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Gladstone Land - >>> 2 Stocks That Cut You a Check Each Month
These two very successful niche operators have been handing out monthly dividends for many years running.
Motley Fool
by Eric Volkman
Dec 17, 2021
In this current era, where change often moves with lightning speed, who wants to wait three months to receive a dividend? Is it because the decades-old standard quarterly dividend is still very much the norm? Why can't it be the exception?
Well for a select group of dividend-paying companies, distributing a chunk of profits in the form of a regular monthly dividend is the norm. Let's take a closer look at two of them -- Realty Income (NYSE:O) and Gladstone Land (NASDAQ:LAND) -- and see if getting paid each month by these dividend stocks is right for you.
1. Realty Income
Realty Income, a real estate investment trust (REIT) that focuses on retail properties, is the standard-bearer for monthly dividend payers. There's a reason it has trademarked its descriptor as "The Monthly Dividend Company." It's been doling out a steadily increasing payout every turn of the calendar since its shares were listed on the New York Stock Exchange way back in 1994.
The company has thousands of sources of revenue. At the end of its most recently reported quarter, its massive portfolio comprised 7,018 properties. Nearly all of these were located in the U.S., but the company is branching out; in September, it closed its first transaction on the European continent -- a 93 million euro ($105 million) sale/leaseback deal with French supermarket operator Carrefour on seven properties in Spain.
Given this financial commitment, and the obvious enthusiasm with which the company announced it, we can expect much greater expansion in this huge new market for the REIT.
Meanwhile, Realty Income continues to grow its fundamentals at admirable rates. In the third quarter, it managed to lift its total revenue by almost 22% on a year-over-year basis. Growth in the company's adjusted funds from operations (AFFO), the most important profitability metric for REITs, soared even higher at 26%.
Nearly all of those 7,000-plus properties are home to active businesses, as Realty Income's occupancy rate is just under 99%. The company rents its spaces out on triple-net leases that have very long terms (the average is nearly nine years). This provides a very solid tenant base for the REIT and effectively locks in years of sturdy cash flow. No wonder the company is willing to share its wealth so frequently.
Realty Income's latest monthly dividend was a shade under $0.25 per share. At the latest closing share price, this yields 4.4%.
2. Gladstone Land
Elsewhere in the REIT sector, we have Gladstone Land. This company's focus is on farmland and assets related to the same, i.e., properties that are rented under triple-net leases to their tenants. Gladstone owned 160 farms covering more than 108,000 acres across 14 U.S. states as of November. All of its properties are under lease.
Are you saying you've never heard of an agricultural properties REIT? That's not surprising. There are only very few on the market and of that small group, Gladstone is far and away the largest and most significant.
Gladstone tends to favor farms that grow fresh produce and select "permanent" crops like nuts and blueberries. It believes these are more profitable and can thus produce higher rental income. These crops also tend to require lower storage expenses and are less volatile in price than commodity crops such as wheat and corn.
This focus makes for a good business strategy. Thanks to organic growth (no pun intended) and net additions to its property portfolio (33, to be exact), Gladstone posted a robust 40% year-over-year increase in revenue in its Q3 (to just under $19.6 million). AFFO saw an even higher leap, bounding 66% upwards to nearly $5.3 million.
That's entirely in character for Gladstone, which over the past few years has seen dramatic improvements in both revenue and AFFO.
All this means Gladstone has plenty in its financial tank for a dividend that gets distributed 12 times per year. The dividend has been paid without fail since the company listed on the stock market in 2013.
The payout isn't immense in either absolute terms (the latest one was less than $0.05 per share) or yield, which these days is 1.8%. However, the regularity of this reliable monthly dividend, Gladstone's strong position in its very limited niche, and its vast scope for expansion make it a compelling stock worth considering. After all, this is a huge country that still has plenty of agricultural lands available to develop.
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>>> Harvard buys up water rights in drought-hit wine country
Reuters
Jan 22, 2015, updated 2021
By Richard Valdmanis
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-harvard-water/harvard-buys-up-water-rights-in-drought-hit-wine-country-idUSKBN0KV29G20150122
BOSTON (Reuters) - Harvard University has quietly become one of the biggest grape growers in California’s drought-stricken Paso Robles wine region, securing water well drilling permits to feed its vineyards days before lawmakers banned new pumping, according to records reviewed by Reuters.
The investment, which began as a bet on the grape market, has turned into a smart water play as the wells boosted the value of its land in the up-and-coming wine region of Paso Robles. But it has also raised questions about the role of big investors in agriculture in the midst of a water crisis.
“It remains to be seen what commitment they have to the business of agriculture,” said Susan Harvey of environmental advocacy group North County Watch, which has been following the drought closely. “Is Harvard going to keep pumping ground water, or cut back on returns to protect water quality and quantity?”
Brodiaea Inc, wholly owned by the secretive $36 billion Harvard endowment fund, has spent more than $60 million to purchase about 10,000 acres in Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties since 2012, making it one of the top 20 growers in Paso Robles.
Harvard Management Company, which runs the fund, declined to comment, citing a policy of not discussing individual investments. Brodiaea officials did not respond to repeated phone messages.
Dana Merrill, who owns a vineyard services firm near Paso Robles and sold land to Brodiaea in 2012, said the company was among several big investors that have entered the wine grape market in California in recent years. He said he didn’t believe Brodiaea’s land buys were part of a well-timed water play.
“You’ve got a value-added product, you’ve got agricultural real-estate as a hedge against inflation, and if you can be smart about operating it you can come up with a pretty consistent cash flow that can produce a return on investment that is not as volatile as other products,” he said.
Real estate brokers said irrigable land in the heart of the Paso Robles region is running about $15,000 to $20,000 per acre, versus $3,000 for an acre of dry pasture – a spread that has widened sharply as the drought has tightened its grip.
BUYING SPREE
Since it began its buying spree - which coincided with the start of California’s latest drought - Brodiaea has acquired rights to drill 16 water wells of between 700 and 900 feet deep, two or three times deeper than the average residential well, according to county records. Deeper wells will continue to give them access to water as shallower wells run dry.
“The area they bought in has some of the best groundwater in the region, and having working wells puts their investment in a strong position,” said David Hamel, a local real-estate appraiser.
No environmental advocacy group has accused Brodiaea of trying to profit from the drought, but North County Watch’s Harvey said the drilling of deep wells in the Paso Robles wine region has the potential to exacerbate problems for locals.
“A deep well pumping high volume can draw down wells up to a mile away,” she said.
As local lawmakers were trying to figure out how to deal with the worsening water shortage in Paso Robles in 2013, Brodiaea and a number of other investors, agricultural land owners and residents moved fast to secure water rights.
The company got permits for seven 800-foot wells on Aug. 21, 2013, six days before a ban on new pumping from the hardest-hit part of the basin took effect, according to previously unreported data from the records.
RISING PRICES
An analysis published by real estate investment company Pacifica Real Estate Group this week said it expected Paso Robles irrigable land prices to rise further due to increased interest from investors from Napa Valley and Sonoma, where an acre now fetches between $75,000 and $100,000. But, “with a three-year drought upon Paso Robles, good water supply will be one of the biggest factors.”
Harvard’s investment arm, often a pioneer in new asset classes, has faced criticism in the past for some of its timber and energy investments and last year the school signed on to U.N.-backed principles for responsible investment.
Investments in natural resources were a priority for Jane Mendillo who lead the endowment until December. She has been replaced by insider Stephen Blyth.
For the fiscal year that ended June 30, Harvard’s endowment returned 15.4 percent and for the last 20 years it returned an average 12.3 percent a year. During the most recent year, investments for natural resources returned 9 percent, beating the benchmark’s 7.5 percent return.
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Gladstone Land - >>> 10 Monthly Dividend Stocks to Buy in December
Insider Monkey
by Fatima Farooq
December 7, 2021
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/10-monthly-dividend-stocks-buy-140107425.html
Gladstone Land Corporation (NASDAQ:LAND)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 7
Dividend Yield: 1.87%
Gladstone Land Corporation (NASDAQ:LAND) is a real estate investment trust based in Virginia. The company was founded in 1997 and has raised its dividend for seven years so far.
B. Riley's Craig Kucera just this November raised the price target on shares of Gladstone Land Corporation (NASDAQ:LAND). The analyst also holds a Buy rating on the stock.
The FFO for Gladstone Land Corporation (NASDAQ:LAND) in the third quarter was $0.17, beating estimates by $0.02. The revenue for the company was $19.59 million, up 40.05% year over year and beating estimates by $1.64 million. Gladstone Land Corporation (NASDAQ:LAND) has gained 18.92% in the past six months and 98.05% year to date.
Insider Monkey's data shows that seven hedge funds held stakes in Gladstone Land Corporation (NASDAQ:LAND) in the third quarter of 2021, worth $7.9 million. In the previous quarter, six hedge funds held stakes in the company worth $5.4 million.
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>> LAND <<
Yes, and a big move (30%) since Oct. Normally that would suggest near term overbought, but with inflation taking off and investors looking for alternatives to stocks/bonds, who knows. Farmland seems like a great place to be all things considered. Bill Gates reportedly has mega holdings in US farmland, so probably a good idea for us small fry also.
I had some LAND a couple times recently, but being a nervous nellie I didn't hold it very long. Fwiw, I'm working on a new strategy for the higher risk/reward portion of the portfolio, one that will hopefully ameliorate enough of the emotional angst to allow long term buy/hold to prevail :o)
Thinking about farmland, my mom's relatives had a 240 acre farm in Illinois which was sold in the early 1990s, and looks like the current price of that land would be ~ 4 x higher.
LAND is doing well. A tid bit in case of a marker crash, in 2008 when the market crashed and realestate started falling, farm land kept rising. No guarantee's it keeps working that way. Look like it had a correction and headed up again.
https://www.google.com/search?q=historic+farm+land+prices++chart&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS778US778&sxsrf=AOaemvIFPhCYqxbNo5zytSVYWBBp2q9Hvw:1639080817027&tbm=isch&source=iu&ictx=1&fir=uAIPSWRArct_wM%252CS4droGBG7yWuRM%252C_%253B40THQnXUf_QvJM%252Cloazz3wUd18vAM%252C_%253B9RsphATk6OAxmM%252CkPBz8IJDxSGlYM%252C_%253BUAQCq-EESpD4OM%252C3SQlwRgrO0rahM%252C_%253BPwX1qmBzVAD_3M%252CiLREpwMbkmlcYM%252C_%253BiHvWgcqiHz2KZM%252CS4droGBG7yWuRM%252C_%253B9iVIO88xBZp1tM%252CPk8n9l7YfJk6-M%252C_%253BFw9F5INxbU-91M%252CNMMSGN1b_DUGtM%252C_%253BN6a6RYXisnq7eM%252CPxWUCxMNQav4uM%252C_%253B56p3AuUqiV_93M%252C6nS26A10QwIT6M%252C_&vet=1&usg=AI4_-kSoIuiJZYkW7ZwdD_qXhFth7zK4NA&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwixkuzuw9f0AhXHXc0KHZN0BqAQ9QF6BAhDEAE#imgrc=40THQnXUf_QvJM
>>> Gladstone Land Acquires Pistachio Orchard in California
Yahoo Finance
December 6, 2021
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/gladstone-land-acquires-pistachio-orchard-133000557.html
MCLEAN, VA / ACCESSWIRE / December 6, 2021 / Gladstone Land Corporation (NASDAQ:LAND) ("Gladstone Land") announced that it has acquired 2,635 gross acres of farmland, including 1,776 planted acres of pistachios, located near Lost Hills, California, for $88.0 million. In connection with the acquisition, Gladstone Land entered into a 10-year, triple-net lease agreement with the seller.
"We are very pleased to add these mature pistachio trees to our portfolio," said Tony Marci, Managing Director of Gladstone Land. "The trees are planted in soils and a climate that are well-suited to pistachios, which is evident in the excellent yield history of the orchard."
"We value our tenants as much as the properties in our portfolio," said Bill Reiman, Executive Vice President of Gladstone Land. "We are excited to enter into a lease and begin a relationship with an excellent and established farmer in the region."
"The acquisition of this pistachio orchard adds to our existing permanent crop farmland and is another good, long-term investment for us," said David Gladstone, President and CEO of Gladstone Land. "We have had a strong year in 2021 and look forward to another good year in 2022."
About Gladstone Land Corporation:
Founded in 1997, Gladstone Land is a publicly traded real estate investment trust that acquires and owns farmland and farm-related properties located in major agricultural markets in the U.S. and leases its properties to unrelated third-party farmers. The company, which reports the aggregate fair value of its farmland holdings on a quarterly basis, currently owns 163 farms, comprised of over 111,000 acres in 15 different states and 45,000 acre-feet of banked water in California, valued at approximately $1.5 billion. Gladstone Land's farms are predominantly located in regions where its tenants are able to grow fresh produce annual row crops, such as berries and vegetables, which are generally planted and harvested annually. The company also owns farms growing permanent crops, such as almonds, apples, cherries, figs, lemons, olives, pistachios, and other orchards, as well as blueberry groves and vineyards, which are generally planted every 10 to 20-plus years and harvested annually. The company may also acquire property related to farming, such as cooling facilities, processing buildings, packaging facilities, and distribution centers. Gladstone Land pays monthly distributions to its stockholders and has paid 106 consecutive monthly cash distributions on its common stock since its initial public offering in January 2013. The company has increased its common distributions 24 times over the prior 27 quarters, and the current per-share distribution on its common stock is $0.0452 per month, or $0.5424 per year. Additional information, including detailed information about each of the company's farms, can be found at www.GladstoneLand.com.
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>>> Gladstone Land Acquires Farmland in Oregon
Yahoo Finance
November 29, 2021
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/gladstone-land-acquires-farmland-oregon-133000467.html
MCLEAN, VA / ACCESSWIRE / November 29, 2021 / Gladstone Land Corporation (NASDAQ:LAND) ("Gladstone Land") announced that it has acquired 165 gross acres of farmland located near Milton-Freewater, Oregon, for approximately $2.4 million. In connection with the acquisition, Gladstone Land entered into a 10-year, triple-net lease agreement with an existing tenant who is a leader in the wine industry.
"We are excited to make another acquisition in Oregon," said Tony Marci, Managing Director for Gladstone Land. "Our tenant will plant a vineyard on this land, which is located within the Walla Walla Valley AVA. The property is in a beautiful setting on land overlooking the Walla Walla Valley."
"This land, with established water rights, will be a great addition to our portfolio," said David Gladstone, President and CEO of Gladstone Land. "We are pleased to expand the relationship with our tenant and help them to continue providing premium wines to their customers."
About Gladstone Land Corporation:
Founded in 1997, Gladstone Land is a publicly traded real estate investment trust that acquires and owns farmland and farm-related properties located in major agricultural markets in the U.S. and leases its properties to unrelated third-party farmers. The company, which reports the aggregate fair value of its farmland holdings on a quarterly basis, currently owns 162 farms, comprised of approximately 109,000 acres in 15 different states and 45,000 acre-feet of banked water in California, valued at approximately $1.4 billion. Gladstone Land's farms are predominantly located in regions where its tenants are able to grow fresh produce annual row crops, such as berries and vegetables, which are generally planted and harvested annually. The company also owns farms growing permanent crops, such as almonds, apples, cherries, figs, lemons, olives, pistachios, and other orchards, as well as blueberry groves and vineyards, which are generally planted every 10 to 20-plus years and harvested annually. The company may also acquire property related to farming, such as cooling facilities, processing buildings, packaging facilities, and distribution centers. Gladstone Land pays monthly distributions to its stockholders and has paid 105 consecutive monthly cash distributions on its common stock since its initial public offering in January 2013. The company has increased its common distributions 24 times over the prior 27 quarters, and the current per-share distribution on its common stock is $0.0452 per month, or $0.5424 per year. Additional information, including detailed information about each of the company's farms, can be found at www.GladstoneLand.com.
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>>> Gladstone Land Acquires Two Farms and Facilities in Georgia
Yahoo Finance
November 15, 2021
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/gladstone-land-acquires-two-farms-133000482.html
MCLEAN, VA / ACCESSWIRE / November 15, 2021 / Gladstone Land Corporation (NASDAQ:LAND) ("Gladstone Land") announced that it has acquired approximately 230 gross acres of farmland, including 175 acres of blueberry bushes and a fresh packing and shipping facility, located near Homerville, Georgia, for approximately $2.9 million. In connection with the acquisition, Gladstone Land entered into a 15-year lease agreement with a regional farmer who is part of a national berry marketing group.
"We are very excited to make our first acquisition in Georgia, which plays an integral role in supplying fresh blueberries across the eastern U.S. in the late spring and summer months," said Bill Frisbie, Executive Vice President for Gladstone Land. "We look forward to expanding in Georgia with additional fruit and vegetable farmland purchases."
"High-quality farmland with access to plentiful water is becoming increasingly scarce," said David Gladstone, President and CEO of Gladstone Land. "We are pleased to continue our mission of securing the most productive farmland for our grower-partners, especially as we see rising inflation beginning to have a significant impact of the price of farmland and produce across the country."
About Gladstone Land Corporation:
Founded in 1997, Gladstone Land is a publicly traded real estate investment trust that acquires and owns farmland and farm-related properties located in major agricultural markets in the U.S. and leases its properties to unrelated third-party farmers. The company, which reports the aggregate fair value of its farmland holdings on a quarterly basis, currently owns 162 farms, comprised of approximately 109,000 acres in 15 different states and 45,000 acre-feet of banked water in California, valued at approximately $1.4 billion. Gladstone Land's farms are predominantly located in regions where its tenants are able to grow fresh produce annual row crops, such as berries and vegetables, which are generally planted and harvested annually. The company also owns farms growing permanent crops, such as almonds, apples, cherries, figs, lemons, olives, pistachios, and other orchards, as well as blueberry groves and vineyards, which are generally planted every 10 to 20-plus years and harvested annually. The company may also acquire property related to farming, such as cooling facilities, processing buildings, packaging facilities, and distribution centers. Gladstone Land pays monthly distributions to its stockholders and has paid 105 consecutive monthly cash distributions on its common stock since its initial public offering in January 2013. The company has increased its common distributions 24 times over the prior 27 quarters, and the current per-share distribution on its common stock is $0.0452 per month, or $0.5424 per year. Additional information, including detailed information about each of the company's farms, can be found at www.GladstoneLand.com.
Owners or brokers who have farmland for sale in the U.S. should contact:
Western U.S. - Bill Reiman at (805) 263-4778 or bill.r@gladstoneland.com, or Tony Marci at (831) 225-0883 or tony.m@gladstoneland.com
Eastern and Central U.S. - Bill Frisbie at (703) 287-5839 or bill.f@gladstoneland.com, or Joey Van Wingerden at (703) 287-5914 or joe.v@gladstoneland.com
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>>> Gladstone Land Corporation (LAND) Q3 2021 Earnings Call Transcript
LAND earnings call for the period ending September 30, 2021.
Motley Fool
Gladstone Land Corporation (NASDAQ:LAND)
Q3 2021 Earnings Call
Nov 10, 2021, 8:30 a.m. ET
https://www.fool.com/earnings/call-transcripts/2021/11/10/gladstone-land-corporation-land-q3-2021-earnings-c/?source=eptyholnk0000202&utm_source=yahoo-host&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=article
Contents:
Prepared Remarks
Questions and Answers
Call Participants
Prepared Remarks:
Operator
Greetings, and welcome to Gladstone Land Third Quarter Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions]. A question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. [Operator Instructions].
I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, David Gladstone, Chief Executive Officer and President. Thank you. You may begin.
David J. Gladstone -- Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President
Well, thank you for that nice introduction. This is David Gladstone, and welcome to the quarterly conference call for Gladstone Land. And again, thank you all for calling in today. We appreciate you take time out of your day to listen to our presentation. We're first going to start with Erich. Erich Hellmold is in the office today for Michael LiCalsi. Erich is our Deputy General Counsel, and he is also the -- one of the big guns in administration side of our business and that's the administrator for all the Gladstone funds. Erich, why don't you start?
Erich Hellmold -- Deputy General Counsel
Thanks, David, and good morning. Today's report may include forward-looking statements under the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, including those regarding our future performance. These forward-looking statements involve certain risks and uncertainties that are based upon our current plans, which we believe to be reasonable.
Many factors may cause our actual results to be materially different from any future results expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements, including all risk factors in our Forms 10-K and other documents we file with the SEC. Those can be found on our website, www.gladstoneland.com, specifically the Investor's page or on the SEC's website at www.sec.gov. We undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise any of these forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law.
Today we will discuss FFO, which is Funds From Operations. FFO is a non-GAAP accounting term defined as net income excluding the gains or losses from the sale of real estate and any impairment losses from property, plus depreciation and amortization of real estate assets. We will also discuss core FFO, which we generally define as FFO adjusted for certain non-recurring revenues and expenses, and adjusted FFO which further adjusts core FFO for certain non-cash items, such as converting GAAP rents to normalized cash rents. We believe these are better indications of our operating results and allow better comparability of our period-over-period performance.
Please take the opportunity to visit our website, www.gladstoneland.com, and sign up for our email notification service, so you can stay up to date on the Company. You can also find us on Facebook, keyword-The Gladstone Companies, and we have our own Twitter handle @GladstoneComps.
Today's call is an overview of our results, so we ask you to review our press release and Form 10-Q, both issued yesterday for more detailed information. Again, those can be found on the Investors page of our website.
Now, I'll turn the presentation back to David Gladstone.
David J. Gladstone -- Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President
All right. Thank you, Erich. I always start with a brief recap of the current farmland holdings. We currently own about 108,000 acres on 160 farms and about 45,000 acre-feet of banked water. All those together total about $1.4 billion in assets that we own. Our farms are located in 14 different states, and more importantly in 28 different growing regions, and our farms continue to be 100% occupied and are leased to 82 different tenant farmers, all of whom are unrelated to us. And the tenants on these farms are growing over 60 different types of crops.
Given the number of different growing regions, tenants, types of crops, our farms -- on our farms, we think this is sufficient diversification to provide for safety and security of the cash flows coming from the rents. And we believe this diversification helps protect the dividends that we're paying to our preferred as well as our common shareholders. There are no guarantees in this world, anything can happen in this life. But right now, we're feeling pretty good about getting the money in from rents and paying it out as dividends.
