🚫 Farmers Get Denied + Seed in Incognito Mode, AcreValue Finds a New Home, and more...

Good morning.

Our Magnetic crew is excited to share that our first in-person ‘meet-up’ with readers will be later this month at National FFA Convention in Indy!

Want a chance to hear about the ‘Why’ and origin story behind Magnetic, plus tune into Q&A and participate in a live Ag News Trivia Showdown? If interested in attending, let us know via this form and we’ll keep you posted with the final details.

Headlines:

A Conservation Cluster
Seed in Incognito Mode
AcreValue Finds a New Home

P.S. Don't miss the bacon trivia on the scroll. We're shook.

Conservation programs to help farmers protect the soil, air, water, and wildlife on their land exist: but new data shows they’re pretty darn picky.

Nearly 70% of those who applied to the programs during the past decade have been denied.

A closer look: Between 2010 and 2020, 31% of farmers who applied to the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) and 42% who applied to the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) were actually awarded contracts. Going a step further, this means that 946,459 EQIP and 146,425 CSP contract applications were denied over the decade, many of those in major agricultural states.

What gives? As the government focuses on addressing the climate crisis, farmers are often at the front lines. While the EQIP and CSP programs have been successful, albeit under-funded, programs to address climate change efforts on the farm, many of the funds and resources have been misdirected despite best intentions.

No relief in sight: Funding for EQIP will rise $200M per year from 2019 to 2023, which sounds nice. But on the downside, CSP—meant to be the more comprehensive program—will see its funding decline. Per the 2018 Farm Bill, CSP funding was $2.3B in 2019. By 2023, it will only be $1.4B.

What this means: CSP has historically provided higher conservation and financial benefits to farmers, but is now seeing its funding decline. Due to a shortage of NRCS staff, there’s also a gap in providing assistance to farmers as they fill out the rigorous paperwork associated with CSP.

Quick Hits

→ Aussie beef gets the boot. Diplomatic tensions have led Chinese officials to pivot from the Land Down Under as its main source of grain-fed beef. Instead, the Asian country has 9x’d its beef imports from the U.S.

→ Tyson’s mandate pays off. The global food giant’s requirement for all workers to be vaccinated by Nov. 1 has led to 91% of the workforce being vaxxed thus far.

→ Soy golf balls coming to a fairway near you. Researchers at Pittsburg State University in Kansas are attempting to replace the oil-based plastics that go into making golf balls with materials made from soybean oil.

→ Butcher shortage. Britain’s post-Brexit immigration policy is clogging up the flow of inbound eastern European butchers and slaughterhouse workers, leaving processors to work at 25% reduced capacity and the potential for mass culling of livestock.

→ Georgia (melted) peaches? Rising temperatures in the South are putting the pressure on. Peach trees need to spend 650-850 hours below 45 degrees Fahrenheit, but shorter, milder winters are cutting down their chill time and threatening the beloved fruit.

→ Melons losing money. More than 60,000 melon-farming families in Guatemala, Honduras, Costa Rica, and Panama are facing tough times as supply chain costs (everything from fertilizer to cardboard boxes) are hitting historical highs.

→ Sugarcane’s wack year. Brazil’s sugar production is down 8% from year-ago levels after erratic weather, including historic droughts and unseasonal frosts, created headaches for sugar mills.

Farmers Business Network (FBN) is blowin’ the seed industry’s cover with their recent Seed Relabeling Report.

The problem: While FBN stays neutral on relabeling, they say their report provides transparency into a practice typically shrouded in secrecy. The relabeling concern is twofold: overpaying for the same seed from different brands, and lack of genetic diversity despite attempting to reduce agronomic risk by purchasing from multiple brands.

By the numbers: The fourth annual report has grown from 8,000 seed tags in 2017 to 35,000 seed tags this year, which contributed to the following findings:

49% of corn and 57% of soybean seed products are relabeled
6% of farmers who submitted tags bought the same variety from multiple brands
73% of FBN members bought relabeled seed products

And new traits and companies are not immune. Qrome, Enlist E3, and LLGT27 traits, as well as a very high percentage (75%+) of Zinesto, Brevant, and Apex seeds were relabeled.

It’s a pervasive problem, bigger than farmers may think. Only 31% of FBN farmer members believe they plant relabeled seed—but based on the data from the report, the actual number is closer to 73%.

A soundbite: “The practice of seed relabeling means that farmers may pay vastly different prices for the same seed and is a good example of the lack of transparency in agriculture that Farmers Business Network is working to change," says FBN CEO and Co-Founder, Amol Deshpande.

Jobs for days... See all 49 jobs on the Magnetic Ag Job Board or post roles for your company today.

Top toolbox picks and more. Successful Farming rolled out the red carpet for its picks for 2021’s best tools and shop supplies. See the winners here.

Friday’s average Ag News Quiz score was 6.3. Can you beat it? Get quizzed here.

Bacon trivia. Prices for the cured pork favorite are up 30% from year-ago levels alone. Can you guess the last time prices were this high (adjusted for inflation)? Was it 1981, 1993, or 2006?

Last week we intro’d you all to The Combine, the business incubator program helping build the next generation of AgTech startups across Nebraska.

And one of those startups making waves in grain circles is Grain Weevil.

By minimizing risks, controlling costs, and removing farmers from the bin, Grain Weevil is improving the quality of stored grain and improving farmer well-being. The nifty lil robot can scurry across a grain bin to improve leveling, break crusts, do inspections, and feed grain into the extraction augers.

"One thing that makes the Grain Weevil so exciting is that we're helping farmers. One thing that makes The Combine so exciting is that they are helping us. There's this whole process of community, especially when we're talking about rural innovation," noted Chad Johnson, CEO of Grain Weevil.

Explore how Grain Weevil is changing the way farmers engage with their grain bins today.

More often than not, life boils down to who you know more than what you know.

Ag-Analytics would probably agree with that and might even cite it as one of the reasons they recently acquired the farmland research platform AcreValue.

Crunching numbers: AcreValue serves up data and information about soil, crop history, and value of a piece of land. Armed with that research, farmers can stay informed around things like sustainability and land productivity.

The acquisition was announced right at the end of Q3 in a transaction that will see AcreValue move from Granular, a subsidiary of Corteva, to the Ag-Analytics family.

The move has implications beyond just strengthening Ag-Analytics’ offering as well. It was also announced that Ag-Analytics would form strategic alliances with Farmer Mac and Indigo Ag, in an effort to provide more financing options and carbon-neutral opportunities for growers.

While we are here: AcreValue isn’t alone in the recent acquisition space. Fellow ag land innovator FarmlandFinder was recently acquired by EasyKnock.