No civilization has ever faced the agricultural challenges confronting us over the coming decades. Ever. And if we can pull it off – wherever we CAN pull it off – it will necessarily be with an agriculture of maximum resilience; an agriculture that can get knocked down and stagger back up again and again and again. So let’s do this.

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A midweekly roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Developments this week

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- Can we please just declare the end of ‘peak oil’ and start worrying about something important?
- The U.S. Has A Lot Of Shale Oil, So What?
- Chevron VP: Technology can unlock new fields, curb fears of peak oil
- The Biggest Threat to High Oil Prices
- Amory Lovins: A 50-year plan for energy (video)
- U.S. energy independence is no longer just a pipe dream

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Concerns about Spain and Greece hit markets again, but telecoms group benefits from broker upgrade

Leading shares are heading lower as the eurozone crisis intensifies, heading for its worst weekly fall since late November.

But BT has bucked the trend, adding 2.8p to 205.3p and topping the FTSE 100 risers, following an upgrade from analysts at Berenberg, who raised their rating from hold to buy and their price target from 220p to 245p. The bank said:

Having revisited our cost analysis for BT, we conclude that consensus estimates for March 2013 are too low and we believe that BT will beat expectations by more than 2%. Against a backdrop of most other incumbent operators facing increasing operational pressure and threats to forecasts, we believe this will continue to make BT a safe haven.

Mining groups Antofagasta, up 3p at £10.29, and Fresnillo, 9p better at £13.39 regained some ground, and Icap, the interdealer broker continued its recent rise, up another 1.4p to 343.4p.

But otherwise it was another bleak start to the day, with the FTSE 100 down 48.36 points to 5290.02 in the wake of Fitch’s downgrade of Greek sovereign debt, amid growing talk of its possible exit from the eurozone.

Moody’s downgrade of 16 Spanish banks has put more pressure on the sector, with Royal Bank of Scotland down 0.61p to 20.45p and Lloyds Banking Group 0.75p lower at 26.9p. Barclays has fallen 2p to 179.9p.

But building materials group Wolseley is leading the losers, down 65p at £21.24 on worries about the outlook for its US business after disappointing data from the world’s largest economy on Thursday.

Among the mid-caps, the London Stock Exchange has added 52.5p to £10.17 after it announced a 30% rise in full year profits. In a buy note James Hamilton at Numis said:

[This was a] strong result from the LSE, 6% ahead of consensus excluding exceptional gains. With the benefits of the acquisitions largely still to flow through the profit and loss account, we believe the LSE offers good value at less than 10 times historic earnings.