The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Singapore Planning Authorities
from AsiaIsGreen
Singapore’s First Crowd-sourced Nature Documentary
from Pulau Hantu
Batesian Mimicry
from Macro Photography in Singapore
Monitor Mayday
from Lazy Lizard's Tales
Visiting the ACRES Rescue Centre
from Lazy Lizard's Tales
Julia Ng Channel NewsAsia 10 Aug 12;
SINGAPORE: In his latest blog entry, National Development Minister Khaw Boon Wan shared on Friday a little known story of how recycled excavated materials from Singapore's construction sites are turned into a useful construction resource.
(NEWater and New Earth? on National Development Minister Khaw Boon Wan's blog.)
He noted that in most countries, excavated materials are dumped on land, which is unsightly and takes up precious space.
In Singapore, unwanted excavated clay and earth are used to reclaim and create new land. Mr Khaw coined this as "new earth".
Just as NEWater is an inspiring story of how Singapore overcame a shortage challenge, through an innovative way to reduce, reuse and recycle used water, Mr Khaw said such "new earth" is a better way to manage excavated materials.
He said last year, 8.5 million cubic metres of materials were excavated to build basement car parks and shops, underground expressways, and MRT tunnels.
Two main types of materials -- soft clay and good earth -- depending on the location and technique of excavation, are dug up.
With many infrastructure and development projects taking place in Singapore, the construction industry is generating a significant quantity of soft clay and good earth.
Some good earth is reused by the construction industry for their projects. As for soft clay, Mr Khaw said when properly treated, both soft clay and good earth can be used for land reclamation.
Currently, excavated materials from the private construction industry are received at the Changi Staging Ground for transport to Pulau Tekong, where they are reused for reclamation.
Earlier this year, lorry queues at the Changi Staging Ground have grown longer. Some Members of Parliament observed this and raised it in Parliament.
Mr Khaw said the longer queues were due to a spike in the amount of materials generated by the construction industry, causing a bottleneck at the Changi Staging Ground.
A number of large construction projects -- such as South Beach Development at Beach Road, Singapore's fourth university SUTD, Singapore Sports Hub, and the National Art Gallery -- with deep excavations, came on-stream at the same time.
To increase the handling capacity of the Changi Staging Ground, the authorities have extended the operating hours, added more weigh-bridges, built a stockpile pit, and also worked with contractors to spread out their deliveries to off-peak hours.
These efforts were underway, and the current congestion problem should ease, Mr Khaw added.
- CNA/cc
Changi congestion woes to ease soon: Khaw Boon Wan
Maria Almenoar Straits Times 10 Aug 12;
The congestion woes in Changi, where there are long lorry queues, is likely to ease soon.
National Development Minister Khaw Boon Wan, noting that MPs had raised this issue in Parliament earlier this year, said that the congestion was caused by the transportation of excavated materials to the Changi Staging Ground.
The area is more congested than usual with lorries as a number of construction projects with deep excavations are in progress at the same time, wrote Mr Khaw in his blog.
Lorries carry excavated materials from various construction projects around Singapore to Changi. The materials are later transported to Pulau Tekong to be reused for reclamation.
He explained that the National Development Ministry has already taken some steps to ease the situation, including extending the operating hours of the grounds and asking contractors to spread out their deliveries of excavated materials to off-peak hours among other things.
Where debris from construction sites goes
Daryl Chin Straits Times 11 Aug 12;
SINGAPORE'S construction workers dug up enough soil, clay and rubble last year to fill 3,400 Olympic-sized swimming pools, it emerged yesterday.
And in a resource-scarce nation, as little of it as possible is wasted.
Instead, a portion of the roughly 8.5 million cu m of debris - gathered from works including underground expressways and basement carparks - was used for projects such as land reclamation, said National Development Minister Khaw Boon Wan.
"In most countries, excavated material is dumped on land," he wrote on his blog. "This takes up precious space and is also unsightly."
Depending on the location of the site and the technique used to excavate, two main types of debris are dug up. One, which is classified as good earth, can be recycled immediately by the construction industry. The other, known as soft clay, has to be treated before being reused, for example in land reclamation.
"Lorries transport these excavated materials from construction sites to staging grounds at our coast," said Mr Khaw.
"There, they are loaded onto barges, which move them to our various land reclamation sites for use as fill material."
