1. STEVEN KACZMAREK
GENE D. BALAS, CFA
631 574 2474
Info@EastEndWealthManagement.com
www.EastEndWealthManagement.org
July 2012
From Farming to Pharmaceuticals:
Investment Themes From Changing Diets in Emerging Markets
I
ncreased protein intake in emerging markets presents a
number of investment opportunities, not only in agriculture
and related fields, but also in the medications used to treat the
maladies that sometimes come with Western diets. There are
many examples of Western diets being introduced into Asia in
particular, but some of the dietary changes have already been
made in markets that have already advanced somewhat, such as
China, and other nations may follow.
China does serve as a useful model, however, to assess the
impact of recent dietary changes on health. Some of these
dietary changes may be healthy, but the incursion of fast
foods and soft drinks into everyday cuisine might not be so
advantageous. Additionally, some of the changes in lifestyles in
China may not be just the result of dietary changes, but also
the increased urbanization, which itself brings health problems
related to a more sedentary lifestyle, increased stress and tobacco
consumption, along with more pollution.
Let’s first discuss dietary changes – and all of the investment
opportunities that go into food production, ranging from
demand for farmland, farm equipment, fertilizer, and even water
and irrigation systems, which are an important investment
theme in their own right. Note that poultry and livestock
production is much more agriculturally intensive than growing
crops, so increased meat production greatly increases demand
for grains beyond what a similar increase in a more vegetarian
diet would require.
Then, we’ll examine the problems associated with Western style
diets, including rising incidents of diabetes, obesity, cancer and
hypertension, and tying this theme to improved access to health
care in China that can stimulate demand for pharmaceuticals
and medical devices used to treat these problems. We must
stress that we are approaching this topic from the perspective
of an investor and not as an ecologist or healthcare practitioner.
Let’s take a look at how diets are expected to change between
now and 2019, and to put this into context, the UN estimates
that the world population will grow by 11% during this period:
A few highlights from the OECD include, for overall agriculture
production and consumption:
Production/Consumption - Production is projected to
continue to increase but at a slower pace than before. This
increase is expected to mainly come from non-OECD countries
as they have the spare capacity to increase production in line
with demand.
There are large differences in the growth in production between
regions. Brazil’s growth in production is expected to be the
fastest (40%). China and India are also projected experience
significant production growth at 26% and 21% respectively. US
and Canada’s growth is anticipated to be somewhere between
10-15%. The growth in the EU27 is expected to be much
more muted at only 4%. Production in North Africa and the
Commodity Consumption Increase 2010 Compared to 2019
OECD
Non OECD
Vegetable Oil
22%
33%
Protein Meals
9%
33%
Sugar (in raw sugar equivalent)
5%
23%
Butter
3%
31%
Poultry
14%
30%
Oilseeds
13%
21%
Wheat
10%
13%
Source: OECD/Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)
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2. Middle East has fallen recently due to limited water availability.
Production in Sub-Saharan Africa is expected to remain stagnant
in per capita terms and grow at only 2.2%. Thus production will
grow the fastest in Non-OECD countries.
For just meat: Almost 90% of the increase in production over the
projection period is expected to come from developing countries,
and 60% of meat consumption is by developing countries, which
have 83% of the world’s population, highlighting the potential
for meat consumption in the emerging world to catch up to
that in the rest of the world. Growth in consumption will be
slow among the OECD countries with an average increase in
per capita consumption of 1.1% per year compared to 2.4% in
developing countries.
What does this mean to investors? Well, let’s start by retracing
the agricultural steps needed to produce this extra protein.
We’ll focus on poultry, pork and beef, but note that poultry,
unlike pork or beef, has no widespread cultural obstacles to its
consumption in Asia.
Cornell University researcher David Pimentel did some
environmental research on the environmental impacts of meat
production of energy requirements to protein output, using data
from the U.S. He notes that the 7 billion livestock animals in the
United States consume five times as much grain as is consumed
directly by the entire American population. And, each year an
estimated 41 million tons of plant protein is fed to U.S. livestock
to produce an estimated 7 million tons of animal protein for
human consumption. For every kilogram of high-quality animal
protein produced, livestock are fed nearly 6 kg of plant protein.
