December 14, 2024

Spotlight Stories

Spotlight 1 – Triple Pundit asks if regenerative agriculture can deliver sustainability outcomes. Read about it, here.

Spotlight 2 – AG DAILY looks at the biggest breakthroughs in agriculture for 2024. Check out the story, here.

Spotlight 3 – Reuters does a story on SwagBot, the AI-powered robot cattle herder preventing soil degradation. Check it out, here.

Industry Updates

Post-election farmer sentiment jumped in November as the Purdue University-CME Group Ag Economy Barometer climbed 30 points to 145, the highest since 2021. Future Expectations increased 37 points to 161, while Current Conditions rose 18 points to 113. Some of the reasons behind the improvement include expectations for a future of more favorable regulatory and tax environment for the ag sector. [link]

The Campbell’s Company will work with potato farmers to implement regenerative agriculture practices for the production of soups and potato chips as part of a pilot with East Coast grocery chain Ahold Delhaize. The companies will support three potato farms in North Carolina, New York and Michigan in their adoption of practices that improve soil health and reduce carbon emissions. Campbell’s will combine the harvested potatoes with conventionally grown crops to produce Kettle Brand chips, Cape Cod chips and Campbell’s soups, which Ahold Delhaize will then sell in its U.S. stores. [link]

The Soil Health Initiative is back for its second year, offering grants to Boulder County, CO farmers and ranchers to implement regenerative practices that improve soil health, enhance agricultural resilience, and address the impacts of climate change. Funding of $1.1 million is available for the 2025 grant cycle, with $100,000 of that funding provided by Colorado Zero Foodprint member businesses and supporters. Farmers and ranchers who operate on leased Boulder County Parks & Open Space land, private land, or both, can apply for funding until the Jan. 8, 2025, deadline. Grants will be awarded in February. [link]

UW-Madison Assistant Professor and Extension Specialist of Agricultural & Applied Economics, Jeff Hadachek, has developed a tool to aid farmers on understanding the financial impact of conservation decisions. Using datasets from large numbers of farms, Dr. Hadachek created a model that allows farmers to input their own costs to see how their bottom line would be affected if they implemented specific conservation practices. The Soil Health Decision Tool, available at go.wisc.edu/SHDecisionTool, first analyzes all financial impacts from conventional growing practices associated with corn or soybeans. Next, the tool allows you to evaluate conservation changes to the system, such as cover cropping or reduced tillage. Assumptions on yield changes can also be made in the tool. The model then provides graphs that show the profitability of the net return of the two sets of practices on a per acre basis. [link]

The USDA released a report that says some 68% of large crop farms use precision agriculture technology that generates information aiding decision-making by operators, such as yield monitors, yield maps, and soil maps. The annual “Farms and Ranches at a Glance” report showed higher-volume farms are heavy users of the technology, notwithstanding earlier reports showing a low usage rate by farmers nationwide. Large operators said they adopted precision agriculture (PA) technology to increase yields, reduce input costs, and reduce operator fatigue. By contrast, few small farms employed the technology. Last year, the USDA reported 27% of crop and livestock farms used at least one form of PA, from yield monitors and drones to robotic milking, an increase of 2 percentage points in two years. [link]

The extent of the world’s land affected by excess salt is set to increase rapidly with potentially devastating impacts on food production, according to a new report from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. About 1.4bn hectares (3.4bn acres), amounting to 10% of global land, is affected by salinity, with a further 1bn hectares classed as “at risk”. This is already having a serious impact on agriculture, as globally about a tenth of irrigated cropland and a similar proportion of rain-fed cropland is afflicted by excess salt. The potential losses to crop yields are as high as 70% in some cases. Some of the world’s largest and most populous countries are particularly badly hit, including China and the US, Russia, Australia and Argentina. The central Asian region is also a hotspot, with Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan badly affected, while Iran and Sudan also rank among the countries suffering the worst effects. These 10 countries account for 70% of salt-affected soils globally. [link]