A National Development Ministry spokesman said almost 50 per cent of the debris collected - or 3.9 million cu m - was sent to Pulau Tekong for land reclamation.
On his Housing Matters blog, Mr Khaw also addressed recent problems relating to the Changi Staging Ground dumping site. Construction companies have complained of long waiting times - up to five hours - before they can discharge their loads.
Mr Khaw said the queues were caused by a large number of building projects - such as the Singapore Sports Hub and National Art Gallery - which began at the same time.
He added that efforts are being made to resolve the issue. They include extending operating hours, adding more weighbridges and a stockpile pit, and working with contractors to spread out their deliveries to off-peak hours.
Asked if such measures were adequate, Singapore Contractors Association president Ho Nyok Yong said: "The problem seems to be improving slightly but we are still getting many urgent complaints."
Sub-contractor Vincent Ong, who handles the waste dumping for HDB projects, said the queues mean he can make only about three trips a day to the Changi site, down from around eight last year. "As a result, I'm now telling my guys to go to other dumping sites," he said.
Chuah Bee Kim New Straits Times 11 Aug 12;
NEED TO SAFEGUARD PARK: Wetland in danger of being hit by oil spills due to illegal offshore oil transfers
JOHOR BARU: THE Tanjung Piai National Park, which was hit by an oil spill two months ago, may be affected again if no preventive measures are put in place.
Malaysian Nature Society's Johor branch chairman, Vincent Chow, said the sudden violent Sumatra wind (a squall) causes huge waves that would bring oil spills to the shore.
The June 27 oil spill had adversely affected 5,500 mangrove trees along a 600m stretch of the coast. At least 10 species of marine life and insects were also affected.
The national park was temporarily off-limits to visitors due to the clean up work, but it has since re-opened.
Chow urged the Johor Tourism Department, Johor National Parks Corporation (JNPC), Marine Department, Fisheries Department and Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency to share the responsibility of conserving what has been dubbed the southernmost tip of mainland Asia.
Besides being a Johor tourism icon, Tanjung Piai is recognised as a Ramsar wetland of international importance.
"The possibility of the area being hit by a repeated oil spill is very high due to the illegal vessel-to-vessel oil transfers in the waters off Tanjung Piai.
"These waters are along the shipping lanes between the Port of Tanjung Pelepas in Johor and the Jurong Port in Singapore," Chow said.
He called for mitigation measures to be put in place to prevent from any re-occurrence as clean-up jobs were not only expensive, but labour extensive.
"It is almost impossible to salvage the damage after an oil spill."
Chow also proposed the setting up of booms and oil containment devices to trap oil spills.
"A joint committee should also be formed by the relevant authorities to save the state tourism icon."
JNPC director Suhairi Hashim said many of the newly-planted mangrove trees had perished after the June 27 oil spill. Other trees which are more than 15 years old were also withering away.
Suhairi said cleaning-up work was being done continuously.
"Visitor arrivals this month stand at 6,000, which is a low figure probably due to the oil spill and fasting month.
"Since January, the park has received about 32,000 visitors. Last year, the park recorded 65,000 visitors," Suhairi said.
He said facilities such as the 50-bay car park and wooden boardwalk at the national park needed to be upgraded.
"The boardwalk has not been upgraded since 1999 and we currently have only 50 car parking bays.
"We have written to the Johor Tourism Department thrice to request for an allocation for upgrading the carpark, but there has been no reply."
The boardwalk leading to a globe structure was among the most damaged facilities during June's oil spill.
LiveScience.com Yahoo News 10 Aug 12;
Bullfrogs, often shipped live between continents to be eaten, are spreading the deadly chytrid fungus that is threatening amphibians worldwide, new research indicates.
A team of researchers collected bullfrogs on sale at Asian food stores in seven cities in the United States and found 41 percent of the frogs were infected with the fungus.
The chytrid fungus is harmless to people, but it has caused species declines and even extinctions among amphibians. However, it is not fatal to all amphibians. The fungus doesn't kill the North American bullfrog, the type of frog sampled in this study, making this species an excellent carrier.
Frogs in these U.S. shops are imported live primarily from farms in Taiwan, Brazil and Ecuador. In the United States, the live frogs are then sold for their legs.
The team also looked for fungus at frog farms in Brazil and among several native frog species from Brazil's Atlantic Forest, one of the most amphibian-rich regions in the world.
