FOOD OUTPUT NEEDS TO DOUBLE BY 2050 - Food prices have doubled in the past 20 years and earlier this week Oxfam warned that by 2030 the average cost of key crops could increase by between 120-180%. Oxfam is blaming agricultural producers, investors who they say play the commodities markets like casinos, and large agri-business companies. They say they are destructive forces in the global food system.
Tesagasc's Jimmy Bourke, who is Professor of Crop Science at UCD, says that as the world's population grows, we are going to have to double food output by 2050. He says that we have the technology to achieve this and the big agri-business companies will assist in this. While he does share some of Oxfam's concerns, he says the growth of biofuels is not really a significant cause of concern, but says that agricultural productivity needs to be increased, especially in cereals.
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US ECONOMIC CONCERNS MAIN DRAG ON WORLD MARKETS - Markets analysts Paul Sommerville says the price of food commodities continues to rise mainly because of the price of the dollar and US government policy as it continues to print new money. But he says that as the US programme of quantitative easing comes to an end this month, commodity prices will start to fall in the second half of the year. He urges farmers to hedge their prices ahead of that fall.
On Greece, Mr Sommerville says that Europe wants to avoid a restructuring of Greek debt, but he says the country will get another bail-out package which will help it limp along for another few years but ultimately will not work.
Other worries affecting world markets, which have seen heavy losses this week, are the US economy and jobs figures - due later this afternoon. Mr Sommerville says that markets are getting very worried about the US and world economy slowing down. He also says the Government should stop talking about a return to the bond markets and just let the NTMA get on with the job they are charged to do.
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MORNING BRIEFS - Lawyers for an investor challenging plans to burn junior bondholders in AIB yesterday raised the possibility of the High Court delaying the process while the case is heard. They say there is a risk that their client's investments would be wiped out before a judgement was given in the case. These are lawyers for Abadi - one of the investors challenging AIB's plans to burn its junior bondholders. The buyback would raise €2 billion for the bank, out of its €13.3 billion capital bill. Yesterday, Mr Justice John Cooke delayed the start of the hearing until today to give himself and lawyers for both sides more time to read the documents. The legal challenge by bondholders Abadi and Aurelius Capital Management, could hit plans to raise €5 billion between AIB, Bank of Ireland, Irish Life and Permanent and EBS if the High Court finds in the investors' favour.
*** Sony has been hacked again - this time at SonyPictures. The hackers, calling themselves LulzSec, said the attack was 'elementary' and done to highlight Sony's 'disgraceful' security. The hackers released a statement saying Sonny 'was asking for it', that every bit of data they took was not encrypted. In April, Sony lost millions of credit card numbers through its PlayStation Network.
*** New York prosecutors have asked Goldman Sachs to explain its behaviour in the run-up to the financial crisis. The investment bank has received a subpoena from the Manhattan district attorney. A request for information like this is an early stage of an investigation, and does not necessarily mean that any charges will be filed. At the same time Goldman is also being investigated by the US Securities and Exchange Commission and the Justice Department. Last summer Goldman Sachs agreed to pay €550m to settle civil fraud charges from the SEC, which claimed it had misled buyers of mortgage-related securities. At the time Goldman did not admit to breaking the law, but it conceded that some information had been left out of the information provided to buyers.
*** On the currency markets this morning the euro is trading at $1.4480 cents and 88.6 pence sterling.
