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Ag News

“Fractal” Wants to Help Farmers Hold On to More Farmland

Finance startup "Fractal" has launched what it says is a first-of-its-kind farmland equity financing platform that can help farmers secure needed capital to expand and improve their operations. The Minneapolis-based company invests alongside farmers by taking a passive stake in their current farmland. The farmers in turn receive the needed capital - which they can use as they see fit ...
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Brazil’s Corn and Soybean Crops Keep Getting Bigger

Brazil's corn and soybean crops are again setting new records this season with national crop agency CONAB pegging combined production at a record 322.8 million metric tons (MMT), an increase of just over +50 MMT, or +18% from last year. CONAB estimates the country's record soybean crop at 154.6 MMT, up +23% year-over-year. The record corn crop, with around 10% ...
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A Brief History of Milk Cartons

Since the mid-1970s, most Americans have been buying their milk in cartons and plastic jugs. But long before mass manufacturing and modern packaging, milk was sold out of the back of horse-drawn wagons from open barrels and cans. Typically, a "milkman" would ladle the milk into whatever containers milk buyers brought with them, or people would leave them on their ...
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Producers May be Slow to Rebuild the US Cattle Herd

As (if) drought conditions start to slowly improve and pastures come back, a big question for the beef industry is when the rebuilding of the US cattle herd will begin? So far, there are few signs that producers are holding more heifers back for breeding and many cattle market insiders suspect that herd expansion will take a lot longer than ...
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2024 Old Farmer’s Almanac Comes with a “Winter Warning”

The Old Farmer’s Almanac (OFA) was founded in 1792 and has been releasing annual long-range weather forecasts for centuries. Remember, the OFA’s weather predictions are made up to 18 months in advance, and according to their own numbers close to 80% correct. The 2024 Old Farmer’s Almanac comes with a winter warning: it’s a wise idea to have your coat and ...
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Piggly Wiggly Becomes the First Supermarket!

It was on this day in 1916 that a store in Memphis, Tennessee, named "Piggly Wiggly" became the first true self-service grocery store in the US and the originator of various familiar supermarket concepts such as checkout stands, individual item price marking, and shopping carts. Clarence Saunders, the founder of Piggly Wiggly, had the concept of the "self-serving store" patented in ...
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New Plant-Based Meats Could Come From Soybeans Engineered to Taste Like Pork and Beef

Moolec Science has been experimenting with soybean proteins since 2008 in an effort to make plant-based meats actually taste like meat. The company's latest creation is a soybean variety dubbed "Piggy Sooy" that gets about a quarter of its soluble proteins from pig DNA. The company plans to extract the porcine protein from the soybeans and sell it to alternative ...
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When Should We Expect Our First Freeze???

It's early-September and the weather is still screaming "summer". However, the first significant freeze might not be all that far away, which is kind of ironic considering the hot temps many of us have been battling. Labor Day will be behind us when we return next week and summer will be officially over. The meteorological fall actually begins today, September ...
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How a College Dropout Turned Farm Debt into a Fertilizer Dynasty

Sir John Bennet Lawes, an English agronomist and founder of the artificial fertilizer industry died this day in 1900, but not before he would forever change how we grow our crops. Lawes found himself fatherless at the age of 8 and the responsibility of the 250-acre family farm left in the hands of just himself and his mother. The two ...
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Interesting to Think About… What Happens to Agriculture When Global Population Peaks?

I recently received an article written by Susan Reidy titled, "Global population paradigm shift". I encourage you to read it in full detail. In a nutshell it goes into recent data regarding global population shifts and changes and the fact there are already more than 60 countries experiencing population drops, according to the United Nations, including China, which had its ...
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