Funding from the Inflation Reduction Act helped push U.S. investment in farm conservation programs to a record high in fiscal year 2024, however, a majority of applicants for these programs still received no funding as demand continues to outstrip available resources. The U.S. Department of Agriculture said it supported more than 23,000 climate-focused conservation contracts through the IRA, contributing to the highest total investment in the history of the department’s Natural Resources Conservation Service. The investments covered over 11 million acres in fiscal year 2024. In fiscal year 2024, NRCS made more than $3 billion available from the IRA for climate-smart agriculture and forestry mitigation activities, in addition to the $2 billion available from the farm bill for all conservation activities. Despite the record investment, strong demand for conservation programs meant a majority of farmers who applied received no funding. NRCS failed to fund nearly 64% of the applications received for its three flagship programs: the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, the Conservation Stewardship Program and the Agricultural Conservation Easement Program. [link]

Purdue Extension has partnered with the Soil and Water Outcomes Fund (SWOF), a leading agricultural ecosystem services program, to provide Indiana farmers with greater technical support when adopting climate-smart farming methods, such as cover crops and reduced tillage. This partnership is part of the Midwest Climate-Smart Commodity Program, a multistate project administered by the SWOF to protect waterways, reduce emissions and provide incentives for farmers to adopt conservation practices. As the first statewide extension office partner with SWOF, Purdue Extension will provide interested Indiana farmers with information and technical assistance. [link]

The Symbiosis Coalition, an advance market commitment for nature-based carbon removal by Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Salesforce, announced the launch of its first Request for Proposals (RFP) process, starting with reforestation and agroforestry projects. The RFP will drive progress towards its goal to contract up to 20 million tonnes of high-quality nature-based carbon removal credits by 2030, while helping address market challenges for scaling these projects. Symbiosis intends to prioritize projects with a path to scale, meaning preference for 500,000 tonnes of carbon removal by 2035 and at least 1M tonnes over the project lifetime. It also aims to preserve a pathway for smaller projects with local leadership and particularly impactful ecological, biodiversity, or social benefits. [link]

A number of nonprofit efforts across Appalachia, ranging from offering carbon credits to private landowners to promoting agroforestry, are receiving millions of dollars in federal funds as a part of a larger effort to preserve private forestland. The USDA said nearly $335 million from the Inflation Reduction Act will go toward managing and cultivating privately-owned forests across the country. [link]

The Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research and Danone North America are accepting applications for $450,000 in grant opportunities through Feb. 5. The funding is available through the grant program “Understanding the Impact of Hub Farm Resources in Expanding Adoption of Regenerative Agriculture Practices,” and will support socioeconomic research on large and small dairy farms. The funding will go toward one to two awards for research focused on the adoption of regenerative agriculture practices that enhance biodiversity and improve soil and water health. The initiative aims to promote the use of regenerative practices by understanding the impact hub farms — cooperative locations that share resources and best practices — can have on implementing these practices. [link]

The European Commission will allocate €132 million in 2025 to co-fund promotion activities for sustainable and high-quality EU agri-food products in the internal market and worldwide. The 2025 promotion policy work program adopted by the Commission is designed to develop new market opportunities for EU farmers and the wider EU food industry, as well as to help them secure their existing business. Its priorities take into account the overarching objectives of sustainability and competitiveness, as well as food security, outlined in the Political guidelines for the Commission 2024-2029. [link]

Millions of cell tower pings from dating, weather, messaging and other mobile apps that use location-sharing services are helping agricultural economists better understand how farmworkers respond to environmental hazards such as wildfire smoke. During California’s most destructive wildfire season in 2020, the number of farmworkers in a surveyed field fell by nearly 35% and the number of hours worked in that same location dropped by 37% on smoky days when elevated levels of particulate matter were in the air. On less smoky days, the number of workers in surveyed fields was nearly 18% below typical levels and the hours worked were 23% below normal, according to novel research from the University of California, Davis, to be published in the January edition of Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists. The researchers also found that farmworkers tended to work more hours in the days leading up to smoke events and switched fields to avoid the worst conditions. [link]

In Case You Missed It…

In late-October, Treehouse California Almonds announced that it is developing a new biochar manufacturing facility in Delano that will be the first commercial system directly tied to agriculture on the U.S. west coast. See more, here.