Turkey and U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres have long been seeking to get merchant shipping sailing more freely though the Black Sea, which in parts has become a naval war zone since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

Putin told Russian state television that Erdogan had “once again renewed these proposals to continue contacts related to shipping in the Black Sea, (and) on some other issues”.

Putin met Erdogan and Guterres at the BRICS summit in the Russian city of Kazan.

“I haven’t even had time to read the materials …” Putin said. “Well, let’s see. We’ve never refused this.”

Turkey and the United Nations helped mediate the Black Sea Grain Initiative, a deal struck in July 2022 that allowed the safe export of nearly 33 million metric tons of Ukraine grain across the Black Seadespite the war.

Russia withdrew from the agreement after a year, complaining that its own food and fertiliser exports faced serious obstacles.

Erdogan told reporters on the way back from Kazan that Putin was “engaged in a search in terms of achieving a permanent ceasefire”.

Turkey wants to promote peace talks

Erdogan said he had discussed the grain corridor with Russia, and that Putin had also discussed a possible swap of prisoners.

“Our wish is to start peace negotiations between the two countries as soon as possible, and reach a beneficial outcome,” Erdogan said.

Months of steady advances by Moscow’s forces, which control just under a fifth of Ukraine, have underlined Russia’s vast superiority in men and materiel as Ukraine pleads for more weapons from the Western allies that have been supporting it.

When asked if he felt that the war might become a frozen conflict along the lines of Korea or Cyprus, Putin said:

“Any outcome should be in favour of Russia, I speak bluntly, without any hesitation, and should proceed from the realities that are taking shape on the battlefield,” Putin said.

Russia controls Crimea,which it seized from Ukraine in 2014, about 80 per cent of the Donbas – a coal-and-steel zone comprising the Donetsk and Luhansk regions – and over 70 per cent of the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions.

“We are not going to make any concessions here, there will be no trades,” Putin said. “We are ready to make these compromises, we are reasonable. But I don’t want to go into details right now, because there are no substantive negotiations.”

He said Ukraine had already twice rejected Russian ceasefire initiatives.

— Reporting by Reuters in Moscow and Tuvan Gumrukcu in Ankara

The post Putin to examine Black Sea shipping proposals from Turkey’s Erdogan appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

Russia quit the deal in July — a year after it was brokered by the United Nations and Turkey — complaining that its own food and fertilizer exports faced obstacles and that not enough Ukrainian grain was going to countries in need.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Erdogan, who previously played a significant role in convincing Putin to stick with the deal, would hold talks with the Kremlin chief in Sochi on Monday but gave no further details.

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan met Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu in Moscow on Friday to discuss grain ahead of the Erdogan meeting.

Shoigu said it was not Russia’s fault that the grain deal had failed and repeated the Russian position that Moscow would return to it if all the promises made to Russia were fulfilled.

“It’s not our fault today, but it’s stopped,” Shoigu said in a statement released by the defence ministry. “Here we can say only one thing, that if everything that was promised to Russia is fulfilled, the deal will be extended.”

“It turned out that it is more difficult to do this than to build new corridors, new ground routes,” said Shoigu, who attended the signing ceremony for the Black Sea deal in Istanbul in 2022.

The Black Sea grain deal was intended to combat a global food crisis that the United Nations said had been worsened by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, which Russia calls a “special military operation”.

Moves are afoot to revive the deal.

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said on Thursday that he had sent Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov “a set of concrete proposals” aimed at reviving a deal that allowed the safe export of Ukrainian grain via the Black Sea.

Turkey’s foreign minister said at a briefing in Moscow on Thursday that reviving the deal was important for the world.

U.S. wheat prices rose on Friday, though Lavrov said on Thursday that Russia saw no sign that it would receive the guarantees needed to revive the grain deal.

Lavrov said the West was hyping the talk of a global food crisis as prices remained around 2021 levels and had ignored Putin’s pledge to supply Burkina Faso, Zimbabwe, Mali, Somalia, the Central African Republic and Eritrea with up to 50,000 tonnes of grain each free of charge.

To convince Moscow to approve the original deal, known by diplomats as the Black Sea Grain Initiative, a three-year accord was struck at the same time under which U.N. officials agreed to help Russia with its own food and fertilizer exports.

But Moscow said that memorandum had not been honoured due to the perfidy of the West.

