Good morning.
How many hours are you willing to drive a tractor down the road?
Whatever your answer is, it's probably fewer than what Dick and Carolee Ourada are in for. The two are driving their 1977 IH 574 from Nebraska to Alaska this summer, a whopping 3,910 miles.
The kickers? No air conditioning, and a max speed of 20 mph.
The trip serves a dual purpose of getting a tractor to the Ouradas' land in Alaska, where they're moving, plus raising money for charity. The Colorado Children's Hospital Foundation will be reaping what they sow; the couple's goal is to raise $100K for the hospital over the course of their 2-month journey.
Godspeed to the Ouradas (up to 20 mph, at least).
The News:
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Chicken Biz
- Off the (Block)Chain
- Farmers Lovin' Fertilizer Ruling
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Bok Bok Buyout Back on Track? |
Big chicken is reportedly on the verge of plumping up.
And all the investors said, "It’s about time."
Refresher: Last August, Sanderson Farms announced a "joint venture" between Cargill and Continental Grain Co. to acquire the country’s third largest poultry firm for $4.5B.
When completed, Sanderson would merge with Continental’s subsidiary, Wayne Farms, to form a new operation.
Cargill and Continental Grain have been chomping at the bit (er… uh… pecking at the fence?) for months waiting for the deal to go through—originally scheduled for late last year.
But… they ran into some chicken wire.
Hold your horses chickens: Keeping in line with the Biden administration’s quarrel with big meat, the U.S. Department of Justice launched an antitrust review ahead of the acquisition back in December that put the deal on hold.
But now, it seems the DOJ is ready to talk turkey chicken.
Concession session: According to unnamed sources, the DOJ seems poised to allow the deal… as long as some not-so-minor industry changes are made.
One suspected concession centers around scrapping the so-called "tournament" grower payment system. According to the USDA: "Processors… determine the payments that poultry growers receive… by weighing the chickens and ranking farmers based on how much the chickens grew. Pay is generally determined based on how a farmer compares to other farmers."
If required, there is concern among chicken folks that the change could give companies with more traditional payment models a competitive advantage.
Where this goes: If all parties sign off and the deal goes through, the new entity will represent 15% of U.S. poultry production.
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→ Insuring crop insurance. Industry leaders are encouraging the House Ag Committee not to cut or reform crop insurance in the next farm bill, with worries that farmers could leave the program if they do.
→ Fretting over farmland. U.S. Rep. Dusty Johnson called for Bill Gates to testify to the House Ag Committee over his farmland purchases, including the most recent—2,100 acres in North Dakota okayed by the state’s attorney general.
→ Supercomputer for super data. Mississippi State University is attempting to get more data to more farmers, faster, so they can improve their production, through drone-collected data and a supercomputer named Atlas.
→ More meat (resilience). The USDA is investing $14M into ag workforce training in underserved communities, with grants going to minority-serving institutions, land-grant tribal colleges, and more to bolster the meat and poultry supply chain.
→ Onset of more carbon offset. This time for produce growers: online marketplace ProducePay and ALLCOT, a developer of climate change services, have teamed up to create a voluntary carbon program, catering especially to those growing asparagus, grapes, and strawberries.
→ Stop the sulfoxaflor. After years of back and forth over the chemical, the EPA has found that the insecticide sulfoxaflor could likely adversely affect up to 7% of listed species and 4% of critical habitats.
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There’s nothing sus about tracking sustainability.
An Argentinian company is making it easier for farmers to monitor their sustainability methods and make buyers aware of the things they’re doing to put the "sustain" in sustainability. A funding round of $3.1M will help Ucrop.it offer its digital platform that tracks, reports, and records farmers’ sustainable practices.
A "Crop Story": The app platform is free and allows farmers to track energy use, fertilizer use, crop residue management, and carbon intensity. Farmers can then leverage this information downstream to demonstrate their "ditto" on sustainability requirements with buyers.
Chain, chain, chain: The app tracks crops from the start of the value chain through geofenced field maps by recording planting and providing a sustainability assessment and detailed planting-to-harvest crop story. In the end, it benefits the farmer and the end buyer, and helps promote sustainable farming methods. What we call a win-win-win.
Soundbite: "We help farmers and agro-processors engage in mutual agreements and trace specific sustainability protocols to generate verified information to create crop stories, which farmers can use to impact [their] businesses," says Diego Hoter, the co-founder and CEO of Ucrop.it.
Fund.it: Ucrop.it has 20 corporations and more than 700 growers using the app and plans to expand into Brazil and the U.S. with the help of the latest funding round.
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It’s a wrap for our 2022 campaign with The Combine, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t keep up-to-date with all that’s happening in Nebraska and beyond.
Stay in the loop with the wide array of AgTech startups in The Combine’s ecosystem and discover how they are making big moves in the ways of livestock operations, synthetic biology, crop production, and more.
Follow along today and subscribe to The Combine’s monthly newsletter.
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Farmers Are Fans of Fertilizer Ruling |
Increased nitrogen fertilizer tariffs are out, and U.S. agriculture groups are celebrating. The U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) ruled it wouldn’t impose additional tariffs after CF Industries filed a petition for urea ammonium nitrate tariffs on imports from Russia and Trinidad and Tobago.
Soundbite: "We have been watching this go up over the past several months, but here lately, we’ve seen a little bit of relief in the price of nitrogen, but I think that this is going to additionally help quite a bit," said Ronnie Russell, American Soybean Association board member from Missouri.
For farmers, fewer tariffs should mean more imports—which would provide some much-needed relief to the ongoing supply squeeze, and (ideally) lower prices.
Building (commodity) coalitions: National Corn Growers Association President Chris Edgington says, "Maybe even the biggest news is it proves that commodity groups and the corn growers have the ability to make a difference on something that we’ve maybe never really weighed in (on) until this last year where we have been involved in fertilizer on a large scale."
Next on the docket: Other fertilizer imports like potash and phosphate could be reviewed.
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Even though Bill Gates is busy buying up farmland in North Dakota these days, his name can be found on the rolodex of landowners all across the U.S.
Can you guess which state below is homes to Gates' largest chunk of farmland at 69,071 acres?
- Arizona
- Louisiana
- Nebraska
Answer at the bottom of the email.
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Written & Edited by Kevin Cross, Sheridan Wimmer, Rachel Robinson, Ashley Scoby, and Travis Martin
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