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January 18, 2022

TOGETHER WITH:

Good morning.

Drag out those shovels and salt trucks, because winter’s exhausting weather has officially arrived.

But now some cold-weather cities are beeting the snow and ice in a new fashion.

Yep, cities like Washington D.C. have concocted a blend of beet extract to coat its roads and protect travelers.

That’s a veggie innovative solution.

Stories:

• The Bird (Flu) Has Landed
• TerraMagna Makes It Rain in Funding Round
• U.S. Cucurbit Growers Getting Squashed

POULTRY

Getty Images

Some fowl news about the most recent bird flu strain making its way around the world…

On January 14, the first U.S. case of Eurasion H5 avian influenza was documented in South Carolina by the USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service  (APHIS). It's the first case of its kind since 2016.

The culprit? A wild duck (an American Wigeon) hunted in Colleton County, initially tested at the Clemson Veterinary Diagnostic Center.

Some further eggs-planation:

• The CDC classifies risk to the general public to be low, with 0 human infections in the U.S.

• Late 2021 saw multiple outbreaks of different strains of bird flu across Europe and Asia, with tens of millions of birds estimated to have been culled.

• The largest outbreak of the bird flu ever recorded in the U.S. occurred in 2015, affecting 20.3M chickens, 5.3M turkeys, and 78K mixed poultry and pheasant animals.

So what’s next? The USDA is advising poultry producers to review their safety and biosecurity measures for their operations, including preventing contact between their birds and wild birds.

Producers are encouraged to report sick birds or unusual bird deaths through the USDA's toll-free number (1-866-536-7593) or to their state veterinarian.

→ Gassed out. Some corn growers are worried about a proposed tariff on anhydrous ammonia that could take the fertilizer’s price even higher.

→ Tractor-lovin’. 2021 was a booming year for equipment sales in the U.S. and Canada, as tractors saw a 10.3% boost and combines leapt 24.7% over 2020.

→ China’s bacon reawakening. The Asian nation’s pork output lept 28.8% in 2021,  revealing a massive recovery from production lost to African swine fever over the past three years.

→ A rice roadblock. Nearly ⅓ of India’s rice exports for the month are stalled due to a shortage of freight trains, and traders have stopped signing contracts for February shipments.

→ Italy’s hunting hiatus. Two northern regions of the country banned hunting, with the area experiencing an African swine fever outbreak.

→ One pricey trade war. The USDA estimates the 2018-2019 trade war with China cost the U.S. nearly $27B in lost ag export sales.

AGTECH

GIPHY

TerraMagna of Brazil just made it rain in its most recent funding round. The startup secured $40M in debt and equity financing, in a round led by SoftBank and Shift Capital.

Background: Farmers don’t have much liquidity and often rely on commercial loans from their input retailers. But not everything is digitized in Brazil, which makes gaining access to financial products more difficult. Lenders are hesitant to take risks, as collections on a foreclosed farm can take anywhere from 5-7 years.

…enter TerraMagna, which offers loans in partnerships with distributors and industries that already have long-term local relationships with small and medium-sized farmers.

Before underwriting a farm, TerraMagna looks at various data sources, including satellite imagery, environmental track record, climate data, and information from the notary.

Soundbite: "We have a saying, ‘If you’re operating in the red, you’re not going to care about the green,’" said TerraMagna co-founder and CEO Bernardo Fabiani.

And there’s more… Besides being a lender, TerraMagna offers point of sales (POS) systems to farming retailers and can capture financial data on the retailer and the farmer.

All in all, the forecast looks mighty sunny for TerraMagna moving forward.

Want to learn more about commodity markets? Sign up for the Farm Girl Next Door #WordoftheWeek email to boost your knowledge of grain marketing basics. Sign up today.**

*As of Market Close [1/14/21]. Markets were closed yesterday for the holiday.

**Sponsored post

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Another round of top apps. CropLife released their list of best agriculture apps for 2022. Check it out.

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Now that we all know beets can help in the de-icing department, what about other ag and food goods? 

True or False: Wisconsin has incorporated cheese brine into its winter weather road prep cocktail.

Answer at the bottom of the email.

**Win a Magnetic koozie when you submit a trivia question and it gets used in a future newsletter! Submit questions here.

AG POLICY

Joe Raedle / Getty Images

The American squash and cucumber markets might be in a little bit of a pickle, according to a new U.S. International Trade Commission report.

Report findings show the domestic market share was sliced, after years of above-average imports of the products from Mexico.

While the U.S. market faces high production costs, volatile weather, and pest problems, Mexico has the advantages of low pricing, government funding, and low-wage rates.

In the 182-page squash report and the 222-page cucumbers report, the ITC noted:

• The U.S. saw above-average squash imports from Mexico for a decade, between 2009 and 2019.

• Without those imports, American summer squash farmers could have seen their revenue increase by about $16M from 2015 to 2020. (U.S. consumption increased by ~25% during that period).

• Economic models also estimate U.S. cucumber production would have increased, and American growers could have gained more than $31M in revenue increases in the November-May period of 2015-2020 (and revenue would have jumped more than $35M from June to October).

Soundbite: "High-volume fruit and vegetable imports flooding in from Mexico are severely harming American growers and jeopardizing our food security. The Biden Administration must implement immediate, effective, enforceable, and durable remedies to combat unfair trade practices and defend America’s domestic sources of food in the winter and spring months," noted U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) in a statement on the report’s release.

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True. Seems appropriate.

Written by Aaron Dunajeski, Amelia VanLandegen, Rachel Robinson, and Travis Martin

Edited by Ashley Scoby

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