Lavrov said he had discussed Putin’s initiative to supply up to one million tonnes of Russian grain to Turkey at reduced prices for subsequent processing at Turkish plants and shipping to countries most in need. That proposal is also being discussed with Qatar.

One of Moscow’s main demands is for the Russian Agricultural Bank to be reconnected to the SWIFT international payments system. The EU cut it off in June 2022.

While Russian exports of food and fertilizer are not subject to Western sanctions imposed after Russia’s invasion, Moscow has said restrictions on payments, logistics and insurance have hindered shipments.

Two cargo vessels left a port near Odesa, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister said Friday — the third and fourth to transit from deep-water Ukrainian ports through the Black Sea since Russia withdrew from the safe-passage deal.

— Guy Faulconbridge is the Moscow bureau chief for Reuters.

The post Putin to meet Erdogan amid push to revive grain deal appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

Moscow suggested that if demands to improve exports of its own grain and fertilizer were met it would consider resurrecting the Black Sea agreement. However, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that a U.N. pact that helped Russia to make shipments over the past year was also terminated.

“Only upon receipt of concrete results, and not promises and assurances, will Russia be ready to consider restoring the deal,” said Russia’s foreign ministry.

Russia told the U.N. shipping agency – the International Maritime Organization (IMO) – that its “guarantees for the safety of navigation” had been revoked and that “proactive necessary actions and response measures to neutralize threats posed by the Kiev regime in the area will be taken.”

Insurers on Monday were reviewing whether to freeze cover for any ships willing to sail to Ukraine. The reaction on the grains market was modest, with U.S. wheat futures Wv1 up about 3% while U.S. corn futures Cv1 rose nearly 1%.

“I think there is market belief that Russia and the EU have large supplies of wheat which can meet world demand in the coming months, with harvests arriving,” one German trader said.

The Black Sea deal was brokered by the U.N. and Turkey in July last year to combat a global food crisis worsened by Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Ukraine and Russia are among the world’s top grain exporters.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday everything must be done so that the Black Sea grain export corridor continues to be used, his spokesperson said.

“Today’s decision by the Russian Federation will strike a blow to people in need everywhere,” U.N. chief Guterres told reporters.

The U.N. would continue trying to ensure unimpeded access to global markets for food products and fertilizers from Ukraine and Russia, Guterres said.

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, described Moscow’s move as an “act of cruelty.”

Last ship has sailed

Nearly 33 million metric tons of corn, wheat and other grains have been exported by Ukraine under the arrangement. The last ship left Ukraine under the deal on Sunday.

To convince Russia to agree to the Black Sea deal, a three-year memorandum of understanding was struck in July 2022 under which U.N. officials agreed to help Russia get its food and fertilizer exports to foreign markets.

Russia’s main demands were the resumption of its ammonia exports through a pipeline to the Ukrainian port of Odesa and the reconnection of its state agricultural bank Rosselkhozbank to the SWIFT international payments system. It was cut off by the European Union in June last year after the invasion.

Guterres said on Monday that the U.N. had managed to create a “bespoke payments mechanism” for the Russian Agricultural Bank through U.S. bank JPMorgan Chase & CoJPM.N and “recently brokered a concrete proposal” with the European Commission to enable a Rosselkhozbank subsidiary to regain access to SWIFT.

But he signalled that all those efforts would end because Russia’s withdrawal from the Black Sea deal also terminated its pact with the U.N. on its own exports, under which Moscow had committed to “facilitate the unimpeded export of food, sunflower oil, and fertilizers from Ukrainian-controlled Black Sea Ports.”

Global hunger

Guterres had made a final attempt to save the Black Sea grain deal by writing to Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday last week to ask him to extend it in exchange for the cooperation of the European Commission on Rosselkhozbank.

In a letter to Guterres on Monday, Russia said the options presented “are not feasible and will not ensure uninterrupted cross-border financial transactions,” Russia’s deputy U.N. envoy Dmitry Polyanskiy posted on Twitter. He said the letter informed Guterres that Moscow was terminating the Black Sea grain deal.

European Union Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called Russia’s decision a “cynical move”, adding that the EU would continue to work towards ensuring food security for poor countries.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said he believed Putin wants the continuation of the deal, adding that he will discuss it when they meet in person in August.

Russia had agreed three times in the past year to extend the Black Sea deal, but also briefly suspended its participation at the end of October in response to a drone attack on its fleet in Crimea.

There was concern about the impact the expiry of the pact would have on feeding the hungry worldwide.

