🤨 Carbon Confusion + FlowerTech, Cattle Emissions Vax, and more...

Good morning.

If you’re like us and tuning into the Olympics each evening, you might be feeling a little bit competitive. We gotchu.

Take a stab at Magnetic’s first Ag News Trivia Quiz! We’ve scrapped together 10 questions to gauge if you’re ‘in the know’ on all the news we’ve featured throughout July.

Take 5 minutes, give it a shot, and then challenge Bob over in finance to give it a try, just for kicks...

Lead stories:

Carbon Credit Confusion
Cattle Vax to Ebb Emissions
FlowerTech

P.S. We’ve got lots of Campus Ambassador applications rolling in, but could use some help finding college students at our Southern and West Coast ag schools. Know someone who should apply? Send them here.

"We need more government oversight,” said... well, not a lot of people.

Except for the Environmental Defense Fund. They said it. And with the company they’ve been keeping lately, it’s likely that others agree.

The deets: The EDF released a report regarding agricultural soil carbon credits, and the message is clear: the carbon credit market needs better standards, and they’re asking the USDA to step in and provide guidance.

Some background: In the interest of climate change mitigation, many businesses are looking to agriculture to help them sequester their carbon and “offset” their CO2 emissions. And they’re looking in the right place.

A soundbite: “Agricultural soils could remove 4% to 6% of annual U.S. emissions,” noted Emily Oldfield, agricultural soil carbon scientist at EDF.

While the farm carbon credit sector continues to grow, the lack of protocols, plus the variation in definitions and standards has created a clustered mosaic of bewildering options for farmers and carbon emitters.

The report focuses on discrepancies in the purported usefulness of the carbon credit market, the permanence of storing carbon in the soil, and the definition of what constitutes a carbon credit.

Where this goes: It’s going to take a while for the market (and likely the government) to sort these issues out. Yet with the Senate passing the Growing Climate Solutions Act (a bill championed by both the EDF and the American Farm Bureau Federation) last month, governmental action may come sooner rather than later.

Quick Hits

→ Getting to the root of the issue. Penn State researchers have discovered a gene that will regulate the angle of root growth in corn, allowing roots to get deeper into the soil and potentially help nitrogen uptake.

→ ASF creeping closer. The USDA confirmed positive samples of African Swine Fever from pigs in the Dominican Republic, a major concern as the disease makes landfall in the Western hemisphere.

→ The ADM ascent. Second-quarter earnings for the ag giant hit $712M, up 27% from the same period in 2020.

→ Enko and Bayer team up. The partnership will focus on using Enko’s pharma background to find novel product starting points in new chemical families that haven't been explored yet, eliminating pests through new ways and combating resistance.

→ It’s gettin’ neural. A Turkish researcher has discovered a way to use a light sensor to capture spectral data (via neural networks) that accurately detects the ripeness of fruits and vegetables.

→ Prop 12’s potential port problems. A cluster of issues could arise with pork exports at California’s ports and cold storage facilities, which could limit the commercial flexibility of products moving through the state.

→ Whisky waste for the win. Glenfiddich, a Scottish whisky maker, is converting waste products from its own distilling process into ultra-low carbon fuel for their delivery trucks. (Fun fact: no 'e' in whisk(e)y from Scotland)

New Zealand researchers are hitting methane emissions from cattle with their best shot — a methane vaccine in the works that depends on… drool.

How to vax the rumen: Antibodies in a cow’s saliva ride through the digestive system, winding up in the stomach, where they bind to the pesky little methanogens that convert hydrogen into methane.

Getting enough of the antibodies in the rumen to be effective is the snag holding up the methane vaccine.

High gas bills: Test cattle have to be in full-body chambers that monitor gasses, but these chambers are expensive, costing up to $250,000.

A consortium of New Zealand livestock industry groups and the government have cost-shared the vaccine research, spending about $85M on R&D since 2003. They’ve dropped $4 to $5M a year since then on the silver saliva bullet.

Working around the clock: The New Zealand government aims to be the first nation in the world to fully fold agriculture into an emissions pricing scheme by 2025. The country accounts for about 0.16% of global emissions, half of which come from agriculture, and a quarter from dairy.

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A Barcelona-based online flower shop is budding into new growth… and it’s headed to the flower farmgate.

Colvin started in 2017 but saw a thorn in the business-to-consumer cut flower industry – too many middlemen. It rose to the occasion of streamlining the industry by developing a tech platform that has raised $82.7M to date. The latest Series C round raised $53.1M.

Li-lacks in the industry: Colvin’s goal is to be the sole intermediary between cut flower growers and end consumers – creating a business-to-consumer side that would allow growers and customers to connect directly.

Co-founder and Co-CEO Andrés Cester says the current model has five or six parties between the farmer and consumer and blames a lack of digitalization in the industry. The result is a reduction in quality of product and a bigger carbon footprint.

Bloom where you’re planted: Whether they’re small, family-owned operations or international farms that target mass markets, Colvin is positioned to help either type of grower better predict the volumes of flowers required of them, while fixing prices. Colvin then buys from the grower and distributes the flowers to customers.

Oh, Snap(dragon): COVID-19 made those in the cut flower supply chain realize the importance of digitalization in their industry. Colvin claims customer demand doubled in 2020. They shipped more than 10M flowers, launched a new houseplant division, and doubled its staff.

The future is flowers: The company also wants to investigate blockchain technology in floriculture and eventually expand into other sectors to benefit the entire agriculture industry.

Colvin’s services are offered in Spain, Germany, Italy, and Portugal. Last bud not least, Colvin is expected to launch in France next year.