Agriculture Sector

[behappyalways]

This New Method of Farming Could Change Where Our Food Comes From
http://time.com/3450670/aeroponics/

[winston]

This Commodity Trade Is About to Pay Off By Jeff Clark
Friday, November 28, 2014

In August, I told you it was time to buy agricultural commodities.

After falling 60% from the beginning of the year, the PowerShares Agricultural Commodity Fund (DBA) – an exchange-traded fund made up of 17 different agricultural commodities – looked set to bounce higher.

Since my essay, DBA has gone nowhere. But as I told you on Tuesday, the dollar is set to fall in the short term. And the decline could send DBA shares soaring over the next few months…

Take a look at the chart of the U.S. Dollar Index…

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As you can see, the dollar index bottomed in early May and then rallied through October. The dollar pulled back briefly last month, but then it rallied to an even higher level.

As regular Growth Stock Wire readers know, many commodities typically trade opposite of the U.S. dollar. So commodities rally when the dollar falls… And commodities fall when the dollar rallies.

You can see this in the chart of DBA…

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DBA peaked in early May just as the dollar index bottomed. As the dollar ran higher into October, DBA fell. But when the dollar pulled back briefly last month, DBA bounced off its bottom.

Continuing this pattern, as the dollar rallied to a higher high recently, DBA pulled back. But here's the important thing – it DID NOT make a lower low on the chart. DBA simply dropped back down to test the support of its former blue down-trending resistance line. Support held and DBA bounced again.

This is a bullish price action for agricultural commodities. DBA held above support even as the dollar rallied to a new high.

Now, take another look at the U.S. Dollar Index chart. As I said on Tuesday, the dollar index's Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD) momentum indicator – a measure of overbought and oversold conditions – is now overbought. This is a warning sign of an impending decline in the dollar.

Also, while the index has been hitting new highs, the MACD has been making new lows. This "negative divergence" is often the first warning sign a rally is nearing an end.

With the dollar poised to fall, DBA has rallied up near its first red resistance line at about $26 per share.

If DBA can break above $26 per share, it should move quickly to the next resistance line at about $26.60. That would be the third test of this resistance level in recent months. In the world of technical analysis, the more a resistance level is tested, the greater the chances of a breakout. So, in this case, the third time may be the charm.

The next significant resistance level for DBA is just above $28. That's my ultimate target for DBA's rally.

In short, agricultural commodities are poised to end the year with a strong rally. And if the dollar turns lower from here, it will provide a catalyst for a solid move higher in prices.

Source: www.growthstockwire.com

[behappyalways]

Rooftop farming
http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/ear ... 05874.html

[behappyalways]

Fish Farm of the Future Goes Vegetarian to Save Seafood
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/20 ... ve-seafood

[winston]

Agriculture fund DBA sinks 20%-plus over the past year.

[winston]

Fertilizer giant Potash drops 18% over the past four months.

[winston]

A Least Likely Place, and Most Promising Solution By Harry S. Dent Jr.

When a business closes and gets kicked out of its building, it’s common for another business to sign a lease… especially on valuable real estate.

But this might be one of the weirdest exchanges I’ve ever heard...

Newark is the largest city in New Jersey. It’s a major commercial destination.

So the last thing you’d expect to be growing in the middle of it, is a farm.

A new startup called AeroFarms recently acquired an old nightclub in the middle of Newark, and cleared the dance floor to make room for a 15-foot-high stack of planters. They’ve also signed a 20-year lease on a 69,000-square-foot steel factory two miles from it to expand their operation.

No sunlight, no pesticides, no soil… and since it’s in the middle of a city, it’ll bring food directly to the consumer.

Now that’s what I call a disruptive innovation.

Hydroponics — growing plants without soil — has been around for a little while. But AeroFarms is taking it one step further with what they call “aeroponics.” This innovation replaces sunlight with LED lighting, and uses a minimal amount of water to spread a mist around the plants.

Just think of the possibilities!

Not only is growing food locally much more affordable, it’s far less environmentally damaging. It reduces transportation costs and cuts out the cost of quality soil, which is going up, up, up! Plus, with this approach, the distribution of energy is so targeted that there’s virtually no waste. It uses 95% less water than regular farming.