We had another strong quarter from the acquisition standpoint and we continued to see a decent number of buying opportunities come our way. And in the fourth quarter, we've gotten off to a nice start. We still have a few farms that we're working on to close before the end of the year. Hopefully, we'll get them all done. It has been kind of a slow year in terms of the pandemic has kept people out of the office and that always slows things down.
We continue to be able to renew all the expiring leases without incurring any downtime on any of our farms and notable increase in these renewals reflects the positive trends in all the rental rates that we're currently seeing in many regions.
Overall operations on our farms remained strong and demand for products that are grown in most of our farms remains relatively strong. And these are products like berries and vegetables and nuts. And as anybody who goes to the grocery store these days, tell you, there are many of these types of food that continue to increase in price and that's good for our farmers and good for us long-term.
During the third quarter, the team acquired five farms, 5,000 acre-feet of banked water for total price of about $62 million. In addition, right after the quarter-end, we acquired two more farms, approximately 2,000 more acre-feet of banked water or total about $46 million. So we have new investments of about $108,000 -- $108 million from last time.
Overall, initial net cash yield to us on these are about 5.5%. In addition, all the leases on these farms contain certain provisions such as participation rents or annual escalations that should push that figure higher as we go forward in the future. As a reminder, this banked water is water that we own, but is stored in a local water district. We can use the water that's in these districts on the farmland located in Kern County that sub-basin where the water is, where we have several farms and we can sell it to a third-party, or we can use it on our farms.
Our plan is to hold the water to keep as a safeguard for our own assets in the region. Currently, we are not using any of it. We're using the water that we have from the wells that we have on the farms in the past. They say they have not used any of it, they kept buying a little bit. So when it came time to sell, they wanted to sell us the same insurance for water that we have in these wells. All of our farms currently have enough water, but we like the security of having extra water.
On the leasing front, since the beginning of the third quarter, we executed ten lease renewals on properties located in California, Colorado, Florida and Michigan.
Overall, these lease renewals are expected to result in an increase in annual net operating income of about $227,000 or about 8% over the prior leases that we had. Looking ahead, we only have three leases scheduled to expire in the next six months that make up less than 2% of our total annualized lease revenue. We are in discussion with the existing tenants on these farms, as well as some potential new tenants and we aren't expecting any downturn -- downtime on these farms.
Overall, we continue to expect the new leases on these farms to be relatively flat from where they are today. There are few other items I'd like to touch on before we move on. The first one is going -- the ongoing drought in the West, despite some recent record-breaking rainfall parts of California. Certainly in Oregon and Washington, they've gotten a good amount of water down on the farms, but they also have gotten many feet of snow in the mountains, and when that snow melts, it feeds all the farms in the valley. However, all our properties continued to be in a position where there is currently ample water to complete both the current crop and next year's crop. Where we have farms located in water districts, those districts have stored water or other supplemental sources that cover our farms for the short-term.
Almost all of the farms out West have well sites and most of them rely on groundwater as their main source of the irrigation. For these properties, we are seeing a typical seasonal dropping of the water table levels, and we haven't had any, of course, that have gone dry. And all of our farms currently have pumping capacity to cover their crop needs.
One thing you should know is that wet and dry weather cycles are the norm out West. Those of you here in the Midwest or in the South, this is something that you would know how to handle most likely, but it's very difficult in the West, especially California. Throughout any long-term investment, we know that we're going to have both drought periods and wet periods. So when we underwrite a potential investment out West, we look for properties with multiple sources of water, we build in drought scenarios in our projections, and we also take into account potential government regulations because sometimes they just come in and say we'd like you to pump 25% less water out of the ground. We've done that and we've done a good job keeping the government happy with our water.
We continue to expect a strong year in terms of participation rents. I think this will be the largest year we've ever had. You know, we recorded about $2.4 million in participation rents each of the past two years and we are expecting a sizable increase in that amount for 2021. No guarantees, but that's what we're projecting right now. And this is mainly due to having several more farms with participation rents this year. We recorded about $1.8 million of participation rents so far through the third quarter. People have begun to pay and give us good projection, so we're bringing in that money now.
Regarding the progress on our ESG policy, we continue to work on developing a formal policy related to disclosures that we continue to think are relevant and we will continue to update you on this as we get closer to finalizing these policies. One of our problems on ESG is just finding someone who can identify and say we've done it correctly. There is a lot of fighting on Europe over what constitutes some of the ESG policies.
Finally, I want to again briefly mention that Gladstone Acquisition, it's our SPAC that recently filed and reiterate the relationship to Gladstone Land. It has a little over $100 million in cash in it now. And as mentioned in previous calls, we sometimes come across farm owners who don't want to sell just their land, they want to sell both their farmland and their operations as a package deal.
As you know, a REIT like Gladstone Land is limited in the ability to own operating companies because operating income is generally not permitted in a Real Estate Investment Trust. So Gladstone Acquisition was created to potentially take advantage of such opportunities. We're looking at a couple now, we've not signed anything, and so, there has been no press releases on it, but stay tuned, you'll hear what we do there.
I'm going to stop at this point on operations. I'll turn it over to our Chief Financial Officer, Lewis Parrish, to talk to you more about the numbers that he published last night.
Lewis Parrish -- Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Treasurer
Thank you, Dave, and good morning, everyone.
I'll begin with our balance sheet. During the third quarter our total assets increased by about $60 million, due to new acquisitions which were financed with a mix of debt and equity proceeds. During the quarter, we secured about $31 million of new long-term borrowings at a weighted average rate of 2.75%, which is fixed for the next ten years.
On the equity side, since the beginning of the third quarter, we've raised about $86 million of net proceeds through sales of our common stock under the ATM Program, representing a net cost of capital of 2.35% with our recently increased dividend. And over the same time period, we've also raised about $22 million of net proceeds from sales of the Series C Preferred Stock.
Moving on to our operating results, first, I'll note that for the third quarter we had net income of about $1.5 million and a net loss to common shareholders of $1.6 million or $0.052 per common share. On a quarter-over-quarter basis, adjusted FFO for the third quarter was approximately $5.3 million compared to $3.7 million in the second quarter, an increase of about 41%. AFFO per share was $0.166 in the third quarter versus $0.126 in the second quarter, an increase of 32%. Dividends declared per share were about $0.135 in each quarter. The primary driver behind the increase in AFFO was additional participation rent recorded. This was partially offset by incentive fee earned by advisor during the current quarter.
During the third quarter, we recorded about $1.8 million of participation rents versus only $19,000 in the previous quarter. Fixed base cash rents increased by about $1 million or 6% on a quarter-over-quarter basis, primarily driven by additional revenue earned from recent acquisitions.
On the expense side, excluding reimbursable expenses and certain non-recurring or non-cash expenses, our core operating expenses increased by about $1.1 million, which is driven by higher related party fees. The quarter-over-quarter increase in related party fees is reflective of a higher rate used to determine the base management fee rate, which became effective from July 1 and includes an incentive fee of $945,000 earned by our advisor during the current quarter versus none earned in the prior quarter.
Removing related party fees, our core operating expenses decreased by about $250,000. This decrease was primarily driven by lower property operating expenses, which was largely due to less water costs incurred in one of our properties in Colorado and reduced annual filing fees as well as a decrease in our general and administrative expenses due to the additional costs incurred in the prior quarter related to our annual shareholders meeting.
Regarding the additional water costs in Colorado, the impact on the current quarter's numbers was about $260,000 or $0.01 per share, down from about $350,000 in the prior quarter. We currently anticipate incurring an additional $100,000 to $150,000 during the fourth quarter for these water costs, but we do not currently anticipate continuing to incur these costs beyond 2021.
Moving on to net asset value, we had 37 farms revalued during the quarter, all via third-party appraisals except for three farms that we revalued internally. Overall, these farms increased in value by about $2 million over their previous valuations from a year ago. So as of September 30, our portfolio was valued at just over $1.3 billion all of which was supported by third-party appraisals or the actual purchase prices.
And based on these updated valuations and including the fair value of our debt and all preferred stock, our net asset value per common share at September 30 was $13.80, which is up by $0.64 from last quarter.
Turning to our capital makeup and overall liquidity, from a leverage standpoint and with respect to our borrowings, our loan-to-value ratio on our total farmland holdings on a fair value basis and net of cash was about 44% at September 30. Over 99% of our borrowings are currently at fixed rates, and on a weighted average basis, these rates are fixed at 3.35% for another six years out. So we believe we are currently well protected on the debt side against any future interest rate volatility. In addition, the weighted average maturity of these borrowings is about ten years out.
Regarding upcoming debt maturities, we have about $43 million coming due over the next 12 months. However, about $27 million of that represents maturities of eight loans coming due. The eight properties collateralizing these loans have increased in value by a total of $14 million since their respective acquisitions. So we do not foresee any problems refinancing any of these loans if and when we choose to do so.
So removing these maturities, we only have about $16 million of amortizing principal payments coming due over the next 12 months, or about 2% of our total debt outstanding. From a liquidity standpoint, including availability on our lines of credit and other undrawn notes, we currently have over $125 million of dry powder, in addition to over $100 million of unpledged properties. We have ample availability under our two largest borrowing facilities and we continue to be in discussions with these and other lenders for new borrowings and credit facilities. But overall, credit continues to be readily available to us from multiple vendors and at very favorable terms.
Finally, I will touch on our common distributions. We recently raised our common dividend again to $0.0452 per share per month. Over the past 27 quarters, we've raised our dividend -- our common dividend 24 times resulting in an overall increase of 50.7% in our monthly common distributions over this time. Since 2013, we've paid 105 consecutive monthly dividends to common shareholders totaling $5.39 per share in total distributions. Paying dividends to our shareholders is paramount to our business plan and our goal is to continue to increase the dividend at regular intervals.
When considering the relative stability and security of the underlying assets and the related cash flows, we believe the stock continues to offer a compelling investment alternative especially in light of today's inflationary concerns.
And with that, I'll turn the program back over to David.
David J. Gladstone -- Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President
All right. Thank you, Lewis. That's a nice report and Erich gave us a nice introduction. So we're gliding along here. Acquisition activity remains good for us. We continue to see buying opportunities, we continue to make offers, we sign up people and get them into a position that we can go forward and close -- little bit slow in the marketplace out there simply because people are still reacting to the COVID-19.
Just a few final points before -- that I'd like to make before we move too far on. We believe that investing in farmland, growing crops that contribute to healthy lifestyle such as fruits and vegetables and nuts is following the trend that we're seeing in the marketplace today. Currently, about 85% of our total crop revenues come from farms growing the types of food that you'd find in either the produce section or the nut section of your local grocery store.
So if you want to see what we grow, just go to the grocery store and you will see it. We consider these foods to be among the healthiest type foods, and we continue to see a growing trend toward organic among these food groups. About 40% of our fresh produce acreage is either organic or transitioning to become organic and about 15% of the permanent crop acreage falls into this organic category.
We believe the organic sector would continue to be strong -- as very strong growth area. And in addition, more than 95% of the crops that are grown on our farmland is classified as being non-GMO.
Another major reason our business strategy is to focus on farmland growing fresh produce is due to the effect of inflation on the particular segment. According to the Bureau of Labor -- the Bureau of Labor, the overall annual food CPI generally keeps pace with inflation. This is why so many financial advisors tell their clients to invest in farmland because it acts as the hedge against inflation. However, over the 40-plus years, the fresh fruit and vegetable segment of the food category has outpaced total food CPI by a multiple of 1.5 times. And this is a large reason why we like being in this segment as well.
And while prices of commodity grain crops such as corn and wheat are typically more volatile and susceptible to global supply and demand, fresh produce is mostly insulated from global volatility mainly because the crops are generally consumed locally and within a short time after harvest. You've got about 14 days to get a strawberry off the vine and into somebody's mouth before it goes bad.
I'm telling you this because we are often confused with owning farms where farmers grow corn, soy, wheat and we have mostly stayed clear of these crops because we have to compete, they have to compete with other countries like Brazil, Argentina, the Ukraine, where cost of production, even after shipping cost, is very low. And those farmers can undercut the prices of grain farmers in the US. This year, grain prices have been much higher in the United States. But one reason and that's because Brazil and Argentina are in a very difficult drought situation. Farms in these countries, largely depend on rain for water.
So overall demand for prime farmland growing berries and vegetables remains stable to strong in almost all of the areas where our farms are located, particularly along the West Coast, including most of California, Oregon and Washington. And not to forget East Coast especially Florida and some of the other states on the East Coast, everything is going along at a good pace. And overall, farmland continues to perform well compared to other assets. There is an association called NCREIF and it has a farmland index and is currently made up of about $13.2 billion worth of agricultural properties including all of ours and that's averaged return of about 12.3% over the last 20 years compared to 11% for the overall REIT index and lower for the S&P index.
And during those 20 years, the Farmland Index has not had a single negative year yield, whereas the REIT Index and the S&P Index have had four negative years over that same period. Farmland has generally provided investors with a safe haven during turbulent times and in financial marketplaces as both land prices and food prices, especially for fresh produce have continued to rise steadily.
So just in closing, please remember that purchasing stock in this Company is a long-term investment in farmland. I think, an investment in our stock really has two parts. It's similar to gold in the sense that it's a hard asset, farmland or dirt, and it's the good farmland that can grow food. It has an intrinsic value because there's a limited amount of good farmland and it's being used up by urban development especially in California and Florida, where we have many farms.
Second, I'd like to compare gold and other alternative assets because it's better than those because it's an active investment with cash flows to investors. And we believe that's better than a bond fund because we keep increasing the dividend. We expect inflation, particularly in the food sector to increase and increase to values that pump up the value of underlying farmland to increase as a result. And we expect this especially be true of fresh produce food sector, the trends are more people in the US are eating healthy foods continuing to grow such products for distribution through.
And Gladstone Land would not be anything without the good people we have operating and managing it. Buying and leasing farmland is a complex business. So if you like, what we're doing, please buy some stock and keep eating fresh fruits and vegetables and nuts.
Now we will stop and have some questions from those who follow us. Operator, would you please come on and tell these people how they can ask us some questions?
Questions and Answers:
Operator
Thank you. At this time, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions]. Our first question comes from Rob Stevenson with Janney. Please proceed.
Robert Stevenson -- Janney Montgomery Scott LLC -- Analyst
Good morning. David, where is pricing for farmland today versus a couple of years ago pre-pandemic? When you look at similar properties, are we up 5%, 10% flattish? How do you sort of characterize it across your various sort of property types and markets?
David J. Gladstone -- Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President
Yeah. If you're looking at the Midwest, which is most often the one that's published, it's gone up pretty substantially this year simply because people are making money. They're also buying lots of tractors and those kind of equipment. In the areas that we're in, there has been sort of a steady increase over the last ten years and certainly over the last three or four years as people have realized that there is other things, other than corn and wheat that are growing. And I would say, there has been a good 15% increase over the last three years.
Robert Stevenson -- Janney Montgomery Scott LLC -- Analyst
Okay. And then given how hot the housing market is, have you guys thought about selling some of your land to homebuilders in some markets where it's bumping up against the farms?
David J. Gladstone -- Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President
We have a few farms that are inside of the areas like, in California, you can't just sell your land to a developer and the developer goes off and builds where he wants to on it. In California, you need to get the local city -- you have to be inside the city districts. So if you're in Watsonville, you need to be inside of the town limits for Watsonville, and then the local government officials can make that decision.
If you're outside of that, you have to put it on the ballot for voting. And if you've ever seen a ballot for California, they are about four-feet long. There are really a lot of things on those ballots. And one of those would be I want to take that lot that's right next to the -- right next to this one or that one and build houses on it. And they always get shot down. Californians are not interested in building more houses. And so, you have California pushing now to take neighborhoods and tear down the houses and build apartment buildings or condos, something in order to increase the net amount of land that's being used for that.
And it's really rough in California. They're probably 15% under house built or places to live and they just can't seem to get out of their own way in terms of regulations. And I know a lot of farms will be there. We have one right inside of Watsonville. It's a small, mostly blueberries, no mostly strawberries in that. And I think some day someone will show up and want to buy that. But that's not going to be a big hit, it's going to be a nice hit. But they haven't shown up yet. And one reason is quite frankly the strawberry fields are in an area that is not the best part of town. So as a result, they have a lot of old houses around it and they haven't done much changes. And unlike a lot of cities in California, there's not a lot of people moving to Watsonville. So as a result, we haven't had the pressures that you'd have if we were next to Los Angeles or San Francisco or even some of the other large cities.
So I would say, one day someone will show up in one of our big farm, which is -- it's probably 500 acres, and it's right next to the ocean. And somebody is going to be able to get that through and build on it because it's an hour and 20 minutes to LAX, and that's going to be a big one. We paid about $25,000 in total for everything on that farm. It's probably worth $80,000 an acre today. And if you could zone it, it would be worth $1.5 million an acre if you could put townhouses on it.
So, yes, someday all you lucky people after I'm gone are going to enjoy the benefits of us selling some of these farms. Right now, we're not interested in selling anything. What we want to do is build an incredible Company with lots of farms and try to catch up with some of the other big farmers in the United States.
As you well know, there is a man that is in the -- really not in the business anymore, but he is buying up a lot of land around the country. He has got about 230,000 acres and he is the largest farmer and we need to catch him. It's going to be a while because there is issues in tax-free dollars to buy farms. But I think we are in good shape, Rob, and I think we're just going to continue doing the same thing every day for the next ten years until we get a really big farming operation going.
Robert Stevenson -- Janney Montgomery Scott LLC -- Analyst
Okay. And then last one from me. The acquisition vehicle, I mean, are the opportunities which you're looking at there going to be too big for taxable REIT subsidiary? Is that the reason why you're going that route rather than just putting any of the operations into a taxable REIT subsidiary for the time being?
David J. Gladstone -- Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President
Yeah. They are too big and they would overshadow everything. And as you know, if we bust that regulation, we are out of the REIT business for five years. So I don't want to break it in. So that's why we're there and we keep getting these opportunities showing up and saying we'd like to sell the whole thing, and we say, well, hang on, as soon as we get public, we will be able to distribute some of the $100 million that we have in that SPAC, and also give you some publicly traded stock. We are working on some now. We've got some in here. And when is our acquisition call? Did we have a date? Anybody know?
Lewis Parrish -- Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Treasurer
We don't yet.
David J. Gladstone -- Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President
We don't have a date yet. Okay. I know he's filing next week. Is it...?
Erich Hellmold -- Deputy General Counsel
Isn't it filed?
David J. Gladstone -- Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President
No.
Lewis Parrish -- Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Treasurer
It hasn't been.
David J. Gladstone -- Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President
It's the case, so it will happen soon. You'll get a copy of it obviously, Rob, and maybe by then, we'll have something little more firmed up. I don't think it's going to be a problem finding things to buy. We've seen a lot of those. And what we want to do is buy several relatively large ones and start out as a diversified group rather than one that just does one thing and then continue to buy smaller farms and operations and have a good operating team. We don't have an operating team now. We'd have to tap one of our tenants to do some of that. But I don't -- I don't know how all of that's going to work out until we buy the first couple of farms.
Robert Stevenson -- Janney Montgomery Scott LLC -- Analyst
Okay. Thanks, David. Guys, I appreciate it.
David J. Gladstone -- Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President
Okay. Next question?
Operator
Our next question comes from Eddie Reilly with EF Hutton. Please proceed.
Eddie Reilly -- EF Hutton -- Analyst
Hey guys, congrats on a strong quarter. It's like this is the second quarter on a row where our lease renewals will contribute over 10% in growth in net operating income. Is this more indicative of the individual farms whose leases were renewed? Or is this indicative of the general environment we're in, in terms of inflation you think?
Lewis Parrish -- Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Treasurer
We think it's a little bit of both. I mean, obviously there are certain pockets in the country where if we were renewing leases in those regions, it might be a more muted increase or maybe even flat. But with a couple of the farms that we've negotiated, where those negotiations have taken place, in Northern California, Michigan, parts of -- some parts of Florida, Midwest and that's where we're seeing rents in those particular areas are increasing slightly, particularly in the Midwest as David mentioned, with the commodity prices this year. But Florida has been a pretty strong market consistently, Central and Northern California has -- Southern California cap rates have compressed a little bit there, but none of our lease renewals have been in that area lately. So it's a little bit of both.
Eddie Reilly -- EF Hutton -- Analyst
Got you, got you. And where are most of the lease renewals say in upcoming year taking place?
David J. Gladstone -- Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President
In the rest of 2021, it's just one farm. We have three leases in '21 that are expiring over the next -- well I guess, actually over the next six months, three leases, but two of them are tenant termination options that are exercisable within the next five days. We do not believe the tenants want to exercise the option on either one of those. So it's really just one renewal that we're working on. And it's on a farm in Colorado that we're close to finalizing negotiations with a tenant. The gross rent is likely to remain flat. But we are expecting a significant decrease in the amount of operating expenses we will be on the hook for. So we would expect hopefully an increase in NOI for us there.
Eddie Reilly -- EF Hutton -- Analyst
Got it, got it. Turning to the financing, it seems like you guys have a pretty healthy loan-to-value ratio right now. Can you just talk a little bit about your plan of action for funding new deals going forward?
David J. Gladstone -- Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President
Well, we have three ways of generating funds for that. One, of course, we've touched on and that's the borrowing. There are lots of lenders in the agricultural space. In the US, we have -- I think, there's five federal large banks that do lending and we've used them pretty much every time. We also have a couple of large institutions. Rabobank is the largest in the world in terms of agricultural lending. We've done a little bit with them, but not a lot. And in addition to that, we've got -- MetLife is the largest lender in the United States and we've done deals with them.
So there is plenty of leverage, and it doesn't seem to be impacted by banks that might have problems. So we're in good shape there. We also sell some preferred stock. We've got a number of those outstanding and we participate by selling non-traded preferred. That's more expensive. It's about 6%, but we use it when we need a little extra leverage. So it's that kind of situation.
And quite frankly, the ATM Program has been very strong. What have you got from that?
Lewis Parrish -- Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Treasurer
We've got about $86 million over the past four months or so.
