Efita Newsletter 1031, dated March 21, 2022

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Investing in the Future: Securing the Promise of Precision Agriculture

CEO Johan van Zyl shares what YB AgTech looks for in a company before it invests, what impact those companies will have on ag, and how it tracks and measures success.
See precisionag.com


Fighting Food Waste in Australia: How Packaging and Machinery Are Tackling It Head-on

Here are some of the fascinating ideas that are being discussed in the packaging and processing machinery industry right now around managing food waste.
See precisionag.com


AGCO Finance Unveils Details of Its Climate Journey Campaign

AGCO Finance’s Climate Journey Campaign is part of its three-pillar sustainability framework.
See precisionag.com

Archives of our newsletters in French and English
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War in Ukraine: explore our data and articles for context

We’ve brought together the Our World in Data resources that we think you might find useful for context on the war in Ukraine.

The page includes links to our data and articles on military spending and resources, war and conflict, nuclear weapons, peacekeeping, energy and natural resources, global food supplies, and migration.

Nuclear weapons: Why reducing the risk of nuclear war should be a key concern of our generation

The shockwave and heat that the detonation of a single nuclear weapon creates can end the lives of millions of people immediately.

But even larger is the devastation that would follow a nuclear war. The Earth would be blanketed by radioactive dust and thick smoke, blotting out the sun for years and freezing the planet. This global nuclear winter would cause a nuclear famine: the world’s food production would fail and billions of people would starve.

With such a grave risk to our entire civilization and future, much more work should — and can — be done to reduce the risk that humanity will ever fight such a war.

While nuclear stockpiles have been reduced, the risk of nuclear disaster remains intolerably high. Perhaps unknown to most, there have been an alarming number of “close call” instances that, either through accident or heightened tension, brought us closer to nuclear disaster.

In this article we describe the risk from nuclear war and the many close calls that have occurred. We discuss where we stand today and actions we can take to further reduce nuclear risk, from treaties to better public understanding and global relations.

Would you like to leave Russia? (Source Bloomberg Newsletter)

Russia Freedom score: very low (source Bloomberg Newsletter)

Wealth and Freedom: when the "Berlin Mauer" fell, all these countries had the same wealth (source Bloomberg Newsletter)

Putin Poor Ruble (source Bloomberg Newsletter)

I Have a Message for My Russian Friends, By Arnold Schwarzenegger

The strength and the heart of the Russian people have always inspired me. That is why I hope that you will let me tell you the truth about the war in Ukraine.
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When I see babies being pulled out of ruins, I feel like I’m watching a documentary about the horrors of the Second World War, not the news of today. When my father arrived in Leningrad, he was all pumped up on the lies of his government. When he left Leningrad, he was broken physically and mentally. He spent the rest of his life in pain: pain from a broken back, pain from the shrapnel that always reminded him of those terrible years, pain from the guilt that he felt.

Russian soldiers already know much of this truth. You’ve seen it with your own eyes. I don’t want you to be broken like my father. This is not a war to defend Russia like your grandfathers and your great-grandfathers fought. This is an illegal war. Your lives, your limbs, and your futures are being sacrificed for a senseless war, condemned by the entire world. Remember that 11 million Russians have family connections to Ukraine. With every bullet that you shoot, you shoot a brother or a sister. Every bomb and every shell that falls is falling not on an enemy, but on a school or a hospital or a home.

I don’t think the Russian people are aware that such things are happening. So I urge the Russian people and the Russian soldiers in Ukraine to understand the propaganda and the disinformation that you are being told. I ask you to help me spread the truth so that your fellow Russians will know the human catastrophe that is happening in Ukraine. To President Putin, I say: You started this war. You’re leading this war. You can stop this war now.