Their work revealed four new strains of chytrid, also known as Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis or Bd. One of these was found on a bullfrog in southeastern Michigan. This frog appeared to have come from a farm in the Atlantic Forest region, where sampling from native frogs revealed that the four strains are common.
By comparing these strains with those described from studies in Japan, the team found Brazilian chytrid had made its way to Japan.
The Brazilian chytrid probably first infected native frogs in Brazil, spread to farms, and from there, around the world, the researchers say. [7 Devastating Infectious Diseases]
The trade in frogs has probably led to the global spread of the disease, said study researcher Timothy James, a University of Michigan evolutionary biologist.
"A lot of the movement of this fungus is related to the live food trade, which is something we should probably stop doing," James said in a statement. "We don’t need to have millions of live frogs being shipped from foreign countries into the United States."
The research was detailed online July 31 in the journal Molecular Ecology.
Campaigning against economic valuations could inadvertently strengthen the hand of those who believe nature has little or no worth
Tony Juniper guardian.co.uk 10 Aug 12;
Recent calculations of the economic value of nature and ecosystem services have caused many environmentalists to react negatively. They point to the risk of a progressive "privatisation" and "commodification" of nature, and argue that society should appreciate the intrinsic values of nature – nature for its own sake. Putting a 'price on nature' will create more enclosures whereby the public benefits derived from ecosystems will be seized by corporations and other private interests.
The new discourse about "natural capital" is seen by some as another step towards the degradation of the biosphere. George Monbiot wrote is such terms this week. He argued:
Rarely will the money to be made by protecting nature match the money to be made by destroying it. Nature offers low rates of return by comparison to other investments. If we allow the discussion to shift from values to value – from love to greed – we cede the natural world to the forces wrecking it.
But to paint such a one-sided picture is a dangerous game. For decades campaigners have fought for the protection of nature for its own sake, and while there has been notable progress (seen for example in the rapid increase in protected areas worldwide, which will hopefully continue irrespective of purely economic evaluations), the overall trends have not been encouraging.
The destruction of unprotected forests, loss of soils, depletion of aquifers, extinction of animals and plants and plunder of the oceans has continued apace. It seems that the moral argument has gained insufficient traction, and that in the absence of new frames continuing population and economic growth will cause more damage.
One source of hope comes from the growing realisation that nature is essential for economic development. The message is clear: without nature the economy is nothing. That penny is beginning to drop in various important places, and could soon lead to a new era of policy-making. One in which ecology and economics go hand in hand, but only if we have the tools to build bridges between these worlds that are so alien to each other. And that is where the economic valuation of nature can come in.
By appreciating that nature is vital for economics, and has measurable tangible financial values, it is possible to get the attention of people who have at best hitherto regarded nature a supplier of resources, or worse still an economically costly distraction that gets in the way of economic 'growth'. Making the moral case in the face of such beliefs won't work. If, on the other hand, such scepticism can be met with economically compelling logic, then we might get a bit further.
There are of course ecological values (like beauty and the very fact that things exist) that sometimes cannot be assigned financial values, and should be protected by the law, policy and public backing rather than through markets.
There are certainly dangers that come with financial values being attached to natural systems. These might be seen in how countries choose to reflect the value of ecosystems (like forests) that indigenous people rely on and have ancestral rights over (or should do). Those dangers need to be managed with regulations and other safeguards when, for example, those same forests are deemed as financially valuable in supplying a distant city with water, and when managing that water affect the rights of the people in the forest. There are risks but just outcomes can be secured.
While I am alarmed at how some environmentalists reject the economic valuation of nature, I am more alarmed still at how such a position can appear similar to those with deeply sceptical views about whether we should protect the environment in the first place. Nigel Lawson, the arch climate change denier, is like many environmentalists dead against putting financial values on nature. He knows well that if this happens then economics would have to change in fundamental ways requiring new government policies, changes to how capital is invested and shifts in consumption patterns. By campaigning against the valuation of ecosystem services, some campaigners could inadvertently strengthen the hand of those who believe nature has little or no value, moral, economic or otherwise.
And it seems to me there is not a choice here. I have spent the past 25 years campaigning for nature for its own sake, because it is beautiful, because it should exist for its own reasons and because we have no right to destroy it. I have found that not everyone agrees with that though, and while I am trying to convince them, more forests are cleared, oceans polluted and greenhouse gases released.