David J. Gladstone -- Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President
So we've been selling stock through that ATM Program and using it to buy farms that are generating 5%, 6%. And so after leverage, we've got a good ratio. And the nice thing about leverage is that it doesn't go up until the end of it, and we've got long-term mortgages on these things. So as a result, the spread is sort of locked in for years and years and years. And so for us, the next movement for us is going to be to raise money in some other way. And I don't have any other way right now. But all of those that I mentioned are just wonderful places to get leverage now. That's going to change over time and that will reduce how much we can pay for a farm. And all of these farmers know that. So we've had good transaction with them. And as you probably know, we do from time to time have people that will take UPREIT shares that is -- and that's a non-taxable transaction whereby we give them shares of our stock and they give us their farm and it's quite nice for them and for us, because that's another way of raising equity. So we are in good shape on the financial side. We don't see any problems unless something blows up and I don't see that happening in the economy right now.
Eddie Reilly -- EF Hutton -- Analyst
Got you. Thank you.
Lewis Parrish -- Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Treasurer
And I will add regarding the use of some of the sources that David mentioned, in the past where we would almost always get a loan simultaneously with the acquisition, with all the equity proceeds that we've been able to bring in. What we've been doing and what we probably will continue to do is buy these farms with equity proceeds and then close on a loan, but not draw it until later. We want to close on it now because interest rates are very attractive. As we said earlier, we got 2.75% fixed debt for next ten years this quarter, but we want to lock in these rates, but not drawn them yet until late down the road when we actually need the additional proceeds.
Eddie Reilly -- EF Hutton -- Analyst
Okay, great. That makes sense. Thank you, guys.
David J. Gladstone -- Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President
Other questions?
Operator
Our next question comes from Eric Borden with Berenberg Capital. Please proceed.
Eric Borden -- Berenberg Capital -- Analyst
Hey, guys, good morning.
David J. Gladstone -- Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President
Good morning.
Eric Borden -- Berenberg Capital -- Analyst
Kind of -- can you talk about the volumes in the quarter? What was the mix in terms of deal size there? And then kind of maybe going forward given your favorable cost of capital, what's the appetite to target larger deals or maybe portfolios out there in terms of farmland?
David J. Gladstone -- Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President
Yeah, there are not that many that come up with big farms, other than the fact that the farms continue to go up in price in some areas. So I think we'd love to get some big farms, 5,000 acres would be great. We can find acreage here and there and everywhere. We also want diversification. So getting one huge farm like we have in Southern California. There are not that many people that can lease it. We've leased it to one of the largest strawberry operators in the country. And they are strong, big and lots of cash flow. So we like that.
But to get to these much larger farms, there aren't that many farmers that can take down that much. So we have to be very careful not to get in a vine whereby we have a large farm, we don't have a tenant. So we like the onesie, twosies. There not a lot of players there. And that's our forte as being able to negotiate those and offer the seller a good price for the farm, but also tax-free if they want to do the right transaction. So we'll keep doing what we're doing and the diversification is really important for me. I don't want to get into a situation where we've got a couple of big farms that are going to hurt us.
Eric Borden -- Berenberg Capital -- Analyst
No, I appreciate that. And then maybe on the acquisition front, kind of historically Q4 seems to be the key time to acquire farms, but given constraints as it relates to COVID, do you think you'll see more farmers come to market in Q1 or will there be some rollover there into the New Year?
David J. Gladstone -- Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President
Probably, I would guess. We never know if they're going to be able to close on time. We had one situation in which after the review of everything, we found that we were about a half a acre or maybe it was more on somebody else's farm that we were -- that the farmer was farming, and we had to get that undone before we close. And of course that's got to go through the government in California. So that's always a pain. Not that they're bad people, it's just that COVID has messed up their scheduling. And so as a result, we get -- we don't get really quick response on that. So you sit for a while waiting for it to close.
I think the bottom line, Eric, is that we are known in the marketplace now. We were not known five years ago very much. And so now everybody knows who we are, that's going to sell our farm, and so they show up on our doorstep. And we are just sitting there working with them, trying to get them to move to a point where we can get the deal done.
And unfortunately a lot of these farms are tied up in history that is it's been in the family for five, six generations. And there is a lot of emotional in the sale of that. It just is one of those things that it's been in our family for six generations or three generations, whatever it is and they don't want to let it go for what it's really worth to somebody who's farming it. And while we can always agree to look at somebody doing -- some third-party doing the review, it doesn't mean you're going to get the farm just because you got the review at the [Technical Issues] there is a lot of things bundled up into that.
There is a lot of farms out there in California. It's massive in terms of the areas that we like which is berries and most of the nut trees are out there. Certainly, almonds and pistachios, and we've picked up a lot of pistachio farms because there weren't a lot of people buying those, and it's a wonderful product. So, I don't know, acquisitions are going to go at the pace that people want us -- want to go. And I know, I talked to a guy ten years ago, trying to buy his farm, and unfortunately for him, he died and we bought it from his sister, who inherited that and she didn't have the same emotional impact and that went back to 1938, where they sold off the oil and gas underneath the farm. And so it was a little bit different transaction.
I just think there is the time when people decide to sell. The pandemic pushed some people along. Others once you talk to them and say, look you're 65 years old, do you have a plan for your farm? And they don't usually. So we show them how they can do it. We talk with some of the people that advise farmers on what to do and they see the non-taxable way of going, and here's the difference between that program that we have, is that farms that might be 200 or 300 acres are broken into maybe six or eight different tax districts. And so as a result, each one of those taxable pieces is considered a farm by the IRS, and so they can sell us three or four of those and take cash, and sell the other two or three in the form of cash, non-cash and be a shareholder.
We've had a number of those, where they want to take some cash out. And this is one of the only places that I know that works like that because if you're buying a warehouse some place, it's one unit. And so you've got to be very careful how you do that, because I think there is only a 10% amount that you can pay in cash, if the other part of it is in non-taxable.
The pressure that's been put on the marketplace by the reduction in 1031's value, because the government has changed the way that works, has been good for us. And I think we'll see more of that as time goes on. Anyway, if you talk to some of these advisors, farmland is where you want to be, but having a whole lot of money tied up in one farm is not where you want to be, as there's little -- only a few things you can do with it.
The other question?
Eric Borden -- Berenberg Capital -- Analyst
Yeah. Last one for me and then -- kind of relates to potential development opportunities. I know in the past you kind of talked about potential deforestation around the farmlands, certain farms, and I was just curious, is that potential -- does that arable land give you an opportunity to increase the acreage per farm or is that really not how I should be thinking about it?
David J. Gladstone -- Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President
Probably not the way to think about it, only because the deforestation is up in the mountains and we don't grow anything in the mountains. So we're not part of that whole problem. And it's really sad people have burned down houses and a lot of trees have been lost that were up in the mountains. But at the end of the day, problem for us is we just need good flat farmland and that's what we're looking forward.
So I think from our standpoint, you shouldn't look at it that way, you should consider it, gee, they've got some farmland, the farmer is going to sell it. If you sometimes have taken a small plane from Watsonville down to Oxnard, the two small airports you can go through, and as you fly over that part of the world, it's just everything is in farmland that isn't in houses. And so over time, there is no doubt in my mind that over time those places will go away.
There used to be -- in Watsonville, there was a company that you probably know, it's that sparkling apple juice, and a lot of non-alcoholic drinkers drink that in place of champagne. And they've been around forever and a day, and all of that farmland that we farm there in Watsonville plus thousands of other acres used to be, filled with apple trees. And those all got chopped down and put into berries and some of the other ground crops because it was much more profitable. And they now get a lot of their apples from up in the mountains of Washington and maybe some of the other apple tree makers. And so it's just a changing thing that goes on almost every day out there. And we are seeing more and more people needing place to live. And so it's going to continue with pressure on all of those places.
So, I don't know, Eric, we just are following huge transition in land from agricultural to places to live. It won't happen in my lifetime completely, but I'd say 50 years, a lot of that will be gone, and it will be cashed in by us and other people who own farms. So, hang in there.
Eric Borden -- Berenberg Capital -- Analyst
Sounds good. Thank you, guys. Appreciate it.
David J. Gladstone -- Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President
Okay. We have any more questions?
Operator
Our next question comes from James Villard with Ladenburg Thalmann. Please proceed.
James Villard -- Ladenburg Thalmann -- Analyst
Good morning, guys.
David J. Gladstone -- Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President
Good morning.
James Villard -- Ladenburg Thalmann -- Analyst
Just one quick one. How do you think inflation expectations were impacting your acquisition volume?
David J. Gladstone -- Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President
Yeah, maybe some there. Obviously, inflation in berries and other ground crops are pretty steep right now. And so the farmer is making good money and he wants more money than he wanted before. So, yes, it's following through. The difference is that a lot of the leases that we have in place now go up in price when inflation goes up. So, it helps us. We have stopping points as we call it, where in three years or five years, we assess the marketplace, and to the extent that the marketplace has gone up, we are able to push up the price of our rents. We also have, as we've mentioned many times now, the ownership in some of the crop. And as the crop prices go up, we benefit as well on that.
So it's kind of sheltered ourselves from inflation. We're not in the crops that people rent by the year. For example, a lot of the corn crops are rented on an annual basis, and they, of course, have a chance to jack up the rent every year. We've tried to stay away from that and just put some bumps in there for us, and all of others have some kind of way of the price going up and it's worked very well.
I think there is always a tension between what you want to do on something like that, and because if the prices of the crop go down, our rent doesn't go down. So we only have a chance to move rents up rather than any other method. And like many other REITs, we have built into our leases 2% increases every year, 3% increases every year, and that pretty much takes care of the way inflation is going.
However, at the rate of the last six months, that would be stripped away pretty quick. So inflation could hurt us, unlikely at some point in time, we will regain our strength back because the lease will come due and that's when we push up the price. I think the acquisition side -- inflation on the acquisition side is taken care of by the fact that people want to sell, they want to sell for no taxes or they want to sell and lease it back with some kind of inflation protection for us and for them that they know what they're going to have to pay over the next five to ten years, in the sense that they have a base rent and an inflated piece of the rent.
I don't know, there is not many ways to protect yourself. We go through that with our other REIT which is in the business of buying warehouses and office buildings that are leased to tenants. And those are all long-term leases with bumps every year. That seems to be OK, but I think you're right, there is some herd [Phonetic] against us being able to buy some properties, we looked at a farm in Oxnard, not too long ago that was growing some very inflated types of crops. And so as a result, they wanted more money for it and they also were in an area -- if you're in Oxnard, you're within striking distance of LA. And I think all of that land will be sold over time.
I remember going over from LA some years ago and I arrived in the afternoon and the twinkling lights were very few ten years ago. Today you come over that hill that's just before you get to Oxnard, and there are a lot of lights, so they're building houses there, they're building this, that and the other. And so it's going to -- it's going to grow, it's just too close to LA not to grow. So we're going to see that pressure on those properties as well.
Anything else I can answer for you?
James Villard -- Ladenburg Thalmann -- Analyst
Yeah. I guess just kind of following up on that, are you seeing any -- I guess, in the negotiations you're having on new potential leases, are you seeing more push back on your ability to get percentage rent agreements?
David J. Gladstone -- Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President
No, I don't think so. I think we always -- there is a dance that goes on between buyers and sellers, and we are no different from anybody else. They're pushing whatever they think they can get, and which they should do. But I think the negotiations go pretty straightforward. Most people have already heard about us, they've already read about us, they are probably some shareholders that come with their land. But having negotiations go pretty straightforward, and some sellers as I mentioned in another part of the presentation have an emotional attachment to their land. And they just don't want to sell it at the average price that's going on.
They have their whole history. I know when we bought a farm in Oxnard, it had an old fashioned house on it. We ended up tearing down the house. And after we tore it down, I realized that one of the families there, all of their children who were in their 60s now had grown up in that house, and I regretted it from that standpoint, but we had to get rid of it because we were afraid they were going to come in and tell us, it's one of those protected areas that we couldn't tear down the house. It was a beautiful old farm house, but it didn't fit in the farm. They had been lived in for years and years and years. So it was not in good shape.
Anyway, I think there is a lot of people in the California areas that I went -- recently there was a family with 24 members in the family that had come over about 100 years ago. And each of those 24 people have the right to stop any sale. I had 23 of them lined up -- I'm sorry, 22 of them lined up, but they were two hold-outs and we couldn't get them to agree. So it's still sitting out there, I guess, it's ready for somebody else to take over at some point in time and sell it off. But it will get sold. There is just nobody there that wants to do it. Besides it's in -- it's growing garlic and how many people can grow garlic. Any other question?
James Villard -- Ladenburg Thalmann -- Analyst
I mean, I guess just following up on that, I mean, is there -- have you seen a change -- I'm guessing, where I'm getting at it, is there a change in what's versus pre -- I guess pre-inflation scare looking back to a year?
David J. Gladstone -- Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President
No, we haven't seen anybody say, gee, it's worth more this year because of inflation. I mean, I'm sure somebody argues that. We don't spend a lot of time on it. We usually have an appraisal. We need to keep the -- within the confines of the appraisal because that's what we borrow against this, whatever the appraiser says, the banks will usually give us 60% of that in terms of a long-term mortgage. So we don't have a lot of room to go outside of that appraised relationship, but we're in every time we do a deal.
So, yeah, they know what we can -- and we tell them, here's what we can pay. And they either keep coming back and negotiating or they stop and go away. And at this -- as we call it the smaller end of the spectrum, there just aren't that many people out there bidding against us. I'm sure we'll see somebody come and do the same thing we're doing at some point in time. So far, no one is there. And as you probably know, we have a huge team of people in both Florida -- not a huge team in Florida, but a huge team in California, just everywhere there, everybody knows us.
James Villard -- Ladenburg Thalmann -- Analyst
Yeah, thank you for the color. Great answer.
David J. Gladstone -- Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President
Okay, thank you. Any other questions?
Operator
There are no further questions in queue at this time. I would like to turn the call back over to Mr. Gladstone for closing comments.
David J. Gladstone -- Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President
Well, thank you all for asking questions. Hope you come with a lot of questions next time. It's always great just to chat about things that are on your mind. And we'll see you next quarter. That's the end of this call.
Operator
[Operator Closing Remarks].
Duration: 59 minutes
Call participants:
David J. Gladstone -- Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President
Erich Hellmold -- Deputy General Counsel
Lewis Parrish -- Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Treasurer
Robert Stevenson -- Janney Montgomery Scott LLC -- Analyst
Eddie Reilly -- EF Hutton -- Analyst
Eric Borden -- Berenberg Capital -- Analyst
James Villard -- Ladenburg Thalmann -- Analyst
<<<
The main thing for now is to get fully recovered and healed. You can worry about dietary changes later. With a high protein diet like Keto you have to watch out for the saturated fat content, which over time can clog up the arteries. Gundry recommends 'heart healthy' fats from olive oil and avocados. It's a variation on the Mediterranean diet.
I've been on the Gundry diet for several years and have lost ~ 55 lbs without even trying (from 268 to 212). Gundry himself lost 70 lbs. You cut out all the junk food, and most of the traditional grains (wheat, corn, soy, etc). The carb portion comes from resistant starches like sorghum and millet, plus other sources like turnips, rutabaga, sweet potatoes, jicama. These are resistant to breakdown/absorption, so they don't spike your blood sugar. They get into the large intestine and the idea is not so much to feed you, but to feed the good gut microbiome bacteria which are essential to good health.
You can also have beans, chickpeas, lentils, as long as they are pressure cooked (to inactivate the lectins). I double pressure cook big batches and freeze them, and also use them in various soups. For animal protein he recommends ~ 4 oz per day. I used ground bison, which is super lean, grass fed organic beef, and chicken, plus organic pastured eggs. He also recommends fish in moderation, but you have to watch out for heavy metals/mercury.
The rest are lots of leafy greens (I use organic spring mix) and various other vegetables, cruciferous, carrots, celery, etc. I would check out Gundry's approach. He uses food as medicine :o)
Thanks gfp. I certainly have time to look more to Gundry and other body blockages.
Glad to hear the surgery went well. Since blockages of the coronary arteries can be accompanied by blockages in other arteries in the body, it makes sense to now do everything possible to reduce those other blockages and improve your overall cardio health.
Dr. Steve Gundry is a prominent heart surgeon/cardiologist. He and his partner did over 10,000 heart operations, transplants, etc, but he found a way to reverse coronary blockages via diet and supplements. Polyphenols are the key, found in dark berries and olive oil.
Gundry had gained a reputation for being able to do bypass surgery on patients who were turned down by other surgeons because their condition was 'too far gone'. One patient ('Big Ed', late forties, overweight) came to him but the data (6 months old) showed that he was too far gone for bypass surgery, even for Gundry. However, for 6 months the patient said he had been losing weight and taking lots of supplements, so Gundry repeated the tests, angiogram, etc, and was astounded to see a huge 50% reduction in the blockages. After much research, he discovered it was the polyphenols in the supplements that had reversed the disease process. Subsequently Gundry stopped doing surgery in favor of the dietary approach.
Anyway, check it out (link below). Many heart bypass patients will also have their blockages gradually return if the patient's dietary habits aren't changed. If I remember correctly, you are on a keto/paleo type diet, so the potential high animal fat aspect is an obvious red flag. Some of those diets allow things like bacon, etc. Check out the Gundry approach -
(from 2:00-5:00)
I've been in the hospital since, Wednesday, triple bypass. I am in rehab now, home Thursday. I will be more active then. Feeling good today, surgery was Friday.
FarmTogether - >>> 3 Ways to Earn Big Returns Without the Shaky Stock Market
Don't limit yourself to the stock market. These alternatives can trounce the S&P 500.
MoneyWise
by Rona RichardsonBy Rona Richardson
Oct. 28, 2021
https://moneywise.com/investing/investing-basics/3-ways-to-invest-outside-of-the-stock-market?utm_source=syn_oath_mon&utm_medium=B&utm_campaign=19414&utm_content=oath_mon_19414_new+investing+platform
We adhere to strict standards of editorial integrity to help you make decisions with confidence. Please be aware that some (or all) products and services linked in this article are from our sponsors.
Investment ideas are plentiful — but most of them involve the stock market or flipping homes.
If you’re looking for a way to invest without the violent swings of stocks or the headaches of being a landlord, this article is for you.
While most of these ideas can have big profit potential, please remember to always do your due diligence.
1. Invest in farmland and help drive agriculture towards sustainability on a massive scale
You can now invest in one of human civilization’s oldest and most reliable sources of wealth: U.S. farmland.
Unlike many other types of investments, farmland is intrinsically valuable — whether boom or bust, people still need to eat.
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Between 1992 and 2020, farmland returned an average of 11% per year. Over the same time frame, the S&P 500 returned only 8%. And when considered on a risk-adjusted basis, farmland outperforms the stock market by a wide margin.
FarmTogether is an all-in-one investment platform that lets accredited investors buy stakes in U.S. farmland.
You can get a cut from both the leasing fees and crop sales, providing you with an income stream. And you can also benefit from the long-term appreciation of the land.
Start by opening a FarmTogether account free of charge. Review their past offerings, visit their extensive learning center, and review a sampling of the data and tools that active investors have access to prior to making your first investment.
2. Build a real estate empire without being a landlord
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Once considered a niche asset, Bitcoin has entered the mainstream.
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Here's the main allure of cryptocurrencies: Unlike fiat money, most cryptos have a limited supply of tokens specified by mathematical algorithms. So no matter how much money the Fed prints, cryptos don’t get diluted through inflation.
Some even call cryptos “digital gold.”
At the time of this writing, Bitcoin has returned an astronomical 8,667% over the past five years. Had you invested just $500 in Bitcoin five years ago, you'd be sitting on more than $43,000 today.
Thanks to Robinhood, investing in cryptocurrencies is easier (and cheaper) than ever.
Other big crypto exchanges charge up to 4% per transaction when buying or selling crypto.
Robinhood, on the other hand, charges 0%. And it allows you to trade not only Bitcoin, but also Ethereum, Dogecoin, Litecoin, Ethereum classic, Bitcoin Cash, and Bitcoin SV.
There’s no need to buy a whole coin. You can start with as little as $1. So set up an account and start investing today.
Final Thoughts
You don’t need to limit yourself to the stock market in order to invest successfully.
These three investment ideas aren’t typical, but nonetheless real. Maybe reading about these alternatives will inspire you to think outside of the box when looking for interesting places to invest your own money.
Always remember to consult with a financial advisor to discuss the merits of your ideas and associated risks.
<<<
>>> Farmland Partners Inc. Appoints Luca Fabbri as President and James Gilligan as Chief Financial Officer
Yahoo Finance
October 11, 2021
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/farmland-partners-inc-appoints-luca-110000977.html
DENVER, Oct. 11, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Farmland Partners Inc. (NYSE: FPI) ("Farmland Partners" or the "Company") today announced the appointment of Luca Fabbri as President of the Company, effective immediately. Mr. Fabbri's responsibilities will include portfolio management, new growth initiatives, capital markets and investor relations, and he will continue to report directly to the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. Prior to his appointment as President, Mr. Fabbri served as Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer of the Company since its inception. Prior to co-founding Farmland Partners, Mr. Fabbri spent over 20 years as an entrepreneur and executive in finance, technology and agriculture.
"Luca helped found Farmland Partners and has been instrumental in helping grow the Company in his role as Chief Financial Officer. As President he will focus on accelerating that growth," commented Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Paul Pittman.
In connection with Mr. Fabbri's appointment as President, the Company announced that it has appointed James Gilligan as Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer, effective immediately. Mr. Gilligan's responsibilities will include overseeing the Company's finance, accounting, treasury, financial planning, and SEC reporting functions. Mr. Gilligan will report directly to the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. Mr. Gilligan joined Farmland Partners in 2021 as a Consultant, and later as a Vice President in the finance department, after eight years with Equity International, the private equity firm founded by Sam Zell. Mr. Gilligan served in various roles at Equity International, including Chief Financial Officer, Chief Compliance Officer, and Senior Vice President. Prior to Equity International, Mr. Gilligan was an investment professional for Equity Group Investments, the Chicago-based private investment firm founded and led by Sam Zell, and an investment banker for Merrill Lynch & Co.