Under the deal, the U.N. said its World Food Program (WFP) has procured 80% of its wheat so far in 2023 from Ukraine – up from 50% in 2021 and 2022. The WFP has shipped about 725,000 metric tons of Ukrainian wheat to Afghanistan, Sudan, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and Yemen to fight hunger.

“Rations are being cut to children every day now across the world – it is utterly dramatic and this (deal) was one of the few glimmers of hope in this age of Biblical starvation,” said Jan Egeland, Secretary General of the Norwegian Refugee Council.

— Reporting by Reuters reporters; writing by Guy Faulconbridge and Michelle Nichols.

The post Black Sea grain deal expires after Russia quits appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

The Ukraine grain Black Sea export deal was brokered by the United Nations and Turkey in July last year to help alleviate a global food crisis worsened by conflict disrupting exports from two of the world’s leading grain suppliers.

“Without progress on solving five systemic problems… there is no need to talk about the further extension of the Black Sea initiative after May 18,” the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement.

“We note that, despite all the high-sounding statements about global food security and assistance to countries in need, the Black Sea Initiative both served and continues to serve exclusively commercial exports of Kyiv in the interests of Western countries,” the ministry said.

To help persuade Russia to allow Ukraine to resume its Black Sea grain exports last year, a separate three-year agreement was also struck in July in which the United Nations agreed to help Russia with its food and fertilizer exports.

Russia said the two agreements were “interconnected parts of one ‘package'” and scolded the U.N. Secretariat for what it said was a distortion of the facts.

U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said “discussions, communications are still going on with the parties” and that U.N. officials were determined to ensure the implementation of both deals.

He said in relation to Russia’s exports “there’s still a lot of critical issues that need to be resolved over payments and other technical issues” that U.N. officials were trying to fix.

But he noted that “there’s been some concrete results that contribute to larger grain trade volumes, lower freight rates and an increased number of ships that have called at Russian ports for fertilizer and lowering in insurance.”

“So we’ve made some progress, but we continue to push to make more,” Dujarric said.

Russian demands

Western powers have imposed tough sanctions on Russia over its Feb. 24, 2022, invasion of Ukraine. Its food and fertilizer exports are not sanctioned, but Moscow says restrictions on payments, logistics and insurance are a barrier to shipments.

The foreign ministry said Russian Agricultural Bank (Rosselkhozbank) had to be reconnected to the SWIFT payment system, that supplies of agricultural machinery and parts needed to be resumed and that restrictions on insurance and reinsurance needed to be lifted.

Other demands include access to ports, the resumption of the Togliatti-Odesa ammonia pipeline that lets Russia pump the chemical to Ukraine’s port, and the unblocking of assets and the accounts of Russian companies involved in food and fertilizer exports.

“The removal of obstacles to domestic agricultural exports was supposed to take place within the framework of the implementation of the Russia-U.N. Memorandum,” the ministry said.

Russia said there had been a failure of the inspection regime of ships carrying grain from Ukraine.

“Currently, 28 vessels carrying more than one million tons of food are awaiting inspection in the territorial waters of Turkey,” the foreign ministry said.

It accused U.N. staff in the Joint Coordination Center of refusing to draw up an inspection schedule.

“In turn, an even more difficult situation has developed around the registration of bulk carriers,” the ministry said, denying that Russia was responsible for any of the congestion and accusing Ukrainian port officials of accepting bribes to accelerate registration.

— Reporting for Reuters by Guy Faulconbridge in Moscow and Michelle Nichols at the United Nations.

The post Russia says Black Sea grain deal may be nearly over appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

The grain deal is an attempt to ease a food crisis that predated the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but has been made worse by the most deadly war in Europe since the Second World War.

The agreement, due to expire next month in its current form, was first signed by Russia, Ukraine, Turkey and the United Nations in July last year and twice extended.

On paper, it allows for the export of food and fertilizer, including ammonia, from three Ukrainian Black Sea ports. But Moscow says that Russian food and fertilizer exports are compromised by obstacles — such as insurance and payment hindrances — that it says must be removed.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the current agreement was not working for Russia, despite some efforts by the United Nations to get the parts of the deal relating to Moscow’s interests implemented.

“No deal can stand on one leg: it must stand on two legs,” Peskov told reporters. “In this regard, of course, judging by the state of play today, the outlook (for its extension) is not so great.”