We could carry on like this, with ideological purity preserved (on all sides), or we could open a new discourse, one that requires the sceptics to meaningfully engage, and on the field where future environmental battles will be won and lost – the field of economics. After all, it is not most environmentalists who have misunderstood the realities that come with 'growth' a finite Earth, but most economists.
• Tony Juniper's book on the value of ecosystems for economies, What has Nature ever done for us? will be published in January
Singapore Species
from Celebrating Singapore's BioDiversity!
Champerai Trail on National Day
from Urban Forest
Archdukes @ USR
from Beauty of Fauna and Flora in Nature
Brown-throated Sunbird and the fruits of the Pagoda Flower
from Bird Ecology Study Group
Sightings at Sungei Tengah
from Lazy Lizard's Tales
STOMPer reels in 'sea monster' with many writhing legs at Changi Beach Club from Lazy Lizard's Tales
AFP Yahoo News 9 Aug 12;
This handout photograph taken in 2011 and released by the Leuser International Foundation shows a Sumatran rhinoceros at the Mount Leuser National Park on Indonesia's Sumatran island. Hidden cameras have spotted seven critically endangered Sumatran rhinos for the first time in 26 years in the Mount Leuser national park. (AFP Photo/)
Seven Sumatran rhinos have been captured on hidden cameras in an Indonesian national park where the critically endangered species was feared extinct, a conservationist said Thursday.
The Sumatran rhino had not been sighted in the Mount Leuser National Park on the northern tip of Sumatra for 26 years, the project's team leader Tarmizi of the Leuser International Foundation said.
"This discovery can allay doubts over the rhino's presence in the park," Tarmizi told AFP, adding he hoped the discovery would encourage more efforts to conserve the species.
Images of the rhinos were captured by 28 infrared cameras set up between June 2011 and April this year and confirmed six female and one male rhino appearing in 1,000 photo frames.
The Sumatran rhino population has dropped 50 percent over the past 20 years, and there are now believed to be fewer than 200 left in the world.
The rhinos are commonly targeted by poachers and rampant illegal logging has destroyed much of their habitat.
Mynardo Macaraig (AFP) Google News 9 Aug 12;
MANILA — Deadly floods that have swamped nearly all of the Philippine capital are less a natural disaster and more the result of poor planning, lax enforcement and political self-interest, experts say.
Damaged watersheds, massive squatter colonies living in danger zones and the neglect of drainage systems are some of the factors that have made the chaotic city of 15 million people much more vulnerable to enormous floods.
Urban planner Nathaniel Einseidel said the Philippines had enough technical know-how and could find the necessary financing to solve the problem, but there was no vision or political will.
"It's a lack of appreciation for the benefits of long-term plans. It's a vicious cycle when the planning, the policies and enforcement are not very well synchronised," said Einseidel, who was Manila's planning chief from 1979-89.
"I haven't heard of a local government, a town or city that has a comprehensive drainage masterplan."
Eighty percent of Manila was this week covered in waters that in some parts were nearly two metres (six feet and six inches) deep, after more than a normal August's worth of rain was dumped on the city in 48 hours.
Twenty people have died and two million others have been affected, according to the government.
The deluge was similar to one in 2009, a disaster which claimed more than 460 lives and prompted pledges from government leaders to make the city more resistant to floods.
A government report released then called for 2.7 million people in shantytowns to be moved from "danger zones" alongside riverbanks, lakes and sewers.
Squatters, attracted by economic opportunities in the city, often build shanties on river banks, storm drains and canals, dumping garbage and impeding the flow of waterways.
The plan would have affected one in five Manila residents and taken 10 years and 130 billion pesos (3.11 billion dollars) to implement.
But squatter communities in danger-zones have in fact grown since 2009.
"With the increasing number of people occupying danger zones, it is inevitable there are a lot people who are endangered when these things happen," Einseidel said.
He blamed the phenomenon on poor enforcement of regulations banning building along creeks and floodways, with local politicians often wanting to keep squatters in their communities to secure their votes at election time.
Meanwhile, on the outskirts of Manila, vital forested areas have been destroyed to make way for housing developments catering to growing middle and upper classes, according to architect Paulo Alcazaren.
Alcazeren, who is also an urban planner, said the patchwork political structure of Manila had made things even harder.
