“Increased meat consumption in India: While India has slowly started moving towards a more middle-class economy, meat consumption is still low – largely for cultural reasons. The largest corn consumer, cattle, is pretty much out, but other meat categories could increase – particularly poultry/eggs. However, India’s current base is so low that we’d have to double India’s meat consumption to even make a dent in the global corn,” according to an Alliance Bernstein note posted by Dimitra DeFotis of Barron’s.
Stronger agriculture commodities prices could also lift ETFs, including the Market Vectors Agribusiness ETF (NYSEArca: MOO), PowerShares Global Agriculture Portfolio (NYSEArca: PAGG), IQ Global Agribusiness Small Cap ETF (NYSEArca: CROP) and iShares MSCI Global Agriculture Producers ETF (NYSEArca: VEGI).
Rising meat consumption is another possible catalyst for CORN.
“Increased meat consumption in US/Europe: Meat is a highly price elastic commodity, and with lower meat prices, consumers in the west have consumed more (literally, for once in our field!) However, consumers have primarily gone towards fish and poultry, which do not consume significant amounts of corn, while cutting back on dairy,” according to the Alliance Bernstein note featured in Barron’s.
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