Russia and Ukraine are two of the most important producers of agricultural commodities in the world, and major players in the wheat, barley, maize, rapeseed, rapeseed oil, sunflower seed and sunflower oil markets. Russia is also dominant on the fertilizer market.

More than 27 million tonnes of grain and other foodstuffs have been exported from Ukraine aboard 881 outbound vessels since the Black Sea Grain Initiative began in August, official data shows.

Last month, Russia said it would extend the deal for another 60 days even though the United Nations, Ukraine and Turkey had pushed for a repeat 120-day roll over. Moscow says it is due to expire on May 18.

“Exactly half of this deal has not worked and is not working so far,” Peskov said.

“We know that U.N. representatives are making some efforts, but they are not succeeding and still the second half of the deal does not work,” Peskov said.

Russia has repeatedly said that any further extension of the deal will require a host of its demands to be fulfilled by the West, including the reconnection of Russian Agricultural Bank (Rosselkhozbank) to the SWIFT payment system.

Other demands include a resumption in supplies of agricultural machinery and parts, a lifting on restrictions on insurance and reinsurance, access to ports, the resumption of the Togliatti-Odesa ammonia pipeline and the unblocking of assets and the accounts of Russian companies involved in food and fertilizer exports.

— Guy Faulconbridge is the Russia/CIS bureau chief for Reuters in Moscow.

The post Outlook for Black Sea grain deal ‘not so great,’ Kremlin says appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

Besides the death and devastation sown by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the war and the West’s attempt to isolate Russia as punishment have sent the price of grain, cooking oil, fertilizer and energy soaring, hurting global growth.

The United Nations, which says a global food crisis is deepening, is trying to broker a deal to unblock Ukraine’s grain exports though Western leaders have blamed Russia for holding the world to ransom by blockading Ukrainian ports.

“During the discussion of the situation in Ukraine, emphasis was placed on ensuring safe navigation in the Black and Azov seas and eliminating the mine threat in their waters,” the Kremlin said of Putin’s call with Erdogan.

“Vladimir Putin noted the readiness of the Russian side to facilitate the unhindered sea transit of goods in coordination with Turkish partners. This also applies to the export of grain from Ukrainian ports.”

Putin, according to the Kremlin, added that if sanctions were lifted, then Russia could “export significant volumes of fertilizers and agricultural products.”

It was not immediately clear which Ukrainian ports Putin was speaking of. Ukraine’s main grain export ports include Chornomorsk, Mykolaiv, Odesa, Kherson and Yuzhny.

Erdogan told Putin that peace needed to be established as soon as possible and that Turkey was ready to take on a role in an “observation mechanism” between Moscow, Kyiv and the United Nations, if an agreement is reached.

He later told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy that he “especially valued the project to create a secure sea route for exporting Ukrainian agricultural products,” his office said, adding he welcomed, in principle, the idea of making Istanbul a headquarters for the “observation mechanism.”

Erdogan also repeated that Turkey was ready to support any peace efforts between Ukraine and Russia, the statement added.

Harvest race

Ukraine is trying to export its grains by road, river and rail to help avert a global food crisis but will not hit its targets unless Russia’s blockade, an official at Ukraine’s Agriculture Ministry told Reuters last week. Read full story

Before Russia sent troops into Ukraine, the country had the capacity to export up to 6 million tonnes of wheat, barley and maize a month but exports collapsed to just 300,000 tonnes in March and 1.1 million in April.

Russia and Ukraine together account for 29% of global wheat exports, mainly via the Black Sea, and for 80 per cent of global exports of sunflower oil.

Ukraine is also a major exporter of corn, barley and rapeseed oil, while Russia and Belarus — which has backed Moscow in the war and is also under sanctions — account for over 40 per cent of global potash exports.

Russia has captured some of Ukraine’s biggest seaports and its navy controls major transport routes in the Black Sea, where extensive mining has made commercial shipping dangerous.

Sanctions have also made it hard for Russian exporters to access vessels to move commodities to global markets.

Putin has said Russia will increase wheat exports in the new July-June season due to a potential record crop of 87 million tonnes.

The post Kremlin says Putin ready to facilitate grain exports via Ukraine ports appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

Natural gas prices have spiked this year as economies reopened from COVID-19 lockdowns and high demand for liquefied natural gas in Asia pushed down supplies to Europe, sending shockwaves through industries reliant on the energy source.

Carbon dioxide (CO2) is a byproduct of the fertilizer industry — Britain’s main source of CO2 — where natural gas is the biggest input cost. Industrial gas companies, including Linde, Air Liquide and Air Products and Chemicals, get their CO2 mainly from fertilizer plants.

