Less Data and More Decisions

As a grower or investor in farmland, your eyes may glaze over at the dizzying array of "smart" new technology products that claim to enhance your farming operation with better yields, less input costs and improved use of irrigation infrastructure. Each year a new company launches another satellite or a constellation of satellites that can be your eyes in the sky and can help you monitor your farming operation. You may have signed up with a current vendor and received imagery that show each of your fields. This type of service can be very helpful, but you may find yourself spending a lot of time pouring over daily or weekly digital snapshots of your fields.

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Idaho’s Current Irrigation Water Supply; A Deep Dive into Idaho Irrigation Supply | Part II

Idaho, along with the Pacific Northwest and most western states are currently suffering from drought. In an effort at Scythe & Spade to put the current severity of the drought in context, as well as understand the current and future implications of irrigation water availability on a district-by-district basis, we have begun a deep dive into a very rich historical data sets.

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Diesel Crush: Renewable Diesel Could Increase Soybean Acres by More Than 60%

Have you noticed that soy oil is trading at nearly twice the price of one year ago? The start of the runup in soybean prices in the fall of 2020 was mainly driven by higher demand for the soybeans and meal as purchases from China skyrocketed. Since spring, however, the continued rise in soy and other vegetable oils has been for the oil themselves.

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Idaho’s Current Irrigation Water Supply; A Deep Dive Into the Numbers | Part I

Idaho, along with the Pacific Northwest and most western states are currently suffering from drought. In an effort at Scythe & Spade to put the current severity of the drought in context, as well as understand the current and future implications of irrigation water availability on a district-by-district basis, we have begun a deep dive into a very rich historical data sets.

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Who owns the rights to your farmland’s carbon credits?

There is a lot of debate on whether carbon sequestered in the land should be considered real or personal property. In real estate, personal property is usually defined as being movable whereas real property includes the land, physical improvements, and rights of ownership commonly referred to as a “bundle of rights”. This bundle of rights includes the right of disposition, right of enjoyment, right to exclude others, right of possession, and right of control. However, an open question is should carbon stored in the soil be considered a natural resource for contractual and property rights consideration?

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Brett MacNeil
Farm Carbon Markets 2.0

On March 15, 2021, the USDA announced a 45-day public comment period to gather input on its climate smart agriculture and forestry strategy. This is in response to a recent Executive Order which mentioned that farmers, ranchers, and forest landowners could play an important role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions through carbon sequestration and other sustainable practices such as producing biproducts and biofuels.

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Brett MacNeil
Elevated Grain Prices and Farm Income Seem Likely to Hold Through Mid-2022

The dramatic increase in corn, soy and other grain & commodity prices driven by the drastic increase in Chinese purchases since late summer/fall of 2020 will almost certainly hold for most of those crops through to at least mid-2022. Why? Barring a complete crash in exports or record acres and yields for both corn and soybeans, it will take at least two crop cycles to rebuild US inventories for those two crops, and when stressed, they provide the price and income for which all others must compete for acres.

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Brett MacNeil
Time Bandits

Ever sat in a meeting and wondered, "is this really worth my time?” Meetings are often characterized as one of the most painful events and yet they provide underestimated opportunities for efficiency gains in running a business.

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Brett MacNeil
China May Import 40% More Corn Than In The Last 60 Years Combined | AgWeb

The question here is can the load out infrastructure hold up to record through put. The author seems to frame the situation as an either or: either we hit the big export numbers or there's a big price drop. We may not hit the largest figures due to weather conditions or through put restrictions but that doesn't mean carryout increases dramatically. We would instead go from tight supplies to only somewhat-less tight. So long as China follows through on purchase commitments…

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Brett MacNeil
Predictions and Performance

As sports fans we see constant highlight reels displaying brilliant plays of our favorite players. It is easy to put them on a pedestal and tell ourselves that they are one in billion, oozing with talent. But, what if there is more?

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Brett MacNeil