“Well, at first it looked like the goodies were going to win, then it
looked like the baddies were going to win. Then in the end, the goodies won!” - Gus Walsh
At
the time, Gus was the 4-year-old son of my host family while I was in Australia
nearly 20 years ago. Gus gave me the
above quote when I asked him about his thoughts on the Hollywood movie drama
from the night before. As Gus and I
continued to discuss the film together, we concluded that when something
unexpected comes to light, we just need to have a little personal faith, along
with some patience, and the situation will most likely get better. Usually, in the end, everything works out for
the best interest of the vast majority.
Life
in the farm business sector is no different.
Often machinery breaks-down unexpectedly, an employee is unable to work
for the day or resigns, or the markets take an unexpected turn, and thus we
have to pull from our personal inside strength to work through the situation. And, at the end of the encounter, we
prospered from the experience by learning quite a bit about the situation and
how we can make our business better.
Regional Weather
Unfortunately,
the almost perfect autumn weather will come to an end by ratcheting down a
couple notches to reveal more average conditions for November. Daily high temperatures should mostly stay
above freezing this week and conditions remain dry so field work activities may
continue.
I’ll count on your weather app
for the best guidance through the 7-8 day forecast, but looking beyond that,
I’ve found this site from NOAA to be fairly reliable for a general 8-14 day
outlook (next week). https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/predictions/814day/index.php
For the third week in November,
the forecast is to have greater chances of above average temperatures and above
average chances of drier than average precipitation.
The NOAA
organization also provides three month outlooks. If we would like to get a general forecast
for the late winter to early spring timeframe (Feb-Mar-Apr), it can be seen
here:
https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/predictions/long_range/...
This forecast
currently predicts below average temperatures for our region, while also calling
for above average chances on the precipitation outlook. Although conditions are dry now, we all know
how fast things can easily change, but with our dry conditions, the soils can
absorb a fair amount of precipitation.
Regional Soil Temperatures
USDA Acre Forecasts
Last week, the USDA publicly released a forecast for major crop acres and prices for its Agriculture Baseline Projections report. This report gives a projection through to 2029. It’s difficult to draw-out any decisive outlooks in such a long-term forecast, especially with all the political unease in the world currently affecting trade and potential future trade.
However, in the short-term for 2021, the USDA
does forecast domestic corn acres continuing to decline a tad to 90.0 mil acres,
while soybean acres are up significantly over 2020 to 89.0 mil acres. Wheat acres are projected slightly higher
year over year.
https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/outlooks/...
Bayer® Reports 3rd Quarter Earnings
Bayer® has reported their 3rd
quarter earning with continued concern in the agriculture sector. They signaled their forecast related to
glyphosate litigation will cost an additional US$750 mil now that 70% of their
claims against them have been agreed to in principle. This, in combination with a US$10.8 bil loss
in ag will result in a EBITA for the entire company in the 3rd
quarter of US$11.0 bil in the red.
The $10.8 bil loss in ag stems primarily from
their self-imposed impairment charges on their Crop Science assets. Basically, they state that their assets in
this segment are actually less valuable then they have prior stated by a value
of US$10.8 bil, which was on the high-end of the forecast.
To help combat the losses, recent business
transactions from corporate Bayer® include the sale of their Animal Health
business to Elanco (US$7.6 bil), Coppertone™ to Beiersdorf AG (US$600 mil) and a
divestment of their stake in Currenta (Euro$1.4 bil).
https://finance.yahoo.com/m/.../bayer-posts-3-billion-loss.html
https://www.bayer.com/en/media/quarterly-reports
Farm Lending
Trends for 3rd Quarter
At the end of October, the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City provided a report on the current landscape of agriculture lending. Although the demand from ag producers for financial loans rose a bit for the fiscal quarter, overall volume is below the 20-year trend line.
The
article did mention that federal government payments are playing a significant
role towards the demand. Agriculture
commodity prices were still on the low side at the beginning of the 3rd
quarter, but have improved substantially since.
Overall, the outlook for ag finance is highly uncertain for obvious
reasons – pandemic, trade, politics, etc.
https://www.kansascityfed.org/en/research/indicatorsdata/agfinance...
https://farmpolicynews.illinois.edu/2020/10/kansas-city-fed-farm-lend...
Product Spotlight
- SIMPAS™ Technology
Corteva®
and AMVAC® (American Vanguard® Corportation) are teaming together to bring a new
concept to the market in the realm of seed treatment application. Instead of applying the seed treatment as a
general application across the seed lot before heading to the field, the SIMPAS™
hardware will be installed on the planter to apply various products, in various
combinations, across the field with row by row variable rate technology.
