🌽 Biofuels To The Rescue + Cock-A-Doodle-Don't, GMO Salmon's Moment, & more...

Good morning. We can’t believe it, but Monday marks Magnetic’s first six months of existence. That's 182.5 days, if you’re counting.

Whether you joined us on day 7 or day 170, we’re honored you’ve carved out a slice of your inbox for us.

Oh, and if you're into celebrating half-birthdays and want to spoil us, why not just share Magnetic with 2 friends today? Cuz when it comes to partying, the more, the merrier.

Today's headlines:

Biofuels Were Born For This Moment
Tyson's Cock-A-Doodle-Don't Incident
GMO Salmon Sold Out

After a near-week-long hiatus, the Colonial Pipeline is back up and running. But with fuel shortage effects expected to last several more days, renewable energy groups are saying, “think outside the barrel.”

Refresher: Last week, a group dubbed “DarkSide” (creepy) pulled a 21st-century-style ninja move and hacked into the Colonial Pipeline. The cybercrime forced a six-day shutdown of the underground superhighway that transports 2.5 million barrels of petro-fuel each day along the Eastern U.S.

Colonial officials announced on Wednesday that systems were being turned back on, but that “return to normal” was several days away.

Where Ag Steps In

Initially, farmers expressed concern that fuel may be redirected from the Midwest to help with gas runs out East.

A cold snap in the nick of time. Mother Nature’s recent bout of hypothermia dropped soil temperatures -- slowing germination and giving farmers some margin to chillax while supply returns to normal levels.

And in other good news, East Coast dairy farms and hog production systems have also largely avoided fuel shortage issues.

Ethanol with the edge. Renewable fuel groups sent letters to the EPA this week asking them to ease up on regulatory requirements and expand the use of E15 to boost fuel supply.

And the letter worked. The EPA issued a short-term emergency fuel waiver to help with shortages...giving renewables a boost.

A soundbite: Noted by Geoff Cooper of the Renewable Fuels Association, “The Colonial pipeline shutdown serves as a poignant reminder that ethanol biorefineries are strategic assets that can and should play a larger role in powering America forward.”

→ ADM is crushin’ it. The global grain trader will drop $350 million to build a soy-crushing site in Spiritwood, North Dakota, that will process 150,000 bushels of soybeans per day.

→ Pork’s Prop 12 issue on the East Coast. The National Pork Producers Council has filed comments on a Massachusetts law that mirrors California’s Prop 12, which prohibits the sale of pork products from certain conventional production practices.

→ Another AgTech unicorn. Seed tech startup Inari is celebrating a $1.2 billion valuation after raising $208 million in a fresh financing round.

→ CRISPR to crackdown on citrus greening. Penn State and the USDA have developed a CRISPR diagnostic test to catch early cases of citrus greening, or HLB, that has shrunk Florida’s orange crop by 70% since 2005.

→ Syngenta’s public debut in Shanghai? The global crop input player, currently a subsidiary of ChemChina, could be spun out and go public in the Chinese markets.

→ Progress report. USDA data from last week revealed planting progress for the country: 67% of corn, 42% of soybeans, 25% of cotton, and 75% of spring wheat.

Here’s the (s)coop: A certain breed of rooster used for Tyson Foods’ breeding program is doing a fowl job. The eggs they fertilize hatch less often, and in the chicken meat business, hatchings mean money.

The president of Tyson’s poultry business said the breeding problem could be responsible for as much as half of the company’s problems in meeting the demand for its chicken. Yikes...

Rooster booster: The underperforming males will get booted from the breeding program, and Tyson plans to replace the rooster by fall with one they used previously. They’re getting re-hired.

Bad timing: Poultry products are becoming more scarce and more expensive, and the rooster issue is just part of the problem. Quarantine comfort food cravings, winter storms, restaurant reopenings, and labor issues are all contributing to the short supply.

If you’re a corn leaf, just-sprouted soybean, or even a sugarcane stalk, you can grow, but you cannot hide. Not from Taranis, at least.

With best-in-class remote sensing from drones, airplanes, and satellites, Taranis uses cutting-edge AI technology and cloud-based applications to get all the dirt on any plant stand.

From when you’ve emerged and how many friends you’re standing with to the pests you’re partying beside and the weed you’ve hidden behind your left leaf, Taranis has eyes on your ears like the paparazzi of plants.

So, what do they do with all this amazingly clear data and insights they’ve gathered from tassel to roots?

It feeds into SmartConnect®, a digital agronomy tool that lets sales agronomists augment their findings and prescribe effective and proactive solutions. And it’s all powered by Taranis Connect® - so anytime, day or night, rain or shine, you can see what you’ve got growing on.

Taranis means more productive sales agronomists, more profitable farmers, and less privacy for plants. If it’s in the field, it’s in the open.

AquaBounty’s genetically engineered salmon is headed to harvest after decades of development, and its first sales are already signed, sealed, delivered.

The AquaAdvantage salmon is the first genetically modified animal in the country to be approved for human consumption. It’s engineered through snippets of genetic code from Chinook and ocean pout that increase growth efficiency.

Sustainability upside: With the salmon produced on an AquaBounty farm in Indiana instead of under the sea, their feeding cycle and growing environment are perfected. This prevents antibiotic use and pairs down disease exposure.

And customers are bought into the salmon - literally. Five metric tons of the fish were snapped up via preorders by seafood distributors, foodservice companies, and retailers across the U.S.

By the numbers:

AquaBounty can produce up to 70% more fresh salmon than conventional Atlantic systems
100 metric tons of salmon will be produced each month
A 10,000 metric-ton land-based facility is in the works

But...there’s always a but: Some food safety and environmental critics say something’s fishy about the AquaAdvantage salmon. And several retailers - like Whole Foods - will plan to keep the genetically-engineered fish off the shelves.

AquaBounty says their product may not be for everyone - but it’s meant to be an affordable, safe, and healthy protein option that can reach a wide variety of consumers.