🥛 Topsy-Turvy Dairy Dynamics + Farm FinTech Fueled, McDee's Climate Smart Farming, and more...

Good morning.

With Veterans Day on Thursday, it’s worth highlighting rural heroes like Jack Tripp of Illinois.

Tripp believes his farm upbringing provided him with the skills, strength, and stamina to survive his experience in World War II. Oh, and he credits it for his talent for cursing, too.

Here’s to all our veteran readers—thank you for your service!

News:

Dairy's Topsy-Turvy Dynamics
Farm FinTech Fueled
$5M Climate Happy Meal

PS - Don't miss today's Movers & Shakers feature on AgTech entrepreneur Jesse Vollmar!

While the dairy herd shrinks, it’s no cow-incidence the prices of milk, cheese, and butter are on their way up.

Dairy cow numbers are down 85,000 since their peak in May. This is the largest four-month decline since 2009. U.S. and major cow state numbers are now the lowest they’ve been since December 2020. Dairy cull cow slaughter numbers are up about 48,500 head from the same period a year earlier.

Why the decline? Rising input costs must be taken into account. Corn is up 29% from a year ago. August 2021 marked the highest total monthly feed costs. Case in point, dairy producers are cutting herd numbers.

An udder disappointment, dairy cows are also producing less milk: about a pound less per cow per day in September 2021 compared to September 2020.

And consumers are in a mood. The price of a gallon of whole milk has indeed risen 26% since July 2018. It’s gone up 4% over the past year. The national average for a gallon of whole milk is $3.59.

The bottom line: Fewer cows producing less milk have yielded higher prices.

Will things get butter? Unfortunately, prices will likely continue to rise before they fall. With higher inputs, shipping and logistics hang-ups, and adverse weather conditions in high-production regions, plus inflation, it will likely be a while before prices are “normal.”

Quick Hits

→ Handcuffed meat hackers. Five individuals connected to the ransomware group REvil were arrested for their involvement in the June cybersecurity attack on JBS, where the company paid $11M once servers were breached.

→ ASF has variants, too. Experts have discovered a low virulent, genotype 1 variant of African swine fever in China that can be missed in early disease detection.

→ Friendly pheasant collab. The National Corn Growers Association partnered with Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever to increase pollinator and wildlife habitats in corn-producing states.

→ Uninspiring pork situation. Inspire Brands—the parent company of Buffalo Wild Wings, Sonic, and Jimmy John’s—is suing a handful of the major pork processors for alleged price-fixing.

→ Vertical farming booster. Intelligent Growth Solutions raised a $57.7M Series B round to continue designing and building vertical farms for third-party operators globally.

→ Cabbage hoarding in China. The popular veggie in the Asian nation is getting hard to come by, as consumers flocked to supermarkets to stock up ahead of impending winter weather and continued COVID-19 precautions.

Traive turned heads with one of the largest-ever Brazilian ag fintech fundings, taking home a whopping $17M from its Series A round.

Traive’s top fan, SP Ventures, led the round, again, with big contributions from Astella too. Seven others contributed to the funding in support of the startup that’s set to overcome ag credit’s scarcity and scattered distribution.

What it is: Founded in 2018 and coming out of an MIT project, Traive aims to help farmers access capital, particularly in Brazil, by closing the info gap between lenders and growers. They provide access to working capital loans, centralize financial steps for farmers, and use algorithms for real-time risk assessments.

In other words: “A lot of our technology is about putting together all the value proposition of the credit journey in one single place,” said CEO Fabricio Pezente.

Sweet spot: Traive targets producers that are too big for small loans and Microfinance, but too small for traditional banks. The funds will be used to hire more data scientists to create a digital wallet down the road… on the path to becoming a digital bank.

Where this goes… The startup plans to expand its service area to the U.S. in the next year. It also plans to direct focus to farmers, creating a communication channel for crop updates to lenders.

Jesse Vollmar grew up on a traditional row crop farm in Michigan… with a twist.

A 1993 decision by the family positioned the farm as an early pioneer, pivoting to 100% organic production. And while the pivot was bold, it was also extremely strategic, giving the farm access to new markets and economic opportunities while also focusing on sustainability.

This entrepreneurial move might have been an early influential event for Jesse, who would go on to jumpstart his own company, FarmLogs, nearly twenty years later.

And after nine years of building the farm management software business, the company was acquired in June by Bushel, where Jesse now serves as the VP of Farm Strategy.

Magnetic caught up with the busy AgTech leader to hear all about his background, entrepreneurial experiences, and what he sees as the most interesting trends for the future of agriculture.

Read the full Q&A here.

Is it just us, or does anyone else think it’s a lil ironic that footballs are nicknamed ‘pigskins’ but are actually made of cowhide leather?

Regardless, we can’t talk about sports without sharing a bit about our new favorite sports newsletter, Sideline Sprint.

It’s insightful, witty sports news curated into a single 5-minute newsletter. Sports news you actually care about. Oh, and it’s free.

Here’s just a sample of their top-notch headlines:

Bills Mafia Gets Paid to Jump Through Tables
The Washington Football Team Rains (Sewage) On Your Parade
ESPN Gets Catfished

Ole McDonald’s had a climate-neutral farm... or that’s the goal at least.

Talk ain’t cheap: In early October, McDonald's joined the UN Race to Zero campaign, pledging to put the company on the path to net zero emissions by 2050. As a step in this direction, Ronny McDonny is committing $5M over the next five years to partner with AgMission.

McCarbon Buster: While the ag industry accounts for 9.9% of GHG emissions in the U.S. and roughly 24% globally, it’s the only sector with the natural potential to be net negative for GHG emissions.

The A-team: Farmers + ranchers + scientists = science-based, grower-approved solutions. With multi-disciplinary, mission-critical data and research from all over the world, these climate-smart ag practices will be adapted to work and rapidly deployed.

Increasing farm resiliency while mitigating the impacts of climate change will be killing two birds with one stone plow… or lack thereof.

Soundbite: “We’re striving to feed more people in increasingly sustainable ways by creating a food system in which communities, animals, and the planet thrive,” noted Marion Gross, McDonald’s senior vice president and chief supply chain officer, North America.