President Biden has nominated Elaine Trevino to be the Chief Agricultural Negotiator at the Office of the Unites States Trade Representative (USTR). Trevino is currently the President of the Almond Alliance of California, where she helps advocate on regulatory and legislative issues in areas of international trade, food safety, water quality and availability, crop protection, air quality, worker safety, supply chain, and feed quality.
Previously, Trevino served as Deputy Secretary at the California Department of Food and Agriculture for Governors Arnold Schwarzenegger and Gray Davis. In this capacity, she had responsibility for the oversight of the international export and trade programs, specialty crop block grant funding, division of marketing services, plant health and pest prevention, and the statewide county fair network. Trevino was appointed by former Secretary Sonny Perdue to serve on USDA’s Agricultural Policy Advisory Committee (APAC).
Fourth-annual AgSharks Competition will provide agtech startups exclusive access to produce leaders and funding to advance innovative solutions for the agriculture sector
Western Growers (WG) and S2G Ventures are now accepting applications for the 2021 AgSharks Competition, a unique event where start-up companies pitch their innovations in front of a live audience of the world’s largest specialty crop producers to win a $250,000 minimum investment. Impact-driven entrepreneurs and startups developing technologies that promote a more healthy and sustainable food and agriculture system can apply for the AgSharks Competition at 2021agsharks.splashthat.com. Applications close on Monday, October 11, 2021.
Five startups will be selected to pitch their inventions to a panel of growers, shippers, processors and venture capitalists in front of more than 300 fresh produce farmers and industry leaders during the WG Annual Meeting in San Diego, California, on November 9, 2021. In addition to investment capital, the winner(s) will receive international recognition, mentoring from S2G and WG, potential access to farm acreage to pilot their technologies and access to WG’s expansive network of leading fresh produce companies.
AgSharks was first held in 2017, and through the competition, three early-stage companies have earned seed money to elevate their businesses to the next level. In fact, past winners Hazel Technologies and Burro, formerly known as Augean Robotics, have since brought their products from development to market. Hazel Technologies recently closed a Series C financing round and is now advancing the industry with sachets that extend the shelf life of fresh produce by as much as three times. Burro is helping solve farmers’ labor woes with the expansion of its fleet of autonomous robots to farms across the west.
AZterknot fungicide from Vive Crop Protection is now available and is registered in a broad range of crops for soil and foliar applications. AZterknot combines the benefits of biologicals with the performance of chemistry and the ease of Allosperse to provide disease control and plant health benefits, according to Vive.
In carrots, AZterknot can be used to control Rhizoctonia root rot, early blight, late blight, Cercospora leaf spot, powdery mildew and white mold.
The fungicide contains two active ingredients – Reynoutria extract and azoxystrobin – as well as Allosperse, a proprietary nano-polymer technology that allows previously incompatible products to be mixed and applied in one application.
Murray Wise Associates LLC, Kander LLC, and National Land Realty acted as broker and transactional advisors in connection with the sale of a 4,528 acre farm located in Pamlico County, North Carolina to Promised Land Opportunity Zone Farms I, LLC for $25.7 million after an extensive national sale marketing process. The property is widely recognized as a high quality farm known for producing chipping potatoes in a desirable seasonal window. The farm will be managed by Farmland Partners Inc.
According to Eric Sarff, President of Murray Wise Associates, “MWA, Kander and NLR each has tremendous experience representing buyers and sellers of agricultural property, but also have a strong track record of collaborating on large projects like the sale of this farm. The team on this assignment leveraged our firms’ unique capabilities as well as deep relationships with both the buyer and seller and produced an outstanding transaction result.”
“It is unique to find such a high quality specialty produce farm of this size anywhere in the USA today,” said Ken Nofziger of Kander. “Demand and values for farmland across different varieties and geographies have been increasing throughout the last couple of years and this sale just reinforces the strength of the current market.”
Ben Crosby of National Land Realty Florida added, “Collectively, we are very pleased to assist two long-time clients complete a transaction on this excellent asset. Our team takes pride in delivering these opportunities, even in tight markets. We look forward to doing more business together with all parties in the future.”
Murray Wise Associates LLC, headquartered in Champaign, Ill., is a leading national agricultural real estate marketing, management, and investment firm with additional offices in Naples, Florida and Clarion, Iowa. https://www.murraywiseassociates.com
Kander LLC is a strategic and financial advisory firm dedicated to helping business owners, managers, investors, and lenders create and maximize value in a wide range of situations within the farming, food and agribusiness sectors. https://www.kanderllc.com
National Land Realty (NLR) is based in Greenville, SC and has agents in 38 states. The NLR Florida office is based in Winter Haven, FL with Benjamin Crosby as Managing Broker. National Land Realty provides a full range of land and commercial real estate services throughout the United States. https://www.nationalland.com
By Mark Wocial, Certified Global Business Professional, Wocial & Associates LLC
The U.S. Census Bureau International Trade Statistics make a distinction between not-certified organic and certified organic fresh or chilled carrots for export purposes. Total U.S. exports of fresh or chilled carrots remained unchanged in the past two years at 102,000 metric tons (MT), valued at $118 million. Exports included approximately 25,000 MT certified organic carrots, valued at $34 million, which represented 29 percent of fresh carrot exports by value and 25 percent by volume.
