GLG News by Council Members Knowledgeable about Brazilian Sugar Industry

Brazil’s complaint, originally filed in July, now includes a challenge on the payments for “energy subsidies”—ie: ethanol’s $0.51 per gallon subsidy, and the biodiesel blending credit. The US says it considers those “industrial” subsidies, and not a part of this WTO discussion Brazil has already won...

Multinationals like ADM will enter the Brazilian sector, but should they do it now? Overoptimism in Brazil's sugar sector will lead to overpricing of assets The Brazilian sugar sector may be headed for a correction.

It appears that Congress may, yet again, renew many of the provisions in the 2002 program…pushing the issue of true reforms to be  played out in the courts of the WTO.  The US will eventually be forced to "level the playing field" on these issues, and it may be forced on the farm sector at...

Brazil's landless social action movement remains a risk for both domestic and international agricultural businesses in Brazil.   The MST's unhappiness with their efforts, to date, to work politically through the Lula administration, creates the risk of additional social actions by the organization....

Toying with dealer-customer relationships is always a tricky matter, but as agricultural producers in the US get bigger, makers and sellers of farm machinery have to evolve, in order to be able to serve their customer's changing needs.  Farm numbers falling Numbers of farms in the US continues...

NH3, or Anhydrous Ammonia, is the primary source, for nitrogen, a key input for farmers in the production of corn. Domestic production of NH3 is down by 44% over past 4 years due to lower margins.  Imports are up 115 % over the same period.  Prices paid by farmers have increased by 129% over...

    There is an unlimited supply of nonfood feedstocks capable of serving as the raw material or biomass for cellulosic ethanol production around the world. There appears to be an unlimited demand for clean tech fuel supplies, including ethanol, world wide. Why then is...

The potential to increase revenues by finding, or creating new uses for by-products is real, and potentially significant.  However, past experiences indicate that trying to "push" new products onto the market is much harder than letting demand "pull" them in...and is made even more difficult by...

The USDA updated their crop estimate for this year's harvest to a silo breaking 13.053 billion bushels of corn. That is 233 million tons and enough corn to increase ethanol production, feed additional chickens and hogs, export more and still increase the carryover from last year. While the crop still...

    Recent price lows and wide basis levels for December '07 corn have sent a "We don't need more corn planted in 2008" message to US growers. Sharply higher fertilizer and seed costs strip profits off the bottom line for the '08 budget while less than ideal growing weather...