Approach Agricultural Investment For the Private Investors

July 15, 2010 By Leave a Comment

The current climate can be defined by three key characteristics; lack of visibility, low interest rate, and the very real threat of inflation caused by quantitative easing and austerity measures. Essentially investors are nervous about stocks and shares because such limited economic visibility it is impossible to value companies and predict growth or depreciation in the value of shares, also we have lost the risk free income that we would normally accrue from cash deposits because interest rates are so low, and inflation will eat into our cash, effectively reducing our wealth.

So how does agricultural investment solve our problem? Let’s take this opportunity to look at the simplest and most transparent form of investing in agriculture; farmland investment. Firstly farmland shares a positive correlation with inflation; having proven to grow in value quicker than the rate of inflation rises, therefore this type of farmland investment allows investors to grow their capital even in an inflationary environment. Also this mode of agricultural investment enables investors to capture income by renting their farmland to a commercial farmer who will work the land, this effectively replace the lost risk free income that cash would normally provide. Thirdly, investing in good quality farmland has an infallible track record of being low-risk, with a lack of supply and increasing demand for food pushing up values consistently. It is easy for a person of logic to see that demand for food will continue to rise in line with population growth, and there are fundamental limits to bringing any more farmland into production.

So agriculture investment in this form certainly fits the bill when weighed against the current economic climate, and provides investors with all of the ticks for their boxes. So how does one approach agricultural investment in the form of investing in farmland? The answer to this question is long and complex and many factors must be taken into consideration to ensure your agricultural investment turns out to be a profitable one.

Firstly one must consider location, UK, Europe, The America or Australia all present opportunities, but my advice will always be to invest locally, or at least within a structure that allows any future dispute to be handled locally.

Secondly consider the business model, do you want to buy the land and rent it out, or do you want to share in crop yields? I would always prefer to shoulder the commercial farming risk with the tenant farmer and simply enjoy a stable rental income as any default is easily handled by evicting the farmer.

So agricultural investment, does provide income, growth and capital preservation, especially it times such as these, but anyone considering an agriculture investment should at least take on the services of an expert consultancy who will have the investors need at security as their priority. Whenever considering a farmland investment for my clients, it is paramount to properly qualify the requirements of each investor, only then is it possible to recommend a suitable type of agricultural investment.

Filed Under: Introduction Tagged With:

Battleground

July 14, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Warsong Gulch

Warsong Gulch, commonly referred to as WSG, is a ten on ten capture the flag battleground. It is a two base environment with the Horde base to the north and the Alliance base to the south.

Zerg

This is my personal favorite strategy. This strategy is a big offensive plan. It involves either sending all or most of you players to the enemy flag. Your team will all rush the flag and try to kill the enemy flag carrier on your way back to turn in the flag. You can leave two members to defend your flag just to slow the enemy flag carrier for for massive offensive group to get back and kill him. This strategy seems to be highly effective and is recommended.

Balanced

This strategy is as it sounds, your team sends five players on offense and leaves five for defense. This is highly effective teams who zerg. This can often lead to long drawn out battles. This strategy is recommended if you notice the opposing team is zerging against you.

Arathi Basin

Arathi Basin, know as AB, is a capture point battleground. For every control point your team has, you gain resources. The first team to 1600 resources wins. The five points are; Blacksmith, Farm, Stables, Gold Mine and Lumber Mill. This battleground is a 15 v 15 battleground.

There is only one main strategy here and that is to split your 15 players up into well balanced groups. Each group should have a healer and a mix of range/melee with different crowd control abilities. In this split you should decide which groups are going to which points. Ideally you team can hold on to three of the five points and win. I recommend only holding three of the five if you are with a random team. Holding the tree points with balance teams is almost a sure shot win. With this plan you should see much success in Arathi Basin.

Eye of the Storm

Eye of the Storm, or EotS, is a mixture of Warsong Gulch and Arathi Basin. It consists of 4 capture points and a neutral capturable flag. The four points are; Mage Tower, Draenei Ruins, Fel Reaver Ruins and the Blood Elf Tower. In EotS you obtain points by holding points and capturing the flag. The more control points you have the more points you get for capturing flags. There are a few different strategies to win this battleground.

Zerg

This strategy works best with a heavily geared team. Your team should split up into four groups. The main plan of this strategy is to control all four points as fast as possible. With extremely geared groups you can achieve victory within 5 minutes. Once your faction caps the first two points closest to the original point spawn, 2 players from the groups in charge of those points should stay to defend them. The rest of those groups should push the towers to the direct north or south and help cap them. With this power you should be able to take to last two points and win quickly.