The natural gas price surge has forced some fertilizer plants to shut in recent weeks, leading to a shortage of CO2 used to put the fizz into beer and sodas and stun poultry and pigs before slaughter.

As CO2 stocks dwindled, Britain struck a deal with U.S. company CF Industries, which supplies some 60 per cent of Britain’s CO2, to restart production at two plants which were shut because they had become unprofitable due to the gas price rise.

“We need the market to adjust, the food industry knows there’s going to be a sharp rise in the cost of carbon dioxide,” Environment Secretary George Eustice told Sky News.

It would have to accept that the price of CO2 would rise sharply, to around 1,000 pounds (C$1,739) a tonne from 200 pounds a tonne, Eustice said, adding: “So a big, sharp rise.”

The three-week support for CF would cost “many millions, possibly tens of millions but it’s to underpin some of those fixed costs,” Eustice said.

A spokesperson for Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the government was giving CF the difference between its total production costs and what it receives from the sale of CO2.

Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng, who also serves as energy minister, told lawmakers he was confident the country could also secure other sources of the gas.

It was not immediately clear how the state intervention by one of Europe’s most traditionally laissez-faire governments would affect the price of fertilizer — another key cost for food producers — and whether or not it would stoke demands from other energy-heavy industries for similar state support.

Christmas shortages?

Ministers, including Johnson, have repeatedly brushed aside suggestions there could be shortages of traditional Christmas fare such as roast turkey, though some suppliers have warned of them.

Kwarteng has said there would be no return to the 1970s when Britain was plagued by power cuts that made the economy the “sick man of Europe,” with three-day working weeks and people unable to heat their homes.

Eustice said without the deal some of Britain’s meat and poultry processors would have run out of CO2 within days.

“We know that if we did not act, then by this weekend or certainly by the early part of next week, some of the poultry processing plants would need to close,” he added.

He said the impact on food prices would be negligible.

But the boss of supermarket Iceland said the temporary arrangement would not solve the food industry’s problems.

“A three-week deal won’t save Christmas,” said managing director Richard Walker. “And certainly won’t resolve the issue in the long term.”

The British Poultry Council welcomed the deal but said the industry was still facing huge pressures from labour shortages and estimated Christmas turkey production will be down by 20 per cent this year.

Similarly the British Meat Processors Association expressed “huge relief.”

“We are focused on re-establishing (CO2) supplies before Friday this week which is when around 25 per cent of pork production was in danger of shutting down,” it said.

Britain’s Food and Drink Federation said there will still be shortages of some products though they will not be as bad as previously feared, while the British Soft Drinks Association warned it would take up to two weeks before production from CF made any positive impact on market conditions.

Marks + Spencer, which typically sells one in four fresh turkeys consumed in the United Kingdom at Christmas, struck a more optimistic note, saying it was confident of full supply.

Britain’s opposition Labour party said the government needed to explain the contingency plans in place in case the C02 issues are not resolved in three weeks.

— Reporting for Reuters by Guy Faulconbridge, Kate Holton and James Davey; additional reporting by Nigel Hunt and Elizabeth Piper.

The post Britain tells its food industry to prepare for CO2 price shock appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

Retailers such as Tesco have warned that leaving the European Union on Oct. 31 without a transition deal would be problematic as so much fresh produce is imported and warehouses are stocked full ahead of Christmas.

The industry — which employs 450,000 people in the United Kingdom — views Brexit as the biggest challenge since the Second World War, dwarfing previous crises such as the horse meat scandal of 2013 and the BSE outbreaks of the 1980s and 1990s.

“We’re not going to starve but there will be shortages of fresh food and some specialist ingredients. It’s going to be a little bit unpredictable,” the Food and Drink Federation’s chief operating officer Tim Rycroft told Reuters.

“Given that food very often is perishable and has a short shelf life, we expect that there will be some selective shortages of food in the weeks and months following no-deal Brexit,” Rycroft said. “There will be some shortages and price rises.”

Part of the problem is that Brexit could change everything — or, possibly, nothing.

Ahead of the original Brexit deadline of March 29, supermarkets and retailers spent millions of pounds preparing for Brexit and working with suppliers to increase stocks of dried goods including pasta, bottled water and toilet paper.

