🐖 ASF, Too Close for Comfort + Shepherd in the Sky, Beef - It's What's for Testimony, and more...

Good morning.

With the last week of the Olympics upon us, we decided to jump-start a little medal competition of our own… the College of Agriculture Olympics!

Over the next four days, we’ll be polling our audiences on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook to whittle the field from 32 ag colleges down to three medal winners by Friday. Join the fun and vote for your school daily.

Tuesday headlines:

ASF Is Too Close for Comfort
Shepherd in the Sky
Beef - It's What's for... Testimony?

P.S. Don't miss today's Movers & Shakers Q&A with the social media maestro herself, Jen Hartmann of John Deere.

It’s back… and too close for comfort.

African swine fever (ASF) has reared its ugly head in the Dominican Republic.

Refresher: While this is the first instance of ASF in the Americas in 40 years, you’ll recall China’s original ASF outbreak in 2018. China, the world’s largest hog producer, had to destroy half its herd within a year of detection, and the disease spread globally at that time.

Fortunately, North America was spared.

But now things are a bit dicier...

The Dominican Republic is restricting hog shipments and has deployed the military to contain the spread of the disease. Neighboring countries have closed their borders to Dominican pork and increased airline restrictions on passengers bringing products that could carry the virus. Even airline garbage is being checked and properly disposed of to ensure the virus does not spread outside of the Dominican Republic.

The only remedy? Killing the hogs in the affected areas, which means losses of $180M.

Banning Dominican pork is nothing new for the U.S. It banned Dominican pork products back when the island nation battled classical swine fever between 1978 and 1980. 192K Dominican hogs were destroyed during that period.

What lies ahead: The USDA will assist the DR with testing support and mitigation measures.

Quick Hits

→ “We’ve seen better…” Last week’s spring wheat conditions fell to their worst level since 1988, with 66% of the U.S. crop rated ‘poor to very poor.’

→ DOJ calls out Pilgrim’s execs. Four current and former Pilgrim’s Pride executives were indicted for their roles in a price-fixing conspiracy for chicken products.

→ Broccoli to break the bank? Below-average temperatures in Salinas, California are limiting supplies of broccoli, and USDA market news indicates a doubling of prices since mid-July.

→ FBN to double down on R&D. Farmers Business Network announced the expansion of its one-of-a-kind testing program that connects developers of solutions—from biologicals to robots and sensors—directly with farmers and large-scale, on-farm testing environments.

→ Heat wave squashes mangoes. The typical July harvesting of mangoes in Egypt has been quiet, as unprecedented heat during the growing season curbed output by 50-80%.

→ No more glyphosate… for your garden. Bayer will replace all Roundup products from your local ‘Lawn & Garden’ section with alternative formulations after billions of dollars of litigation and settlements related to glyphosate-based lawsuits.

→ An apple a day. The USDA announced the purchase of 27,200 cartons of apples (worth ~$612K) to be delivered to child nutrition and food assistance programs.

Researchers in the Land Down Under have been out in the pasture tending their sheep.

And sheepdogs have herd the research may eventually put them out of a job.

The rundown: Studies led by researchers out of the University of New South Wales and Charles Sturt University center around the benefits of using drones to herd sheep.

The concept is not new, but the focus of the research is unique—because it’s all about the sheep.

Time to chillax: Using monitors to measure the animals’ heart rate during a paddock relocation, the researchers noted heart rates were lower when using the sound-emitting drones and higher when using dogs.

Why’s this important? Higher heart rate = higher stress levels = bad for sheep = bad for production.

But wait, there’s more: Along with getting the sheep to take a chill pill, the research has also looked at the effectiveness of drones in maneuvering the sheep, and the results are promising.

Sheep in the trials have adapted quickly to being mustered by the drones. And while dogs must get in front of the animals in order to stop the herd, the drones have been able to halt the flocks by simply hovering over them.

Where this goes: There is a lot of research yet to be done, and some traditional ranchers may be a little sheepish about adopting the technology. But with a good sheepdog often costing a rancher $30K+, simple economics may eventually have ranchers flocking to embrace the technology.

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Imagine crafting a tweet for John Deere.

Not the hardy blacksmith we credit as an American entrepreneur, but the behemoth equipment company he founded in 1837 now worth $110 billion—with a b. Where do you even begin to spell out 280 characters that live up to the hype of one of the most iconic brands, not just in agriculture, but in American business?

Well, you could ask Jen Hartmann.

The Director of Strategic Public Relations and Enterprise Social Media could give you some tips. She has been guiding the Deere & Company public relations ship for over a year. And remember, this wasn’t any ordinary year.

Magnetic caught Jen for a quick Q&A to talk about Deere, leadership, and her (very busy) life outside of work. Read it all here.

The English language is a beautiful thing.

You can use a word like grill and mean two different things.

Take the sentence, “A U.S. Senate panel grilled big meat last week.” You might picture your senator at one of those fancy D.C. cookouts. But what actually happened is executives from two of the four major U.S. meatpackers were grilled by the Senate Judiciary Committee. You can imagine how precise their word choices were too.

Over the coals: JBS and Tyson were on the hot grates as the committee pressed for answers on how the companies participate in the live cattle market. Questions and testimony focused on two areas: why the spread from live cattle to boxed beef is so big and how much control the major meatpackers have over the entire marketplace.

Some might say a Senate committee hearing might do little more than create headlines. But it’s worth noting there is support from both sides of the aisle for more competition in the cattle industry.

Where this goes: Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa introduced a bill earlier this year focused on increasing the amount of beef bought on the open market, and support for it seems to be building.