And to the Russians who have been protesting on the streets against the invasion of Ukraine: The world has seen your bravery. We know that you have suffered the consequences of your courage. You have been arrested. You have been jailed and you’ve been beaten. You are my new heroes. You have the strength of Yury Petrovich Vlasov. You have the true heart of Russia.
See theatlantic.com


Preparing for Defeat, Francis Fukuyama, 10 Mar 2022

I’m writing this from Skopje, North Macedonia, where I’ve been for the last week teaching one of our Leadership Academy for Development courses. Following the Ukraine war is no different here in terms of available information, except that I’m in an adjacent time zone, and the fact that there is more support for Putin in the Balkans than in other parts of Europe. A lot of the latter is due to Serbia, and Serbia's hosting of Sputnik.

I’ll stick my neck out and make several prognostications:

1. Russia is heading for an outright defeat in Ukraine. Russian planning was incompetent, based on a flawed assumption that Ukrainians were favorable to Russia and that their military would collapse immediately following an invasion. Russian soldiers were evidently carrying dress uniforms for their victory parade in Kyiv rather than extra ammo and rations. Putin at this point has committed the bulk of his entire military to this operation—there are no vast reserves of forces he can call up to add to the battle. Russian troops are stuck outside various Ukrainian cities where they face huge supply problems and constant Ukrainian attacks.

2. The collapse of their position could be sudden and catastrophic, rather than happening slowly through a war of attrition. The army in the field will reach a point where it can neither be supplied nor withdrawn, and morale will vaporize. This is at least true in the north; the Russians are doing better in the south, but those positions would be hard to maintain if the north collapses.
There is no diplomatic solution to the war possible prior to this happening. There is no conceivable compromise that would be acceptable to both Russia and Ukraine given the losses they have taken at this point.

The United Nations Security Council has proven once again to be useless. The only helpful thing was the General Assembly vote, which helps to identify the world’s bad or prevaricating actors.

5. The Biden administration’s decisions not to declare a no-fly zone or help transfer Polish MiGs were both good ones; they've kept their heads during a very emotional time. It is much better to have the Ukrainians defeat the Russians on their own, depriving Moscow of the excuse that NATO attacked them, as well as avoiding all the obvious escalatory possibilities. The Polish MiGs in particular would not add much to Ukrainian capabilities. Much more important is a continuing supply of Javelins, Stingers, TB2s, medical supplies, comms equipment, and intel sharing. I assume that Ukrainian forces are already being vectored by NATO intelligence operating from outside Ukraine.

6. The cost that Ukraine is paying is enormous, of course. But the greatest damage is being done by rockets and artillery, which neither MiGs nor a no-fly zone can do much about. The only thing that will stop the slaughter is defeat of the Russian army on the ground.

7. Putin will not survive the defeat of his army. He gets support because he is perceived to be a strongman; what does he have to offer once he demonstrates incompetence and is stripped of his coercive power?

8. The invasion has already done huge damage to populists all over the world, who prior to the attack uniformly expressed sympathy for Putin. That includes Matteo Salvini, Jair Bolsonaro, Éric Zemmour, Marine Le Pen, Viktor Orbán, and of course Donald Trump. The politics of the war has exposed their openly authoritarian leanings.

9. The war to this point has been a good lesson for China. Like Russia, China has built up seemingly high-tech military forces in the past decade, but they have no combat experience. The miserable performance of the Russian air force would likely be replicated by the People’s Liberation Army Air Force, which similarly has no experience managing complex air operations. We may hope that the Chinese leadership will not delude itself as to its own capabilities the way the Russians did when contemplating a future move against Taiwan.

10. Hopefully Taiwan itself will wake up as to the need to prepare to fight as the Ukrainians have done, and restore conscription. Let’s not be prematurely defeatist.

11. Turkish drones will become bestsellers.

12. A Russian defeat will make possible a “new birth of freedom,” and get us out of our funk about the declining state of global democracy. The spirit of 1989 will live on, thanks to a bunch of brave Ukrainians.
See americanpurpose.com


Montfoucault village, peasant women carrying straw, 1875, by Camille Pissarro (1830-1903)

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Shell, Merck Animal Health back regenerative agtech Vence for carbon & traceability capabilities, AFN, by Louisa Burwood-Taylor

Vence, a US startup that offers ‘virtual fencing’ for ranchers using regenerative ag practices, has secured funding from the venture arms of two major corporates: Merck & Co and oil and gas giant Shell.

