🚛 (Not) On the Road Again + Methane Mania in Glasgow, Almonds Crack Down on Dust, and more...

Good morning...

...and an extra special 'hello' to all of our new readers today. We're glad you're here!

We’re six days out until our U.S. readers belly up for a plateful of gratefulness and gravy for Thanksgiving 2021. And while turkeys may be in the spotlight per usual, we’d love to give our cranberry grower readers a quick plug.

We know supply chain snafus got you bogged down, but this is your Super Bowl, and you got this.

Today's Stories:

Road Warriors Feel Worn Out
Methane Mania in Glasgow
Almond's Crack Down on Dust

PS - It's still our birthdayweek. The $1 donation to Feeding America for each new Magnetic reader goes through tonight at midnight! Make sure to share and don’t forget to use your unique referral link below to also win Magnetic swag.

Truck drivers are feeling the weight of their cargo and the world right now, and some are pulling the jake brake on continuing in the industry.

Keep it between the mustard and the mayo: Even without the pandemic, truck drivers have been in short supply. It’s a stressful job with minimal time at home with families, grueling sleep schedules, and long periods of time in the driver’s seat.

And according to the American Trucking Associations, they’re low on cargo – of the human capital kind. They say they’re 80,000 drivers short, and it may reach 160,000 by 2030. Also bad: turnover rates. Large carriers report turnover rates as high as 90%.

Semi-fed up: And now comes the vaccine mandate. Chuck Lippstreu, president of the Michigan Agri-Business Association estimates 20 to 40% of truck drivers will leave the workforce if they’re subjected to a vaccine mandate.

Not a good sign for those, especially in agriculture, who are supply chain dependent.

No drivers, no supplies: The shortage of drivers means a shortage on the shelves.

Plus, there’s plenty of factors nailing the already-slammed supply chain – a surge in demand, a shortage of supply due to factory shutdowns, and overflowing warehouses waiting on cargo ships and trucks. It all ends with extended delivery times – sometimes stretching into months-long waits.

Issues, issues everywhere: The White House is trying to help alleviate supply chain issues with its Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, saying, “The legislation will help ease inflationary pressures and strengthen supply chains by making long-overdue improvements for our nation’s ports, airports, rail, and roads.”

Quick Hits

→ Nothing runs like a Deere… on vegetable oil. New tests from John Deere in Germany attempted to gauge a standard tractor’s ability to meet emissions requirements by handling fuels like biodiesel and vegetable oil.

→ On that midnight train tractor… Digital ag leader Fieldin acquired Midnight Robotics, a startup with a retrofit kit for tractors that uses LiDAR perception — a key self-driving technology — to enable farm vehicles to work autonomously.

→ Canada gets washed out. An ‘atmospheric river’ dropped 8 inches of rain—a typical month’s worth of precipitation—in one day in parts of British Columbia, leading to dairy cow evacuations and halted exports of wheat, canola, and phosphate.

→ $300M hits FBN's bank. AgTech leader Farmers Business Network notched a $4B valuation with its new funding round where grain giant ADM participated.

→ Slicing that pork tariff. Vietnam officials confirmed that the country will lower its import tax next year on U.S. frozen pork from 15% to 10%, a positive move for the Asian nation still reeling from African swine fever.

→ Some berry special produce. Three indoor farms in the U.S. now grow Omakase berries, a $50 ‘luxury’ strawberry that is normally grown in the Japanese Alps and is 2-3x sweeter than traditional strawberries.

The 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties (we’ll stick with COP26) wrapped up last weekend in Glasgow.

But as member states are still unpacking their bags and recovering from too much haggis after the two-week-long assembly in Scotland, the real work now must begin…

You take the high road: Conference attendees left with some lofty goals on the books, including a pledge by President Biden to reduce U.S. carbon emission by 50% of 2005 levels.

And U.S. ag has been asked to step up to the plate.

AIMing for the bullseye: The U.S. partnered up with 29 other countries to create the “Agricultural Innovation Mission for Climate” (AIM4C) initiative. The goal? Discover new and innovative smart agriculture technologies that will increase production and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Methane madness: But the real talk on Ag Alley was methane—a greenhouse gas that breaks down quickly, but traps a lot of heat. Agriculture accounts for only 10% of total U.S. emissions, yet 36% of those emissions are in the form of methane...mainly from the livestock industry.

To help meet the methane-reduction pledge, The White House noted that it would implement “impactful incentive-based and voluntary partnership programs” with livestock producers, including the harnessing of methane for energy production on farms—a tactic already used on many dairies.

Bottom line: US Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack stood behind the industry when commenting on the outlook of agriculture post-summit: “Livestock, including dairy, can provide critical climate solutions… Agriculture is not part of the problem, it is part of the solution.”

Partners. Customers. Consumers.

They all expect it. And ‘it’ is becoming table stakes in the food value chain.

Yep, we’re talking about food traceability.

And that’s where Fusionware saves the day for farms, packers, shipping operations, and more.

Focused on maintaining traceability from seed-to-shelf, the platform quickly initiates recalls and contacts people up and down the supply chain. Plus, its logistics capabilities help coordinate packing and shipping operations.

Just take it from one of their customers, BlackGold Farms in North Dakota:

“Our experience with Fusionware has been nothing short of extraordinary as it delivers the software platform of the future and opens doors that traditional software just isn’t capable of.”

Give Fusionware a try for your operation and learn more here.

Almonds need to clear the air… literally.

With the goal to cut dust from production by 50% by 2025, the Almond Board of California (ABC) isn’t messing around.

And almond growers have many reasons they want to cut the amount of dust in their orchards:

Create a less ideal environment for pest mites
Reduce hull rot fungus
Be neighborly – before the neighbors start to gripe about their dust-covered petunias

Some context: Dust flies mostly during harvest, and 75% of that is during sweeping and pickup.

One solution is to implement off-ground harvesting – catching nuts before they hit the ground. This method is used in other almond-producing countries such as Australia, Spain and Israel.

And growers $ee potential: In one instance, if the orchard floor is uneven or has cracks, setting sweeper head heights gets a little nuts. The uneven or cracked ground can cause excess dust or lost almonds, and the grower will have to shell out extra cleaning fees to the huller/sheller or lose almonds.

Growers want no almonds left behind, which also helps the ABC’s goals of reducing dust. It’s a win-win.