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September 24, 2021
Magnetic
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Good morning.

It’s (officially) fall, y’all.

And with October and Halloween season in sight, we thought we’d pull up our ag trivia to the top today.

Which U.S. state is the pumpkin king, harvesting 10,000+ acres of the famous fall staple gourd?

Find the answer at the bottom of today’s email.

Friday's News:

  • Ag's Phishing Problem
  • Red, White, and Brew
  • Carbon Solution Craze Continues

CYBER AG

Ag's Phishing Problem
Warning
GIPHY
The only thing standing between you and your weekly bread purchase might actually be… a farm cooperative’s software firewall.

Iowa-based New Cooperative Inc. was the victim of a cybersecurity attack last weekend. According to Bloomberg News, the co-op received a ransom demand of $5.9M from cybercriminal group BlackMatter.

Now’s not the time: Harvest is gearing up, and New Cooperative operates grain elevators, amongst other services. The company had to take its systems offline to contain the threat. They say it’s been successfully contained but are still working to get their systems up and running all while working to transport grain to livestock and poultry farms. The co-op also disabled its soil-mapping platform as a precautionary measure.

Not the supply chain again: New says 40% of the nation’s grain production goes through its software—an amount that, with systems down, could cause issues in the supply chain.

"This is a very clear attack on an organization that is part of our critical infrastructure," said Allan Liska, a senior analyst with U.S. cybersecurity firm Recorded Future. "This could result in disruptions to food delivery in parts of the country."

The hackers set a deadline of Sept. 25 to provide the ransom in cryptocurrency.

Very phishy: Attacks like these on the agricultural industry are a major concern. You may remember JBS USA recently suffered a similar attack and chose to pay the $11M ransom demanded. Businesses are pushing the Biden administration to work on cybersecurity issues.

Quick Hits

China on carb load. The Asian nation’s wheat imports are at a two-decade high. Thanks to its increased need for animal feed, China is now accounting for a whopping 19% of global wheat consumption.

PALing around in D.C. Members of the Senate Ag Committee have introduced the Precision Ag Loan (PAL) Act to establish low-cost, long-term loans for producers who want to adopt farm technologies but can’t afford to through traditional financing.

One man’s fruit waste is another man’s… antibacterial bandage? Scientists in Singapore are extracting cellulose powder from durian (the fruit) husks and mixing with glycerol to create bandage strips rather than discarding the waste.

Relocation reversal. Less than two years after moving to Grand Junction, Colorado, the Bureau of Land Management will relocate back to Washington D.C., to the ire of industry groups: they say the BLM is moving away from the majority of land and resources it oversees.

Heineken hops on the sustainability train. The brewmaster is teaming with farmers to launch a new trial on 7,000 acres of winter and spring barley varieties [enough for ~300M pints of beer] to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

Hog virus hits Haiti. The USDA confirmed African swine fever was found in Haiti, a concerning issue as a surge of Haitian migrants attempt to cross the southern U.S. border this week.

Robot pickers raise funds. Advanced Farm Technologies, Inc., raised a $25M Series B round to grow their robotic strawberry machinery reach while also adapting the technology for apple harvesting.

Magnetic's Featured Gigs

See new gigs from AgriSync, Monarch Tractor, AgWest Commodities, Theory Mesh, and more on the Magnetic Ag Job Board

**Hiring? Post a job (full-time, part-time, or internships) in under 5 minutes for free!
SPECIALTY CROP

Red, White, and Brew
Coffee Farm
Khoai Tay | Getty Images
Your morning brew may soon look a little more red, white, and blue.

Thanks to some enterprising farmers, a forward-thinking American coffee company, and a changing climate, coffee farms are popping up in Southern California—and this may be just the beginning.

Give me the venti: It’s no surprise that the U.S. leads the world in the consumption of coffee (I’ll take another refill, please). Yet the U.S. produces only .01% of the world’s coffee crop.

And until recently, nearly all of that was grown in Hawaii, thanks to that sultry tropical climate that coffee trees love.

But times (and the climate), they are-a-changin’.

Mainland bound: Frinj Coffee, the California-based specialty coffee company, partners with java-loving farmers and provides them with seedlings, post-harvest processing, and marketing services.

Their latest partnership, with the Smith Hobson Ranch of Ventura, just added 20,000 coffee trees to the Golden State.

But wait, there’s more: Back east, scientists at the University of Florida are currently piloting a coffee plantation in an effort to determine if the crop can survive and thrive in the Sunshine State.

California and Florida, notably, don’t have the historical climate preferred by coffee trees, but unique irrigation and interplanting techniques, along with the warming climate, are making sustainable growing more possible.

Where this goes: With drought and freezing temperatures wreaking havoc on Brazil’s coffee crop, and Vietnam dealing with a major COVID outbreak (cue the broken record), the world’s #1 and #2 coffee producers are having a hard time topping off those lattes. That, paired with warmer northern temps may result in “Product of USA” stamped on your bag of coffee sooner rather than later.

Commodity Corner
Commodity Corner
Grains: Corn moved higher despite low U.S. weekly export sales and soybeans saw movement up thanks to higher energy prices.

Livestock: Prices are wary as traders wait for today's Cattle on Feed Report and Hogs and Pigs Report.

*As of Market Close [9/23/21]
#MagneticAg
Magnetic Ag
Gotta give credit to Rachael Verwey for her dedication to these baby twin calves, plus being a dedicated Magnetic reader!

*Want to be featured yourself? Just tag #MagneticAg in an Instagram or Twitter post for your chance to snag a Magnetic koozie!
AGTECH

Carbon Solution Craze Continues
EarthOptics
EarthOptics
At least eight companies have launched a carbon credit program in just the past two years. And the carbon solution craze continues.

Most recently? EarthOptics, a U.S. soil mapping startup aiming to reduce farmers’ carbon release, just raised $10.3M in a Series A round. Leaps by Bayer, Bayer’s investment arm, led the charge after EarthOptics went through the company’s startup accelerator program.

EarthOptics does exactly what it sounds like it does: gives farmers the most accurate view of their operations’ soil health, compaction, and carbon content by transforming soil measurement and analysis approaches.

A soundbite: “We think we’re a little bit different because we’re taking a fairly pragmatic approach around measurements,” said Lars Dyrud, CEO at EarthOptics. “We are very interested in soil and think it is the solution to a much more sustainable future for all of us—not just with food, but with carbon as well. The key to unlocking all those future promises is good measurements.”

What’s included in the startup’s scope? Reducing unnecessary tilling, decreasing manual soil sampling, and limiting carbon release.

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Answer

Illinois
Written by: Sheridan Wimmer, Rachel Robinson, Kevin Cross, Travis Martin
Editor: Ashley Scoby


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