🚀 Galactic Ag + AgTech Power Player, Zoonotic Disease Patrol, and more...

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Check out the ‘Refer & Reward’ section under Quick Hits today to grab your referral link and share away!

The headlines:

NASS Gets Some Space
AgTech’s Summer of Love Acquisition
Zapping Zoonotic Disease

Planet Federal, a company that provides data and insights about Earth, will be helping USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) rocket to new heights with a deal for improved crop data collection and analysis.

A picture of Earth is worth a thousand words. NASS, which plans hundreds of surveys and reports on the U.S. ag industry, will be using Planet for otherworldly data. The product, Planet Basemaps, offers enhanced satellite imaging that features the “best pixels and transforms them into visually consistent and scientifically accurate mosaics.”

Why it matters: Better imaging can help NASS produce accurate data that’s important to farmers, ranchers, and agribusinesses. Surveys collected by NASS help inform crop management decisions including marketing and logistics.

Far-out benefits include a more sustainable food supply, better risk management, and increased profitability.

“With Planet’s robust dataset integrated into our workflow, NASS can better understand and quantify trends in upcoming growing seasons, identify regions prone to drought stress and natural disasters, and provide high-resolution assessments of crop production,” says Rick Mueller, head of USDA’s NASS Spatial Analysis Research Section.

The (Milky) way to better data: NASS isn’t necessarily new to using satellite data from space. They have medium-resolution data from several space missions since 2007. But with Planet Basemaps, they hope these higher-resolution images will help boost county-level crop yield assessments for the 2021 growing season.

Quick Hits

→ Dangling a hefty carrot. In an effort to get its entire 139,000-person workforce vaccinated before November 1, Tyson Foods is now offering $10,000 drawings for any employee with at least one jab of the COVID-19 vaccine.

→ Squash it, smash it… Pennsylvania ag officials are encouraging residents to do everything in their power to kill the spotted lanternfly insects infesting the state. The pest is feasting through the region’s apple, grape, and hops crops.

→ Bright future for alt-crops. Despite a mixed bag of production outcomes and market conditions, alternative crops like sunflowers, sesame, guar, and black-eyed peas could have a bright future in Texas and beyond.

→ American wheat sees dollar signs. A new deal to reduce or eliminate import tariffs will help U.S. wheat gain market traction into Vietnam, building on its 500,000 metric tons of already-existing exports to the Asian nation.

→ USDA does good. The department will purchase $400M in produce, beef, pork, fish, and dairy products to distribute to food networks and food banks for The Emergency Food Assistance Program.

→ X marks the watermelon virus. Florida’s 850M pound watermelon crop is at risk after researchers found two new viruses, both relatively unknown.

Summer is not the time to start a diet. And Semios agrees.

The Vancouver-based precision ag company has spent the summer bellied up to the table in an AgTech consumption spree that would make Joey Chestnut’s head spin.

“We are in building mode,” says Semios CEO Dr. Michael Gilbert. And that’s putting it lightly.

The company has acquired three precision ag firms in the past two months, and they are now positioned to be one of the largest independent AgTech companies in the world.

Loosening the belt: The picnic started in June when Semios bought out Altrac and Centricity— acquisitions that added automation, remote management control, and data-sharing tools to their already impressive smorgasbord of pest management and crop data tools.

But the main course arrived just this week when Semios announced they will be acquiring Australia-based AgWorld and the farm management platform the company has been serving up since 2009.

Pacific Northwest growers of more permanent crops—like apples, grapes, pistachios, and almonds—have long been nuts about Semios. But the variety of platforms now amassed by Semios is opening up new opportunities for the AgTech firm: servicing more row crop farmers.

Where this goes: According to Dr. Gilbert, these “combined forces” are certain to result in “increased velocity of our R&D efforts and getting new products to market, benefitting growers who are being tested by mother nature like never before."

It’s that time of year. College campuses are humming, classes are back in session, and it’s time for…

…the 2021 College Aggies Online Scholarship Competition!

Brought to you by the Animal Agriculture Alliance, the nine-week program brings together college students from across the country to develop life-long advocates for agriculture.

By participating, you will:

Network with farmers and industry mentors in the animal agriculture industry.
Learn how to confidently and effectively communicate about agriculture in your daily and professional life.
Compete for scholarships! Last year, more than $20,000 was awarded to students and clubs!

Undergraduates, graduate students, and collegiate clubs are invited to sign up.

Don’t wait... the competition kicks off September 13.

The USDA wants to build a zoonotic disease radar to prevent or at least limit the next global pandemic.

Quick refresher: Zoonotic disease is an illness that can be spread between animals and people.

The USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) is doing everything in its power to prevent, detect, investigate, and counter emerging diseases that threaten human and animal health, including SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.

And that effort is to the tune of $300M in American Rescue Plan funds out of the estimated $22.7B designated for nutrition and ag.

The motivation: COVID-19, West Nile virus, H1N1 influenza, and Ebola virus. USDA said for each of these outbreaks, we didn’t fully understand the threat until we started seeing illness and death in humans.

And that’s just the shortlist; 75% of emerging infectious diseases in humans can also impact the health of animals.

The fix: The long-term goal is to build a comprehensive, data-driven system that connects and alerts the experts in livestock, wildlife, people, and pet health of potential disease threats.