Canada is the largest export market for fresh carrots. Last year, exports of not-certified organic carrots to Canada amounted to almost 70,000 MT, valued at $76 million. While exports of not-certified organic carrots declined in the past two years, exports of certified organic carrots remained unchanged. Last year, shipments of certified organic carrots to Canada reached over 20,000 MT, valued at $27 million.
Mexico is the second largest export market for fresh carrots. In 2020, shipments of not-certified organic carrots amounted to 4,500 MT. Shipments of certified organic carrots increased significantly compared to the previous year and reached 4,300 MT.
Last year, other countries among the top 10 of U.S. export destinations for not-certified organic fresh carrots included St. Lucia, Malaysia, Singapore, the Bahamas, Barbados, Israel, Panama and the United Arab Emirates. Brazil was the third largest export market for certified organic fresh carrots, after Canada and Mexico.
The U.S. Census Bureau International Trade Statistics do not make a distinction between not-certified organic and certified organic carrots for import purposes. Imports of fresh carrots fell from 228,000 MT in 2019 to 212,000 MT in 2020, valued at $103 million.
Canada and Mexico are the largest suppliers of fresh carrots to the U.S. Imports from Canada increased from 96,000 MT in 2019 to over 103,000 MT in 2020, valued at $49 million. Imports from Mexico decreased from over 108,000 MT in 2019 to 91,000 MT in 2020, valued at $41 million.
Imports from several other countries also declined. Last year, the U.S. imported 13,000 MT from Israel, 2,900 MT from Guatemala and 1,400 MT from Costa Rica.
Author’s note: This information is based on the author’s analysis of the international trade data collected by the U.S. Census Bureau Foreign Trade Division.
Drexel Chemical Company has promoted Zack Wilbanks to an inside sales position. He will be the contact point for Drexel’s outside sales team’s product-related questions including availability, pricing and order status and will maintain the sales responsibility for specialty accounts which he has been servicing the last few years.
Before joining Drexel as a marketing assistant and then a sales representative covering specialty products, Wilbanks graduated from the University of Tennessee at Martin with a bachelor’s degree in agricultural business.
Certis Biologicals has added Chris Judd to the Certis leadership team as the global vice president of marketing. His previous roles include global growth and asset management in bringing new products to market and evaluating existing assets for maximum value proposition within marketing at BASF and Novozymes.
In his new position with Certis, Judd says product marketing will be key to continuing to meet the needs of customers and channel partners, both with existing products and a robust innovation pipeline.
Who: The National Association of State Departments of Agriculture has announced that United States Trade Representative Katherine Tai will participate in the hybrid 2021 NASDA Annual Meeting. The Ambassador will hold a virtual conversation with Washington State Director of Agriculture Derek Sandison on the Biden Administration’s priorities for international trade and challenges facing the U.S. food and agriculture industry.
Ambassador Katherine Tai was sworn in as the 19th United States Trade Representative on March 18, 2021. As a member of the President’s Cabinet, Ambassador Tai is the principal trade advisor, negotiator, and spokesperson on U.S. trade policy.
Prior to her unanimous Senate confirmation, Ambassador Tai spent most of her career in public service focusing on international economic diplomacy, monitoring, and enforcement. She previously served as Chief Trade Counsel and Trade Subcommittee Staff Director for the House Ways and Means Committee in the United States Congress. In this capacity, Ambassador Tai played a pivotal role in shaping U.S. trade law, negotiations strategies, and bilateral and multilateral agreements, including the recently re-negotiated United-States-Mexico-Canada Agreement
Where: Both virtual and in-person conference attendees will be able to watch the recorded conversation. The hybrid NASDA Annual Meeting is being held in Louisville, Kentucky, Sept. 19-22 at the Seelbach Hotel.
How: Please register by Friday, September 17 to attend.
What: The 2021 NASDA Annual Meeting is themed “Redefining Agriculture.” The meeting theme will guide NASDA’s conversations and policy making on COVID-19 recovery and agricultural and food issues.
NASDA is a nonpartisan, nonprofit association which represents the elected and appointed commissioners, secretaries and directors of the departments of agriculture in all fifty states and four U.S. territories. NASDA grows and enhances American agriculture through policy, partnerships and public engagement. To learn more about NASDA, please visit www.nasda.org.
