Good morning.
In case you missed it, we plugged a poll last week to gauge the favorite boot brand of you, our readers, in a selfish effort to help us round out our Christmas lists.
Didn’t get your ballot in? No worries. Vote here, crown the Magnetic readership’s favorite brand, and give the rest the boot. 😉
We'll share the winning kicks next week.
Stories:
- A Mixed Bag for Biofuels
- FarmTech Goes Freemium
- California in Confinement Crosshairs
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Prices at the pump have been an ouchie lately for consumers. The seven-year high in gas prices is felt across the nation, spurred by how little we needed fuel in 2020 (for obvious reasons).
And on the biofuel front, the drop in demand and the increase in cost of ethanol is triggering some pain points for refineries.
Fueling up: As a refresher, the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) requires a certain volume of renewable fuel (mostly corn-based ethanol) to be a replacement for petroleum-based fuel. As a measure to help struggling oil refineries, the EPA is proposing a reduction in the amount of ethanol and other renewable fuels that must be blended into gas.
But farmers, and even oil refineries, are saying "pump the brakes." Farmers are worried this’ll hurt them. The oil guys and gals say, "It’s not enough."
Da me mas gasolina! In December 2019 B.C. (Before COVID), the RFS volume was set at 20.09B gallons, including 15B gallons of corn-based ethanol.
The EPA’s new proposal includes retroactively lowering RFS volumes for 2020, inching volumes up in 2021, then setting an RFS target of 20.77B gallons for 2022, including the highest-ever target for corn ethanol at 15.25B gallons. Oil industry folks claim the measures aren’t enough, while biofuel industry people say the measures will "slash demand for biofuels" and negatively impact producers.
The EPA is also proposing to reject 65 pending applications for small refineries to be excused from blending mandates for financial reasons.
While we're here: USDA plans to pump out $700M to biofuel producers hit hard by COVID. Ethanol makers lost $3.8B in sales. And the EPA is looking at regulatory changes to expand next-generation biofuels.
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→ Vilsack headed to space… council. President Biden has appointed the Secretary of Agriculture to the National Space Council, noting the interplay between food policy and space policy with over 120 projects between the USDA and NASA.
→ A new view on carbon. Bayer, Bushel, and Amazon Web Services are launching Project Carbonview, which will enable U.S. ethanol producers to track carbon emissions (from planting through production) while farmers get compensated for sustainable farming practices.
→ Cover crops in Napa? Vineyards across the U.S. are exploring cover crops like mustard and rapeseed to help reduce erosion and enhance soil health after excessive precipitation events have left bare soil under vines.
→ Ag’s Olympic anxieties. After the U.S. announced a diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, Senator Chuck Grassley admitted uncertainty on whether this would lead to Chinese sanctions against American ag products.
→ LCB labels get the greenlight. Low Carbon Beef (LCB) received USDA approval that allows producers to earn a premium and market beef products if they comply with emissions-reducing standards.
→ Keeping food safety on the rails. A slew of feed, grain, and transport companies announced a new resource giving shippers greater visibility into contents carried by specific rail cars to help prevent cross-contact with food allergens.
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The Magnetic Ag Job Board is full of great roles from leading employers like Bushel, Farmers Risk, AgVend, Descartes Labs, and more. Check out the roles here.
Want to get your open roles seen? Post a job here.
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Cue the wedding bells.
xFarm and Farm Technologies merged their digital ag platforms to become xFarm Technologies. The Italian company will offer artificial intelligence and Internet of Things solutions to their 80,000 farms and 1M hectares.
To help ease farmers into this new technology, the company is offering a "freemium" subscription for a "Spotify approach." Farmers test it for free, build trust, and then can upgrade from there.
The new company will drive agriculture’s digital transformation with a 360-degree approach that includes:
- Farm management information systems
- Agronomic models & AI
- Training & education
- IoT sensors
- Big data & analytics for the supply chain
- Project management in digital transformation
The backstory: xFarm used a network of sensors to collect field data to bolster farmers’ decision-making and strategies. Farm Technologies provided a smart irrigation platform called Idroplan to help farmers pinpoint how often and how much water different crops needed.
Both companies’ products used data and algorithms to reduce wasted resources: both economic and natural.
The new company’s CEO, Matteo Vanotti, says they had worked together for the past few years, and this collaboration was the obvious next step. The combined platform allows farmers to pick a seat, not a side for a fast, better product.
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Grains: Australia's strong wheat output in yesterday's WASDE dinged U.S. prices.
Livestock: Soft meat sales the past week didn't help livestock prices, but pork rallied from earlier in the day.
*As of Market Close [12/9/21]
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Pivot Bio is scaling their Commercial Agronomy team to better serve customers and help change the face of fertilizer to farmers across the country.
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With the upcoming Olympics making headlines, it got us thinking...
Can you name the host country from the 2018 Olympics?
Hint: They are one of the top 10 largest aquaculture producers in the world (seaweed production is their jam), and their rice output is among the highest in the world per unit of land.
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.
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California in Confinement Crosshairs
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Scott Olson / Getty Images
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It's a regulatory tug-of-war.
Animal welfare advocates have sued the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) for not having final Proposition 12 rules in place for its January 1, 2022 effective date.
On the flip side, the National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) has requested the regulation's effective date be delayed until at least two years after the regulations are finalized and widely shared.
Let's just say California is feelin' the heat from all sides these days.
Soundbite: "CDFA’s proposed regulations conflict with the legislation implementing Proposition 12 by failing to account for the full range of harmful impacts of industrialized systems of animal confinement that have long dominated U.S. meat and egg production," said the group suing CDFA.
Zoom out: Prop. 12 will prohibit the sale of any pork from hogs born to sows raised in housing that doesn’t comply with California's 24-foot cubic space requirement. NPPC has commented frequently on proposed regulations, noting the anticipated burden across the pork supply chain, including a 9.2% cost increase at the farm level.
Nearly all pork produced in the U.S. fails to meet Prop. 12 standards. California consumes 13% of the nation’s pork.
Where this goes: The US Supreme Court is considering hearing a case against Prop. 12 put forth by NPPC and the American Farm Bureau Federation. Between that decision and January 1 quickly approaching, news on Prop. 12 won’t be boar-ing.
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The 2018 Winter Olympics were in Pyeongchang, Gangwon, South Korea.
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Written by Sheridan Wimmer, Rachel Robinson, Kelsey Faivre, and Travis Martin
Edited by Ashley Scoby
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