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1. Climate Corp was part of Monsanto before it became Bayer. It was acquired by Monsanto.

2. John Deere wanted to buy Climate as well as Monsanto but that was struck down by US courts and Bayer bought Monsanto.

3. What was Climate Corp doing before? They had something called Field View where they charged farmers to collect and collate data.

4. All precision Ag, Ag robotics and farm data collections have two big industry ‘partners’: Wall Street and Farm input companies.

5. Now add farmland to Precision Ag/Ag robotics.

6. This is a kind of consolidation of land, inputs, data and machinery.

6. Eventually, all land will be owned by farm machinery companies and input companies. There won’t be any more farmers in the future but only farming corporations.

7. It goes back to Wall Street because big Ag is commodities.

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(Command to format, since this comes up regularly: sed 's/ $[0-9]\. $/\n\n\1/g')

>There won’t be any more farmers in the future but only farming corporations.

Is this any different than, "pretty soon there won't be any local movie rental places (or retail places), it'll just be content delivery corporations"?

I do share concerns about this kind of movement, and think it needs to be done judiciously, in every industry. However, I do not agree that just because you're "small" or "independent" you are inherently better or care more. There are pros and cons. People are people and don't become "evil" by working for larger firms.

Silicon Valley seems to be very suspicious of corporate consolidation in every industry, but turns a blind eye as Facebook/Google/Amazon do it on a scale rarely ever seen.

> People are people and don't become "evil" by working for larger firms.

The problem isn't that people working for larger firms are evil. They simply don't have a say in how things are run. Small independent businesses give back to their communities. Large corporations rarely even attempt to do the same and when they do it is ineffectual because it is centralised and bureaucratic.

But they sponsor charity and community events...

There's a fundamental difference between food and movies. Food is a basic necessity and quality food is essential to health. Commodity crops aren't quality food.

> Is this any different than, "pretty soon there won't be any local movie rental places (or retail places), it'll just be content delivery corporations"?

BTW, there is still one Blockbuster open [1].

[1] https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/n7wwnq/the-worlds-last-bl...

I guess it's like there won't be movies any more, only netflix originals.

For those with an interest in large markets that are not often discussed on the clearnet:

[1] https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Kochland/Christopher-...

Thanks for the extremely insightful context.

With so much first-hand knowledge of this situation, I’m having a hard time processing how you don’t have an opinion on it. It seems that this is exceedingly detrimental to the well being of literally everyone and everything involved except for those that profit from it.

This is somewhat for discussion purposes. Farmers make a profit, a farmer retiring can liquidate his assets by selling his land to a pension fund where in the olden days he 'needed a son', the lessee of the land usually wouldn't start farming there is there isn't a profit involved. The produce gets sold to a middle man and an end user, again for a profit.

The company I work for is in finance (non-US) and has a pretty large investment in farmland, which we lease out up to very, very long contracts. As far as I can tell people are quite happy with our stewardship. We provide liquidity and give farmers the optionality to choose a different time horizon for their firm. We lease out lands for biological farming, sometimes have historical properties we maintain and lease out, do solar parks. It's like real estate but with a different time horizon.

Re the 'long game' discussion for finance and machinisation. The firm has literally been doing this for a few centuries so this hasn't been the original goal. I don't think it's come up yet as a current goal, although in all honesty I can see the appeal from a finance perspective. The farmer is the middleman we can cut out and replace by machines. First thought then is - what does it matter what the background of the owner doing the machinisation is?

> Re the 'long game' discussion for finance and machinisation. The firm has literally been doing this for a few centuries so this hasn't been the original goal. I don't think it's come up yet as a current goal, although in all honesty I can see the appeal from a finance perspective. The farmer is the middleman we can cut out and replace by machines. First thought then is - what does it matter what the background of the owner doing the machinisation is?

Sounds an awful lot like deskilling, so hopefully the labour concerned has an exit strategy.

I don't want to sound totally econofuturoptimistic, but No, it's not de-skilling in my book. I'd venture robotisation is actually re-skilling or up-skilling. Or in other words: the average education level of the employees after more and more capital flows in, goes up. And automisation / robotisation is nothing new in agriculture. You need a lot less labour, that's true. But that's the trend in agriculture for about 150 years (as far as I understand rice is one of the few crops that's pretty constant in hours per bushel). Modern day large farms are run by a handful of people (and an enormous supply chain on both sides). An example: The Netherlands is a substantial exporter of food, and farming is about 1.5% of GDP. That's astonishing.

