Good morning.
Some sunny news out of Florida...
Even though citrus acreage in the state has been shrinking, a "miracle" tree has arrived that could help the Sunshine State make up some ground (or, well, plant more ground).
Enter: the pongamia tree, billed as a potential alternative for citrus growers, as they struggle with difficult climate, disease, and more. ("The what tree?" you ask.)
The pongamia tree produces protein-packed and nutrient-dense beans, can grow on arid land, usually doesn't need fertilizer, and removes carbon and nitrogen from the air.
Or, as this article described it, "a self-sufficient, heat-tolerant, drought-tolerant, jungle-tough badass of a tree."
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Stories:
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Lantern Flies Illuminate Agriculture Risk
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Indy and the Fruit of the Sea
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The Chinese Diet: Cutting Soybean Meal
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Lantern Flies Illuminate Agriculture Risk |
MelodyanneM from Getty Images
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The first leaves of fall haven’t yet taken over the sweet memories of summertime. The smoke from the grill, the splashing of waves, and the…. spotted lantern fly sucking the life out of trees rustling in the breeze?
Yup.
2022 has been the summer of the spotted lantern fly for folks in 14 East Coast and Midwestern U.S. states.
The gray and red spotted planthopper population has exploded after its 2014 entry into Pennsylvania. It hails from China, and is assumed to be an accidental cargo import.
While it’s a nuisance for homeowners dreading the insect’s secreted honeydew stickying up their property, the fly could devastate ag.
The sap-sucking insect can cause severe damage to grapes, apples, hops, walnuts, and hardwood trees. Populations can build to the point that they completely cover a tree’s bark. *shivers*
The insect’s secretions can even taint honey’s color and taste if bees get their hands (er… fuzzy legs) on it.
Nobody is safe: Spotted lantern flies are scarier than your average hitchhiker, laying eggs in outdoor gear and on cars to ride along to a new destination. They could make it to California by 2033.
The dark side: Penn State estimates the bugs could cause $324M in annual damage in just Pennsylvania. New York just injected $200M into infestation-fighting. The list of potential impacts is huge.
The bright side: Bugs can be controlled with normal agricultural insecticides, though an additional spray or timing adjustment may be needed. Other means of control are under investigation.
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→ Long road ahead. According to some experts, North and South America will need two straight years of bumper crops in order to ease the pressure on the global food supply, thanks to drought, the war in Ukraine, and more.
→ Power to the… pollen? By 2026, a pollination technology licensed by Corteva and Bayer will hit the markets for growers; the solution will help grain farmers with in-season pollination control.
→ E-Spray launch. AgNext Technologies has launched an electrostatic-based pesticide sprayer, which can help growers track spraying activity, improve crop coverage, and reduce pesticide wastage.
→ Let farmers...farm. Following outcry from farmers’ unions, Swiss voters rejected a referendum this week that would have banned intensive farming methods nationwide.
→ Billions to Taiwan. More than $2.5B of U.S. ag commodities, including corn and soybeans, are headed to Taiwan thanks to a newly inked deal, following Taiwanese officials’ visits to Minnesota and Iowa.
→ Building Vence(s). Merck Animal Health is acquiring Vence, a company that provides virtual fencing technology for producers and ranchers.
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Indy and the Fruit of the Sea |
There’s pineapple shrimp, coconut shrimp, lemon shrimp, pepper shrimp… and now Midwestern shrimp?
Seafood on the mainland: Indiana is a major producer of ag commodities—corn, soybeans, and now seafood. That’s right, the Hoosier state is getting into the shrimp business.
Atarraya Inc., a biotech company based out of Oaxaca, Mexico, plans to establish its first U.S. shrimp production facility in Indianapolis. The aim is to make a krilling as a local, sustainable protein producer.
As the old Indiana Beach theme song says, "There’s more than corn in Indiana."
What’s in the box?! Shrimp is expected to be a jumbo market in the coming years, estimated to be around $23B globally by 2026. Attaraya’s technology, Shrimpbox, is a "plug and play" shrimp farming technology.
Housed in traditional cargo containers, these units automatically dispense feed at ideal times to support growth and use an advanced filtration system to limit waste. This helps to minimize the labor required to farm the shrimp as well as eliminate the need for antibiotics and chemicals.
There will be 20 Shrimpbox units in the first facility.
Soundbite: "Shrimpbox is more than a cargo container. It is a technological system designed to create life. With automated systems and software capable of learning and making decisions, this piece of engineering has the potential to help aquaculture take its biggest step forward in decades." - Daniel Russek, Atarraya Founder and CEO
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One state’s Supreme Court ruled last week that bumblebees are fish (yes, you just read that correctly). This ruling grants protection to a number of bumblebee species with declining populations and further clarifies the state’s Endangered Species Act—first passed in 1970, replaced and updated in 1984, and amended in 1997.
Which state made this ruling?
Answer at the bottom of the email.
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The Chinese Diet: Cutting Soybean Meal |
deepspacedave from Getty Images
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The Chinese are going on a diet—cutting soybean meal consumption in an effort to boost national food security. And it all starts with animal feed.
Pork prices have consumers squealing. ICYMI, pork is the most consumed meat in China. Higher feed prices along with inflation have increased the cost of pork, thanks to price hikes the last three months.
One way to begin lowering consumer meat prices and increase national food security? Curb soybean dependence.
Earning (figurative) gold stars: The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs (MOA) called out leading hog and pork producer Muyuan Foods Co. and the nation’s major feedstock producer, New Hope Liuhe, as companies who have successfully cut soybean meal usage.
Muyuan saved 1.3M tons compared to the average by using 6.9% of soybean meal in its feed for hog breeding last year. Meanwhile, New Hope Liuhe dropped its usage 4.6% lower than the industry average, and reduced bean meal consumption by 1.3M tons.
How are they doing it? Adding synthetic amino acids and using fermentation to bump up nutrition levels.
No small effort: In 2021, the nationwide soy ratio in animal feed hit 15.3% compared to 17.8% in 2017. That’s 11M tons of bean meal, equal to 14M tons of soybeans.
This is kind of a big deal, as China is the largest importer of soybeans on the planet. In 2021, their import bill was over $50B.
Farmers who rely on Chinese demand for their soybeans are worried. Last year, China imported 85% of their beans, including 58.15M tons from Brazil (60.2% of total imports) and 32.31M tons from the U.S. (33.5%). We can expect these numbers to slip this year.
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California. Where’s the logic? Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye said that the law does not mention insects but suggests that invertebrates may be categorized under "fish."
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Written & Edited by Kelsey Faivre, Aaron Dunajeski, Amelia VanLandegen, Ashley Scoby, and Travis Martin
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