seeds, improved pesticides and more efficient farming practices have all contributed to higher yields, farmers and grain managers said.

Nearly perfect growing conditions helped produce the record crop last year. But this year the biggest surprise came in Illinois, which despite suffering its worst drought since 1988 still managed to produce a large crop. The drought made many farmers hesitant to sell their corn at depressed prices, decisions that significantly worsened what became an excessive surplus.

Government incentives to produce more have also helped make the large corn harvests possible. Farmers are hardly shy about exploiting the government safety net provided by guaranteed loan deficiency payments, or LDP .

"Everybody leans on the LDPs as much as they can," said Ash Kading, a farmer in western Iowa who was harvesting his last few rows of corn late last week. "It is like opening up the federal Treasury. There were quite a few people this year that wish corn prices would go to zero because they would have a bigger LDP."

[Benjamin]

[Benjamin]

03. November 2005
EU lässt Genmais-Sorte als Futtermittel zu

Die EU erlaubt den Import von gentechnisch verändertem Mais der Sorte 1507. Das schädlingsresistente Produkt darf nur verfüttert werden - vorerst.

Die genveränderte, gegen bestimmte Schädlinge resistente Maissorte 1507 darf in die Europäischen Union importiert und dort zu Futtermitteln verarbeitet werden. Die EU-Kommission in Brüssel erteilte am Donnerstag eine entsprechende Zulassung für zehn Jahre. Die Europäische Behörde für Lebensmittelsicherheit habe keine Gefahren durch den Mais für Tier und Mensch gefunden, teilte die Kommission mit.

Kampf dem Maiswurzelbohrer
Die Maissorte - in den USA unter der Bezeichnung "Herculex I" vermarktet - ist ein Produkt der Unternehmen Dow Agrosciences und Pioneer Hi-Bred International, einer Tochter des US-Konzerns Dupont. "Herculex I" schützt die Maispflanze den Herstellern zufolge gegen den Maiswurzelbohrer, den Maiszünsler und weitere Schadinsekten.

Pioneer-Präsident Dean Oestreich zeigte sich über die EU-Entscheidung "sehr erfreut". Sie sei "ein wichtiger Schritt im EU-Zulassungsverfahren", sagte Oestreich in Des Moines im US-Bundesstaat Iowa. Das Unternehmen sei zuversichtlich, dass die Zulassung der Maissorte als Nahrungsmittel im ersten Quartal kommenden Jahres folgen werde.

Schon in zwölf Ländern zugelassen
"Sie zeigt die zunehmende Akzeptanz pflanzlicher Biotechnologie", erläuterte der Pioneer-Chef. Gegner von genetisch verändertem Mais kritisieren indes, die Folgen solcher Manipulationen für den Menschen könnten nicht richtig abgeschätzt werden. Zu den bekanntesten Genmaissorten zählt Mon810 des US-Herstellers Monsanto, die ebenfalls mit zeitlicher Befristung in der EU als Futter- und Lebensmittel zugelassen ist.

Er verwies darauf, dass Mais mit der "Herculex I"-Eigenschaft bereits in zwölf Ländern, unter anderem in den USA, Kanada und Japan, uneingeschränkt als Nahrungs- und Futtermittel zugelassen sei. "Eine rapide wachsende Zahl von Landwirten weltweit setzt diese Technologie inzwischen zur Produktivitätssteigerung ein", ergänzte Oestreich.

[Benjamin]

[Benjamin]

[Benjamin]

Eine Erklärungsmöglichkeit.
Future: http://www.futuresource.com/charts/c...M&b=CANDLE&st=

[Benjamin]

[Benjamin]

:o

[OMI]

Servus Benjamin
Mit welchen Scheinen bist Du eingestiegen?

[Benjamin]

Hi,
mit dem hier: WKN ABN3LE. ABN Amro berechnet bei diesem Hebelzertifikat einen jährlichen Zins inkl. Profit-Marge bezogen auf das Underlying von 5,57%.

[Benjamin]

[Benjamin]

Der Turn sollte kommen. Nur wo genau?

[Benjamin]

Kurzfristanalyse:

[Benjamin]

Future: Dezember 2005:

[Benjamin]

Future: März 2006: