Agribusiness: Meeting Unprecedented Challenges

By Thomas Monteiro

A perfect storm hit the global agricultural market this year—or, in some places, a perfect drought. The war in Ukraine; global post-pandemic supply-side disruptions; record droughts in Europe and China; frosts in Brazil; Hurricane Ian in Florida; and unusually heavy rains and floods in India, Pakistan and Australia combined in 2022 to test the limits of the current production and retail chain of food supplies. “Several issues affected supply, but three years of La Niña and the war in Ukraine are the two major factors there,” says Carlos Mera Arzeno, head of Agri Commodities Markets Research at Rabobank.

The current challenges add to the strain on an already strained market. In 2012, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) estimated that by 2050 we will need to increase food output by 60% based on a business-as-usual scenario. “The global food market faces the challenge of feeding a growing population, which should reach 10 billion people by 2050. It is not a trivial task,” explains Christiane Assis, director of investor relations at food processing company JBS. Read more>>