The capital is actually made up of 16 cities and towns, each with its own government, and they often carry out infrastructure programmes -- such as man-made and natural drainage protection -- without coordination.
"Individual cities can never solve the problem. They can only mitigate. If you want to govern properly, you must re-draw or overlay existing political boundaries," he said.
Solutions to the flooding will require massive efforts such as re-planting in natural drainage basins, building low-cost housing for the squatters and clearing man-made drainage systems, the experts said.
"It will cost billions of pesos but we lose billions anyway every time it floods," Alcazeren said.
Meanwhile, with Environment Secretary Ramon Paje warning that intense rains like those this week will become the "new normal" due to climate change, there have been concerns about the city's ability to lure and keep foreign investors.
However American Chamber of Commerce president Rhicke Jennings said Manila remained an attractive destination.
"Companies will continue to invest in the Philippines for all its positive qualities," he said, citing well-trained Filipino staff and pointing out there were key parts of the city with good infrastructure that did not badly flood.
Jennings highlighted the rise of the outsourcing sector in the Philippines as evidence that foreigners would not abandon the country because of floods.
Companies such as JP Morgan, Deutsche Bank and Accenture have all set up backroom operations in recent years, mostly in slick new parts of Manila where infrastructure is state-of-the art and which did not flood this week.
From virtually nothing a decade ago, 600,000 people are now employed in the outsourcing sector and the industry is expecting that number to more than double by 2016 as more foreign firms move in.
Sita W. Dewi,The Jakarta Post 9 Aug 12;
A green group has blamed local politics for contributing to the swift environmental degradation that eventually led to more frequent natural disasters.
The Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi) said that it has recorded an increase in the number of disasters and casualties caused by environmental degradation.
“The cause of this increasing frequency of natural disasters and the numbers of their victims are investment policies which are not environmentally-friendly,” Walhi disaster management division head Mukri Friatna said in a recent interview with The Jakarta Post.
Mukri said that investment policies were designed to benefit local leaders who need cash to contest local elections. “The high cost of politics at the local level has encouraged local leaders to abuse their authority, including issuing pro-business policies,” he said.
The group has recorded dozens of flash floods and landslides across Indonesia this year, 22 of which killed at least 65 people.
Walhi recorded 452 flash floods and landslides in 2011, killing 371 people. In 2010, 428 flash floods and landslides occurred, killing 635 people. Walhi data also shows that 324 people were killed in 447 flash floods and landslides in 2009.
Mukri said that natural disasters, mostly caused by environment degradation as a result of unchecked business expansions, had also caused local administrations to spend more on relief and recovery efforts.
“For example, material losses caused by a flash flood in Padang [West Sumatra] in July reached Rp 46 billion [US$4.87 million]. That excludes economic losses and the costs of reconstruction and rehabilitation, which could reach another Rp 50 billion. Let’s say the amount of the regional budget stands at Rp 150 billion, Rp 100 billion would be used to cover all the costs,” Mukri said.
Mukri said that as natural disasters increase, they will affect the distribution of local budgets, especially on education and health.
The flash flood that hit six districts in Padang late last month, damaged innumerable buildings and displaced hundreds of residents. The National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) has estimated that material losses caused by the flash flood could reach Rp 40.66 billion.
Mukri said that despite the severity of these disasters, the government remains in dark over the real causes.
“The BNPB always blames the disasters on high intensity of rain. They do want to further explain the root of all the problems—which is environmental degradation,”
he said.
Siti Zuhro, a political analyst from the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), said that the new political landscape in the reform era had affected on how the country’s natural resources were exploited.
“After reform, Indonesian politics are more fragmented. We have gone through multiple multi-party systems and imposed regional autonomy since 2001. Since 2005, we have implemented regional direct elections. Those new episodes have a direct correlation to our natural resources’ exploitation,” she said.
Siti pointed out that regional autonomy had given power to local leaders to manage their regions and encouraged local leaders to boost locally-generated revenue (PAD), which led to numerous bylaws, most of which were problematic.
“Regional autonomy has given local leaders the confidence to issue regulations, which are not entirely environmentally friendly,” she said.
(AFP) Google News 9 Aug 12;
WASHINGTON — Threatened shark species are being used to make shark fin soup, a delicacy in Chinese cuisine, in several US cities, according to an unprecedented study based on DNA testing.
