Chile has not undergone the job-destroying switch from traditional farming to the highly mechanised prairie grain-growing that is typical of the United States or, more recently, parts of Europe.

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Filburn, upheld a Roosevelt-era law limiting grain production to prop up prices even when the farmer in question was growing grain entirely for his own consumption.

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But in the great grain growing areas, by and large, it's just left to rot, or sometimes even burned in the fields.

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High interest rates and taxes and a strong real have held back growth, especially in the more prosperous south and the grain-growing centre-west.

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Desert areas are expanding by 3, 000 square miles each year and farmers are being paid to plant trees to halt this advance, thus further reducing the grain-growing area.

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Mike Norman, editor of the Economic Contrarian Update, usually holds against-the-grain opinions, although his latest comments seem to echo a growing consensus: the bull market for homebuilders is over.

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Some brands are being transplanted into adjacent markets: the new Hovis Breakfast Bake is a whole-grain biscuit that Premier hopes will take some of the growing market for on-the-go breakfasts.

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Many food executives had hoped that southern hemisphere farmers would try to cash in on high grain prices by growing bigger crops over the next several months, but weather problems are plaguing growers in several countries.

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They have built sales organisations around the world to make the most of the abundant resources for producing pork, poultry and grain in Brazil, complemented by ideal growing conditions and low labour costs.

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