"James brings a strong track record of driving results and accelerating growth, and we are thrilled to welcome him to our executive team. He complements our strong performance-oriented culture, and we believe his impressive reputation for execution and achieving results makes him the right choice to lead our finance function," said Paul Pittman. "With Luca's appointment as President, and James taking on the role of CFO, we have a strong management team in place to continue the execution of our strategy to drive revenue growth and the continued expansion of our portfolio."
About Farmland Partners Inc.
Farmland Partners Inc. is an internally managed real estate company that owns and seeks to acquire high-quality North American farmland, makes loans to farmers secured by farm real estate, and manages farmland for third parties. As of the date of this release, the Company owns and/or manages approximately 166,000 acres in 16 states, including Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Carolina, South Carolina, South Dakota and Virginia. We have approximately 26 crop types and over 100 tenants. The Company elected to be taxed as a real estate investment trust, or REIT, for U.S. federal income tax purposes, commencing with the taxable year ended December 31, 2014. Additional information: www.farmlandpartners.com or (720) 452-3100.
<<<
>>> Gladstone Land Announces Increase in Monthly Cash Distributions for October, November and December 2021 and Third Quarter Ended September 30, 2021, Earnings Release and Conference Call Dates
Yahoo Finance
October 12, 2021
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/gladstone-land-announces-increase-monthly-201000066.html
MCLEAN, VA / ACCESSWIRE / October 12, 2021 / Gladstone Land Corporation (NASDAQ:LAND) ("Gladstone Land" or the "Company") announced today that its board of directors declared the following cash distributions for each of October, November and December 2021.
Monthly Cash Distributions:
Common Stock: $0.0452 per share of common stock for each of October, November and December 2021, payable per the table below:
Total for the Quarter:
$ 0.1356
The Company has paid 104 consecutive monthly cash distributions on its common stock since its initial public offering in January 2013 and has increased its common stock distributions 24 times over the prior 27 quarters. The Company offers a dividend reinvestment plan (the "DRIP") to its common stockholders. For more information regarding the DRIP, please visit www.GladstoneLand.com.
Series B Preferred Stock(Nasdaq: LANDO): $0.125 per share of Series B Preferred Stock for each of October, November and December 2021, payable per the table below:
Total for the Quarter:
$ 0.375
The Company has not skipped, reduced, or deferred a monthly Series B Preferred Stock distribution to date.
Series C Preferred Stock(Unlisted): $0.125 per share of Series C Preferred Stock for each of October, November and December 2021, payable per the table below:
Total for the Quarter:
$ 0.375
The Company has not skipped, reduced, or deferred a monthly Series C Preferred Stock distribution to date.
Series D Preferred Stock (Nasdaq: LANDM): $0.104167 per share of Series D Preferred Stock for each of October, November and December 2021, payable per the table below:
Total for the Quarter:
$ 0.312501
The Company has not skipped, reduced, or deferred a monthly Series D Preferred Stock distribution to date.
Earnings Announcement:
The Company also announced today that it plans to report earnings for its third quarter ended September 30, 2021, after the stock market closes on Tuesday, November 9, 2021. The Company will hold a conference call on Wednesday, November 10, 2021, at 8:30 a.m. EST to discuss its earnings results. Please call (877) 407-9046 to join the conference call. An operator will monitor the call and set a queue for questions.
A conference call replay will be available after the call and will be accessible through November 17, 2021. To hear the replay, please dial (877) 660-6853 and use playback conference number 13722591.
The live audio broadcast of the Company's conference call will also be available online at www.GladstoneLand.com.
About Gladstone Land:
Gladstone Land is a publicly-traded real estate investment trust that invests in farmland located in major agricultural markets in the U.S., which it leases to farmers. The Company currently owns 159 farms, comprised of over 108,000 acres in 14 different states and 45,000 acre-feet of banked water in California, valued at approximately $1.4 billion. Additional information can be found at www.GladstoneLand.com.
For stockholder information on Gladstone Land, call (703) 287-5893. For Investor Relations inquiries related to any of the monthly dividend-paying Gladstone funds, please visit www.GladstoneCompanies.com.
For further information: Gladstone Land Corporation, +1-703-287-5893
SOURCE: Gladstone Land Corporation
<<<
>>> Gladstone Land Acquires Nut Orchard and Option to Purchase Stored Water in California
Yahoo Finance
October 12, 2021
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/gladstone-land-acquires-nut-orchard-123000093.html
MCLEAN, VA / ACCESSWIRE / October 12, 2021 / Gladstone Land Corporation (NASDAQ:LAND) ("Gladstone Land") announced that it has acquired 1,284 gross acres of farmland, including over 1,200 planted acres of pistachios and almonds (a portion of which is organic), located in Kern County, California, and 19,670 acre-feet of stored water (equal to approximately 6.4 billion gallons) located within the Semitropic Water Storage District water bank for a total of approximately $43.0 million. In connection with the acquisition, Gladstone Land entered into a 10-year, triple-net lease agreement for the farmland. This is the third and final closing of a previously announced three-part acquisition that will result in total consideration of approximately $84.2 million.
"We are happy to announce the closing of the third and final phase of this transaction in Kern County," said Bill Reiman, Executive Vice President of Gladstone Land. "We are looking forward to a successful future with this property and new tenant. From the day we closed the first phase of this deal, we realized benefits to our overall business, and we are excited about where this will lead us in the future."
"We are pleased to be expanding our relationship with a very fine tenant who has a long history of farming in the area," said David Gladstone, President and CEO of Gladstone Land. "All of our farms continue to have adequate water. We believe the additional water we're buying in this transaction will help the production on this farm continue at good levels for many years, while also providing additional security to other farms in the area if there is ever a need for additional water."
About Gladstone Land Corporation:
Founded in 1997, Gladstone Land is a publicly traded real estate investment trust that acquires and owns farmland and farm-related properties located in major agricultural markets in the U.S. and leases its properties to unrelated third-party farmers. The company, which reports the aggregate fair value of its farmland holdings on a quarterly basis, currently owns 159 farms, comprised of over 108,000 acres in 14 different states and 45,000 acre-feet of banked water in California, valued at approximately $1.4 billion. Gladstone Land's farms are predominantly located in regions where its tenants are able to grow fresh produce annual row crops, such as berries and vegetables, which are generally planted and harvested annually. The company also owns farms growing permanent crops, such as almonds, apples, cherries, figs, lemons, olives, pistachios, and other orchards, as well as blueberry groves and vineyards, which are generally planted every 10 to 20-plus years and harvested annually. The company may also acquire property related to farming, such as cooling facilities, processing buildings, packaging facilities, and distribution centers. Gladstone Land pays monthly distributions to its stockholders and has paid 104 consecutive monthly cash distributions on its common stock since its initial public offering in January 2013. The company has increased its common distributions 23 times over the prior 27 quarters, and the current per-share distribution on its common stock is $0.0451 per month, or $0.5412 per year. Additional information, including detailed information about each of the company's farms, can be found at www.GladstoneLand.com.
Owners or brokers who have farmland for sale in the U.S. should contact:
Western U.S. - Bill Reiman at (805) 263-4778 or bill.r@gladstoneland.com, or Tony Marci at (831) 225-0883 or tony.m@gladstoneland.com
Mid-Atlantic U.S. - Joey Van Wingerden at (703) 287-5914 or joe.v@gladstoneland.com
Southeastern U.S. - Bill Frisbie at (703) 287-5839 or bill.f@gladstoneland.com
Lenders who are interested in providing Gladstone Land with long-term financing on farmland should contact Jay Beckhorn at (703) 587-5823 or Jay.Beckhorn@GladstoneCompanies.com.
For stockholder information on Gladstone Land, call (703) 287-5893. For Investor Relations inquiries related to any of the monthly dividend-paying Gladstone funds, please visit www.GladstoneCompanies.com.
<<<
Gladstone Land - >>> 3 Stocks That Cut You a Check Each Month
These stocks make it easy to earn passive income.
Motley Fool
by Matthew DiLallo
Sep 19, 2021
https://www.fool.com/investing/2021/09/19/3-stocks-that-cut-you-a-check-each-month/?source=eptyholnk0000202&utm_source=yahoo-host&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=article
Key Points
Agree Realty switched to a monthly payout this year.
Gladstone Land has steadily increased its monthly dividend over the years.
Pembina Pipeline offers a big yield with longer-term growth potential.
Motley Fool Issues Rare “All In” Buy Alert
Dividend stocks are a great way to start earning passive income. However, one minor inconvenience of most dividend stocks is that they only cut checks quarterly. Because of that, the dividend income can be somewhat lumpy.
One solution to this issue is to buy monthly dividend stocks. Three excellent monthly payers worth considering are Agree Realty (NYSE:ADC), Gladstone Land (NASDAQ:LAND), and Pembina Pipeline (NYSE:PBA).
Collect rental income without any work
Agree Realty is a real estate investment trust (REIT) that owns a portfolio of free-standing retail properties. While retailers face headwinds from e-commerce, Agree Realty focuses on very specific tenants, enabling it to generate steady rental income.
First, it focuses on leasing space to essential retailers less likely to experience disruption from e-commerce. Its top tenants include grocery stores, home improvement stores, tire and auto service centers, convenience stores, dollar stores, and pharmacies. Further, it primarily focuses on retailers with investment-grade credit ratings (68% of its rental income comes from IG-rated retailers), which suggests they have the strength to meet their financial obligations during an economic downturn. Finally, Agree Realty utilizes triple-net leases, where the tenant bears responsibility for real estate taxes, building insurance, and maintenance.
Meanwhile, the REIT complements its solid portfolio with a strong financial profile, including an investment-grade credit rating and a conservative dividend payout ratio for a REIT. Those factors give Agree Realty the financial flexibility to expand its portfolio. That steady growth has enabled the REIT to consistently increase its dividend, which it started paying monthly earlier this year. Agree Realty has grown its payout at a 5% compound annualized rate over the last 10 years and should be able to keep increasing it in the future as it acquires more cash-flowing free-standing retail properties. At a 3.6% dividend yield, Agree Realty is an excellent income stock.
A steadily growing dividend
Gladstone Land is also a REIT. It specializes in owning farmland and farm-related facilities that it triple-net leases to farmers. The company primarily buys farms used to grow healthy foods like fruits, vegetables, and nuts. These crops tend to generate steadier income for farmers than commoditized products like corn, soybeans, and wheat.
Gladstone has been steadily growing its farmland portfolio by acquiring new properties. It purchased 13 farms and more than 20,000 acre-feet of banked water for $79.7 million during the second quarter. Those farms should generate steadily growing rental income due to annual rent escalations, CPI adjustments, or participation rents (a share of the crops' profits). This year, the company has started acquiring water rights to reduce the draught risk for some of its farms. That should help further stabilize its rental income.
Gladstone's growing farm portfolio has enabled it to steadily increase its dividend. The REIT has boosted its payout in 23 of the last 26 quarters, expanding it by 50.3% overall. The company aims to continue increasing its dividend at a rate that outpaces inflation, driven by steadily rising rents and additional farm acquisitions. At a 2.4% dividend yield, Gladstone offers an above-average monthly income stream.
A steady flow of dividends
Pembina Pipeline is a Canadian energy infrastructure company. It operates pipelines, processing plants, storage terminals, and export facilities. The company, in a sense, operates an energy toll booth, collecting a steady stream of fees as oil and gas flow through its integrated system. That stable cash flow supports Pembina's 6.1%-yielding monthly dividend.
While climate change concerns are forcing the global economy to shift toward cleaner alternatives, this energy transition will take decades. Because of that, demand for oil and gas will continue growing in the coming years, providing Pembina with additional opportunities to expand its energy infrastructure footprint. The company has more than $1 billion of commercially secured expansion projects under construction or ready to go. In addition, it has billions of dollars of potential expansion projects further along in the pipeline.
One notable project is the Alberta Carbon Grid, a joint venture with fellow Canadian energy infrastructure company TC Energy to build a world-scale carbon dioxide transportation and sequestration system in Western Canada. Projects like that will help reduce the energy industry's carbon footprint. Meanwhile, Pembina is exploring other cleaner alternatives like wind energy, cogeneration, and hydrogen.
Future investments (organic expansions and acquisitions) should give Pembina the fuel to continue growing its dividend. While the company hasn't increased its dividend since early 2020 due to the pandemic, it had a long history of consistent dividend growth before that blip. As market conditions improve and its current slate of expansions come online, Pembina should be able to start growing its monthly payout again.
Excellent options for monthly income
Monthly dividend stocks make it easier to earn passive income that you can use to offset a regular expense. While only a small group of stocks cut checks each month, investors have some attractive options in Agree Realty, Gladstone Land, and Pembina Pipeline. All three companies offer dividend yields well above the S&P 500 and have a history of steadily increasing their payouts.
<<<
>>> FarmTogether team brings a unique combination of farmland investing and technology expertise. Collectively, they bring over 70 years of food and agriculture investment experience in the US and globally. They meticulously review all investment opportunities and only pursue the properties they find attractive. They then partner with top quality local farmland operators to manage the land.
The idea of FarmTogether was born out of their personal and professional frustration with the complexities and hurdles associated with investing in farmland. Firmly believing that farmland is a safe, stable, and attractive long-term investment for everyone, their mission is to radically democratize farmland investing.
<<<
https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/farmtogether?utm_source=yahoo&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=profile_cta&utm_campaign=yahoo_finance
FarmTogether - >>> ESG Investing: Why Progress and Profits Aren’t Mutually Exclusive
Investing in an asset like farmland can help you meet more than just your financial goals.
MoneyWise
By Clayton Jarvis
Aug. 18, 2021
https://moneywise.com/investing/investing-basics/esg-investing-why-progress-and-profits-arent-mutually-exclusive
We’re confronted every day with the choice between making money and making a difference.
When it comes to investing, though, it’s not a choice you have to make.
The rise of socially conscious investing, also known as ESG (environmental, social and governance) investing, has created, and will continue to create, opportunities for investors to put their money where their morals are.
By investing with companies such as FarmTogether, you can have a hand in reversing the effects of some of the planet’s most alarming crises, from food shortages to climate destruction. By pouring money into such outfits, the hope is that their ESG goals will not only be accomplished, but adopted by other companies and corporations.
An obvious question is: “What about the returns?”
Let’s just say that ESG investing wouldn’t be the force it is today if people weren’t already making a whole lot of money off of it.
The state of ESG investing, circa now
More than $51 billion worth of capital made its way into sustainable investment funds in the U.S. in 2020. That’s more than double the amount invested in 2019, and a tenfold increase over 2018, according to data from financial services firm Morningstar.
Those investments have been paying off, too. In the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, multiple investment funds with ESG leanings outperformed the market.
After analyzing 26 ESG ETFs and mutual funds with more than $250 million in assets under management, S&P Global Market Intelligence found that in the 12 months ending March 5, 2021, 19 of the funds outpaced the S&P 500, posting gains of between 27% and 55%.
Those that underperformed the S&P, which grew by 271% over the same 12-month period, still managed to generate returns of between roughly 18% and 26%. In a 2021 letter to his fellow CEOs, none other than Blackrock head Larry Fink touted the disruptive potential of ESG investing.
"As more and more investors choose to tilt their investments towards sustainability-focused companies, the tectonic shift we are seeing will accelerate further,” Fink wrote. “And because this will have such a dramatic impact on how capital is allocated, every management team and board will need to consider how this will impact their company's stock."
Solid returns and boundless upside should check two critical boxes for investors. But if you’re new to the concept of ESG investing, you’re probably wondering where putting your money will do the most good — for the planet and your portfolio.
FarmTogether: The ESG investor’s new best friend
When it comes to deciding which companies are a fit for your ESG investor dollars, you want to be on the lookout for outfits that have already displayed a talent for turning a responsible business model into solid returns. One company successfully flying the flag for ESG is farmland investment platform FarmTogether. “Long-term food security and sustainability are core to our mission. It’s really the ‘why’ for FarmTogether,” says company COO David Chan.
In order to continue feeding the growing global population amidst increasingly scarce natural resources, Chan explains, farmers are turning toward sustainable, “carbon-smart” farming practices. Most, however, lack the capital and financing these transitions require, presenting a threat to both food security and environmental integrity.
“FarmTogether was founded to channel this capital to drive agriculture toward sustainability on a massive scale, while opening a vital asset class to all investors,” he says.
In addition to driving impact — sustainable agricultural practices often result in more productive, more valuable land — FarmTogether’s approach is also driving income.
“Farmland investments have had stronger risk-adjusted returns than stocks, bonds, real estate and gold,” Chan says. “By implementing climate-smart practices, farmers can reduce costs and increase their bottom line, meaning better returns for themselves and our investors.”
ESG in action
Farming, sustainable development
Sustainability is baked into each step of FarmTogether’s business model, from choosing the operators the company leases its properties to to the nitty-gritty decisions that make each of its farms profitable.
“We work with our operators to implement micro-drip irrigation technology and climate-smart farming methods, such as cover cropping, minimizing tillage, and crop rotations, to make farms more efficient,” Chan says. “When applicable, we work with farmers to transition properties to organic operations, including our current offering, Daybreak Pear & Apple Orchard."
FarmTogether also partners with leading organizations, like Leading Harvest and Indigo Ag, to accelerate and scale innovations across the company’s offerings.
In January, FarmTogether enrolled its entire portfolio in NGO Leading Harvest’s Sustainable Farmland Management program. Leading Harvest's outcomes-based program can be applied across each crop and geography in FarmTogether’s portfolio, Chan says, “and covers everything from soil health, energy use, and water management to reduce the impacts of climate change.”
How FarmTogether works
For many investors, farmland remains a somewhat mysterious asset class. Being unfamiliar with farmland makes evaluating agricultural assets challenging, and the combination of high cost barriers and the lack of a trusted marketplace prevents farmland from making its way into most portfolios.
FarmTogether has removed those obstacles.
The company’s investment team takes on the responsibility of evaluating a steady stream of both on- and off-market farmland opportunities across the U.S. Only when a property meets FarmTogether’s rigid standards and has been deemed a profitable, sustainable play, is it presented to FarmTogether members through the company’s online platform, where they can get exposure to multiple U.S. farming operations, and create a diversified farmland portfolio, with a few taps of a cell phone screen.
So if you’re a qualified investor — a minimum investment of $15,000 is required — with a desire to put your money to work for the greater good, get yourself a free FarmTogether account and decide what kind of difference you want to make.
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FarmTogether - >>> Grow Your Wealth With FarmTogether
https://farmtogether.com/?cjevent=7f3bbdb71d4111ec81e001670a82b838
Diversify your portfolio and increase your passive income by investing in farmland with FarmTogether’s all-in-one investment platform.
Top-Tier Farmland Investments
Achieve Stable Growth Through Economic Cycles
Farmland has low volatility as compared to most other asset classes. It provides stability for investors, especially during adverse market conditions. The NCREIF farmland index hasn't had a negative year since 1991.
Why Invest in Farmland?
Look Beyond Stocks and Bonds
Farmland's uncorrelated returns compared to traditional asset classes such as stocks and bonds offer welcome diversification, especially during stock market downturns.
Protect Against Inflation
No investment offers a hedge against inflation like farmland, not even the most popular one - gold.
Grow Your Wealth Wisely
Farmland has demonstrated strong absolute returns over the past several decades. It averaged ~10.85% total annual returns (income + price appreciation) from 1992 to 2020.
Farmland in Your Portfolio: A Superior Asset Class
The increasing scarcity of farmland and its lack of correlation with other asset classes make it an exceptionally strong diversification tool for virtually any portfolio. This has driven institutions to significantly increase their investments in farmland from 1992 to 2020.
Using our proprietary technology and decades of experience we sift through hundreds of opportunities to select only the best.
How it Works
Carefully Curated Institutional-Grade Farmland
From the east to the west coast, from permanent crops like nut and fruit trees, to row crops like corn and soybeans. We offer the best of the best, curated to fit a range of portfolio needs.
White Paper: Introduction to Farmland Investing
How does farmland investing differ from real estate? How does farmland generate returns? What are the ways to invest in farmland? Who should invest in farmland? What are the risks? Find all answers in our free introduction to farmland investing in our white paper.
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Farmland - >>> Grow Your Money for Real by Investing in Farmland
Consider a stable, profitable asset that literally puts food on the table.
MoneyWise
By Justin Anderson
Jul. 13, 2021
https://moneywise.com/investing/real-estate/grow-your-money-with-shares-of-farmland?utm_source=syn_oath_mon&utm_medium=B&utm_campaign=18745&utm_content=oath_mon_18745_higher+risk-adjusted+returns
This is a strange and disorienting time, even for seasoned investors. The pandemic flipped whole industries upside down, crytpocurrencies are rallying to record heights and a pack of provocateurs sent GameStop to the moon.
In this climate, many investors are just doing their best to abide by what history has taught them: Volatility comes and goes, but a well-balanced portfolio always does well over the long term.
While that still makes sense, it’s probably wise to add a little extra diversity these days — preferably in something insulated from other asset classes.
And as it turns out, now is a very good time to invest in one of human civilization’s oldest and most reliable sources of wealth.
That’s right: we're talking about farmland.
Real growth potential
Unlike many other types of investments, farmland is intrinsically valuable — come what may, people still need to eat. And with the global population poised to hit 10 billion by 2050, there will be no shortage of mouths to feed.
The rate of return on farmland over the last 47 years was 10.27% — better than average returns on real estate or stocks, according to data from the investing platform FarmTogether.
Over the last 20 years the numbers have been even stronger, with farmland investments yielding a return of 11.98% compared to 8.68% for real estate and 8.78% for the Russell 3000 Index, a capitalization-weighted index that aims to be a benchmark for the U.S stock market.
And here's where it gets really interesting: The United States has less and less of this valuable resource by the day, and much of the remaining supply is about to go on sale.
Farmland is changing hands
The U.S. population is aging, and working the land has always been a demanding job.
While family farms make up 96% of all farms in the country, federal data suggests the next generation isn’t interested in taking up the task themselves. Farmers over age 65 own 40% of the land and outnumber farmers below 35 by a factor of six to one.
The result: A profitable asset is hitting the market that has, until now, been difficult to buy into. Farmland has traditionally been privately held, but as more farmers retire and sell or rent out their land, investors have a rare window.
So how does someone without any experience in agriculture take advantage of this opportunity? Thankfully, you don’t need to grab a pitchfork and you don’t even need to buy an entire farm.