A similar story is unfolding in mostly small-time US aviation mfg. Chinese companies have bought around 20 makers, like Mooney and Cirrus, in the past decade.

> With so much first-hand knowledge of this situation, I’m having a hard time processing how you don’t have an opinion on it.

Similarly, I don't have an opinion since the US regulators have decided to do nothing, and private capital is scarce in that sector - it is what it is.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superior_Air_Parts

https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-news/2011/february/2...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mooney_International_Corporati...

That reminds me of this (vagueyly related) article on unions and airlines:

https://philip.greenspun.com/flying/unions-and-airlines

Phil's a great aviation writer.

Beyond what he wrote, the regionals were created to union-bust, but the 1,500 hour rule has already closed most of them, giving captains even more power. :)

> I’m having a hard time processing how you don’t have an opinion on it.

It's admirable! There's almost nothing as rare on this site as a commenter who hasn't yet leapt to a conclusion.

It’s a very tangled web. If I were to summarize in one word, it is due to Subsidies.

Pensions and social security and international trade and Wall Street and subsidies are all tied together. It’s an infuriatingly tight ball of yarn.

If I have to be uncharitable, I would say that American macro economics is a Ponzi scheme. But..on the other hand..this is also why food is so cheap in the USA. As a country, we run on credit. This too gives an illusion of prosperity. Just think about it. How can you get 6 chicken nuggets do for $1.00 from Mickey D? Because. America. And that’s because of that ball of yarn. Try taking away the Happy Meal’esque comfort from Americans and there will be a (weak)revolution. It makes me surmise that this what America wants. Is that a good or a bad thing? Does it matter if I or anyone else have an opinion?

Here is what I am sure of and what troubles me:

1. You can’t ‘make’ land anymore. It’s a fixed asset and resource(water rights, mineral rights). 2. Land rights and resources are not renewable. 3. Land owning farmers have become poorer and poorer over the years..saddled by debt due to ..well..farming. Mostly in credit. 4. This is due to subsidies, credit to buy everything from expensive tractors, inputs, fertiiisers, seed etc. 5. Increase in population means more have to be grown in a smaller foot print of cultivable land. 6. Pressure to grow more. In farming, the more successful you are, you lose. Because of glut and law of economics(demand/supply/price). 7. Farmers are set up for failure. Value is derived from scarcity. When farmers are more productive, their margins shrink. I don’t know any other sector where this is true. 8. The credit lines and loans and debt is real tho’. 9. This will separate farmers from their land. 10. Money and financial instruments are man made constructs. Which means they are replicable. Land is fixed and can’t be created. When one is traded for another and the terms are written by one party, it’s is essentially a land grab. 11. This is why our dairy industry is almost gone. We rely on imports for food. Most mid west farming is corn and soy which is feed, fuel and fodder. Tyson exports to China. Smithfield is owned by China as are many livestock farms in az and Iowa. 12. Middle Eastwrn countries and China own acres and acres of farm land. And many more we don’t know through shell companies. This is rather common. 13. True for other places as well. Fonterra.. NZ’d dairy Co-op sold a portion to China and its milk powder division sells to China directly. China ships water from Australia and NZ. Canadian pension funds has invested in Australian dairy and cattle farms. I am not sure this is a good idea. 14. China has chronic food shortages and has to import to feed its 1.3 billion people. 15. Contrast this to India where they export excess in grains, spices, pulses etc with equivalent population and shrinking farmland. Main reason is the protection of farmland. Foreigners or foreign passport holders even if born in India can’t own farmland. (Unless they inherit farmland).

Food self sufficiency is very important. The first step to achieving it is to divorce food from speculation channels and interests. Protect farmland and water resources. This is something that has to be done globally and not just USA.

Edited to add: here is one more puzzle. American farmers growing corn and soy get subsidies to grow cheap food. But this is mostly for export. So in a way,...considering subsidies are funded by tax payer monies...aren’t we all paying taxes to subsidize exports? We are subsidizing American exports of cheap grain and not American farmers. The lion’s share of American farmers expenses(because what they make is so little compared to what they spend) goes to John Deere and Monsanto and seed companies and Syngenta et al. all publicly listed and traded companies. In a way American Ag IS Wall Street when you untangle this. But do we really want to do that? Do we really want to know where this leads?

