New Fund: OSK-UOB Agriculture Fund
With the world population slated to increase, particularly from the emerging markets like India and China, coupled with the increase in per capita income in the developing nations and an improvement in lifestyle, the demand for food, and in turn agricultural commodities, will see an upward rise. Moreover, with rising income, meat consumption is also expected to increase and therefore more grains, wheat and other soft commodities are needed to feed the poultry demand, thus also creating demand for agricultural commodities. However, despite the expected increase in demand, supply factors remain constrained due to land and water scarcity caused by urbanisation . Climate has also proven to be very unpredictable in the recent past, with increasing frequency of extreme weather events. This makes the planning and production of crops harder, especially when the supply of agricultural commodities is concentrated in a few countries. This mismatch i...