Here’s how to get started
FarmTogether is an all-in-one investment platform that lets qualified investors buy stakes in U.S. farmland. The company pursues attractive properties and then partners with experienced local farmland operators, who manage the land.
Depending on the type of stake you want, you can get a cut from both the leasing fees and crop sales, providing you with a cash income. Then, years down the line after the farm rises in value, you can benefit from appreciation of the land and profits from its sale.
With a minimum initial investment of $15,000, FarmTogether’s offerings are primarily aimed at experienced investors looking to diversify their portfolios with alternative assets. The platform is also restricted to accredited investors with the SEC.
Start by opening a FarmTogether account free of charge. You can sign up without any obligation to invest and you’ll get a sampling of the data and tools that active investors can access.
It’s rare to find an asset that beats other investing options in both returns and stability. With a potentially once-in-a-generation opportunity opening up, take the time to investigate whether farmland should be part of your portfolio.
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>>> Robots are changing the future of farming
A robot named Sam rules over this atypical Ohio farm.
CNET
by Megan Wollerton
Feb. 9, 2020
https://www.cnet.com/features/robots-are-changing-the-future-of-farming/
It's a cloudy day in early October and I'm circling my rented Jeep Wrangler around a maze of industrial buildings in Hamilton, Ohio. Hamilton is a small city 30 miles north of Cincinnati with a population of just over 62,000 people. Like much of Ohio, farming is important here.
I'm on my way to a farm called 80 Acres, but it isn't the sprawling midwestern wheat field you're picturing in your mind. This tech-centric farm is indoors, housed entirely in a nondescript 10,000-square-foot warehouse.
You can't tell from the outside, but this is a bustling produce farm that has tested over 100 varieties of leafy greens.
Food and agriculture are the top contributors to Ohio's economy. There are about 78,000 farms in Ohio, putting it near the top of every list ranking US states by number of farms. Its biggest crops are soybeans, corn and wheat.
But US farming is in trouble. There are roughly 2 million farms in the country spread across 900 million acres and they earned a total of $389 billion in sales in 2017, according to the 2017 Census of Agriculture, released in April 2019. All three of those numbers are lower than they were five years ago. There are fewer farms, there's less land dedicated to agriculture and the remaining farms are making less money.
There are a lot of reasons for these declines, from dropping commodity prices, to climate change and a trade war with China. There's also a growing trend of larger farms making the majority of the profits. Less than four percent of US farms made more than two thirds of agriculture sales in 2017.
80 Acres Farms doesn't just want to make fresh, local produce for Cincinnati and neighboring areas; it wants to completely overhaul the food system in the US.
"We decided that the [food] industry was really broken and that it had to be fixed from within. Farmers are struggling and they don't want their kids to be in farming," 80 Acres CEO Mike Zelkind explains as we watch a robot named "Sam" expertly maneuver containers of leafy greens around a series of stacked shipping containers inside the Hamilton warehouse.
I'm here to see how 80 Acres is changing farming for this corner of Ohio -- and how its sister company, Infinite Acres, is selling its sustainable technology to other farms with an ultimate goal of "feeding the world."
A plan to feed the world
Zelkind and Tisha Livingston, the president of 80 Acres and CEO of Infinite Acres, came up with the idea for their farm in 2015. Back then, "controlled-environment agriculture" -- more commonly known as indoor or vertical farming -- was a relatively new industry. Indoor farming is a type of climate-controlled agriculture that typically relies on artificial lights and other technology to grow crops indoors.
Zelkind has a lot of respect for early indoor farming pioneers, but he says there's one thing they don't have that sets 80 Acres Farms apart: He and Livingston have over 50 years of combined experience in the food industry.
Zelkind worked for General Mills from 1991-1996. He later transitioned to VP and SVP roles at ConAgra Foods, Bumble Bee Foods and AdvancePierre Foods. He was the CEO of Sager Creek Vegetable Company before he and Livingston co-founded 80 Acres.
Livingston held various roles at Pierre Foods and AdvancePierre Foods from 1995-2014, before becoming a VP and then COO at Sager Creek Vegetable Company.
We're exhilarated and we're scared and we've gotten further than anybody else we know. And we're absolutely nowhere. We know that this won't cut it, and this is yesterday. We're working on tomorrow.
The duo witnessed firsthand the systemic problems with the food industry for decades. Zelkind says three things need to happen for any long-lasting, positive change to take place: We need to grow things differently, change the supply chain and distribution channels and merchandise differently.
For 80 Acres Farms, "growing things differently" translates to indoor farming.
Indoor farms can grow produce without pesticides, year-round. That immediately negates concerns about any of the synthetic or natural pesticides used in commercial and organic agricultural production and the inherent seasonality of traditional outdoor farming, as well as weather-related issues due to climate change such as droughts and floods.
"Even if you grow it differently, you can't stick it on some broken supply chain," Zelkind adds. Tomatoes and strawberries are bred for transportation -- and food in the US travels at least 2,000 miles on average to get from the farm to your grocery store shelf, he explains.
Tomatoes and strawberries are specifically bred to have thicker skins and they're picked from farms before they're ripe -- just so they will survive the 2,000 journey to your town. When you factor in the travel time, the shelf life of produce is significantly lower than it would've been if it were picked at peak ripeness and sent to a local store.
80 Acres puts its farms near the stores it serves and currently has six fully operational facilities. There's one in Alabama, one in North Carolina, two in Arkansas and two in Ohio, including the one I'm visiting today.
The name 80 Acres comes from their other Ohio farm, which is located on a quarter acres of land and grows the equivalent of 80 acres worth of crops.
The Ohio farms supply local grocery stores including Kroger, Whole Foods, Jungle Jim's and Dorothy Lane Market (a Dayton, Ohio-based store that also happens to make the best brownies I've ever tasted).
The final hurdle for 80 Acres is how to merchandise their food, which they package locally in-house. For this, they forget about the tech powering 80 Acres and lean on the taste. "We are sampling in the store aggressively because once you taste it, you know," says Rebecca Haders, vice president of creative and marketing at 80 Acres, who's tagging along with us today.
Of course, the tech really doesn't matter if the produce doesn't taste good -- but Zelkind, Livingston and Haders are unanimous: You really *can* taste the difference between typical grocery store produce and produce from 80 Acres Farms.
I bought a carton of their "Fireworks Tomatoes" at a Kroger in downtown Cincinnati and they were right; they were delicious. They tasted better than standard grocery store tomatoes, but on-par with the freshest, most flavorful produce at your local farmers market.
One drawback is the price. The 9-ounce carton of 80 Acres cherry tomatoes cost me $3.99. Kroger-brand conventional cherry tomatoes come in a 10-ounce carton and cost $2.49; Kroger's Simple-Truth-brand cherry tomatoes cost $2.99 for a 10-ounce carton. Even Whole Foods, a brand known for its higher pricing, sells packaged tomatoes for less than 80 Acres.
While 80 Acres' tomatoes were better, I wouldn't want to spend over $1 more on them each time I went to the store. I asked 80 Acres why budget-conscious customers -- or any customers, really -- should buy their produce when it costs more. Haders tells me the retailer sets the price, not 80 Acres.
"We know, based on consumer feedback, that the customer highly values our consistent flavor, truly pesticide-free, local, just picked-fresh tomatoes. Pricing is at par today with local, organic, but with efficiencies of scale, we intend to bring prices down without compromising product quality, freshness, or flavor," Haders adds.
Their focus may be on taste, but the truth is, Zelkind and the rest of the team care deeply about the tech. It's the crucial piece that has enabled 80 Acres Farms to grow so quickly. It's also the key component in solving the challenges associated with overhauling the food industry.
A top secret facility
"This facility is kind of top secret," Zelkind says as we stand in front of ten stacked shipping containers. "Everything in here is proprietary." I'm the first reporter to see it, I learn, and Zelkind, Livingston and Haders talk about the technology here in hushed, excited tones. While other indoor farms rely on tech, 80 Acres says it has taken a more holistic commercial approach with fully-automated robots loading produce for shipping and computer systems to help monitor the crops and manage their lighting schedule.
The team has spent five years on intensive trial and error to build this farm. They've brought in tech from other companies and also experimented by building their own to get as close as they can to an "optimal" indoor farm. Each new farm they build benefits from the things they learned the last time around -- and this facility in Hamilton is their newest and most high-tech farm.
"We're exhilarated and we're scared and we've gotten further than anybody else we know. And we're absolutely nowhere. We know that this won't cut it, and this is yesterday. We're working on tomorrow," Zelkind explains.
80 Acres' Hamilton farm has 10 shipping containers that measure 40 feet long, eight feet wide and eight feet tall. Each shipping container has between four to six levels and can accommodate roughly 4,000 plants. If every shipping container is filled to capacity, that's 40,000 plants total. This facility focuses on lettuces and other leafy greens.
There's a reason why 80 Acres and other indoor farms focus on these types of crops, explains Erik Runkle, professor of horticulture at Michigan State University. Customers want them year-round, despite seasonal availability -- and leafy greens are typically transported long distances, despite being perishable. Their nutritional content can also decrease during shipping.
Then the question becomes: How economically viable is indoor farming really? In short, we don't exactly know yet, Runkle tells me. He and colleagues from Michigan State and other universities received a grant from the USDA (the US Department of Agriculture) to study this exact thing, but even after the four-year study, Runkle doesn't expect the answer to be a simple "yes" or "no."
Commercial indoor farming in the US got started about 8-10 years ago, Runkle explains. He estimates that less than 1% of US produce farming comes from indoor farming today. Most of the early companies have gone out of business. Some well-known pioneers, like New Jersey's AeroFarms, are still around.
"Indoor farming is always going to be much more expensive than anything grown in a field," Runkle adds. He doesn't expect indoor farming to replace traditional farming anytime soon -- or perhaps ever. But he does see it as a potential solution in places where water is a limitation and field irrigation is either unrealistic or impossible.
Fortunately, some technological advancements have reduced the cost of indoor farming, making at least a little more viable today than it would've been a decade ago.
LED lights have been one of the most significant technological advancements that made 80 Acres possible. Older lights cost more money, used more energy and made the environment too hot for plants. Now, with LEDs, 80 Acres has customizable, automated lighting systems in place to simulate daylight with different color temperatures. They use less energy, spend less money and the plants are happier too.
This farm also relies on two robots, Sam and Barney, to handle most of the heavy lifting. The bots load and unload pallets of plants from each shipping container on a set schedule -- or manually, as needed. Other companies still hire people to go up on scissor lifts and move these heavy plant containers, Zelkind explains.
There are cameras inside each container, too, so the team can check in on their plants whenever they want. And 80 Acres is developing machine learning to identify irregularities -- pests, color deficiencies, variations in plant sizes and much more -- so that growers don't have to watch the plants 24/7.
When the cameras find an irregularity, it can be shared across the 80 Acres team to more quickly identify the potential issue and work toward a solution.
"We use all of that [technology] to assist growers, not to replace growers," Zelkind says. The AI tech today isn't anywhere near where it would need to be to take over the job of a grower, but making room for technology has definitely changed how growers interact with plants. 80 Acres even offers its own training classes to teach employees how to use their technologies.
Controlled-environment agriculture is becoming an increasingly prevalent area of study in agriculture departments at the University of Arizona, Cornell University, University of Nebraska and many other schools.
Tim Brobbeck started out as a grower at 80 Acres three years ago. Now Brobbeck's the plant manager. Brobbeck says it can be tricky to gauge what's going on with a certain plant when you can't climb up and access it easily. The cameras help, but it can still be difficult sometimes to tell what exactly is happening. This tech learning curve is exactly what Livingston is focused on as the CEO of Infinite Acres.
To Infinite Acres -- and beyond
Infinite Acres is 80 Acres' tech company. As head of Infinite Acres, Livingston works to make the tech as smart as possible, in order to support the growers and the rest of the team here. But there's another goal that goes way beyond the Hamilton farm or even 80 Acres' five other farms: She wants to take what they've learned about indoor farming tech from 80 Acres and sell it to other farmers all over the world.
80 Acres is open to selling its technology to other farms and helping them run things or simply selling the tech, training the existing staff to use it and leaving them to it, Livingston explains. They're eager to share what they know about lighting, sensors, vision systems, robots and automation with other farmers -- and there's a big demand for it.
I ask the 80 Acres team what makes them special, how they managed to keep going. "Our pedigree is grit," Zelkind chimes in. Their failures, coupled with their existing knowledge of the food industry and genuine passion for the work keep them going.
"We say, 'fail fast and cheap with tremendous insights,'" Livingston adds. It's kind of their motto. They've made a lot of mistakes, they readily admit.
They've killed a lot of crops. They've had so much humidity in grow zones that it literally rained, and killed everything. "We were in the process at one point where we were just continuing to seed knowing that we were gonna kill all of the crops that we had," Zelkind says with a chuckle.
But they've come this far and they're determined to train a new generation of farmers, just like Tim Brobbeck, to make healthy produce more accessible than ever before. "I love the scalability of [80 Acres] and the idea that we can go out and maybe feed the world someday," says Brobbeck. That sounds pretty good to me.
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He did post that looking back he was lucky to make money on Monsanto. I am guessing he sold near the buyout price.
I remember Dew being a big fan of Monsanto and glyphosate for years, along with all things GMO. Presumably he was myopically focused on the financial side of things.
We had a little discussion about Bayer at Dew's board last week, can you post this there?
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=165204463
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=165204675
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=165206678
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=165218837
If you thought Monsanto was bad, Bayer is worse -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayer#Litigation
>>> In 1925, Bayer was one of six chemical companies that merged to form IG Farben,[5] the world's largest chemical and pharmaceutical company. The Allied Control Council seized IG Farben after World War II,[a][6] because of its role in the Nazi war effort and involvement in the Holocaust, which included using slave labour from concentration camps and the purchase of humans for dangerous medical testing. It was split into its six constituent companies in 1951, then merged again into three: BASF, Bayer and Hoechst.[7][8] <<<
>>> HIV contamination
In the mid 1980's, when Bayer's Cutter Laboratories realized that their blood products, the clotting agents Factor VIII and IX, were contaminated with HIV, the financial investment in the product was considered too high to destroy the inventory. Bayer misrepresented the results of its own research and knowingly supplied hemophilia medication tainted with HIV to patients in Asia and Latin America, without the precaution of heat treating the product, recommended for eliminating the risk. As a consequence, thousands who infused the product tested positive for HIV and later developed AIDS.[197] <<<
Glyphosate - >>> Bayer loses third appeals case over weedkiller
Reuters
August 10, 2021
https://news.yahoo.com/bayer-loses-third-appeals-case-135116225.html
Bayer has lost a third appeal against U.S. court verdicts that awarded damages to customers blaming their cancers on use of its glyphosate-based weedkillers.
A California appeals court late on Monday upheld an $86 million verdict that found German Bayer was responsible for a couple's cancer.
They had used Bayer's glyphosate-based Roundup product against weeds.
Bayer in February 2020 filed an appeal, saying the verdict could not be reconciled with sound science.
Or with product clearance from the federal environment regulator.
Roundup-related lawsuits have dogged the company since it acquired the brand as part of its $63 billion purchase of Monsanto in 2018.
Bayer reaffirmed plans to file a petition with the U.S. Supreme Court this month to review a similar Roundup case that went in favour of Roundup user Edwin Hardeman.
Bayer struck a settlement deal in principle with plaintiffs last year.
But it failed to win court approval for a separate agreement on how to handle future cases.
Bayer intended to keep the product on the market.
Among measures to contain the legal damage, Bayer plans to replace glyphosate in weedkillers for the U.S. residential market with other active ingredients.
It will continue to sell the herbicide to farmers, who rely on it heavily.
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Bees find refuge from perilous world in robotic hive
Video and slide show in the link>>>>>
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/bees-find-refuge-perilous-world-robotic-hive-2021-08-09/
>>> Calavo Growers, Inc. Announces Second Quarter 2021 Financial Results
Yahoo Finance
June 8, 2021
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/calavo-growers-inc-announces-second-200100098.html
SANTA PAULA, Calif., June 08, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Calavo Growers, Inc. (Nasdaq-GS: CVGW), a global avocado-industry leader and provider of value-added fresh food, today reported its financial results for the second quarter ended April 30, 2021.
Second Quarter Highlights
Total revenue of $276.8 million, at the high end of guidance and indicating a return to pre-pandemic results.
Fresh segment revenue decreased 5%, due primarily to 9% growth in avocado volume, offset by a 10% decrease in avocado prices and 31% lower tomato revenue. Renaissance Food Group (“RFG”) and Foods segments revenues increased 3% and 16% year-over-year, respectively.
Gross profit of $22.6 million, or 8.2% of revenue, compared to $22.1 million, or 7.9% of revenue, for the comparable period last year. The increase in gross profit margin percentage was attributable to volume growth in the Fresh segment.
Net income of $8.8 million, or $0.50 per diluted share, compared to net loss of $3.3 million, or ($0.19) per diluted share, for the comparable period last year. Adjusted net income was $7.7 million, or $0.43 per diluted share, compared to $7.0 million, or $0.40 per share last year.
Adjusted EBITDA of $15.0 million, which is a 9.5% increase compared to $13.7 million for the same period last year.
Adjusted net income and adjusted EBITDA are non-GAAP financial measures. See “Non-GAAP Financial Measures” below.
Management Commentary
“We are indeed seeing positive signs as the economy reopens and we are pleased with our recovery, which is driving our long-term optimism. For the first half of 2021, we recorded the highest avocado volume in the last five years—reflecting growing consumer demand across all our end markets,” said James E. Gibson, CEO of Calavo Growers.
“As our various markets slowly re-emerge from the pandemic, we delivered strong returns this quarter. Even with 9.5% EBITDA growth, profitability was restrained as our company managed through a tight labor market, higher commodity costs and higher freight costs.
“Our Fresh segment reported gross profit in line with previous quarters due to the team’s skillful management in both sourcing and sales growth. Our RFG and Foods segments saw a return to year-over-year sales growth as a result of improved demand, particularly within the retail grocery channel. For comparison purposes, RFG sales in the second quarter of fiscal 2020 included $9.8 million attributable to RFG’s Midwest co-packer.
“We are also encouraged by the continued growth in our international business. Demand for guacamole, for example, continues to increase, and our near-term outlook remains favorable with a number of new customer opportunities.
“As the year progresses, we are focusing our energy on areas we can control and advancing our strategic goals. We continue to monitor inflation, the labor market and the various supply chains to get a better read on how the second half of the year will evolve. We continue to focus on our strategic initiatives designed to enhance our long-term growth prospects, capitalize on opportunities to increase operating leverage, further our sustainability initiatives, and realize synergies across our entire organization, with the goal of improving profitability, sustainability and shareholder value. To that end, we have created ‘Project Uno,’ which is a strategic review of the current and future challenges in our business. We will be teaming with an outside consultant for this enterprise-wide business and operational review. Through this project, we are evaluating opportunities to enhance revenue growth, streamline operations, drive efficiencies and make investments that strengthen our competitive position and improve margins over the long term. The project is in its early stages, and we expect to provide additional information and details later in the year,” noted Gibson.
Second Quarter 2021 Consolidated Financial Review
Total revenue for the second quarter 2021 was $276.8 million, which is comparable to $281.2 million for the second quarter 2020, which included one and one-half months of pre-pandemic impact. While avocado volumes were 9% higher than the prior-year period, total revenue was impacted by the lower average selling price of avocados in the Company’s Fresh segment, which resulted from increased supply from Mexico. Fresh segment sales decreased 5% and offset higher sales volumes in the RFG and Foods business segments.
Gross profit for the second quarter was $22.6 million, or 8.2% of revenue, compared to $22.1 million, or 7.9% of revenue, for the same period last year. The increase in gross profit margin percentage was attributable to improvements in the Fresh segment, partially offset by lower gross profit margin percentages in the RFG and Foods segments.
Selling, general and administrative (SG&A) expense for the second quarter totaled $13.7 million, or 4.9% of revenue, compared to $14.5 million, or 5.2% of revenue, for the same period last year. The year-over-year improvement in SG&A expense was primarily related to lower sales broker commissions and stock-based compensation.
Net income for the second quarter was $8.8 million, or $0.50 per diluted share. This compares with a net loss of $3.3 million, or $(0.19) per diluted share, for the same period last year. Included in these results were a $3.5 million non-cash, unrealized gain and a $10.3 million non-cash unrealized loss in the second quarter of fiscal year 2021 and 2020, respectively, related to the Company’s ownership interest in the Limoneira Company.
Adjusted net income was $7.7 million, or $0.43 per diluted share, for the second quarter, compared to adjusted net income of $7.0 million, or $0.40 per diluted share, for the same period last year.
Adjusted EBITDA was $15.0 million for the second quarter of 2021, compared to $13.7 million for the same period last year.
Balance Sheet and Liquidity
Cash and cash equivalents totaled $5.6 million as of April 30, 2021. Total liquidity at quarter end was approximately $144 million, including cash, investments, and borrowings available under a line of credit. This is an improvement of 30% compared to $111 million last year.
The Company ended the quarter with $49.3 million of total debt, which included $42.3 million of borrowings under its line of credit and $7.0 million of long-term obligations and finance leases.
Second Quarter Business Segment Performance
Fresh
Second quarter 2021 sales in Calavo’s Fresh business segment decreased 5% to $161.7 million from $170.9 million in the same period last year. Increased avocado supply from Mexico negatively impacted the average selling price, which was down 10% from the same period last year. Lower selling prices were offset by increased sales volume, which improved 9% from the year-ago period. Following staffing investments made earlier in the year, international revenue increased 46%. Fresh segment gross profit for the second quarter of 2021 was $15.0 million, or 9.3% of segment sales, compared to $14.4 million, or 8.4% of segment sales, for the same period last year. The increase in gross profit was primarily due to volume growth. The Company’s gross profit per carton for avocados was in line with last year and historical averages.
