As governments monitor inflation, it’s food prices that worry them the most. In India, everyone is a rice trader in a sense, stocking up when they anticipate that a late start to the monsoon season will reduce yields.  

Rice is one of the new sections for this second edition of the Atlas of Food, where we have also updated the price history for wheat, corn, soybeans, chicken, beef and pork.  

This edition has a new section on the largest category of animal protein, seafood. Aquaculture has massively expanded the supply of species such as shrimp, which Platts assesses.

Fertilizer is usually farmers’ largest input cost. A third new section shows its main forms and price drivers.

The Atlas of Food shows the changes to key trade flows, such as Ukraine’s supply of corn to China. It also represents the crop cycle in each month for the key producers, illustrating, for example, why traders pay such close attention to Brazil’s weather in April and May.

Demand for corn and soybeans has accelerated in response to the rising per capita consumption of proteins. People typically spend more on pork, beef, chicken and seafood as they become more prosperous. The feed conversion ratio for swine and cattle is higher than two – meaning that many pork producers need to give a pig at least 2 kg of feed to produce 1 kg of meat. Among proteins, aquaculture makes the most efficient use of feed inputs, with just 1.5 kg of feed producing 1 kg of shrimp   
   
Many of Platts’ price assessments capture flows from Brazil. The country’s GMO adoption and double-cropping system are behind much of the growth in that flow.