> diff between food farming and commodity crop farming.

What is the difference between these? Aren't crops generally commodities? I’m familiar with the subsistence farmer term of the crops they eat verses the crops they sell, but the farmers sell both here.

I don't know what the original poster meant, but there are fruits and vegetables that are mostly picked by hand and usually sold fresh, which distinguishes them from things like wheat and corn that can be grown on very large farms with little labor because it's been mechanized.

There are a handful of commodity crops grown at very large scale, and then there is everything else.

https://modernfarmer.com/2015/03/specialty-crops-refer-to-we...

Is the concern that the growth of commodity farming will eliminate the production of fruits and vegetables? If so, I see the potential problem. But growth of commodity crops with no change in f/v seems like a non-issue.

Difference between commodities and food is subsidies. Commodities are also traded on Wall Street.

I'm guessing commodity crops in this context may refer to non-food crops, like corn for bio-ethanol, rapeseed, cotton, tobacco?

That was close to my guess, the only small difference is I would add some maybe-ends-up-in-food-eventually crops as well.

My family would refer to the roundup ready corn and soybeans we sold to the grain co-op as commodities, while the small sub-acreage of sweet corn grown to sell at the farmer’s market might be much more likely to be referred to as food.

Food being a perhaps overly generous word for partially hydrogenated soybean oil or high fructose corn syrup.

Commodity agriculture is any agriculture where the products are sold into the commodity markets, basically -- corn, wheat, soybeans, rice, pork, beef, etc.

Commodity agriculture is all about scale and price; there are certain quality standards that must be met (your corn must have a specific moisture content; your pigs must weigh in a certain range and be free of disease) but there is no real competition on the quality of the good produced. You assume all hard red wheat is fungible, and buy and sell it by the ton.

Some products exist in both commodity and non-commodity markets -- you can produce pork for the commodity markets, or your can sell it door to door.

> Commodity agriculture is all about scale and price; there are certain quality standards that must be met (your corn must have a specific moisture content; your pigs must weigh in a certain range and be free of disease) but there is no real competition on the quality of the good produced. You assume all hard red wheat is fungible, and buy and sell it by the ton.

Between regulations and grocery store standards, is that not basically all food?

By calories, certainly.

But fresh produce frequently exists outside the commodity market -- the individual grocery stores or chains have relationships with individual producers (or consortiums) to distribute their products.

Basically if your food is labeled with the name of the producer it isn't commodity agriculture -- for instance, bags of apples are frequently branded by the orchard which produces them, because the orchard is selling directly to the grocery store (maybe with a middle man or two doing the actual sales and distribution), and not selling into a generic "apple" market the way eg wheat producers do.

So, sprayed with more bug poison?

I wonder if this disconnect becomes detrimental to the land.

Bigger difference is the breed of plant. Commodity corn for instance is not something a human would eat normally without extreme processing.

One way it becomes human good is as feed for animals and another is being processed into adjuncts.

Sweet corn on the other hand is delicious to eat.

I tend to think commodities vs food is if there is a mainline futures contract for it.

Wow thanks for this info. What a shitty situation. Venture capitalists buying land to rent it back to farmers seems like the exact opposite of the kind of innovation we need.

I work for a small farming automation company. I’m designing a solar powered weeding robot. when you say “small scale” farming what do you mean? Its still early for us but it feels like we need to target farms that are hundreds or thousands of acres to justify the engineering investment. That may still count as “small” compared to the real big stuff, but it leaves out the really passionate five and ten acre organic farms I’ve come across.

My personal interest is in lowering the cost of healthy food production. Maybe we could talk more via email?

taylor {at} twistedfields.com

Thanks. I am interested in small acreage robotics to automate most of farming except harvest. Weeding is a very small part of growing food.

The reason Big Ag(not necessarily commodity Ag) is focused on giant weeding robots(for crops like potatoes, cotton, lettuce etc..those in the billion dollar club) is because the investment is coming from chemical inputs companies. It is very likely that the same pot of money going to finance Monsanto/Bayer is also funding Agtech and ag robotics because they are hedging their chemical industry investment. So if Ag stops using roundup, they’d use weeding robots and theair market share is protected.