Animal agriculture is a leading consumer of water resources in
the United States, Pimentel noted. Grain-fed beef production
takes 100,000 liters of water for every kilogram of food. Raising
broiler chickens takes 3,500 liters of water to make a kilogram
of meat. In comparison, soybean production uses 2,000 liters
for kilogram of food produced; rice, 1,912; wheat, 900; and
potatoes, 500 liters. This means new investments in water
projects. For example, China is spending $150 billion on the
South-North Water Diversion Project, which will divert water
from the Yangtze river to the parched north, and has an estimated
completion date of 2050. Investment implications: water and
irrigation systems.
Leo Horrigan, Robert S. Lawrence, Polly Walker at the Center
for a Livable Future, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public
Health authored a paper which appeared in Environmental
Health Perspectives that described the use of fertilizer and
pesticides needed for food production. They note that in 1998,
the world used 137 million metric tons of chemical fertilizers, of
which U.S. agriculture consumed about 20 million tons, or 15%.
Between 1950 and 1998, worldwide use of fertilizers increased
more than 10-fold overall and more than 4-fold per person.
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Each year, the world uses about 3 million tons of pesticides
(comprising herbicides, insecticides, and fungicides), formulated
from about 1,600 different chemicals. Given the increased
amount of crop production needed to produce this extra animal
protein, we will need even more fertilizers and pesticides in the
near future. Disease and pest resistant crops are big business,
including the possible use of genetically modified crops.
Investment implications: makers of fertilizers and pesticides and
seed manufacturers.
The Johns-Hopkins researchers also noted that land planted in
cereal grains produces 2-10 times as much protein for human
consumption as land devoted to beef production; for legumes
the ratio is anywhere from 10:1 to 20:1. As such, the land
required for cultivation of animal proteins would see exponential
growth versus that if there was not a dietary shift along with
population growth. There’s also theme of increased agriculture
devoted to biofuels which will add further to the demand for
cropland. The FAO estimates that between now and 2030, the
amount of arable land under cultivation will increase by 28% for
irrigated land and 25% for rain-fed land, with growth of 12.6%
in the emerging world. Increases in agricultural intensity – the
increase in crop production per acre – will add further to total
yields, so the amount of increased crop production is estimated
to rise by between 57% and 64%. Investment implications: farm
equipment.
Since China has already witnessed dietary changes take place
in that country in recent years, it serves as a useful laboratory
to see the effects of increased urbanization and higher animal
protein consumption on health. Meat consumption itself is
not necessarily the cause of health problems, but by measuring
China’s increased meat consumption we can derive a proxy for
a broader change in diets. Its meat consumption increased from
10 kg per person annually in the 1970’s to 45 kg currently (and
might be expected to reach 60 kg in 2015 and 69 kg in 2030).
As its diets became more Westernized, China has also seen an
increase in diseases that accompany those diets. Leading into
our second focus – that on health issues - consider these statistics
that relate to health problems from China’s dietary changes:
A national survey conducted in 1994 showed that the prevalence
of diabetes was 2.5%. These estimates were higher by a factor of
approximately 3 than those reported in 1980. Since the 1994
study, diabetes has continued to surge: in 2001, the prevalence
was 5.5%, the New England Journalism of Medicine reported.
Part of this relates to obesity; while the prevalence of obesity is
still lower in China than it is in the U.S., PBS Newshour reports
that China’s obese population is growing 30 to 50 percent each
year.
Meanwhile, a study that appeared in Current Hypertension
Review demonstrated the rise in high blood pressure in China,
which now is estimated to afflict 200 million people in that
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3. country. The study notes that since 1958 multiple national
surveys have been carried out to estimate the prevalence of
hypertension in China. With each passing decade the prevalence
of hypertension rose significantly (5-11% in 1958, 7.7% in 1979,
11% in 1991, and 24-27% in 2000. Researchers primarily blame
diet on the increase in hypertension.
Researchers also attribute dietary changes for a surge in cancer
in China – breast cancer rates have increased by about a third in
just the past ten years, China Daily reports. Of course, not all
cancers are caused by diet by any means, but increased salty and
fatty foods are blamed for some of the increase. For all cancer
rates, the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Science and
Technology data show that the cancer death rate has increased
80% in the past thirty years, with diet following second only to
smoking as being the causes in the surge.
As part of its means of providing a better healthcare, China is
leading a drive to offer a universal health insurance plan to its
citizens starting in 2011, with a $123 billion program to establish
universal health care for the country’s 1.3 billion people. Now,
China spends 4.5% of its GDP on healthcare, compared to 16%
in the U.S. Under the plan, in 2012 90% of China’s citizens will
be covered by a universal health-care system and health-care
facilities will be upgraded, including construction of 30,000
hospitals, clinics, and care centers across the country.