Tong Engineering has invested in new powder-coating and shot-blasting systems at its new manufacturing plant in Spilsby, England. The new shot-blasting unit uses a powerful technique to clean the surface of metal and create a quality finish to allow for optimum adhesion of paint. The steel preparation process is the first stage of a three-part paint system at Tong, in which metal is first shot blasted, followed by the application of a durable rust-inhibiting primer and then finished with a premium quality topcoat, before it is cured at high temperatures.
The new equipment is designed to increase efficiency in the manufacturing plant and improve paint durability and finish of Tong equipment, according to the company.
By Sita Thapa, Elisabeth Darling and Marisol Quintanilla, Michigan State University
Nematodes can cause both quantitative and qualitative yield loss for carrot growers. For example, a 2016 survey of carrot growers revealed that, on average, 25 percent of annual yield suffers from quality issues attributed to nematode damage in infested fields. Quality issues are especially severe for fresh market carrots, where forking and stubbing render the product unmarketable. Damage to root crops can be detected as early as 21 days after planting. These losses occur when an injury from nematodes such as root lesion (Pratylenchus penetrans) and northern root-knot (Meloidogyne hapla) results in forked or stubbed carrots.
Historically, carrot growers have associated severe plant-parasitic nematode damage with the root-knot nematode (Meloidogyne spp.) and, in some cases, the carrot cyst nematode (Heterodera carotae). However, more recently, the root lesion nematode (RLN) has become more prevalent in carrot fields with mineral soils. The economic threshold for RLN is 50-100 nematodes per 100cc of soil. Infection from threshold levels of RLN results in the production of unmarketable characteristics, such as hairy, stubby and forked carrots (Fig. 1).
Figure 1. Root-lesion nematode feeding to young seedlings causes forking and stubbing of the taproot, as seen in photo A, resulting in yield and quality loss. These carrots were pulled from the untreated control plots in our 2020 nematicide field trial. Root lesion nematodes (Pratylenchus penetrans) feeding on a carrot disc under laboratory conditions are seen in photo B.
For nematodes like the northern root-knot nematode (NRKN) and the carrot cyst nematode, the best strategy is avoidance. Fields with infestations of the root lesion nematode will typically produce desirable yields so long as populations are kept below the threshold. It is critical that growers obtain nematode numbers prior to planting to avoid yield and quality loss from these nematodes.
Non-Chemical Approach
A good cover crop for the management of plant-parasitic nematodes should be a poor host for nematodes and should lower the nematode population. In Michigan, growers are experimenting with brassica cover crops like oilseed radish (OSR), mustard and rapeseed because of several benefits including: 1) they are cold-season species and could be planted from late summer to early fall (July to September), 2) they are killed by frost and most of the residue is decomposed before crop planting in the spring, and 3) they may reduce nematode pressure by being a poor or non-host.
We evaluated the host status of several OSR and grass cover crops for NRKN and RLN. Our results showed OSR cultivars such as Control, Concorde and Select, as well as Dwarf Essex Rape, are poor hosts of RLN (Fig. 2). For NRKN, in addition to the OSR cultivars Control, Concorde and Select, grasses like Sudan grass, oats and wheat are poor hosts, too (Fig. 3). We have greenhouse trials going on for NRKN management using selected cover crops screened through host evaluation in growth chambers.
Chemical Approach
When nematode populations are above the threshold level, chemical management might be one option to consider. Typical conventional management strategies involve in-furrow or soil drench applications during planting. Due to recent increasing regulations on fumigants and toxic products, growers are seeking a reliable method of control for root lesion nematodes. Within the past few decades, an increasing number of conventional and organic nematicides have been released. Seeking alternative products for management is a great step; however, products need to be evaluated for efficacy in comparison to the existing grower standard (oxamyl).
In 2020, our laboratory conducted a carrot field trial in Oceana County, Michigan, to evaluate alternative nematicides against above-threshold root lesion nematode infestations. The trial included 10 nematicidal products applied at carrot planting and one untreated control, each with five replicates.
Overall, three products stood out for reducing root lesion nematode populations: Promax (thyme oil from Huma Gro), TerraStart (hydrogen peroxide/peroxyacetic acid from BioSafe Systems) and Velum (fluopyram from Bayer) within the first 30 days of seedling growth. Plots applied with these products correspondingly produced higher yields than untreated control plots (Fig. 4; Tukey’s HSD, P<0.1). Velum also reduced the weight of stubby carrots when compared to the untreated control. We aim to further evaluate these products in a controlled greenhouse setting in 2021 and repeat the field trial in 2022 with an increased number of replicates.
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