Eoin Treacy's view Famers have had a positive few years with record prices achieved for meat, grains and beans. As with any bull market, producers think about how to capture more of the upside. For corn farmers in the USA this has meant investing in more storage capacity so they can liquidate inventory at their own pace. Elsewhere is has meant spending on machinery, irrigation and fertiliser.

In the aftermath of the financial crisis, many farmers lost access to bank credit and had to shelve expansion plans. The result was that a number of agriculture related shares were slow to recover. Those which outperformed often had operations outside the agriculture space such as Dupont de Nemours.

In the seed and weed control sector, Monsanto peaked near $140 in 2008 and didn't bottom until July 2010 near $45. It rallied well and subsequently ranged above $60 from early 2011. The share broke out of this congestion area last week and a sustained move below $70 would now be required to question medium-term scope for additional upside.

According to its website CF Industries is second largest nitrogen fertiliser and third largest listed phosphate fertiliser in the world. As such it should benefit from lower natural gas input costs. The share is a clear outperformer in the sector and has rallied impressively from the December low. A sustained move above $180 would reaffirm the medium-term uptrends. The company's separately listed Master Limited Partnership, Terra Nitrogen, has outperformed somewhat but the key difference is that the MLP yields more than 7%.