Thirty-three different species of sharks turned up in samples collected in 14 cities and analyzed at Stony Brook University's Institute for Ocean Conservation Science in New York.
"US consumers of shark fin soup cannot be certain of what's in their soup," said Demian Chapman, who co-led the DNA testing, in a statement Wednesday. "They could be eating a species that is in serious trouble."
Scalloped hammerhead sharks, listed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, was among the species found on the menus of US restaurants where shark fin soup can sell for as much as $100 per bowl.
Others included smooth hammerheads, school sharks and spiny dogfish, all listed as vulnerable to extinction, as well as a variety of near-threatened species such as bull and copper sharks.
"This is further proof that shark fin soup here in the United States, not just in Asia, is contributing to the global decline in sharks," said Liz Karan, of the Pew Environment Group, a foundation that supported the study.
"Sharks must be protected from overfishing," said Karan, manager of Pew's global shark conservation program, "and any international trade in these vulnerable and endangered species must be tightly regulated."
The study marks the first time that DNA testing has been used to ascertain the different kinds of sharks used to make shark fin soup in the United States on a large nationwide scale.
Samples were collected in Albuquerque, New Mexico; Atlanta, Georgia; Boston; Chicago; Denver, Colorado; Fort Lauderdale, Florida; Houston; Las Vegas; Los Angeles; New York; Orlando, Florida; San Francisco; Seattle and Washington.
The study, to which the Field Museum in Chicago contributed its DNA expertise, is to figure prominently in a television program on sharks on the Discovery science channel next week.
Up to 73 million sharks are killed around the world every year to supply an Asian-driven demand for shark fin soup, the Singapore branch of the WWF conservation organization says.
Since sharks are slow-growing and mature at a late age, they are particularly vulnerable to the danger of extinction, with potentially serious knock-on effects for lower rungs of the oceanic food chain.
Catherine Hornby and Karl Plume PlanetArk 10 Aug 12;
Global alarm over a potential repeat of the 2008 food crisis escalated on Thursday after data showed food prices had jumped 6 percent last month and importers were snapping up a shriveled US grain crop, helping drive corn prices to a new record.
The day before a critical government report on the state of the US corn and soybean crops, which have been decimated by the worst drought in over five decades, the United Nation's food agency warned against the kind of export bans, tariffs and buying binges that worsened the price surge four years ago.
"There is potential for a situation to develop like we had back in 2007/08," the Food and Agriculture Organisation's senior economist and grain analyst Abdolreza Abbassian told Reuters.
"There is an expectation that this time around we will not pursue bad policies and intervene in the market by restrictions, and if that doesn't happen we will not see such a serious situation as 2007/08. But if those policies get repeated, anything is possible."
So far, most governments have refrained from trade intervention. Russia's deputy prime minister said this week he saw no grounds to ban wheat exports, as the country did in 2010, but he did not rule out protective export tariffs after the end of the 2012 calendar year.
Abundant rice supplies, sluggish economic growth and relatively lower oil prices may also help temper the rally in prices, Abbassian added.
But signs of unusually large early buying and extra stockpiling are emerging. US corn export sales over the past week jumped to the second-highest in 10 months, if the sales figure includes a near-record one-time purchase by private importers in Mexico, the world's No. 2 importer.
A mix of high oil prices, growing use of biofuels, bad weather, soaring grain futures markets and restrictive export policies pushed up prices of food in 2007/08, sparking violent protests in countries including Egypt, Cameroon and Haiti.
Unlike that demand-driven spike, however, the current rally in grains has been fuelled largely by a dire drought covering the US Midwest. After slashing its corn crop estimate by 12 percent last month, the US Department of Agriculture is expected to report a further 15 percent decline in a report on Friday, providing the most authoritative view yet of the weather damage to the world's biggest grower.
Benchmark Chicago corn prices for December delivery, already up more than 60 percent since mid-June, reached a new record of nearly $8.30 per bushel. Soybeans jumped 3 percent.
BANK CURBS APPETITE FOR FOOD
The price surge is also reviving a debate over the role of financial speculators in commodity markets. Big banks and institutional investors were often blamed for inflating prices back in 2008, although academic and government studies have offered conflicting views over the cause.
Commerzbank said it had joined two of its German peers in restricting food-related investments by stripping agricultural products from its ComStage ETF CB Commodity EW Index TR, a small $145 million commodity index fund.
