2020 was a year full of uncertainty and unpredictability – Serendipity was evident all around us if we have the eyes to see it.
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Covid, or more specifically our reaction to it, has blown up supply chains, deepened public anxiety over where their food comes from and how it gets to them, and made those supply chains vulnerable to sudden change and those seeking to change them.
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At Scythe & Spade one of our core value is simplifying complex agribusiness issues for our investor, producer, and vendor clients. This starts by assembling the right team of experts and then empowering them with best-in-class tools to serve our client’s needs. FarmBase is one of those tools.
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From all of us at Scythe & Spade, we want to wish you a bountiful harvest and a happy Thanksgiving to you and your family. We thank you for your trust and confidence, and look forward to serving you in 2021 and beyond!
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How to get the most from your most valuable asset.
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The unknown is scary. Free-diving with your most precious assets is scary. A virus that has disrupted every person in the country is scary. These kinds of vulnerabilities expose lessons that need to be learned, processes that need to be changed, and behaviors that will no longer be acceptable. However, with right mindset, and looking at the situation to find ways to be better will help our breathhold.
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Here is a breakdown for Ag regarding the CARES act (covid-19 relief) passed last week. It doesn’t directly effect Scythe & Spade, but it supports commodity crops and markets which could have a stabilizing effect on those crop markets - particularly in the Midwest and southeast, thus some stability to land prices and farm bankruptcies.
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Anyone who owns, operates, or invests in farmland knows there are many factors that can drive farmland values. It primarily comes down to the potential financial returns per acre, but there can be many underlying attributes that drive those returns.
Big data, inexpensive storage and computing capacity, geospatial mapping capabilities, sophisticated analysis, and visionary application of it are enabling the exponential expansion of our ability to transform data previously residing in unconnected places or even non-existent, into knowledge capable of maximizing returns and preventing mistakes.
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Although Farm Income is projected to be up in 2020 vs 2019, there will continue to be a cash crunch at the farm level until some of the new crop is sold later in the year. Matt Harrod Explains.
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Listening to industry experts, and analyzing our own data, as well as coming off a two week tour involving meetings with dozens of producers, investors and lenders, we have formulated our own summary of trends relevant to what we do, and for our customers to keep an eye on. Some of these trends may sound scary, but the reality is, there’s an opportunity in every situation.
The future of ag is bright. It’s not going to be easy, but it will move fast, reward innovation, and will continue to feed, fuel, and clothe the world.
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There are some potential positives of BC and the impact to farm land and land values. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not BC has the potential to be disruptive enough to change agriculture in ways we haven’t imagined yet. But let’s at least get a realistic conversation started. At Scythe & Spade we are constantly thinking about the threats and opportunities of BC and other factors for our clients and their bottom line.
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We have been reading a lot about Block Chain (BC) lately, trying to get a feel for it's coming impact in agriculture. There is certainly a lot of buzz, big predictions, and anxiety surrounding it. At Scythe & Spade we are constantly thinking about the threats and opportunities of BC and other factors for our clients and their bottom line.
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Risk can be defined in many ways but in its most simple definition it is ultimately a range of various possibilities or possible outcomes.
Some of which we can influence and many we can not.
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We have recently been engaged to help position a large, highly efficient (6,000 contiguous acres) corn farm in the PNW for sale. In doing so, as part of our due diligence, we took a close look at MW farmland values and arrived at the following conclusion/baseline for our project:
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BE SKEPTICAL AS YOU LISTEN, BE SKEPTICAL BECAUSE MOST OF WHAT YOU HEAR IS NOT TRUE. WHEN YOU LISTEN, YOU NOT ONLY HEAR BUT BEGIN TO FEEL AND ALSO TO UNDERSTAND. THE TRUTH DOES NOT COME WITH WORDS, IT IS SILENT… SILENT KNOWLEDGE. THE TRUTH LIES WITHIN, SO BE SKEPTICAL OF WHAT YOU HEAR WHEN YOU LISTEN.
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Technology and agriculture are normally not thought of in the same breath by people outside the farming sector, but a deeper look shows how much farmers heavily use technology and those without it are in danger of obsolescence.
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Many organizations use the two terms CUSTOMER & CLIENT interchangeably – essentially anyone who is or might purchase goods or services from them. At Scythe & Spade, we have both Customers and Clients and they are distinctly different. Hence, we label them and regularly and actively differentiate between them.
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Even though the US has only 6% of the world’s population, it has approximately 20% of the world’s arable land. Furthermore, the productivity of US land is stupendous. Fifty years ago, 10 tons of tomatoes per acre was good; today 50 tons is more the norm.
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Healthy debate with the Client’s best interests in mind results in greater value by harnessing the collective genius of the Team through an environment in which great ideas can thrive.
But when that conflict threatens the Teams peak performance, we always refer to our Core Values to help drive our behaviors.
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A successful service is the sum of many parts, details in fact, that make up the whole. Only few however, are by design and thereby controllable, leaving the balance to human factors.
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