Renaissance Food Group (RFG)
RFG business segment sales in the second quarter 2021 were $96.3 million, up 3% from $93.5 million in the same period last year, reflecting improving demand as the country reopens from the pandemic, but offset by the closure of RFG’s Midwest co-packer, which occurred in April 2020. RFG sales in the second quarter of fiscal 2020 period included $9.8 million attributable to the co-packer. Segment gross profit declined to $2.3 million, or 2.4% of segment sales, from $2.7 million, or 2.9% of segment sales, for the same period last year. Gross margin was adversely impacted late in the quarter by market-wide factors such as higher labor costs, poor fruit quality and yield, and increased freight costs.
Foods
Sales in the Foods segment totaled $20.7 million for the second quarter 2021, 16% higher than $17.9 million in the same period last year due to improving conditions as foodservice began recovering from the pandemic. Following staffing investments made earlier in the year, international revenue increased 36%. Segment gross profit totaled $5.3 million, or 25.6% of sales, for the second quarter, compared to $4.9 million, or 27.6% of sales, for the same period last year. The increase in gross profit for the second quarter was primarily due to a decrease in avocado costs.
Outlook
The Company is providing the following expectations for the third fiscal quarter of 2021:
Revenue in a range of $280 million to $300 million; and
Adjusted EBITDA in a range of $11 million to $15 million.
“The Adjusted EBITDA forecast reflects near-term inflationary pressure on labor, raw materials and freight. We expect that by the end of the year many of these pressures will be mitigated as we are working on pricing initiatives with our business partners and accelerating development of internal operational efficiencies to alleviate these unprecedented inflationary issues,” concluded Gibson.
The Company is not able to provide a reconciliation of expected adjusted EBITDA to the most directly comparable expected GAAP measure due to the unknown effect, timing and potential significance of the effects of non-cash income and losses associated with unconsolidated entities, among others. These items have in the past, and may in the future, significantly affect GAAP results in a particular period.
Non-GAAP Financial Measures
This press release includes non-GAAP measures such as EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA, adjusted net income and adjusted diluted EPS, which are not prepared in accordance with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles, or “GAAP.”
EBITDA is defined as net income (loss) attributable to Calavo Growers, Inc. excluding (1) interest income and expense, (2) income tax (benefit) provision, (3) depreciation and amortization and (4) stock-based compensation expense. Adjusted EBITDA is EBITDA with further adjustments for (1) non-cash net losses recognized from unconsolidated entities, (2) goodwill impairment, (3) write-off of long-lived assets, (4) acquisition-related costs, (5) restructuring and certain severance costs, (6) certain litigation and other related costs, and (7) one-time items. Adjusted EBITDA is a primary metric by which management evaluates the operating performance of the business, on which certain operating expenditures and internal budgets are based. The adjustments to calculate EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA are items recognized and recorded under GAAP in particular periods but might be viewed as not necessarily coinciding with the underlying business operations for the periods in which they are so recognized and recorded.
Adjusted net income is defined as net income (loss) attributable to Calavo Growers, Inc. excluding (1) non-cash net losses recognized from unconsolidated entities, (2) goodwill impairment, (3) write-off of long-lived assets, (4) acquisition-related costs, (5) restructuring and certain severance costs, (6) certain litigation and other related costs, and (7) one-time items. Adjusted net income and the related measure of adjusted diluted EPS exclude certain items that are recognized and recorded under GAAP in particular periods but might be viewed as not necessarily coinciding with the underlying business operations for the periods in which they are so recognized and recorded. We believe adjusted net income affords investors a different view of the overall financial performance of the Company than adjusted EBITDA and the GAAP measure of net income (loss) attributable to Calavo Growers, Inc. Additionally, the Company’s senior management is compensated in part on the basis of Adjusted Net Income.
Reconciliations of non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures are provided in the financial tables that accompany this release.
Items are considered one-time in nature if they are non-recurring, infrequent or unusual and have not occurred in the past two years or are not expected to recur in the next two years, in accordance with SEC rules. One-time items are identified in the notes to the reconciliations in the financial tables that accompany this release.
Non-GAAP information should be considered as supplemental in nature and not as a substitute for, or superior to, any measure of performance prepared in accordance with GAAP. None of these metrics are presented as measures of liquidity. The way the Company measures EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA, adjusted net income and adjusted diluted EPS may not be comparable to similarly titled measures presented by other companies and may not be identical to corresponding measures used in Company agreements.
Conference Call and Webcast
Calavo will host a conference call, today at 5:00 pm ET/2:00 pm PT to discuss its financial results. The conference call may be accessed by dialing 877-407-3982 (Domestic) or 201-493-6780 (International) with conference ID: 13719525. A live audio webcast of the call will also be available on the Investor Relations section of Calavo’s website at http://ir.calavo.com and will be archived for replay.
About Calavo Growers, Inc.
Calavo Growers, Inc. is a global avocado-industry leader and provider of value-added fresh food serving retail grocery, foodservice, club stores, mass merchandisers, food distributors and wholesalers worldwide. The Company’s Fresh segment procures and markets fresh avocados and select other fresh produce, including tomatoes and papayas. The Renaissance Food Group (RFG) segment creates, markets and distributes a portfolio of healthy, fresh foods, including fresh-cut fruit, fresh-cut vegetables and prepared foods. The Foods segment manufactures and distributes guacamole and salsa. Founded in 1924, Calavo’s fresh food products are sold under the respected Calavo brand name as well as Garden Highway, Chef Essentials and a variety of private label and store brands.
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Avocado consumption hits record highs, driven by health trends
https://www.fooddive.com/news/avocado-consumption-hits-record-highs-driven-by-health-trends/600858/
Dive Brief:
Monthly shipments of avocados to the U.S. set a new record in January 2021 at nearly 320 million pounds, representing a 33% year-over-year increase, according to research from Rabobank. Demand is also growing year-round, with shipments in March 2021 up 20% compared to the same time in 2020.
While Rabobank does not expect prices to hit the same levels as 2019, it anticipates average avocado prices to remain higher than in 2020. The report estimates shipments for 2021 and 2022 to be up 12% compared to the three-year average for 2018 to 2020.
Per-capita consumption has more than doubled between 2010 and 2020 to hit more than 8.5 pounds per year, and could surpass 11 pounds per person by 2026. Interest in healthy eating is driving demand along with restaurant reopenings and a boost in economic activity as pandemic restrictions lift, but issues around sourcing and sustainable cultivation pose challenges, Rabobank noted.
Dive Insight:
Sometimes referred to as a superfood, avocados pack a serious punch with high levels of monosaturated fat as well as potassium, fiber, folate, essential vitamins and minerals. Consuming the green fruit instead of refined carbohydrates can also boost satiety in adults with weight gain and obesity, according to research from the Illinois Institute of Technology’s Center for Nutrition Research.
Avocados have also proven to be highly versatile, making their way into everything from guacamole to ice cream. The upcycling startup Hidden Gem Beverage Co. even makes beverages from avocado pits. Indeed, the seeds have much potential value. At Pennsylvania State University, researchers have developed a range of natural food colorings in the red-orange-yellow spectrum from avocado seeds, and the pits may even have the ability to fight listeria.
However, as demand soars, sourcing remains a challenge for the avocado industry due to the regional nature of cultivation, the Rabobank report notes. Mexico is the main provider of avocados to the U.S. market, with Peru and California also among the biggest in the world. California will have a slightly lighter avocado crop this year compared to recent years, according to Rabobank. This could create supply challenges when California and Peru’s crop seasons end and Mexico transitions to a new season.
And the avocado industry needs to keep an eye on sustainability to ensure that the fruit's "green gold" reputation remains. The Sustainable Food Trust has called attention to what it describes as the detrimental impact of the ongoing “green gold rush” around avocados. It cites research from Carbon Footprint Ltd that finds two small avocados in a packet has a carbon footprint that is twice the amount of a kilo of bananas, for example. Avocados are a challenging crop to cultivate, requiring specific conditions and a high number of inputs in some cases.
The several thousand miles they often travel to reach consumers is another factor that drives avocados’ carbon footprint along with land management policies in countries that incentivize production without accounting for deforestation.
This scrutiny comes as foods' environmental and sustainable credentials become more important to consumers. Eleven percent of consumers recently shifted their purchasing decisions to include more products with environmental claims between 2019 and 2020, according to research from Kearney.
There are a few efforts to improve avocado sustainability. Finding a way to upcycle avocado seeds could also boost the carbon footprint of avocado production and provide food manufacturers with an opportunity to market their upcycled products to sustainability-focused consumers.
>>> Investing in the future of farming
Advanced technology could become a necessity on the farm—and an investment opportunity.
Fidelity Investments
by STEVE CALHOUN
05/26/2021
https://www.fidelity.com/learning-center/trading-investing/Steve-Calhoun-farming
The world’s population is forecast to increase by 2 billion over the next 30 years, according to the United Nations Population Division. But the amount of land available to grow food for those extra billions isn’t going to expand.
That means farmers must become even more productive, which is why Fidelity’s Steven Calhoun sees investment opportunities in technologies designed to boost crop yields and make food production more efficient.
“We’re going to need to optimize fertilizers, seeds, farm machinery, transportation solutions, and even advances in biotechnology in coming years,” says Calhoun, who co-manages Fidelity® Agricultural Productivity Fund (FARMX). “And this recently introduced fund includes investment in the companies we think are innovating for the future and driving productivity gains to help more effectively feed the world.”
In co-managing this thematic fund since its launch in April 2020, Calhoun and David Wagner have taken a bottom-up approach that focuses on agricultural companies with improving free-cash-flow yields and returns on invested capital, leveraging the work of Fidelity’s research team to choose stocks.
Calhoun says most of the stocks in the fund contribute to a global food-production system that’s resistant to supply disruptions and climate change and is sustainable from a business and environmental perspective. Many also offer more selection and healthy choices for consumers.
The fund has invested in several large, familiar agriculture companies, such as equipment maker Deere (DE), food processing company Archer-Daniels-Midland (ADM), and fertilizer maker Nutrien (NTR)—all top-10 positions as of March 31.
Others aren’t household names. Among them is Genus (GENSF), a UK-based biotech company that helps famers breed more disease-resistant pigs and cattle so they can produce high-quality meat and milk efficiently and sustainably.
The fund also owned Darling Ingredients (DAR), a play on demand for biodiesel fuel. Calhoun says demand for biodiesel is rising, especially in Europe, as government mandates encourage its consumption in place of crude-based diesel to reduce carbon emissions.
Lastly, Calhoun noted Sakata Seed, a longtime global provider of vegetable seeds and cuttings that reinvests its profits in research to develop new produce varieties and disease-resistant crops.
“A lot of innovation and creativity will be needed to support food production in the coming decades, and the way I see it, the agriculture companies held in the fund are planning for the future today,” Calhoun says.
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>>> Farmland Partners Inc. (FPI) is an internally managed real estate company that owns and seeks to acquire high-quality North American farmland and makes loans to farmers secured by farm real estate. As of the date of this release, the Company owns approximately 155,000 acres in 16 states, including Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Carolina, South Carolina, South Dakota and Virginia. We have approximately 26 crop types and over 100 tenants. The Company elected to be taxed as a real estate investment trust, or REIT, for U.S. federal income tax purposes, commencing with the taxable year ended December 31, 2014.
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>>> Founded in 1997, Gladstone Land (LAND) is a publicly traded real estate investment trust that acquires and owns farmland and farm-related properties located in major agricultural markets in the U.S. and leases its properties to unrelated third-party farmers. The Company, which reports the aggregate fair value of its farmland holdings on a quarterly basis, currently owns 127 farms, comprised of approximately 94,000 acres in 13 different states, valued at approximately $1.0 billion.
Gladstone Land's farms are predominantly located in regions where its tenants are able to grow fresh produce annual row crops, such as berries and vegetables, which are generally planted and harvested annually. The Company also owns farms growing permanent crops, such as almonds, apples, figs, olives, pistachios, and other orchards, as well as blueberry groves and vineyards, which are generally planted every 10 to 20-plus years and harvested annually.
The Company may also acquire property related to farming, such as cooling facilities, processing buildings, packaging facilities, and distribution centers. The Company pays monthly distributions to its stockholders and has paid 93 consecutive monthly cash distributions on its common stock since its initial public offering in January 2013. The Company has increased its common distributions 20 times over the prior 23 quarters, and the current per-share distribution on its common stock is $0.0449 per month, or $0.5388 per year.
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https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/LAND/profile?p=LAND
>>> Carbon Robotics Disrupts Farming Industry with Autonomous Weeders
Robots eliminate weeds with lasers to solve one of the farming industries’ biggest challenges
BusinessWire
April 13, 2021
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210413005415/en/Carbon-Robotics-Disrupts-Farming-Industry-with-Autonomous-Weeders
SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Carbon Robotics, an autonomous robotics company, today unveiled its third-generation autonomous weed elimination robots. The Autonomous Weeder leverages robotics, artificial intelligence (AI), and laser technology to safely and effectively drive through crop fields to identify, target and eliminate weeds.
“AI and deep learning technology are creating efficiencies across a variety of industries and we’re excited to apply it to agriculture”
Unlike other weeding technologies, the robots utilize high-power lasers to eradicate weeds through thermal energy, without disturbing the soil. The automated robots allow farmers to use less herbicides and reduce labor to remove unwanted plants while improving the reliability and predictability of costs, crop yield and more.
“AI and deep learning technology are creating efficiencies across a variety of industries and we’re excited to apply it to agriculture,” said Carbon Robotics CEO and Founder, Paul Mikesell. “Farmers, and others in the global food supply chain, are innovating now more than ever to keep the world fed. Our goal at Carbon Robotics is to create tools that address their most challenging problems, including weed management and elimination.”
By deploying robots created by Carbon Robotics, farmers will experience the following benefits:
A significant increase in crop yield and quality: Lasers leave the soil microbiology undisturbed, unlike tillage. The lack of herbicides and soil disruption paves the way for a regenerative approach, which leads to healthy crops and higher yields.
A reduction in overall costs: Automated robots enable farmers to reduce the highly variable cost of manual labor as well as reduce the use of crop inputs such as herbicides and fertilizers. Labor is often farmers’ biggest cost and crop inputs account for 28.2% of their total expenses. Reducing costs in both these areas is a huge benefit.
Adoption of regenerative farming practices: Traditional chemicals used by farmers, such as herbicides, deteriorate soil health and are tied to health problems in humans and other mammals. A laser-powered, autonomous weed management solution reduces or eliminates farmers’ needs for herbicides.
An economical path to organic farming: One of the largest obstacles to organic farming is cost-effective weed control. A solution to weed management that doesn’t require herbicides or an increase in manual labor provides farmers with a more realistic path to classifying their crops as organic.
Carbon Robotics’ groundbreaking technology is designed for row crops with 200 acres to tens of thousands of acres. A single robot will weed 15-20 acres per day and replace several deployments of hand weeding crews. Since its founding in 2018, the company has worked closely with farmers to develop its technology, which supports effective and efficient weed elimination for both conventional and organic farmers. The robots have undergone beta testing on specialty crops farms, working on fields with a variety of crops, including broccoli and onions.
“This is one of the most innovative and valuable technologies that I’ve seen as a farmer,” said James Johnson of Carzalia Farm, who has utilized Carbon Robotics’ technology on his farm. “I expect the robots to go mainstream because of how effectively they address some of farming’s most critical issues, including the overuse of chemicals, process efficiency and labor. These robots work with a variety of crops, are autonomous and organic. The sky’s the limit.”
Carbon Robotics’ 2021 models have already sold out, but new models for the 2022 growing season are available for pre-order. Carbon Robotics offers a leasing option, which makes the robots more accessible to smaller farms with less acreage. The company will continue to explore new robot models and capabilities to help farmers improve efficiency and reliability across a variety of tasks.
About Carbon Robotics
Carbon Robotics is pioneering the next revolution in agriculture through the deployment of autonomous robots. Carbon Robotics’ Autonomous Weeders are purpose built to tackle one of the industry’s biggest problems: weed control. By leveraging artificial intelligence, robotic controls, and laser technology, Carbon Robotics’ revolutionary, high-precision approach improves crop yield, provides safer working conditions for farmers, reduces overall costs associated with modern farming, and creates sustainable paths to regenerative and organic produce. Carbon Robotics was founded in 2018 and is based in Seattle. For more information, visit: https://carbonrobotics.com/.
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>>> The Grocery Price Shock Is Coming to a Store Near You
Bloomberg
by Agnieszka de Sousa and Sybilla Gross
April 24, 2021
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/grocery-price-shock-coming-store-040004484.html
(Bloomberg) -- Corn, wheat, soybeans, vegetable oils: A small handful of commodities form the backbone of much of the world’s diet and they’re dramatically more expensive, flashing alarm signals for global shopping budgets.
This week, the Bloomberg Agriculture Spot Index — which tracks key farm products — surged the most in almost nine years, driven by a rally in crop futures. With global food prices already at the highest since mid-2014, this latest jump is being closely watched because staple crops are a ubiquitous influence on grocery shelves — from bread and pizza dough to meat and even soda.
Soaring raw material prices have broad repercussions for households and businesses, and threaten a world economy trying to recover from the damage of the coronavirus pandemic. They help fuel food inflation, bringing more pain for families that are already grappling with financial pressure from the loss of jobs or incomes. For central banks, a spike in prices at a time of weak growth creates an unwelcome policy choice and could limit their ability to loosen policy.
“There seems to be sort of a bullish force behind the prices internationally,” Abdolreza Abbassian, senior economist at the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization, said in an interview. “The indications are that there is very little reason to believe prices would remain at these levels. It’s more likely they will rise further. Hardship is still ahead.”
Emerging markets, in some cases already under pressure from weaker currencies, are particularly vulnerable because food costs make up a larger share of their spending. For the poorest and often politically unstable countries, the surge in raw materials threatens to further stoke global hunger.
“The relentless rise in prices acts as a misery multiplier, driving millions deeper into hunger and desperation,” Chris Nikoi, the World Food Programme’s regional director for West Africa, said earlier this month. It’s “pushing a basic meal beyond the reach of millions of poor families who were already struggling to get by.”
The most recent crop spikes follow months of price gains fueled by booming import demand from China. Corn prices have doubled in the past year, while soybeans are up about 80% and wheat 30%. With China’s purchases continuing and a spate of adverse weather conditions threatening crops in Brazil and the U.S., there are few signs of respite. Analysts including those at Rabobank, Mintec and HSBC Global Research all see a risk of even higher prices as a result, though it will vary across markets.
The impact on grocery shelves can already be seen in surging tortilla prices in Mexico, beef in Brazil and retail palm oil in Myanmar. In the U.S., it’s more expensive bacon and other meat cuts.
“Generally people see this inflation continuing,” said Tosin Jack, an analyst at Mintec, which monitors commodity prices. “The trend will continue for some time and it will translate into consumer goods.”
The threat of food inflation is making governments nervous. Russia, one of the world’s top grain exporters, has ordered a freeze on some retail food prices while taking steps to curb shipments. Bolivia has temporarily banned exports of beef to safeguard supplies at home and put a lid on prices.
Overall, global food costs have surged for 10 straight months, the longest rally in more than a decade, according to a UN gauge. The surge is stirring memories of 2008 and 2011, when spikes led to food riots in more than 30 nations across Africa, Asia and the Middle East, and contributed to political strife and uprisings in the Arab Spring.
Even in rich nations, where food is a smaller percentage of overall consumer spending, changes to some bills could be coming. In Europe, for example, the time lag between rising commodity prices and higher shelf prices is typically six months, according to OC&C Strategy Consultants. Retailers and manufacturers often use various techniques to soften the blow for consumers, including cutting the depth of promotions or reducing the size of products while keeping prices unchanged.
“Once the big commodities, like wheat, sugar, bulk oils, start rising in price for a sustained period of time manufacturers have little choice but to pass those higher costs on,” said Will Hayllar, London-based managing partner at OC&C.
And commodities aren’t the only component in driving up the price of food. Higher freight costs and other supply-chain headaches as well as packaging can all add up. Food and beverage giants are already signaling they’re watching margins. Coca-Cola Co. has flagged higher costs in plastic and aluminum, as well as coffee and high-fructose corn syrup, the key ingredient in soda. Nestle SA, the world’s biggest food company, warned it won’t be able to hedge all of its commodity costs and it’s raising prices where appropriate.
“This is a very volatile environment right now, very low visibility, lots of surprise,” Nestle Chief Executive Mark Schneider said this week on a call with analysts. “We will take pricing action.”
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>>> Bill Gates is betting big on US farmland – should you stake your claim?
Justin Anderson
April 6, 2021
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bill-gates-betting-big-us-150000215.html
Bill Gates is betting big on US farmland – should you stake your claim?
Bill Gates is best known for revolutionizing personal computing, but lately he’s gotten back to the land.
The Microsoft co-founder and his wife, Melinda, are now the top owners of farmland in the country, with some 242,000 acres to their names.
That might seem like a somewhat primitive place for such a technical whiz to put his wealth. But then again, when the onetime richest man in the world makes a major investment, he should probably get the benefit of the doubt.
So what’s the appeal of farmland for a proven fortune builder like Bill Gates? And with investing easier than ever to do via mobile apps, how can you get in on this opportunity?
Read on and find out.
What's in it for Bill Gates?
The farmland market remains very fragmented, both in the U.S. and globally: Most farms are still family operations.
The Department of Agriculture estimates that institutional ownership of U.S. farmland is just 2.2%.
But since the 2008 financial crisis, a growing number of financial institutions and rich individuals have been buying up the asset.
Gates is known as a shrewd investor, and his growing stake in farmland also fits in nicely with his charitable foundation, which aims to improve food production in poorer countries, among other objectives.
Gates made a splash in 2017 when he bought $520 million worth of U.S. farmland from the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, and he’s continued to invest since.
When you consider U.S. farmland as an investment, it’s not hard to understand why.
Big returns from a booming business
Farmland is a proven source of higher returns than you get from more traditional portfolios.
Between 1991 and 2019, U.S. farmland delivered more than 11% in returns to its investors, according to research from FarmTogether, an investment platform that allows qualified investors to purchase stakes in U.S. farmland without buying a whole farm.
That’s better than traditional real estate, better than bonds and gold — it’s even better than the stock market, which over the same period grew by 9.6%.
Farmland investment combines the allure of stable income with gains from long-term productivity increases, as population growth and the subsequent demand for more and better food drive improvements in farming technology.