The
acronym of “SIMPAS™” is for Smart Integrated Multi-product Prescription
Application System.
At
the end of the day, farm managers should be able to increase production (yield),
lower input costs, improve environmental sustainability and ultimately optimize
their return on investment – a win-win for everyone!
When
you think about production yield robbers like IDC (Soygreen®), Soybean cyst
nematodes (ILEVO®), corn nematodes, sudden death syndrome in soybeans, root-rot
pathogens, etc. a person can see a lot of potential from a system like SIMPAS™. However, I just wonder how much data it will
take on a field by field level to accurately write such prescriptions? Several of us have been in this boat before
and after a season or two of close observations and analysis, we usually
determine that throwing the best two or three key products across all the acres
of the field probably results in the highest return on investment due to
simplicity.
However,
with that being said, there are some farms that have enough variability where
the best two or three key seed treatment products will change from field to
field. Also, I know there are several
examples within our own Pioneer® R&D platform where the decision is made not
to bring a very high yielding hybrid or variety to the market because of some
very weak agronomic trait(s). If a farm
was able to overcome most of the agronomic risk with a tool like SIMPAS™, then
we should be able to move the yield levels greater and much more quickly across
all the various productivity levels on the farm.
As
usual, we’ll keep an open mind and see how the technology performs and adapts
over the coming years.
http://news.agropages.com/News/NewsDetail---36439.htm
FMC Corp.
Launches New Fungicide
Speaking
of planter technology and pesticides, FMC is launching a new fungicide to be
applied with their 3RIVE-3D® system on the planter. “Xyway™” will be the trade name of this new
fungicide and it claims to provide “season-long, inside-out disease protection
from planting to harvest” (quite a bold statement actually). The fungicide is in the triazole family and
portrayed to be very systemic within the plant. The product is labeled for the corn crop
only with the target pathogens of gray leaf spot, Northern corn leaf blight,
Southern corn leaf blight, common rust, head smut and common smut.
It’s
very seldom in our region that the corn is infested at economic levels from any
one of the above-mentioned fungi.
However, if you add them all together and this Xyway™ fungicide performs
as stated for season long control at planting, there could be some ROI value
gained by its use. Especially, if we see
cash corn continue to increase in value.
FMC
also has a formulation named Xyway LFR® for use in in-furrow liquid fertilizer
application systems. Registration of
Xyway LFR® by the EPA is expected by the end of the 2020 calendar year.
https://ag.fmc.com/us/en/precision-platforms/3rive-3d-application...
http://news.agropages.com/News/NewsDetail---36382.htm
Xyway™
Label: https://www.cdms.net/ldat/ldGBE002.pdf
Random
Agricultural Facts – Veteran’s Day
Below are a few Facts and Figures about Veterans Day here in
the USA:
·
Veterans Day occurs every year on November 11th
to honor the “eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month” in 1918
that concluded World War I (also known as “The Great War”). That particular day will be forever known as
“Armistice Day”
·
Unlike Memorial Day, Veterans Day pays tribute
to all service personnel whether living or dead, but especially those still
living, who served their country honorably
·
At the one year anniversary of Armistice Day,
President Woodrow Wilson signed a proclamation commemorating the end of WWI
·
The US Congress passed a resolution in 1926 for
an annual observance for veterans.
And, the day of Nov. 11th became an annual holiday
starting in 1938 with the title of “Armistice Day”
·
In 1954, President Dwight D. Eisenhower
officially changed the name of the holiday from “Armistice Day” to “Veterans
Day” to signal recognition and a commemoration of all military personnel – just
not those serving in WWI
·
In 1968, the US Congress passed a “Uniform
Holidays Bill” which moved the observance date for Veterans Day to the fourth
Monday in October. The law went into
effect in 1971, but by 1975, President Gerald Ford reverted Veterans Day back
to November 11th due to the significance of the date (effective
starting in Nov. ’78)
·
Arlington National Cemetery holds an annual
memorial service on Veterans Day (as well as Memorial Day) as over 40,000
graves contain remains of courageous men and women whom served in our military
·
There are approximately 18.2 million living
veteran US citizens (2018 data). Nine
percent are female, and approximately 7 million gave service in the Vietnam War
·
Alaska, Maine, and Montana respectively are the
states with the highest percentages of veterans.
https://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/wilson-signs-armistice-day...
https://www.history.com/topics/holidays/veterans-day-facts
https://www.va.gov/opa/vetsday/vetdayhistory.asp
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