World Food Situation.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/china-business/8019004/Global-food-risk-from-China-Russia-pincer.html

I know it's in the press at the moment, but this article poses some very interesting questions for british farmers, particularly livestock farmers feeding concentrates and bought in forages.

Having now had rain late so most farmers in the southwest have ample third cut silage, but little good quality first and second cuts left (there are exceptions of course), what do you do now going into winter with the burden of higher input costs in feed terms?

Do you feed for maintenance and low productivity in order to reduce imported feed costs by utilising what you've got on farm (praying that it will be enough to see you through till April in case we have another winter like last year), or do you de-stock to reduce the overall demand, or both, or do you take the risk of buying in expensive forage in the hope that end prices (and margins) will rise on the back of commodity price rises this autumn, with the associated cramping of cashflow?

Given the economic situation, will demand for meat and meat related products reduce if these prices rise substantially going forward? Reading between the lines of this article, it's looking like intervention to prevent price spikes may not be so forthcoming given what followed last time round in 2007/2008.