And it’s turning into a booming business: One study found that farm tech investment soared 370% to $4.7 billion from 2013 to 2019.
A rare opportunity
Because some 96% American farms are family-owned, and tend to be passed down from one generation to another, farmland has always been a difficult asset class for an investor to buy into.
But that’s changing right now.
Over the next 20 years, approximately 370 million acres of U.S. farmland will change hands, according to the American Farmland Trust.
That’s because a large proportion of the next generation evidently isn’t interested in taking up farming: Farmers over age 65 own 40% of the land and outnumber farmers below 35 by a factor of six to one.
So, as more farmers retire and sell or rent out their land, a profitable but difficult-to-acquire asset is hitting the market during a rare window.
All this may eventually prove that Gates has been a smart early investor once again.
How can you get in?
You can invest in farmland yourself and take advantage of this opportunity.
Technology makes it as simple as downloading an app and creating an account. Even if you’re not an accredited investor with the SEC, you can still get an idea of what’s available.
“As an asset class, there have been barriers of entry” for new investors, says FarmTogether’s David Perez, adding that part of his company’s roadmap is to open its offerings up to a wider swath of investors.
If all of this sounds good to you, what are you waiting for? If it’s good enough for Bill Gates, after all, it’ll probably do right by you too.
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>>> Aeroponics is the process of growing plants in an air or mist environment without the use of soil or an aggregate medium. The word "aeroponic" is derived from the Greek meanings of aer ("air") and ponos ("labour"). Aeroponic culture differs from both conventional hydroponics, aquaponics, and in-vitro (plant tissue culture) growing. Unlike hydroponics, which uses a liquid nutrient solution as a growing medium and essential minerals to sustain plant growth, or aquaponics, which uses water and fish waste, aeroponics is conducted without a growing medium. It is sometimes considered a type of hydroponics, since water is used in aeroponics to transmit nutrients.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeroponics#:~:text=Aeroponics%20is%20the%20process%20of,%CF%80%CF%8C%CE%BD%CE%BF%CF%82%2C%20%22labour%22).
>>> SenesTech Announces Successful Completion of a Long Term Agricultural Deployment of ContraPest®
Yahoo Finance
March 18, 2021
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/senestech-announces-successful-completion-long-201500275.html
PHOENIX, March 18, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- SenesTech, Inc. (NASDAQ: SNES), a developer of proprietary, next generation technologies for managing animal pest populations through fertility control, today announced the conclusion of agricultural deployments of ContraPest® with demonstrated, sustained success in reducing rat populations and improving operating economies in poultry settings.
SenesTech, Inc. has developed an innovative technology for managing animal pest populations through fertility control as opposed to a lethal approach. The Company's first fertility control product, ContraPest(R), is marketed for use initially in controlling rat infestations.
Rats in poultry facilities cause significant damage and can be hazardous to the health of flocks due to disease transmission, equipment impairment, pullet predation, loss of grain, and, in severe cases, may interrupt production. ContraPest was added to the existing integrated pest management plans at two poultry farming operations. At an egg production farm on the west coast, the rat populations were surveyed monthly using cameras for over a year to measure a reduction in rat activity throughout ContraPest treatment. On a second farm, a pullet house on the east coast, staff tracked consumption rates and economic impacts caused by rats before and after the introduction of ContraPest.
Results from both farms showed a substantial reduction in rats within six months of deployment and continued success as treatment progressed.
The west coast egg farm had a confirmed 90% decline in rat activity within 12 months of adding ContraPest.
The east coast pullet farm reported an 88% improvement in pullet survival after reducing their rat population with ContraPest. The savings projected by the customer of adding ContraPest to the their pest management plan were over $400,000 in increased revenue and decreased costs.
Overall, rodent control programs on both farms were significantly enhanced by the reduction in rat activity provided by ContraPest and the clear economic value generated.
Ken Siegel, CEO of SenesTech, commented, "While these results were from deployments at poultry facilities, the results are immediately applicable to many other agricultural situations. Anywhere there is high quality grain, there is the potential for rat infestations, and ContraPest is now proven in the field to reduce those infestations, reduce the negative economic impact, and improve overall food security."
About SenesTech
SenesTech is changing the model for pest management by targeting one of the root causes of the problem: reproduction.
ContraPest® is an innovative technology with an approach that targets the reproductive capabilities of both sexes in rat populations, inducing egg loss in female rats and impairing sperm development in males. Using a proprietary bait delivery method, ContraPest® is dispensed in a highly palatable liquid formulation that promotes sustained consumption by rat communities. ContraPest® is designed, formulated and dispensed to be low hazard for handlers and non-target species such as wildlife, livestock and pets, where the active ingredients break down rapidly.
We believe ContraPest® will establish a new paradigm in rodent control, resulting in a decreased reliance on lethal options. For more information visit the SenesTech website at www.senestech.com.
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>>> Agriculture ETFs: Sowing the Seeds of Investments
The Balance
BY MARK KENNEDY
January 07, 2021
https://www.thebalance.com/agriculture-etfs-sowing-the-seeds-of-investments-1214743
Out of all the different types of commodity ETFs, there’s no doubt that the energy (mainly oil) and precious metals (mainly gold) get all of the attention. But there are plenty of other commodity ETF opportunities in the investing world as well. One being agriculture ETFs.
Agriculture ETFs can be used to diversify or stabilize a portfolio, hedge risk to certain countries dependent on an agriculture commodity, or even create a new investing opportunity. They are also a little easier on the wallet when it comes to commissions and fees. Instead of building a manual portfolio, which can result in stockbroker fees or chasing and index basket, which drives up commissions, you can access a sector like agriculture with one easy transaction. And not only can ETF trading reduce costs, but they have a tax benefit as well, which can lead to less money for Uncle Sam and more money for your investments.
And there are two types of agriculture ETFs as well. You can invest in a broad agriculture fund or go for a specific commodity ETF that targets sugar, coffee, or grains, etc. The choice is yours.
So to set you on your way and help you seed your portfolio, here is a list of broad agriculture ETFs and commodity-specific funds related to the agriculture industry.
General Agriculture ETFs
DBA - Invesco DB Agriculture ETF
MOO - VanEck Vectors Agribusiness ETF
VEGI - iShares MSCI Global Agricultural Producers Fund
TAGS - Teucrium Agriculture ETF
BAL - iPath Series B Bloomberg Cotton SubIndex Total Return ETN
Coffee ETFs
JO - iPath Series B Bloomberg Coffee Subindex Total Return ETN
Cocoa ETFs
NIB - iPath Bloomberg Cocoa Subindex Total Return ETN
Grain and Wheat ETFs
GRU - ELEMENTS MLCX Grains Index Total Return ETN
JJG - iPath Series B Bloomberg Grains Subindex Total Return ETN
WEAT - Teucrium Wheat Fund
Corn ETFs
CORN - Teucrium Corn Fund
Sugar ETFs
SGG - iPath Series B Bloomberg Sugar Subindex Total Return ETN
CANE - Teucrium Sugar Fund
Soybean ETFs
SOYB - Teucrium Soybean Fund
Livestock ETFs
COW - iPath Series B Bloomberg Livestock Subindex Total Return ETN
Wood and Timber ETFs
CUT - Invesco MSCI Global Timber ETF
WOOD - iShares S&P Global Timber & Forestry Index ETF
Food ETFs
PBJ - Invesco Dynamic Food & Beverage ETF
As with any investment, mutual funds, a company stock, an ETF, Index or otherwise, make sure you thoroughly research this exchange-traded fund or any financial asset before making any trades (long or short). Conduct your due diligence, watch how these funds react to different market conditions, take a look under the hood and see what is actually in the funds. And if you have any questions or concerns, consult a stockbroker, a financial advisor, or another financial industry professional.
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>>> Hydroponics
From Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydroponics
Hydroponics[1] is a type of Horticulture and a subset of hydroculture, which is a method of growing plants without soil, by using mineral nutrient solutions in a water solvent.[2] Terrestrial plants may be grown with only their roots exposed to the nutritious liquid, or the roots may be physically supported by an inert medium such as perlite, gravel, or other substrates.[3] Despite inert media, roots can cause changes of the rhizosphere pH[4] and root exudates can affect the rhizosphere biology.[5]
The nutrients used in hydroponic systems can come from many of different sources, including (but not limited to) fish excrement, duck manure, purchased chemical fertilisers, or artificial nutrient solutions.[6]
Plants commonly grown hydroponically, on inert media, include tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, lettuces, marijuana, and model plants like Arabidopsis thaliana.[7]
Hydroponics offers many advantages, one of them being a decrease in water usage for agriculture. To grow 1 kilogram (2.2 lb) of tomatoes using intensive farming methods requires 400 liters (88 imp gal; 110 U.S. gal) of water;[citation needed] using hydroponics, 70 liters (15 imp gal; 18 U.S. gal); and only 20 liters (4.4 imp gal; 5.3 U.S. gal) using aeroponics.[8] Since it takes much less water to grow produce, it could be possible in the future for providers in harsh environments with little accessible water to grow their own food.[9]
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>>> Intelligent Growth Solutions Ltd (IGS), the Scottish-based indoor AgriTech and Commercial Lighting business, announced today a further raise of £1.6 million in the second and final close of its Series A funding.
https://www.intelligentgrowthsolutions.com/intelligent-growth-solutions-attracts-further-us-agritech-investment-to-scotland/
Intelligent Growth Solutions Ltd (IGS), the Scottish-based indoor AgriTech and Commercial Lighting business, announced today a further raise of £1.6 million in the second and final close of its Series A funding. The £1.5 million received from globally established agri-investor Ospraie Ag Science (OAS), coupled with an additional £100k from Agfunder, brings IGS’s total Series A fundraise to £7 million.
Ospraie Ag Science (New York City) joins existing Series A investors S2G Ventures (Chicago), the most active agri-foodtech investor globally in 2018; online venture capital firm AgFunder (San Francisco); and the Scottish Investment Bank in the investment round.
Ospraie brings 25 years of agriculture investing experience to IGS, and its investment in the company is its first step towards building a global platform in the indoor AgriTech market.
Dwight Anderson, Chief Investment Officer at Ospraie Ag Science commented: “IGS has tremendous potential to transform the way food is produced and supplied, and our investment – Ospraie’s first in the indoor agriculture market and in Scotland – is a testament to our strong belief in the success of IGS’ technology. The benefits of IGS’s Vertical Farming align well with our mission of helping farmers do more with less. We look forward to leveraging our significant agriculture network to help IGS grow its business to meet the market’s demand for sustainable solutions.”
This latest raise allows IGS to further expand its market presence through global sales operations for both AgriTech and Commercial Lighting. Demands for its systems are high with the first deployments expected in early 2020.
IGS Chief Executive Officer David Farquhar said: “The further investment of £1.6 million is a hugely exciting one, not only for our business, but also for the Scottish economy. Ospraie has chosen IGS as its initial investment target in the indoor agriculture market, and also as its first investment in Scotland, which is a substantial endorsement of our technology and approach to date. Working alongside our other investors in this Series A funding we are in a really strong position to take our offering to a global market and meet the demand that is growing almost daily.
“The pressures of climate change are real and clear and our technology and systems have the ability to play a part in addressing how we produce and supply food sustainably and productively all over the world. Our customers in the commercial property world are equally keen to adopt IOT-enabled smart lighting to create better indoor climates for their tenants and visitors alike.”
IGS has designed all its products to be highly pragmatic, flexible, modular and scalable in line with market expectations.
Sanjeev Krishnan, Managing Director of S2G Ventures said: “We are excited to partner again with Dwight and the Ospraie team. IGS will benefit greatly from the Ospraie insights, networks and entrepreneurial vision in building scaled businesses in the outdoor sector. Indoor Ag is set up to grow considerably and we are excited about IGS’ role in that effort.”
Michael Dean, founding partner at AgFunder commented: “We are delighted to see our friends at Ospraie join us as investors in IGS. We look forward to working with the Ospraie team to ensure that the game-changing IGS technology is rolled out to Controlled Environment Agriculture project developers globally.”
Kerry Sharp, Director, Scottish Investment Bank, said: “Intelligent Growth Solutions has made good progress recently. This latest investment is testament to the hard work and vision of the management team and will help the company as it takes its technology to the global marketplace. A company like IGS securing three international investors in Ospraie, S2G and AgFunder goes a long way to highlight the strength of opportunities available for Investors outside Scotland looking to invest in innovative Scottish companies. We look forward to continuing the journey with the company through our investment and our Scottish Enterprise account management service.”
The Scottish-led R&D team at IGS has developed, patented and productised a breakthrough, IoT-enabled power and communications platform consisting of patented electrical, electronic and mechanical technologies as well as the world’s most sophisticated ventilation system. All this is managed by a SaaS and data platform using AI to deliver economic and operational benefits to indoor environments across the globe.
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>>> Bowery Farming is growing crops in warehouses to create food like customized kale
CNBC
JUN 1 2018
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/24/bowery-farming-growing-crops-in-warehouses.html
Bowery Farming is using robotics and software to raise crops in warehouses outside of big cities.
Jose Andres, Carla Hall and David Barber are among the star chefs who have invested in Bowery’s indoor farming venture.
The U.N. projects that by 2050, food production will need to increase by about 60 percent to feed the growing global population.
This high-tech farm is 100 times more productive than a square foot of farmland
A start-up called Bowery Farming is putting an urban twist on agriculture, raising leafy greens and herbs in a high-tech warehouse a few miles outside of New York City, and celebrity chefs are starting to invest.
Using a mix of software, cameras, lights and robotics, Bowery can control precisely how plants grow. CEO and co-founder Irving Fain says chefs love the company’s systems because they allow Bowery to make customized ingredients for them, giving kale a softer leaf or arugula a more peppery taste, for example.
According to Fain, 1 square foot within one of these indoor farms is 100 times more productive than 1 square foot of arable land.
CNBC took a look inside of the company’s first farm in New Jersey with investor and celebrity chef Carla Hall, who is the Emmy-winning co-host of “The Chew” on ABC. “I visited the farm and tasted the food,” she said. “It moved from a concept and an idea that is sustainable to deliciousness.”
Today, the company grows and sells its own brand of baby kale, butterhead lettuce, arugula, mixed kales and basil. Some are available in and around New York including at Whole Foods markets, and restaurants Craft and Temple. Both are run by Tom Colicchio, also an investor.
Fain thinks of Bowery’s food as “post-organic.”
“We grow with no pesticides, herbicides or insecticides, no agrochemicals at all,” he said. “And we’re able to grow 365 days a year, independent of weather.”
Bowery isn’t alone in its mission to feed the world without using as much water, energy or chemicals, to raise crops. Other indoor farming innovators like Plenty, AeroFarms and Freight Farms have also attracted venture capital.
Especially because the planet has lost a third of its arable land in the past 40 years, Fain said he welcomes all players in sustainable agriculture. The U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization projects that by 2050, food production will need to increase by about 60 percent to feed the growing global population.
Bowery has raised $27.5 million in venture funding to build its indoor farms across the U.S. and to sell produce grown there to select restaurants and groceries.
Investors in Bowery include Alphabet’s venture arm GV, General Catalyst, GGV and First Round Capital. But the company more recently attracted funding from a long list of culinary icons including Hall, Colicchio and Jose Andres.
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>>> Pricey Greens From Indoor Farms Are Thriving in the Covid Era
“Novel farming,” which turns out lucrative lettuces and herbs, isn’t hurt by shortages of water or migrant workers. It’s seeing a massive jump in demand.
Bloomberg
By June 19, 2020
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-06-19/novel-farming-sees-massive-jump-in-demand-amid-coronavirus?srnd=premium
By Saturday, March 14, even before Mayor Bill de Blasio announced the shutdown of all in-restaurant dining in New York City the next night, Viraj Puri, chief executive officer of the Brooklyn, N.Y.-based indoor urban farming company Gotham Greens, found his business had essentially changed overnight.
His major restaurant customers were suspending all orders “until further notice,” while the grocers, including Whole Foods Market, FreshDirect, and other major chains were doing the opposite, asking for huge increases in product and extra deliveries of the company’s locally grown greens and herbs. (Puri declined to share the food service-retail split for his business, but he says restaurants are the smaller piece.) “My phone was buzzing off the hook from the largest supermarkets, saying can you run extra trucks,” he says. Gotham was ready—it had just opened three facilities in Baltimore, Chicago, and Providence and had another opening in Denver in May, almost tripling its production capacity. In the immediate days after the pandemic declaration, the company increased planting by more than 20%. “For me, it’s seed as much as you can,” says Jenn Frymark, a managing partner who also serves as the company’s “chief greenhouse officer.”
Unlike typical field operations, with separate planting and harvesting seasons, Gotham Greens runs continual, year-round seasons in its hydroponic, urban greenhouses, often built on the sites of now defunct industrial businesses, including a former Bethlehem Steel Corp. plant in Baltimore and an old toy factory in Queens, N.Y. It focuses on such greens as butterhead lettuce, basil, and, especially since the many food-borne illness outbreaks that have come out of West Coast production, romaine lettuce. Packaged in chic 4.5-ounce plastic clamshells, the salad basics can go for more than twice the price of their direct competitors, which explains why Puri is so singularly focused on the greens market, at least for now.
His greenhouses are huge technological steps forward from their forebears. Engineers can adjust factors such as humidity and temperature to simulate the ideal conditions for any part of the growing cycle at any time. They are, Puri says, “very coddled plants.” The company says that thanks to such factors as shorter growing cycles and precisely applied recirculating irrigation, its yields are 35 times higher per acre than those of a conventional farm—and use about 95% less water.
When major farms around the country saw their food service business disappear almost overnight, many were left dumping produce and plowing it under while it was still in the fields. Puri says that Gotham, while it did donate some product that would have headed to food service, didn’t dump anything. Some of its customers, such as restaurant distributor Baldor Specialty Foods Inc. and lunch chain Just Salad, kept buying product but sold it retail.
Gotham is hardly alone in its quest to retool American agriculture to be closer to consumers, more high-tech, and less reliant on the dwindling resources that are making conventional farming ever more challenging, such as water and migrant labor. While a number of its competitors have folded in the face of such challenges as scaling up and using new technology while selling expensive products, Gotham is expanding its reach to new regions. Overall, the “novel farming” industry, which can include everything from giant vertical farms near cities to distributed farms that grow produce right in supermarket aisles, raised $945 million in 2019, a 46% jump from 2018, according to agricultural researcher and investor AgFunder Inc.
Even with the growth of indoor farming, 90%-plus of leafy greens and vegetables still come from California, says Roland Fumasi, a senior analyst specializing in fruit, vegetables, and floriculture at Rabobank, and the epidemic has highlighted the potential disruptions of a very long supply chain. In March the shock spread to cold storage, trucking, and other parts of the normal way of doing food business, giving companies such as Gotham, with significantly fewer miles in its supply chain, a big advantage.
Meanwhile, other indoor growers are expanding beyond the lucrative basils and lettuces. Hamilton, Ohio-based 80 Acres Farms is growing tomatoes in its multilevel vertical farms. New York-based Bowery Farming Inc., which says it’s more than 100 times more productive than typical field agriculture, has grown kohlrabi, tubers, and vine crops, though not commercially. Both companies say the pandemic led to massive jumps in demand for their products at retail. For Gotham, that’s meant an increase in revenue of more than 50% since March. Edinburgh’s Intelligent Growth Solutions Ltd., which builds and sells highly automated vertical farm towers and stations to operators, produces equipment that can grow root crops, such as carrots, turnips, radishes, potatoes, and spring onions, as well as leafy greens. Inquiries have “at least doubled” since the beginning of the pandemic, says CEODavid Farquhar, and they’re coming from all over the world.
Conventional field operations, however, aren’t about to disappear; they’ll remain the primary source of fruits and vegetables for a long time, and in the U.S., much of that produce will come from California most of the year. They’ll continue to face the same problems that have only grown worse, too little water and too little labor, says Dave Puglia, president and CEO of Western Growers. “The challenges facing our members pre-Covid are well known because we’ve been calling for help a long time,” he says.
When it comes to labor, the coronavirus only exacerbated an existing problem. Traditional field agriculture requires humans, often close together, picking and packing the produce. While machines have been in development to replace humans for years, so far they have yet to imitate the precision and delicacy of a human touch. It’s meant Covid-19 outbreaks hitting farms in New Jersey, Tennessee, and Washington just as the peak harvest season is getting under way. The industry is doing everything it can to protect its workers in the short term, says Puglia, including more education and forced distancing. (This protects more than workers; it protects yields, and therefore bottom lines.) Still, some farmers are better equipped than others for the kind of changes required to maintain a healthy workforce.
Talley Farms in Arroyo Grande, Calif., cultivates 1,600 crop acres to grow vegetables such as cabbage, spinach, and peppers. Its workers, 275 at the height of the season, often come through the government’s H-2A visa program and therefore, under the program’s requirements, live in farm-provided housing. Housing represents the biggest challenge for preventing the spread of a deadly virus, but co-owner Ryan Talley, who runs the farm his family started in 1948 and expanded in the following decades to not only grow but also pack and ship its vegetables, says his farm is unusually well prepared. That’s because workers live mostly in actual homes, including ones that were on the farm when he purchased the land and those they’ve subsequently built, instead of the bunker-style dormitories that are common for H-2A workers. Each house has a few bedrooms, each of which holds a few people, and they’re cleaned daily before workers come home from the field.
In the field, instead of having pickers shoulder to shoulder tossing cilantro and cabbage into a “harvesting aid” that is attached to a communal tractor for others to pack them, workers are now spread out and doing their own packing. None of the actual picking is mechanized, though Talley and others recognize that’s where the industry is headed: fewer people, more machines.
“Our industry is so hand-labor-intensive that with minimum wage going up and overtime hours here in California, the workday is shrinking,” Talley says, referring to the more worker-friendly laws that are increasing hourly wages and overtime pay requirements. “Mechanization, that’s the future.”
Investors agree with that prediction: Farm robotics, mechanization, and equipment companies raised $184 million from venture capitalists in 2019, a 38% increase from the year before, according to AgFunder. “Over the long haul, hopefully, we will have transitioned more workers to higher-pay jobs operating machinery and further reduce the risk of transmission,” Puglia says. That means fewer workers total, and even fewer that come in under visas or without documentation at all.
