The commodities rally is still in its early stages, leading commentator David Hightower told the Agrimoney Investment Forum, flagging the growing demand for ags from emerging market countries.

"We are much closer to the bottom for commodity prices than to a high," Mr Hightower, founder of the influential Chicago-based Hightower Report said.

"If you think you have missed the commodities move – think again."

He highlighted that even now - after commodities prices have risen by 12.3% this year, as measured by the Bcom index – they remain well below historic highs.

The Bcom index, which closed on Monday at 88.3 points, approached 240 points in July 2008, at the peak of the last commodities boom.

And analysis of supply and demand fundamentals offered reasons why the values of raw materials, including ags, may return closer to highs.

'Prices will need to go very high'

"Commodity prices cannot be kept down, because costs of production are too close to where prices have been for the last six months to one year," Mr Hightower told the Agrimoney Investment Forum, in London.

Markets had been "pricing for perfection" in output, leaving them vulnerable to a rally on any kind of production, or demand, surprise.

"If we are not careful as a society, we will get into a boom and bust cycle, where prices will need to go very high to solve problems."

The experience of the US, where "even after five years of record production, stocks went down", offered one example of the pressure to maintain supplies.

This experience highlighted that "even when you have the gas pedal all the way down," in terms of output growth, "it is still not enough".

'Whole new realm'

Meanwhile, demand for commodities "has entered a whole new realm", spurred by China, whose increasing consumption is evident in the growing imports of many crops, and may be being underestimated by many commentators.

"How can China be a low growth country when big ticket items are flying of the shelf?" he asked, referring to data showing domestic sales last year of 21.1m passenger cars, up from less than 18m vehicles in 2013.

In ags, one particularly important sector of Chinese demand is pork, of which the country is by far the biggest consumer, and of which prices have rebounded strongly from weak levels which had prompted farmers to curtail production.

The knock-on effect has been bumper imports of soybeans - the source of soymeal, a high protein feed ingredient - although the country tends to import pork directly when the pork:soybean price ratio reaches about 3:1.

'Inordinate importance'

He also stressed the strong global demand for vegetable oils, fuelled by India, where consumption has soared to some 23m tonnes expected for this year, from 12m tonnes a decade ago.

India's own vegetable oils production, meanwhile, had remained at about 6m-7m tonnes.

In the palm oil market, importers' demand, coupled with the dent to production from South East Asian dryness linked to El Nino, driven the global stocks-to-use ratio to a record low of 8%, on Hightower estimates.

"We lost 1m-2m tonnes of [global palm oil] production because of El Nino, and we are not moving to a more destructive La Nina weather pattern," he added.

"The La Nina is going to be of inordinate importance to the market."

La Nina, which tends to bring heavy rains to South East Asia, is linked by some commentators to dryness in some other major oilseed producing areas, including the US.