Also why small scale food Ag is not dealt with right now. It’s too small a market and there is enough cheap labour and third world countries to import food from..maybe agtech will reach them eventually. But until then they won’t allow product cannibalisation. And if any small acreage Agtech or Ag robots become successful they will be bought out by the big investment firms or through smaller VCs and shelved. It will come out of its dark vault when the time feels right. We have the tech. It’s just not profitable to release it to farmers.

My goal is to automate everything with small robots and then scale by swarming them. I would love to connect. My email is my user name at gmail.

How could a robot keep more than a couple of acres weeded? Small amounts of acreage in real food would be more valuable to humans than vast tracts of frankenfood like Monsanto soybeans. There are already "at-scale" solutions for that crap: just spray it (and everything downwind!) with tons of noxious chemicals.

The other commenter is correct - swarms.

Also our robot is capable of spraying but will primarily use mechanical means to destroy weeds so there is no chemical use.

Above you said "it feels like we need to target farms that are hundreds or thousands of acres to justify the engineering investment." That seems like a reason not to fund your startup, because farms like that already have chemical weed control and giant corporations that already zealously own their souls. I was trying to encourage you to think smaller. By acre, vegetables are much more valuable than wheat and corn and beans, and there are human labor inputs that robots could replace.

The farms we’re looking to target are vegetable farms. They use human labor to weed their crops. The few I’ve spoken to have hundreds or thousands of acres total. They seem eager to get a robot like ours.

Haha I might have misread an "or" as an "of". Your robots sound great, a real benefit to humanity.

Ahh yes hundreds “of” thousands would be huge!

Long term, I’d love to automate the entire process. We just have to start somewhere. Weeding seems like a safe place to start, and there’s plenty more work to be found once we get our foot in the door.

I’ll tell ya one thing - I love working with robots outside. I mostly work in the office but I love getting out to test the machine. :)

Small robots swarmed.

The rental of farming fields goes back to time inmemorial.

In fact it is only a modern progress that has resulted in ownership actually working the fields they own.

This is where the feudal lords came in and what peasants actually were.

It is still pretty rare to find small farmland ownership in all of south america and asia. USA is the exception, not the rule.

A bit off-topic, but I'm very interested in gaining an insight into what do you think what kind of innovation we need, and why?

It’s a good question! I’ll be honest - I’m a robotics engineer not a farmer. I’ve found that weeding is a good place to start according to the farmers I’ve spoken to. But the real innovations needed should come from a large group of users. That’s why I’m doing my best to ensure we can open source our machine. I’m inspired by the way open source 3D printers crowd sourced much of the innovation that got us where we are today (along with many dedicated companies which made their own improvements).

I feel like a lot of “technology” companies are like this: consolidation of production and locking people out rather than actually making things more efficient.

Generally, those are the same. Manual labour does not scale well and is prone to error.

But there's a difference between selling a product that reduces manual labor, vs. selling a service that does the same - the latter being what usually locks people out.

And it's bad for everything, the environment, our health, the animals and many farmers. I'm sure you've read the Omnivores Dilemma?

Data privacy is something that I think isn’t really covered here.

Do the farming equipment companies share data? To be precise do the have the level of fidelity required to know information regarding the size of land when the equipment is in use as well as the toolset in the equipment?

This might conceivably allow equipment companies to sell data to stock market companies who speculate on futures.

Yes. Data is the key. You can’t automate and employ AI without harvesting data. That’s one of the reasons all this is being consolidated. Farmers are too fragmented to act together to generate and provide data that Ag AI/ML needs. There is no need for privacy if the same companies that own and run Everything.

This is what happened with Monsanto. First it was round up and other weedicides. Then they said we will sell you the seeds that is round up ready. And then they convince farmers what to grow and what inputs and fertilizers to buy. And then what to grow and how to much to grow per season. And soon the same investment funds will own the land too.

https://www.farm-equipment.com/articles/14150-consolidation-... : this sums it up. It’s a tad dated and more consolidation has happened since.

[..] The five companies currently seeking to combine their business enterprises — Dow + Dupont, Bayer + Monsanto and Syngenta, which is to be acquired by ChemChina — together would hold a 78% stake in the ag chemicals segment of the industry. It could put them in a position to squeeze out the remaining competition.[..]