After three years of Brexit discussion, it is still unclear on what terms the United Kingdom will leave the European Union with options ranging from a last-minute exit deal or delay to an acrimonious divorce that would knot the sinews of trade.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has repeatedly warned the European Union that unless it agrees to do a fresh divorce deal then he will lead the country out of the bloc on Oct. 31 without a deal.

Brexit at Halloween

As winter approaches, the United Kingdom becomes more dependent on imported food so a Halloween no-deal Brexit is potentially more disruptive.

Britain imports around 60 per cent of its food by the beginning of November — just the time that delays caused by a no-deal Brexit could be clogging up ports and motorways, Rycroft said.

Fresh fruit and vegetables, which have a short shelf-life of only a few days, cannot be stored for long so any checks at Calais could lead to significant disruption at Dover, Britain’s biggest port.

Michael Gove, the British minister responsible for no-deal preparations, said he was confident that a resilient food supply system would ensure people would have “a wide range and the choices that they need” whatever happened.

“If we do leave without a deal on Oct. 31 there will inevitably be bumps in the road,” Gove told BBC TV on a visit to Dover.

“I have been talking to people who manage this port, I’ve been talking to people who are responsible for freight that travels to Europe and I’ve been talking to those who manage other ports in order to make sure… that people can receive in their supermarkets and shops everything that they need.”

Rycroft said they estimated that the cost of preparing for a no-deal exit, including reserving warehouse space, using alternative distributors and losing orders in congested ports, would cost the industry up to 100 million pounds (C$161 million) a week.

“A lot of money will be spent,” Rycroft said, referring to how the industry prepared for two previous Brexit deadlines in March and April.

The U.K. food and drink industry accounts for 19 per cent of the manufacturing sector by turnover and employs over 450,000 people in Britain across 7,000 businesses including Associated British Foods, Nestle and PepsiCo.

Some of the bigger companies have tested different ports to avoid the main route of Dover-Calais while pharmaceutical companies have reserved air freight capacity to fly in supplies if needed.

The trade body has urged the government to waive some competition rules to allow retailers and suppliers to be able to work together to provide the most effective coverage for the country in such a situation.

Rycroft said the industry had repeatedly asked the government to provide a guarantee that companies would not be fined for engaging in anti-competitive behaviour.

Brexit supporters say there may be short-term disruption from a no-deal exit but that the UK will thrive if cut free from what they cast as a doomed experiment in integration that has led to Europe falling behind China and the United States.

Rolls-Royce said on Tuesday it was ready to cope with the fallout from a disorderly Brexit after the aero-engine maker spent around 100 million pounds to increase inventory among other preparations.

— Writing for Reuters by Guy Faulconbridge and Kate Holton.

The post British food lobby warns of food shortages from no-deal Brexit appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

At least that’s what research by a team of academics from the University of Cambridge, HEC Paris and Vanderbilt University of Nashville shows.

The Warren Buffetts of the fine wine world could have earned annualized real returns of 4.1 per cent from 1900 to 2012, beating government bonds, fine art and stamps, though British equities would have given annualized returns of 5.2 per cent.

“You would have done nowhere like as well as equities but the returns are surprisingly high compared to the returns on cash or bonds,” Elroy Dimson, visiting professor at the Cambridge Judge Business School, told Reuters by telephone.

“Life is a little unfair and wealthy people who buy these assets — in this case, wine — if they keep half to drink and sell half, maybe the half they sell could pay for the half they drink,” he said.

The research crunched the data from 36,271 transactions for five red Bordeaux wines — Haut-Brion, Lafite-Rothschild, Latour, Margaux, and Mouton-Rothschild — from the sales rooms of Christie’s auctioneers and wine merchant Berry Bros. and Rudd.

Annualized real returns over the same period on British government bonds were 1.5 per cent, 2.4 per cent on art and 2.8 per cent on stamps, according to data quoted in the research.

So did the academics get to try the Premiers Crus Bordeaux, which can fetch 8,000 pounds (US$13,500) a bottle, as part of their research?

“No. Come on. They are 8,000 pounds a bottle… They are for Chinese millionaires, not for humble academics,” said Dimson.

Dimson used the example of port, which underperformed fine red wine over the century to caution that drinking fashions can change dramatically over time.

But he did have one bit of advice for tippler-investors planning for the next century: whisky.

“Fine whisky may be the coming thing,” he said.

— Guy Faulconbridge is Reuters’ bureau chief for the U.K. and Ireland, based in London.

The post Red wine a winning investment in 20th century appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.