Adding “a few million” dollars to Vence’s earlier $12 million Series A round, the deal will also see the San Diego-based startup partner with both investors to scale and improve its offering, according to CEO Frank Wooten.

Born in 2016, Vence fits wearable collars to cattle to help ranchers rotationally graze their herds without investing in physical fences – a major cost component for livestock farmers looking to transition to regenerative agriculture.

Rotational grazing – or holistic planned grazing – attempts to mimic the natural movement of herds across land whereby they frequently occupy and vacate new pasture, fertilizing and promoting grass growth on the ground they’ve just left and not over-grazing it. Research and real-life examples have shown these methods are able to regenerate grasslands, encourage the development of high-quality pasture, and sequester carbon from the atmosphere.

The last of these is of particular interest to Shell, for obvious reasons: the company has enormous Scope 1 and 3 emissions to offset under a target of being net-zero by 2050 or sooner.
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See agfundernews.com


Sunshine after the rain, by Camille Pissarro (1830-1903)



Tired of waiting for autonomous vehicles? Head to a farm, Associated Press, by Scott McFetridge

For years Americans have been told autonomous technology was improving and that driverless vehicles were just around the corner.

Finally they’re here, but to catch a glimpse of them, you’ll need to go to a farm rather than look along city streets.

Beginning this fall, green 14-ton tractors that can plow day or night with no one sitting in the cab, or even watching nearby, will come off the John Deere factory assembly line in Waterloo, Iowa, harkening the age of autonomous farming.

The development follows more than a decade-long effort by the world’s largest farm equipment manufacturer, and marks a milestone for automation advocates, who for years have been explaining why driverless cars aren’t quite ready for prime time.

“I’m glad to see they’re coming out and will stimulate the other technologies,” said Raj Rajkumar, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University and an expert in autonomous cars.
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See apnews.com


Bezos Earth Fund pledges $17m to Colombia’s Future Seeds plant gene bank, AFN, by Jennifer Marston

The Bezos Earth Fund will invest $17 million in global food security-focused research partnership CGIAR‘s Future Seeds plant gene bank. The gene bank was inaugurated this week in Colombia to preserve plant biodiversity and support agricultural research. CIGAR’s Alliance of Biodiversity International and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) will manage the new facility, which will also serve as an innovation hub for researchers.

>>> What is it?
The Future Seeds gene bank will preserve and safeguard crop varieties while also serving as an educational and innovation hub for researchers working to breed new varieties of crops and improve the productivity, resilience, and nutritional value of plants.

- The new facility provides 30% more storage than its predecessor, an older CIGAR gene bank that held tens of thousands of crop varieties.
- The Future Seeds collection includes more than 37,000 samples of beans from 114 countries; 6,000 cassava samples from 28 countries; and 22,600 samples of tropical forages such as grasses and trees from 75 countries.
- The entire global catalog is open source, patent-free, and funded by a mix of governments, multilateral organizations and foundations; plant genetic material is free of charge to researchers breeding new varieties of plants.

>>> So what?
CGIAR calls these gene banks, which store seeds, seedlings, and tissue containing genetic information, “critical to achieving food and nutrition security worldwide.” The new funds will support the gene bank and climate change mitigation science that emphasizes carbon sequestration using the roots systems of plants, according to CGIAR.

- Future Seeds is part of a larger network of 11 gene banks CGIAR runs globally.
- While these 11 gene banks contain only about 10% of the total number of accessions of germplasm currently held in gene banks, they account for 94% of the germplasm distributed within the guidelines of the “Plant Treaty” – an international agreement aimed at guaranteeing food security through the conservation, exchange and sustainable use of the world’s plant genetic resources.
- Future Seeds is unique in this network in that it is not just a library for crop varieties but also an innovation hub that will leverage genomics, big data, robotics, drones, and AI to accelerate the development of climate-resilient crops.
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See agfundernews.com

Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Investment in Russia and China (Source Bloomberg Newsletter)



US Inflation (Source Bloomberg Newsletter)



US Pandemic Labor-Force Participation Decline (Source Bloomberg Newsletter)

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