The bank declined to say why it had made the change, but lobby groups and traders said the motive seemed clear.
"Climbing prices are creating reputational risk for banks," said Alexis Dawance, former manager of the agriculturals-focused Global Agricap Fund.
"The big grain traders probably have much more impact in food and commodity trading, but this is part of the bigger picture, with all the fat cat bashing that has been taking place. ... If food prices continue to rise you will see this happening more and more."
Whether the major global grain merchants emerge winners or losers from the latest spike is an open question.
The largest among them, Cargill, reported the lowest quarterly earnings in over two decades for the period ended May 31, prior to the US drought, and conceded that it had been flummoxed by markets that it had long mastered.
"Cargill's global market analysis of supply and demand, and our trading expertise are long-standing strengths," CEO Greg Page said. "Even so, we did not trade as well in this year's markets, which were driven as much by the economic and political environment as by the fundamentals."
INDEX HIGHER THAN 2008
The FAO Food Price Index, which measures monthly price changes for a food basket of cereals, oilseeds, dairy, meat and sugar, averaged 213 points in July, up 6 percent from 201 points in June, the FAO said in its monthly update.
The rise, which followed three months of declines, was driven mainly by a surge in grain and sugar prices, while meat and dairy prices were little changed, the FAO said.
Although below a peak of 238 points in February 2011, when high food prices helped drive the Arab Spring uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa, the index is still higher now than during the food price crisis in 2007/08.
Higher food prices mean higher import bills for the poorest countries, which do not produce enough food domestically, and a strong dollar would deepen that impact.
"The very strong appreciation of the dollar, and the surge in prices, is basically a double blow which is going to be quite stressful for some of the more fragile countries," Abbassian said.
The weather outlook appears grim. While mature US summer crops are now mostly immune to worsening drought conditions, crucial harvests in places like India and Australia could be endangered by El Nino, which typically curbs rainfall.
The US government forecaster warned on Thursday that El Nino now appeared almost certain to set in within the next two months, although it would likely be weak to moderate strength. El Nino is a periodic warming of the tropical Pacific and brings shearing winds that hamper storm formation in the Atlantic and produce heavy rains in the eastern Pacific.
In the span of just a few months, what was to have been a year of plenty, helping replenish depleted global stockpiles, has instead become cause for alarm.
"What is quite certain is that it is not going to be a season where prices fall below the previous year, which is what we had anticipated," said Abbassian. "It is going to be another season of very high prices."
(Additional reporting by Arno Schuetze in Frankfurt and Veronica Brown in London; Writing byJonathan Leff; Editing by Mary Milliken and Jackie Frank)
FAO Food Price Index up 6 percent
Grains and sugar drive increase
FAO 10 Aug 12;
The Index, which measures the monthly change in the international prices of a basket of food commodities, averaged 213 points, up 12 points from June. That was still well below the peak of 238 points reached in February 2011, however.
The Index's sharp rebound was mostly driven by a surge in grain and sugar prices. International prices of meat and dairy products were little changed.
The FAO Cereal Price Index averaged 260 points in July, up 17 percent, or 38 points, from June. That was 14 points below its all-time high of 274 points in April 2008.
Drought damage
The severe deterioration of maize crop prospects in the United States following extensive drought damage pushed up maize prices by almost 23 percent in July.
International wheat quotations also surged 19 percent amid worsened production prospects in the Russian Federation and expectations of firm demand for wheat as feed because of tight maize supplies.
However international rice prices remained mostly unchanged in July, with the FAO overall Rice Price index stable at 238, barely one point above June.
July also saw a sharp increase in the FAO Sugar Price Index, which leaped 12 percent, or 34 points, from June to a new level of 324 points. The upturn, ending a steady fall since March, was triggered by untimely rains in Brazil, the world's largest sugar exporter, which hampered sugarcane harvesting. Concerns over India's delayed monsoon and poor rains in Australia also contributed.
Meat prices down
In contrast the FAO Meat Price Index averaged 168 points in July, down 1.7 percent, or 3 points from June and the third consecutive monthly fall. Market weakness characterized the four major meat sectors, in particular pigmeat, which saw prices fall by 3.6 percent.
Dairy prices averaged 173 points in July, unchanged from June, after five straight months of decline.
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