News archive
25 April 2018
Caldenes SA switches from cattle to buffalos
News -Caldenes SA, one of the most important companies in livestock farming sector of Argentina, is continuously replacing the cattle on its farms with buffalos. It states that ‘it makes no sense to engage in cattle breeding when buffalo business enables a higher margin’. In recent years, buffalo meat has become more popular as a healthier alternative to other red meats, because of its lower cholesterol level. The buffalo industry is increasingly growing in Argentina with around 125,000 buffalos being currently bred in the country.
24 April 2018
Rusagro's revenue declined by 23% in the first quarter of 2018
News -The revenue of Rusagro, one of the largest sugar and pork producers in Russia, declined during the first quarter of 2018 by 4.7 billion rubles or by 23% compared to the same period in 2017, amounting to 15.5 billion rubles. The overall decrease in revenue resulted mainly due to the diminished earnings in the primary agricultural business segment – from almost 3.7 billion rubles in 2017 to 1.5 billion rubles in 2018. The company explains this by stagnating prices and reduced sales volumes.
24 April 2018
Sociedad Rural de Jesus Maria invests in renewable energy
News -A new biodigester is going to start working this week in one of the pig farms of Luis Picat in the north of Córdoba in Argentina. Picat, the director of the agricultural cooperative Sociedad Rural de Jesus Maria, states that “the achieved technology is similar to the German but made in Argentina”, and that “the cost of the project is going to be amortized in 2 years”. The new source of renewable energy will work with the waste currently produced by 1,000 female pigs, and supply 70% of the total energy that the farm requires for its daily work.
19 April 2018
Rose Acre Farms recalls 200 million salmonella contaminated eggs
News -Rose Acre Farms, a U.S.-based farm, is voluntarily recalling 206,749,248 shell eggs for the fear of salmonella contamination. The company issued a recall in response to 22 cases of salmonella infections on the East Coast as reported by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The affected eggs were distributed in Colorado, Florida, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia.
16 April 2018
Adecoagro took over SanCor for $ 400 million
News -Adecoagro, an agricultural company operating 430,000 hectares in Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil and one of the leading milk producers in South America, bought SanCor, a financially-indebted Argentinean dairy cooperative, for $ 400 million. Adecoagro outbid Fonterra, a New Zealand based multinational dairy cooperative, which offered $ 330 million. Alejandro Sammartino, Head of Dairy Department of Ministry of Agriculture in Argentina, thinks that this deal represents an important capital investment. It is expected that Adecoagro will soon double its milk production in Argentina.
14 April 2018
Agroholdings have long term potential: Interview with Alfons Balmann
Opinion -Agroholdings have recently become a subject of controversial discussions and debates. In order to understand why and how the large-scale farms develop around the world, what similarities and differences exist between them in different countries and whether or not this phenomenon is of long-lasting nature we decided to conduct an interview with Alfons Balmann, Director of the Department of Structural Development of Farms and Rural Areas at the Leibniz Institute of Agricultural Development in Transition Economies (IAMO) and Professor of Agricultural Economics at the Germany-based Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg.
13 April 2018
Goodvalley bought Galitski Agrarni Investytsii from Kernel
News -The Ukrainian branch of Goodvalley (formerly known as Danosha) has completed the acquisition of 100% of corporate rights of the Galitski Agrarni Investytsii (Galician Agrarian Investments) company, which used to be a part of the Ukrainian Agrarian Investments agroholding (owned by Kernel). As stated in the report of Goodvalley, Galitski Agrarni Investytsii control 6,500 hectares of leased agricultural land in the Ivano-Frankivsk region. This acquisition is an important step in the expansion strategy of Goodvalley in Ukraine. Earlier this year this transaction was approved by the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine.
05 April 2018
Miratorg invests in pig production
News -Miratorg signed an investment agreement with the Orel region of Russia to develop a feed mill with a capacity of 800 thousand tonnes and a pork production facility of 203 thousand tonnes of pork per year. Investments are estimated at 25 billion rubles. Overall, the project will include a grain company with a number of silos, a feed mill, and 17 pig farms. Miratorg considers the Orel region as a key region in terms of the development and aims to double the number of pigs to 7 million commodity heads per year.
04 April 2018
Miratorg increased beef production by 38%
News -In the first quarter of 2018, Miratorg produced 22.2 thousand tons of beef, which is an increase of 38% compared to 2017. In late March, the company announced its intention to invest 12 billion rubles into the construction of several cattle farms in Bryansk, Kaluga, Tula, and Kaliningrad regions of Russia. The number of livestock farms owned by the company will thus increase from 86 to 99. As a result of this investment, Miratorg plans to produce 192 thousand more heads of cattle in 2018, which would be 15% more than a year earlier.
04 April 2018
Agromino carries out internal investigations of the sale of an elevator
News -The sale of Novomirgorodskiy elevator in the Kirovograd region of Ukraine is suspected to have been sold at a lower cost. Therefore, Agromino initiated the internal investigation. The investigation will be carried out by a law firm specialized in M&A advisory services. According to a preliminary report, Agromino was underpaid $ 5 million.