🤝 Tariff Tiff Terminated + Nanobubbles, Ag's Booster Shot of Aid, and more...

Good morning.

At Magnetic, we’re all about supporting the little guy, so today we’re lifting up one remarkable little crop: the artichoke.

Whether you love ’em or hate ’em, Florida is on a mission to add the veggie to its winter crop lineup. That will give ’choke production a boost outside of its normal California confines, where 99% of the U.S. crop is currently grown.

To make it all work with its slightly different climate, the Sunshine State has to plant low-chill cultivars and sprinkle on some gibberellic acid. But, hey, Florida’s early trials look promising overall. Stay tuned, all you fans of edible buds.

The more you know.

Friday's News:

Tariff Tiff Eliminated
Nanobubbles For The Win
Ag Gets Booster Shot of Aid

A trade squabble between the U.S. and the EU years in the making is finally coming to a close — and U.S. agriculture is stoked.

Refresher: The quarrel began nearly 17 years ago over a disagreement regarding subsidies given to aircraft manufacturers Boeing (U.S.) and Airbus (France).

More recently, in 2019, the World Trade Organization (WTO) told the U.S. that it could slap the EU with tariffs because of its Airbus subsidies. And the U.S. did just that — on a variety of unrelated products, including French wine and German cookies.

Not to be outdone, back in November the EU said, “Well, we’ll show you...” and it hit the U.S. with retaliatory tariffs. And because those tariffs focused on commodities, fruit, tractors, and other products, U.S. ag took a big hit.

Calling a truce: The two trade giants agreed to a temporary tariff suspension back in March. But this week, they officially buried the hatchet.

Soundbite: The truce “will certainly be good news for American agriculture. We will continue to … look for opportunities to expand more new and better markets,” said Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack.

Those earlier 15-25% tariffs had hit U.S. producers hard. Wheat exporters, in particular, were basically sucker-punched. Being a high-volume, low-margin crop, wheat sales to the EU were pretty much red-lighted by the 25% tariff. But now that everyone is playing nice again, hard red spring wheat is on its way, skipping back across the pond.

Where this goes: With the ag tap of food products/machinery once again flowing freely, companies such as John Deere, Caterpillar, Hershey, and Ocean Spray are poised to reap the benefits.

Quick Hits

→ Vilsack backs meat sleuth. The Ag Secretary threw his support behind a proposal for the creation of a special investigator role within the USDA, which would help address anti-competitive concerns in the meat and poultry sectors.

→ Livestock diagnostics on-demand. Tetracore announced a first-of-its-kind USDA-approved diagnostic test for foot-and-mouth disease that gives real-time results.

→ Ka-ching. Bushel has acquired farm management system startup FarmLogs.

→ Nix and remix that label. The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association is asking the USDA to eliminate the “Product of the USA” label as it currently can include imported beef that’s been repackaged in the states.

→ Data dump. China’s state media reported that the country’s pig herd grew 23.5% and its sow herd grew 19% year over year in May.

→ Supreme Court stops cocoa slavery case. Cargill and Nestle avoided further litigation after the Supreme Court tossed the suit claiming they knew of slavery conditions at Ivory Coast cocoa farms.

Nanobubbles are about to blow you away.

In 2016, the California startup Moleaer used nanobubbles to improve aeration for wastewater treatment plants. No big deal, right? Yeah, but then came water tech guru (and Moleaer’s new CEO) Nick Dyner with visions of using the proprietary nanobubble pump in water treatment and mining, and to improve animal and plant health.

And it worked: Four years downstream and Moleaer has tripled in size. It has installed more than 1,000 systems globally and is now treating more than 225 million gallons of water every day in agriculture, aquaculture, surface water, and natural resources.

The growth brought a needed $9 million Series B funding led by S2G Ventures.

But hold up, let’s rewind to the nanobubble pump part.

With Molaere’s system, trillions of teeny-tiny air bubbles are pumped into water, flat-out saturating it with O2. At one 2,500th of the size of a grain of salt, these bubble babies can hang out longer, giving the oxygen more time to impact the liquid’s chemical makeup. We’re talking 83% more oxygenation than the water in any competing system.

Like Fiji water for the farm: Farmers use aerated water in plant irrigation to boost nutrient conversion and help nix water-borne illnesses in crops.

Moleaer claims their water can reduce crop loss to diseases by 50%. The results? They’ve seen increases in crop yields by 20%; berry size by 14%; yields of specialty crops by 25%; and biomass of salmon by 22%.

What’s next for nanobubbles: Moleaer is working with university folks to further research their systems for use in sustainable seafood farming, ocean restoration, algae reduction, replacing chemical washes for fruits and veggies, and more.

When an opportunity comes knocking in agriculture… it may just be Farmers Business Network®.

FBN®’s Community Builder Program was built for the ag input seller with some entrepreneurial spirit. You get to be your own boss, setting the strategy and growing your business.

You'll help farmers in your community as they go to purchase ag chemicals, seed products, fertilizer, or even livestock feed and pharmaceutical products.

Plus, you get the benefits of:

Setting your own schedule.
Helping business-minded farmers prosper and thrive.
Getting paid to do so.

Everybody wins.

If this sounds like you, join FBN® in their mission to make quality products and innovative technology accessible to every family farm.

Become a Community Builder today.

Tom Vilsack is making his voice heard loud and clear: No ag sector left behind.

The USDA Pandemic Assistance for Producers initiative is coming through for producers and businesses that were left out of previous Coronavirus aid.

The ag industries that will benefit from the new support include:
Biofuels
Timber harvesters
Dairy farmers and processors
Livestock farmers and contract growers of poultry

On that first item, the biofuels… Most of us know the pandemic put fuel demand in the tank and many ethanol plants were sidelined, despite feedstock prices being at historic highs. Now biofuel producers specifically will get some relief, with $700 million of this new boost.

Refresher: The USDA has invested more than $11 billion directly into producers and ag businesses since January. In March, $6 billion of that injection specifically helped the little guys: beginning, socially disadvantaged, and small and medium-sized producers.

And as part of the USDA “Build Back Better” program, there is also $5 billion available in the form of loans, grants and innovative financing to help improve the food system.

All that money, money, money nearly doubles the USDA’s pre-pandemic outlays. And according to USDA budget data, the price tag this fiscal year is now — brace yourselves — a whopping $289 billion.