Not only will pharmaceuticals be covered, but Businessweek
reports that the market for medical devices in China is estimated
to almost double in size between 2006 and 2014 to $28 billion
a year. The magazine further notes that the number of cardiac
patients in China is growing at a 20-30% annual rate, and the
market for cardiovascular stents increasing by 40% annually. It
reports that Chinese prefer foreign-made medical devices and
medications, as they are perceived to be of higher quality than
domestically-produced ones.
Pharmaceuticals will also likely see growth as well, though
China manufactures many of the pharmaceuticals within its
borders. However, IMS Health, in its IMS Health Market
Prognosis of October 2009, China’s CAGR from 2009- 2013
is now projected at 23-26% for prescription sales. China is now
the third largest pharmaceutical market in the world, after the
United States and Japan, and ahead of Germany, France, Italy,
and Spain. Reuters reports that China will be the number two
drug market in 2015. It is also taking steps to bolster patent
protection for foreign makers of pharmaceuticals, making it
an important market for Western pharmaceutical makers.
One risk, however, is government price controls and that some
medications need to be on approved lists to be covered by the
new universal health insurance program in China. There is,
however, room for growth, as CNNMoney.com reports that the
15 biggest drug makers in the world derived just 0.9% of their
combined sales from China in 2009.
While we’ve focused here on China, as it is leading other emerging
markets, IMS also believes that other emerging markets,
including Brazil, Russia, India will soon follow, along with other
emerging markets from Eastern Europe to Latin America, Asia
and Africa. IMS cites 17 emerging markets that will account
for 50% of the global growth in pharmaceutical sales in the next
five years. Murray Aitken of IMS recently told Reuters that he
sees certain European drug manufacturers ahead of the pack in
sales to emerging markets, noting that they are already more
internationally focused than some U.S. drug makers and have
more of an existing presence in emerging markets.
ETFs present viable ways to invest in these themes. At East End
Wealth Management, we can discuss with you incorporating
thematic investments such as these as part of a diversified
portfolio. Not all investment themes are suitable for all investors,
but by examining longer term trends, we can identify longer
term investment opportunities.
This information is intended to describe a general investment strategy and is not a recommendation to buy or sell any specific securities. The
strategy discussed does not and should not represent an account’s entire portfolio and in the aggregate may represent only a small percentage of
an account’s portfolio holdings. Any investment carries risk, including the loss of principal. Any investment strategy discussed here or available
through East End Wealth Management is not an obligation of a bank and is not guaranteed by the FDIC and may lose money. Some investments are
not suitable for all investors. Past performance is not indicative of future results. We cannot guarantee that this information is accurate or complete.
As with any investment strategy, you should thoroughly discuss your particular investment situation and with your financial representative and
understand any investment recommendation that might be made before investing any money.
East End Wealth Management is registered as an investment advisor with the States of New York and Florida. East End Wealth Management only
transacts business in states where it is properly registered, or is excluded or exempted from registration requirements.
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4. B iographies
STEVEN KACZMAREK
Steve is the President of East End Wealth Management. He has over 30 years of experience in trading and risk management in a
wide range of markets. Most recently, Steve held the position of Managing Director at Legend Merchant Group. His background
also includes the positions of Partner at Schonfeld Securities; a proprietary trading firm, NYMEX floor trader and Lieutenant,
United States Army Reserve. Steve graduated New York University with a degree in Economics.
As an active member of the investing, planning and trading community, Steve is a member of NAIFA and the Financial Planning
Association. Locally, he is the Chairman of the Southampton Youth Board, focused on youth issues on the East End of Long
Island.
gene d. balas, cfa
Balas has over twenty years’ experience in investment management. He currently writes economic commentary for
TheStreet.com’s RealMoney site. Previously, he was Director of Investments at Genworth Financial Asset Management. In
this role, he performed forecasts on macroeconomic conditions and determined the influences of thematic drivers to develop
investment strategy, He also headed the firm’s manager due diligence efforts. Prior to GFAM, Gene was Director, Investment
Management & Guidance at Merrill Lynch & Co. In that role, he advised pension funds, endowments and foundations as to
appropriate asset allocation strategy. In previous roles, he advised both institutional and individual investors on asset allocation
and manager selection decisions, beginning his career in 1989. He has an MBA from Columbia Business School and a BBA in
Finance from the University of Houston, where he attended on a full National Merit scholarship. He is a Chartered Financial
Analyst.
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