Good Morning.
Quick: what does salmonella smell like?
(The answer isn't "raw cookie dough.")
We may be closer to a real answer, though, thanks to Israeli startup Sensifi. The company is developing an "artificial nose" that could sniff out pathogens, including E. Coli or salmonella, to improve food safety. The hope is to eventually spread the tech to the medical world, so that bacterial strains there could be identified quicker.
Even breweries could get in on the action and use the artificial nose technology to test out the yeast they're using for fermentation.
Sounds like a versatile, on-the-nose solution.
Stories:
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Sheep Shot: A n(ewe) Technology |
→ Feeding frenzy. For about $200M, JBS USA is selling Five Rivers Cattle Feeding—the biggest feeding operation in the world—to Pinnacle Asset Management LP.
→ Planting partnerships. To improve and advance regional soil surveys, the USDA is dedicating $3M to fund research partnerships with higher education institutions.
→ Speak now. After launching its Cattle Contracts Library pilot program, the USDA is hoping for feedback from beef feedlot producers on how it’s going, and is hosting listening sessions through June.
→ Massive merger. Bunge and Viterra have agreed on an $18B merger deal, which (if approved by regulators) would create one of the largest agribusiness firms in the world, close in size to Cargill and ADM.
→ Where’s the beef? Kansas. Walmart is planning to build a 330K-square-foot case-ready beef facility in Olathe, Kansas, with a targeted open date in 2025.
→ Numbers for Number 8. About $1.2M in pre-seed funding is headed to Australian startup Number 8 Bio, which hopes to use yeast fermentation to produce bromoform and other methane inhibitors to reduce emissions.
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Suing the EPA Over Pesticide-Coated Seeds |
The EPA is facing a lawsuit filed over pesticide-coated seeds. The Center for Food Safety and the Pesticide Action Network of North America filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Northern California.
Can’t touch this: Neonicotinoids are seeds coated with insecticides that target an insect’s central nervous system. They’re relatively unregulated with their classification as a "treated article exemption"—aka they don’t have a label and aren’t registered with the EPA.
And they’re everywhere. Neonicotinoid seeds are allegedly spread on more than 150M acres of U.S. farmland. At a minimum, 90% of U.S. corn comes from a coated seed.
Environmental groups behind the lawsuit note that just one seed can kill a bird.
Zoom out: More than 8B pounds of neonicotinoids are used each year, making them the most widely used insecticides on the planet.
While they’ve been around since the ‘90s, the EPA just published findings that three of these insecticides are very likely to negatively impact more than 1K endangered species in the U.S. We’re talking fish, birds, and some mammals, in addition to insects.
Save the whales bees: The EU restricted neonicotinoids on maize, rapeseed, and some spring cereals in 2018. Canada introduced restrictions on neonicotinoid usage in 2019 for bee protection. Meanwhile, U.S. farmers have pondered if these chemicals are to blame for expansive bee deaths.
Soundbite: "They are highly toxic to pollinators, insects, birds, aquatic organisms that build the base of our food chain." – Amy van Saun, senior attorney at the Center for Food Safety
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Ag Facts True or False—Crop Edition!
- The most produced crop in the U.S. is wheat.
- 52% of land in the U.S. is used for some type of agriculture.
- Florida produces the largest amount of fruit in the U.S.
- Corn is the most produced crop worldwide.
- Mexico produces the most avocados worldwide.
Answer at the bottom of the email.
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Foreign Farmland Buyers May Get Big Tax Bill |
House Republicans proposed a not-so-friendly tax package that would levy an up to 60% excise tax on all farmland purchases by countries the U.S. is, er, not-so-friendly with.
Nations on the short list include China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Cuba, and Venezuela. The tax would apply to citizens or private businesses owned by a citizen or company in any of those countries and could be prorated based on percent of ownership.
By the numbers:
- Foreign entities own 40.8M acres of U.S. ag land, or roughly 3.1% of U.S. privately owned land.
- Half of foreign-owned land is forests.
- Canada has hold of almost a third of foreign-owned land.
- China holds an estimated 384K acres (around 0.9% of the total). That’s a 50% increase since 2019.
Tax poetic: "We must protect America’s agricultural resources from being snatched up by foreign adversaries and companies under their control. To prevent the Chinese Communist Party and other hostile foreign governments from staking claim to U.S. farmland, Representative Van Duyne’s bill expands an existing tax on foreign land sales and ratchets up the applicable tax rate by 400%." — House Committee on Ways and Means Chairman Jason Smith (R-MO).
Background: Tensions around foreign farmland ownership have slowly risen in the last several years. At the start of the year, 14 states had existing laws to restrict ownership. Similar bills have since been proposed in states covering more than half of the country.
In February the U.S. Air Force blocked a plan by Chinese-owned Fufeng Group to build a corn milling plant 12 miles from Grand Forks Air Force Base in North Dakota. Similarly in Texas, legislators banned Chinese access to the state’s power grid after a Chinese billionaire announced plans to build a wind farm.
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1. False: the most produced U.S. crop is corn. 2. True 3. False: California produces 70% of all U.S. fruit. 4. False: sugar cane is the most produced worldwide crop. 5. True, and the U.S. is the main destination for them.
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Written & Edited by Ashley Scoby, Amelia VanLandegen, Sheridan Wimmer, and Jen Hill
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