Filed Under: Introduction Tagged With:

Wild Animals, Crops, and Farm Animals

July 13, 2010 By Leave a Comment

In FrontierVille, there are three different categories of things you should focus a lot on. These categories are: wild animals, farm animals, and crops. There are currently four different wild animals in FrontierVille but you can surely expect more as the game progresses. So far, FrontierVille has included the Grizzly bear, the fox, the groundhog, and the grass snake. These animals appear when you do a certain action. The Grizzly bear normally appears when you start chopping down an oak or pine tree. The fox appears randomly. The groundhog appears when you harvest or plant trees and crops while the grass snake appears when you clear rocks and skeleton remains. These wild animals are annoying to deal with, especially in the beginning. They take up one to five energy points to clobber or to get rid of. This is annoying in the beginning because you have very little energy points to start off with. However, if you have a few energy points to spare then clobber them away. These wild animals get you a lot of experience points, gold coins, and food. You can also collect items which are based on wild animals collections. For example, if you complete the grizzly bear items collection then you can gain 50 experience points (this may change at a later date as FrontierVille is still adjusting a few features here and there).

The next important aspect of FrontierVille is the crop. Like FarmVille, there are many different types of crops you can grow and harvest. Each crop has different costs, bonuses, and profit margins. For example, the clover is the cheapest you can grow and it only takes five minutes before you can start harvesting them. Unfortunately, they do not give you much in return. As your game progresses, you want to target crops like peanuts in high yield. You can gain a lot of profit at the end which is useful because there are some missions which require you to earn 100,000 to 200,000 coins. In the beginning, trees are pretty good to start off with. You just need to plant them once and then you can continue to harvest them as much as you want. Like the wild animals, you can also collect collection items and get bonus experience points.

Finally, farm animals are just as important as crops. You have to feed them a few times before they reach their full potential. You can continue to feed and receive bonus from farm animals. At the moment, there horses, oxes, chickens, geese, and cows.

Filed Under: Farming, Introduction Tagged With:

Tractors Are Like Mother

July 10, 2010 By Leave a Comment

When tractors were introduced, farmers quickly found that engine driven tractors were more economical to use, as compared to keeping animals for tillage, and tractors began selling widely. In many cases agricultural machinery dealers received cattle for the barter for tractors and they and in turn sold the cattle in the meat market. The Farmall is one of early tractors and the most familiar and famous names in tractor history. Tractors were made to be work horses, so niceties were minimal. This included foregoing a fuel gauge.

Tractors are most useful for cultivation purposes, so a tractor or tractors have been a must for farm owners, but tractors are also used in excavation, in manufacturing and industry, or on construction sites. Farm size, availability of labor and custom services, crop selection, and cultural practices, such as choice of tillage system, all affect the selection of an optimum equipment set and, ultimately, the number of tractors necessary to farm. Although demand for tractor power generally increases with farm size, many commercial farms operate efficiently with a single tractor.

Tractors are designed to operate at different travel speeds, but the final drives are not designed for all possible torques theoretically available. The engine may range from about 12 to 120 horsepower or more and tractors over the years have been typically offered in the range of 20 to 400 horsepower. Engine power is transmitted to a gearbox typically having 4 to10 speeds (these transmissions are manually switched via a control lever to determine how fast the tractor can go) and through the differential gear to the two large rear-drive wheels. Some farm tractors can reach speeds up to 25 miles per hour, but slow speeds are necessary to give the farmer more control while doing field work.

Farm tractors are designed to be operated with additional weight or ballast when pulling heavy loads to reduce wheel slip. Insufficient ballast can cause excessive wheel slip and increased fuel consumption. Tractors need large tires to avoid compressing the earth, and to avoid digging in. Thus only the rear tires really need to be large and the front tires can be small and smooth unless the tractor has four wheel drive. Tractors used on ground of irregular contours have tracks so mounted that their left and right front ends rise and fall independently of each other. However, soil undulations induce tractor and machine vibrations, reducing driver’s comfort and their capability of controlling the linked machinery.

Tractors are usually used to pull, or in some cases, push objects and are designed to pull either large loads at slow speeds or lighter loads at higher speeds. Field speeds up to 10 mph are typical, but rangeland applications usually vary from 2 to 5 mph. Tractors can be generally classified as two-wheel drive, two-wheel drive with front wheel assist, four-wheel drive (often with articulated steering), or track tractors (with either two or four powered rubber tracks).

Tractors are equipped with a hitching point below the rear axles to prevent roll over. Unfortunately, some people will attach to a point above the rear axle in a foolish attempt to get more weight/traction on the drive wheels and this can lead to disaster. Also, if a tractor is used to free and tow a stuck vehicle, the operator should hitch the vehicles front-to-front and drive the towing tractor in reverse, which minimizes the risk for rollover, by transmitting all the engine power of the towing tractor through the chain to the other vehicle.

Filed Under: Introduction Tagged With: