🐄 Keep COOL + Methane-Busting Methods, French Ag Booster, and more...

Good morning.

Pasta lovers, be warned…

Less than stellar harvests of durum wheat in Canada and Europe have shot prices for the raw ingredient out of a cannon, up nearly 90%. Canada, the world’s largest producer, is expected to produce only two-thirds of its originally expected output.

So yeah, don’t be surprised when supermarket shelves look bare in the pasta and bread aisles. We’re gonna go carb-load now. 😭

Tuesday's stories:

Beef is Back on COOL
Methane Burps Busted
French Farm Insurance Booster

The Mandatory Country of Origin Labeling (M-COOL) boomerang is baaaaaack.

The American Beef Labeling Act, championed by Senators John Thune (South Dakota) and Jon Tester (Montana), will be formally introduced next week.

Enter: the words “beef” and “ground beef” in current M-COOL laws. After a nice 12-month delay, of course, which would allow the U.S. Trade Representative and Ag Secretary time to pencil out implementation within the World Trade Organization rules.

Flashback: Beef COOL has been on the menu for quite some time; it was included in the 2002 and 2008 farm bills and became law in 2009. Canada and Mexico then took their unfair trade advantage complaint to the WTO, who authorized retaliatory tariffs on American goods. In 2015, Congress repealed M-COOL to avoid those pesky tariffs.

Soundbite: “Transparency in labeling benefits both producers and consumers,” Thune said. “Unfortunately, the current beef labeling system in this country allows imported beef that is neither born nor raised in the United States, but simply finished here, to be labeled as a product of the USA.”

Win-win: Producer groups like the South Dakota Stockgrowers, R-CALF, and the U.S. Cattlemen’s Association have noted support for defining what “U.S. beef” really means. COVID disruptions have led some producers to double down on the belief that COOL could provide a path to demand for U.S.-produced cattle.

Quick Hits

→ Checks are in the mail. Indigo Ag revealed they sent initial payments to the first 267 participants of their Carbon by Indigo program.

→ Gettin’ rural and renewable. The USDA announced a $464M plan to fund farm operations and ag businesses that build or improve renewable energy infrastructure to ultimately lower energy costs.

→ It was a hot one. The NOAA reported that summer 2021 edged out the 1936 Dust Bowl summer (June, July, August) by .01 degree Fahrenheit to become the hottest on record.

→ I speak ‘plant-ese.’ A $25M grant will launch the Center for Research on Programmable Plant Systems, a new effort to develop two-way communication systems with plants in a field called digital biology.

→ Sushi choking hazard. Chinese consumers are having a tough time swallowing surging fish prices, thanks to a 50% jump from year-ago levels.

→ Radical Dutch move… The Netherlands is considering cutting up to 30% of the country’s livestock to reduce emissions and nitrogen runoff.

Royal DSM, the Dutch nutrition giant, just got the green light to sell their methane-busting feed supplement, Bovaer, in Brazil and Chile.

Since the two countries are the first to approve it, they must think the product is remarkcowble. Or is everyone else being a coward? Ok, we're done...

Just a spoonful quarter teaspoon of Bovaer helps methane emissions go down 30% for dairy cows and up to 90% for beef cows, according to the company’s trials.

Zoom out: Brazil is the top beef exporter, sending a little over 2.5M metric tons of beef into the world in 2020. And they're the #2 global beef producer, coming in at 10.1M metric tons.

Burp better: Bovaer suppresses the enzyme that triggers methane production in a cow's rumen. It's effective immediately and safely breaks down into compounds that are naturally present in the cow's stomach.

Methane is one of the more potent greenhouse gases because of its superior heat-trapping abilities. But it vanishes from the atmosphere much more quickly. So in the short term, reducing methane emissions would pack a nice punch.

Project clean cow: Bovaer’s competitors are Asparagopsis seaweed, garlic and citrus extract, and lemongrass—all of which supposedly cut ruminants' methane emissions to varying degrees.

Extreme weather conditions have prompted a much-needed insurance revamp for French farmers.

The situation: French President Emmanuel Macron said the nation will set aside 600M euros ($709M USD) a year to finance the new system.

Why now? An agricultural disaster has been declared in France after an atypical early spring frost hurt crops and many vineyards. Agriculture minister Julien Denormandie said “significant losses” have been registered.

Let's just say, it was ugly. Apricot and peach farmers have lost up to 90% of their harvest in the Drome and Ardèche regions of central southern France. And 80% of the nation’s vineyards have been impacted by the April frost.

A soundbite: "We've never experienced anything like this frost wave," Denormandie said. "This is probably the greatest agricultural catastrophe of the beginning of the 21st century.”