Talk about green!

But like any disruptive technology, it’s bound to have a few dissenting voices.

The health conscious groups will likely reject this at first. Since this food doesn’t come from soil, it’s not “organic” in the strictest sense.

But this sounds like the kind of evolution you could expect from human history.

Greater urbanization has been the biggest trend since the late 1700s. Since the early 1800s, the rural economy has been on the decline in the developed world, and now it is fast disappearing in the emerging world. As we moved to the city, we put less focus on the country.

Urban vertical farming is just the next brick in the wall for that.

Imagine the impact technology like this would have on growing cities, not just in the developed world, but also in the emerging one.

Consider that California — which as you know is suffering a massive water shortage right now — uses 80% of its water on agriculture (which, by the way, only produces 5% of its GDP). Meanwhile, soil, air, and water pollution run rampant in China and India. And food costs are a huge percentage of their consumer living costs.

An innovation like this would eventually reduce the dependence on rural farming (though not altogether). It would also allow even more people to move to urban areas where jobs and labor specialization are much more productive for the economy.

I don’t want to rush to judgment on this. Growing plants without soil sounds absurd. Then again, so did flying in the late 1800s.

Time will allow this technology to prove itself. It already has with hydroponics. But I think aeroponics sounds very viable and very environmentally sound.

This is the kind of local, bottoms-up innovation I see driving the new urban economy of the future. New information will breed new cutting-edge technology. Though it could also mean the beginning of the end of the rural economy, which, like I said, has been on the downturn for two centuries.

Right now, consumers and restaurants are already in love with this concept. Local production means fresher food, and fresher food is always better.

I even recently dined in a restaurant that had its own greens literally growing on a freestanding unit inside.

I’m looking at doing that in my own house.

Source: Economy & Markets

[winston]

3 Best Agriculture Stocks To Buy Right Now

Monsanto's aggressive expansion plans likely to bid up agriculture stocks

By Josh Enomoto

Source: Investor Place

http://investorplace.com/2015/06/3-best ... ZOwO9Kqqko

[winston]

This Sector Just Kicked Off an Explosive Rally By Jeff Clark

The financial markets are reeling…

The S&P 500 is down almost 4% from its May high. Germany's benchmark DAX index has lost around 10% since April. China's stock market – the Shanghai Stock Exchange Composite Index – has crashed more than 20% in less than a month.

Long-term U.S. Treasury bonds are down about 15% since February. The price of oil is rolling over again. And even gold can't seem to catch a bid in this environment.

But there is one sector that just kicked off an explosive rally… agricultural commodities…

Take a look at this chart of the PowerShares DB Agriculture Fund (DBA)…

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I tried to pick a bottom on this sector back in late February. Back then, DBA was trading around $22.80 per share and the chart looked like it was forming a "double bottom" pattern. It was an excellent low-risk/high-reward setup. But it didn't work out.

DBA broke support at $22.80… And it has since spent four months trying to find a bottom.

Notice, though, how the moving average convergence divergence (MACD) momentum indicator was rising as the price of DBA shares was falling. This "positive divergence" was a sign that the momentum behind the decline in DBA was shifting from bearish to bullish. And the sector was overdue for a reversal.

That reversal started last week, when DBA exploded more than 5% higher in just three trading days and broke through resistance at $22.80 (previously support).

The strength of that move, along with the length of time DBA spent consolidating near the lows and the solid positive divergence on the MACD indicator, suggests this move has a lot further to run.

If DBA can break above resistance at about $23.50 per share, then there really isn't anything to hold it back from reaching $25 over the next several weeks.

The sector is overbought in the short term. That often happens in the early stages of a new rally phase. So DBA is likely to come back down and retest the $22.80 level as support.

Traders should use that pullback as an opportunity to buy. Agricultural-commodity prices are headed higher… Make sure you're in position to profit.

Source: Growth Stock Wire

[winston]

Agricultural commodities fall further… sector fund DBA sinks to a new 52-week low.