Talley Farms was largely spared the worst of the Covid-19 financial blows, since food service accounts for only about 10% to 15% of the business. A Talley direct-to-consumer farm box program that delivers freshly harvested local produce exploded, as did those at many other farms across the country, when consumers were forced to stay home and do their own cooking, and many wanted to avoid the masses at supermarkets. But the shift from one kind of customer to another didn’t happen without casualties. “We had to dump a little bit,” Talley says, including about 2,000 cartons of napa cabbage, weighing 60 pounds each. The logistics of perishable foods means that big changes can be costly.
Talley doesn’t expect to be able to afford one of the mechanical pickers, whenever one successfully comes to market for a crop he grows. Most likely farmers like him will be renters of the machinery, not owners, says Rabobank’s Fumasi. “Harvest as a service,” he says, “that’s always made the most sense.”
At novel farming operations, much of the work is already done by machines, and what isn’t might be soon enough. Employees also don’t live together and are unlikely to be migrant workers—they’re frequently city dwellers who work their jobs year-round. Finding them can still be a problem, as those with the required training remain in short supply. But Covid has highlighted these systems’ resilience.
Startup costs for indoor farming operations can be very high, as are electricity bills, depending on the energy source, and supermarket prices often reflect that. Yet the benefits of longer shelf life, lower water use, and fewer (if any) pesticides and food-borne bacteria will continue to make these models attractive. That won’t be true of everything in the produce section. “To make the economics work, it has to be in high-value crops, like herbs, specialty greens, and berries,” Fumasi says.
The companies best positioned to succeed, he continues, are those that focus on regional distribution models, instead of hyperlocal, which can leave a producer in the lurch if, say, extreme weather closes everything within the city limits. Gotham’s model is regional and extending farther westward with its new Denver outpost, while other newer farms are still extremely local.
But for countries where access to a local food supply is challenged, such as the tiny island of Singapore or the deserts in the Middle East, governments are increasingly funding the ventures, says Henry Gordon-Smith, founder and managing director of Agritecture Consulting, a novel farming consultancy. “These countries,” he says, “are saying Covid has shown us how fragile our food supply is.”
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ScottsMiracle-Gro Announces Second Quarter Results Driven by Strong Growth in Both Major Reporting Segments
Sales guidance increased for Hawthorne; 2020 adjusted EPS guidance re-affirmed
Hawthorne sales rise 60% driven by continued demand for indoor growing products
May 6, 2020
https://scottsmiraclegro.gcs-web.com/news-releases/news-release-details/scottsmiracle-gro-announces-second-quarter-results-driven-strong
U.S. Consumer sales increase 11% with strong growth in consumer purchases
GAAP EPS: $4.43 versus $7.10; Non-GAAP adjusted EPS of $4.50 versus $3.64
MARYSVILLE, Ohio, May 06, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company (NYSE: SMG), the world’s leading marketer of branded consumer lawn and garden as well as indoor and hydroponic growing products, today announced company-wide sales increased 16 percent in its fiscal second quarter driven by strong volume growth in both major business segments.
For the quarter ended March 28, 2020, GAAP earnings from continuing operations were $4.43 per share compared with $7.10 per share in the prior year. Prior year GAAP results were driven by the divestiture of the Company’s minority interest in TruGreen. Non-GAAP adjusted earnings – which are the basis of the Company’s financial guidance – were $4.50 per share compared with $3.64 a year ago.
On a year-to-date basis through May 3, 2020, consumer purchases of the Company’s core lawn and garden products at its largest four retailers in the U.S. increased 8 percent from the same period a year ago driven primarily by strong growth in gardening and insect control products. Entering April, year-to-date POS at those retailers was up 14 percent driven by an increase of more than 20 percent during the second quarter.
“Consumers and retailers have remained engaged in the lawn and garden category and supportive of our brands despite the challenges of the COVID-19 crisis,” said Jim Hagedorn, chairman and chief executive officer. “During April, in the face of difficult year-over-year comparisons and shelter-in-place orders in much of the United States, consumer purchases remained strong. In fact, for the week ending May 3, we recorded our strongest seven-day period in company history with consumer purchases of more than $190 million at our largest four retail partners. All of this allows us to remain confident in our full-year growth outlook for the U.S. Consumer segment.
“At Hawthorne, we continue to see gains in all product categories and we continue to significantly outperform the competition. Even in the face of extremely difficult comparisons over the past two months, we are continuing to see strong year-over-year increases, giving us confidence that sales for the segment will increase approximately 30 to 35 percent for the full year, compared to our original sales guidance of 12 to 15 percent growth.”
Second quarter details
For the fiscal second quarter, the Company reported sales of $1.38 billion, up 16 percent from $1.19 billion a year earlier. U.S. Consumer segment sales increased 11 percent to $1.10 billion. Sales for the Hawthorne segment increased 60 percent to $230.0 million.
The company-wide gross margin rate was 39.8 percent on a GAAP basis and 40.0 percent on a non-GAAP adjusted basis compared with a rate of 39.7 percent and 39.8 percent respectively a year ago. The quarter benefited from the timing of $20 million of higher Roundup commission, related to the Company’s role as marketing agent and consistent with changes in the revised agency agreement signed with Bayer in 2019. Separately, in the third quarter of 2019, the Company received a $20 million reimbursement from Bayer. Therefore, the full year Roundup income and its impact on the gross margin rate are expected to be consistent across both years.
The impact of the commission increase, as well as benefits from pricing and volume, were offset by negative product mix driven primarily by the strong growth of Hawthorne, which has lower overall margins. Selling, general and administrative expenses (SG&A) increased 9 percent to $195.6 million due to higher selling and marketing expenses and higher accruals related to variable compensation.
Other non-operating income was $2.8 million compared with $260.1 million a year earlier that was due primarily to a pre-tax gain of $259.8 million related to the Company’s divestiture of its minority ownership of TruGreen.
On a company-wide basis, GAAP income from continuing operations was $249.8 million, or $4.43 per diluted share, compared with $396.9 million, or $7.10 per share, for the second quarter of fiscal 2019. These results include impairment, restructuring, and other items. Excluding these items, non-GAAP adjusted earnings was $253.8 million, or $4.50 per diluted share, compared with $203.2 million, or $3.64 per share, last year. The higher Roundup commission contributed approximately $0.25 per share during the quarter.
“During the quarter, we also recognized approximately $4 million in expenses related to COVID-19 that we have excluded from our adjusted earnings calculation,” said Randy Coleman, chief financial officer. “These costs include premium pay adjustments that were given to our front-line associates who work in the sales force, as well as our manufacturing and distribution facilities. While the management team has been working remotely throughout the crisis, these associates – roughly 70 percent of our workforce – continued to work in stores and facilities across the globe. We believe the pay adjustments they are receiving appropriately recognize the sacrifice they are making during this critical period. On a full-year basis, we expect to record $30 to $35 million of one-time costs that we will exclude from adjusted earnings as they are not expected to repeat in future years.”
Year-to-date details
For the first six months of fiscal 2020, the Company reported sales of $1.75 billion, up 18 percent from $1.49 billion a year earlier. U.S. Consumer segment sales increased 11 percent to $1.25 billion. Sales for the Hawthorne segment increased 51 percent to $428.8 million.
The company-wide gross margin rate was 34.6 percent on a GAAP basis and 34.8 percent on a non-GAAP adjusted basis compared with a rate of 34.1 percent and 34.3 percent respectively a year ago. Selling, general and administrative expense (SG&A) increased 7 percent to $315.4 million.
Other non-operating income was $5.4 million compared with $262.9 million a year earlier.
On a company-wide basis, GAAP income from continuing operations was $178.5 million, or $3.15 per share, compared with $314.3 million, or $5.62 per share, for the first six months of fiscal 2019. Excluding impairment, restructuring, and other items, non-GAAP adjusted earnings was $191.4 million, or $3.38 per share, compared with $126.2 million, or $2.26 per share, last year.
Full-year outlook
The Company now expects for Hawthorne sales to increase 30 to 35 percent for fiscal 2020 and it re-affirmed a sales outlook for the U.S. Consumer segment of 1 to 3 percent growth. As a result, the Company now expects company-wide sales growth in a range of 6 to 8 percent for the full year. All other aspects of its fiscal 2020 guidance were re-affirmed although management acknowledged the strong start in both the U.S. Consumer and Hawthorne segments increases the possibility that full-year adjusted earnings could exceed its original forecast.
“We have a high degree of confidence in our guidance for non-GAAP adjusted earnings in a range of $4.95 to $5.15 per share,” Coleman said. “While year-over-year comparisons for our U.S. Consumer segment are relatively modest for the balance of the year, more than half of consumer purchases occur between now and our fiscal year-end. There are simply too many unknown factors regarding consumer and retailer engagement right now to justify changing our bottom-line outlook. We currently anticipate providing the financial community with an updated outlook on fiscal 2020 in early June, consistent with how we’ve operated in the past.”
Conference Call and Webcast Scheduled for 9 a.m. EDT Today, May 6
The Company will discuss results during a webcast and conference call today at 9:00 a.m. EDT. To participate in the conference call, please call 1-800-263-0877 (Conference Code: 7872492). A replay of the call can be heard by calling 1-888-203-1112. The replay will be available for 30 days. A live webcast of the call and the press release will be available on the Company’s investor relations website at http://investor.scotts.com. An archive of the press release and any accompanying information will remain available for at least a 12-month period.
About ScottsMiracle-Gro
With approximately $3.2 billion in sales, the Company is one of the world's largest marketers of branded consumer products for lawn and garden care. The Company's brands are among the most recognized in the industry. The Company's Scotts®, Miracle-Gro® and Ortho® brands are market-leading in their categories. The Company’s wholly-owned subsidiary, The Hawthorne Gardening Company, is a leading provider of nutrients, lighting and other materials used in the indoor and hydroponic growing segment. For additional information, visit us at www.scottsmiraclegro.com.
Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements
Statements contained in this press release, other than statements of historical fact, which address activities, events and developments that the Company expects or anticipates will or may occur in the future, including, but not limited to, information regarding the future economic performance and financial condition of the Company, the plans and objectives of the Company’s management, and the Company’s assumptions regarding such performance and plans are “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the U.S. federal securities laws that are subject to risks and uncertainties. These forward-looking statements generally can be identified as statements that include phrases such as “guidance,” “outlook,” “projected,” “believe,” “target,” “predict,” “estimate,” “forecast,” “strategy,” “may,” “goal,” “expect,” “anticipate,” “intend,” “plan,” “foresee,” “likely,” “will,” “should” or other similar words or phrases. Actual results could differ materially from the forward-looking information in this release due to a variety of factors, including, but not limited to:
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic could have a material adverse effect on the Company’s business, results of operation, financial condition and/or cash flows;
Compliance with environmental and other public health regulations or changes in such regulations or regulatory enforcement priorities could increase the Company’s costs of doing business or limit the Company’s ability to market all of its products;
Damage to the Company’s reputation or the reputation of its products or products it markets on behalf of third parties could have an adverse effect on its business;
The highly competitive nature of the Company’s markets could adversely affect its ability to maintain or grow revenues;
If the Company is unable to effectively execute its e-commerce business, its reputation and operating results may be harmed;
Because of the concentration of the Company’s sales to a small number of retail customers, the loss of one or more of, or significant reduction in orders from, its top customers could adversely affect the Company’s financial results;
Climate change and unfavorable weather conditions could adversely impact financial results;
Certain of the Company’s products may be purchased for use in new or emerging industries or segments and/or be subject to varying, inconsistent, and rapidly changing laws, regulations, administrative practices, enforcement approaches, judicial interpretations and consumer perceptions;
The Company’s operations may be impaired if its information technology systems fail to perform adequately or if it is the subject of a data breach or cyber-attack;
The Company may not be able to adequately protect its intellectual property and other proprietary rights that are material to the Company’s business;
In the event the Third Restated Marketing Agreement for consumer Roundup products terminates, or Monsanto’s consumer Roundup business materially declines the Company would lose a substantial source of future earnings and overhead expense absorption;
Hagedorn Partnership, L.P. beneficially owns approximately 26% of the Company’s common shares and can significantly influence decisions that require the approval of shareholders;
Acquisitions, other strategic alliances and investments could result in operating difficulties, dilution and other harmful consequences that may adversely impact the Company’s business and results of operations.
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>>> The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company (SMG) manufactures, markets, and sells consumer lawn and garden products in the United States and internationally. The company operates through three segments: U.S. Consumer, Hawthorne, and Other. It offers lawn care products, such as lawn fertilizers, grass seed products, spreaders, other durable products, and outdoor cleaners, as well as lawn-related weed, pest, and disease control products. The company also provides gardening and landscape products, including water-soluble and continuous-release plant foods, potting mixes and garden soils, mulch and decorative groundcover products, plant-related pest and disease control products, organic garden products, and lives goods and seeding solutions. In addition, it offers hydroponic products that help users grow plants, flowers, and vegetables in an indoor or urban environment; and insect control products, rodent control products, and weed control products for home areas. The company offers its products under the Scotts, Turf Builder, EZ Seed, PatchMaster, Thick'R Lawn, GrubEx, EdgeGuard, Handy Green II, Scotts OxiCleanTM3, Miracle-Gro, LiquaFeed, Osmocote, Shake ?N Feed, Hyponex, Earthgro, SuperSoil, Fafard, Nature Scapes, Ortho, Miracle-Gro Organic Choice, Nature's Care, Whitney Farms, EcoScraps, Gro-ables, Hydroponics, Gavita, Botanicare, Vermicrop, Agrolux, Can-Filters, Sun System, Gro Pro, Mother Earth, Hurricane, Grower's Edge, AeroGarden, Ortho Weed B Gon, Tomcat, Roundup, and Groundclear brands. It serves home centers, mass merchandisers, warehouse clubs, large hardware chains, independent hardware stores, nurseries, garden centers, e-commerce platforms, food and drug stores, and indoor gardening and hydroponic distributors and retailers through a direct sales force, and network of brokers and distributors. The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company was founded in 1868 and is headquartered in Marysville, Ohio.
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>>> The U.S.-Iran Pistachio War Is Heating Up
As Tehran’s production falters, the nation of Georgia may become a player in the fight.
Bloomberg
February 21, 2020
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-02-21/the-u-s-iran-pistachio-war-is-heating-up?srnd=premium
Forty years of vicious geopolitical competition between the U.S. and Iran came close to open war in January, and it’s still too soon to call a winner—except in one field. American farmers have deposed Iran as king of the global pistachio industry, benefiting from U.S. policies hostile to Tehran, climate change, and egregious failures of economic and water management that have sucked the Islamic Republic’s lakes and aquifers dry. The country is unlikely ever to recover its pistachio crown, spawning a race among other producers to grow the nut and fill the gap created by its defeat. In the reductionist language of President Trump, Iran lost big.
That’s more shocking than it sounds. Persia enjoyed a virtual monopoly on cultivating the hardy yet demanding pistachio tree for at least 1,000 years. Exports followed in the footsteps of Islam’s conquering armies from the seventh century on. Giving pistachio farmers more access to land and water was a core offer of the 1979 revolution, and the country’s new ruling class—in particular the family of former President Hashemi Rafsanjani—saw the hard currency potential. The country devoted ever more land to growing the fatty green nut and replaced the ancient Qanat system of subsoil canals that fed the crop with higher-volume water pumps. Harvests boomed, even through the chaos of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.
Yet the U.S., which started to produce pistachios only in 1976, has now overtaken Iran as the world’s leading producer. Catching up took a while, and picking the one moment of victory is hard, as pistachio harvests can be volatile, alternating between fat and lean years. But from 2004 to 2009, the Islamic Republic still accounted for 40% of global production on average, followed by the U.S. at 33%. By 2014-19, those positions were reversed: 47% of the global total came from the U.S., and 27% from Iran. A catastrophic 2018-19 season briefly pulled Iran’s share as low as 7%.
That collapse had a big impact within Iran, where pistachio nuts aren’t just a $1 billion-plus export earner but a key ingredient in the national cuisine, an accessible luxury, and a point of national pride. The dearth of harvests has led to a kind of despair. “Be mindful when having pistachios at a party,” goes a popular joke that’s been making the rounds in Tehran. “The host will be keeping track of every single one guests eat.” Entire pistachio groves have bleached and died for lack of water as overtaxed wells dry out. Sinkholes have opened as soil collapses into the fallen water table.
Outside Iran, pistachio farmers are hunting for virgin territories to fill a global shortage the International Nut & Dried Fruit Council, a Spain-based trade association, estimates at 10% to 15% of demand. “There is quite an interest in new countries, like Georgia, Uzbekistan, and Azerbaijan, where we are also doing a project,” says Pino Calcagni, the council’s vice chairman and chief executive officer of Besana Group, a nut-trading company based in Italy. Spain, China, and Australia—at least until the recent fires—have all been expanding production, too. Besana Group is developing new suppliers in Kazakhstan, Romania, and Ukraine.
Afzal Ravari, a Dubai-based businessman who made his money selling forensics gear to Gulf police forces, is among the pioneers. For the last six years he’s been living a hermitlike existence in Georgia amid ethnic Azerbaijani sheep herders as he plants pistachio trees. He looked at Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan first, before settling on Georgia for its looser business climate, 100,000 hectares (247,000 acres) of suitable land, and rivers that flow from the Caucasus Mountains, snow-capped peaks higher than the Alps or Rockies. Do the math, Ravari says. With yields as high as 5 metric tons per hectare in the U.S. last year, and a wholesale price of about $9 per kilo, that’s a potential $4.5 billion pistachio nut export business for Georgia in good times, if it were to devote all that land to what Iranians call “green gold.”
It’s been hard going, though. Ravari first had to dig a vast ditch and an earth rampart around his 2,600-hectare farm, to keep out sheep, cattle, and wild pigs. Locals who took umbrage at a foreigner buying so much land poured sugar into the gas tank of the fire truck he brought over from Dubai. The government helped him secure public lands that would have split his holding, but a promised 17-kilometer-long road to bring in labor never got built. On a recent visit, tens of thousands of pistachio seedlings were dying in their pots, because Ravari lacked the means to plant and tend them.
Still, “God created only two paradises, California and Georgia,” Ravari says as he tours his immaculate vineyards and pistachio plantations at the wheel of a Toyota Land Cruiser. And things have been looking up since December. The state grid finally connected the $200,000 electrical infrastructure he built for the farm. The government agreed to partially fund construction of vast greenhouses on 20 hectares of his land to raise pistachio and other nut tree seedlings for sale across Georgia and the wider region. Italy’s Vivai Piante Battistini Societa’ Agricola S.S. is in talks to stock the nurseries, says Giuliano Drodi, the company’s director general. “We have almost 800-year-old trees in protected areas not far from the Aric farm, which are wild pistachios,” Georgia’s Agriculture Minister Levan Davitashvili says, referring to Ravari’s company, Aric Group. The country hopes to take advantage of its natural growing environment for the nut, as well as its property rights, which are stronger than elsewhere in the region, to develop a new export industry, he said.
Geopolitics offer one explanation for Iran’s relative decline. The biggest California pistachio farms are multibillion-dollar enterprises that lobby powerfully for restrictions on their chief competitor. Since 1979 the U.S. has switched from banning imports of Iranian pistachios outright to imposing punitive import duties of just over 241% and back again to banning them. The duties and bans have accompanied broader economic sanctions that restricted the financing available to Iran for investment, whether in agriculture or oil and gas.
After a brief respite that followed the signing of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, sanctions reimposed by the Trump administration tanked the Iranian economy and caused a massive devaluation of the Iranian rial. That, in turn, stoked inflation to the point that domestic demand collapsed. Exporters also got hit. Sanctions made insuring Iranian cargoes more expensive, while the government decreed that all sales made in foreign currencies should be done via the central bank, which takes a percentage.
Climate change played an even bigger role. In the Nutsellers’ Hall of Tehran’s Grand Bazaar, a prominent pistachio trader who gives his name only as Mahdi says the recent collapse in production largely resulted from four consecutive years of drought. Output is recovering after heavy rains, he says, but the crop is substandard and the future clouded. “Winters are not cold enough for pistachio crops, and summers are too hot,” says Mohammed Salehi, chairman of the board of the Iranian Pistachio Association. “There’s not much we can do about it.”
For sure, growing pistachios is a tricky business. The trees need hot summers for their nuts to fully grow and ripen, and cool winters so the trees can fall dormant and rest—1,000 hours per year at 7C (about 45F) or below, according to one study by California agricultural scientists. If the winter is too warm, the crop suffers in the spring. Then there’s the pollen. Because it’s carried on the wind, rather than by insects, pistachio trees have to be planted in blocks, with a single male at the center of as many as 25 females. Plus, new trees are slow to get established and can require a good bit of botanical engineering.
Ravari estimates he’s spent over 1 million Georgian lari ($350,000) so far on an outdoor laboratory where he grafts species together by slashing roots and jamming branches into the wounds to grow. Pointing to a tree with markedly different leaves on either side, he proudly says it combines Californian and Iranian strains on a Georgian root. It took California’s pistachio pioneers close to 30 years of experimentation to create a plant—named the Kerman, after the dominant pistachio province in Iran—ideally suited to conditions in the state.
The Iranian industry’s biggest problems are homegrown, according to Kaveh Madani, who briefly served as deputy minister for the environment from 2017 to 2018, before being driven out by conservatives in the regime who took exception to his ideas. About 90% of Iran’s water consumption goes to agriculture, with 52% of that drawn from wells that rely on declining rainfall for replenishment. As a result, the country of 83 million is second only to 1.4 billion-strong India in terms of depleting groundwater for agriculture and industry. It’s hard to see a way back without a massive change in policy approach.
High crop yields require investment in modern drip-feed irrigation systems, efficient water management, and good governance—a rare combination anywhere, let alone in the Middle East. And though far from a thirsty crop relative to their value, pistachios do require water—11,363 cubic meters per ton of nuts, according to one study. That’s more than four times as much as a ton of wheat, maize, or rice.
Even in California, the sale of groundwater rights to the state’s biggest farms has raised questions of fairness and sustainability, while climate change is warming the cool foggy winters that made the state perfect for pistachios. The U.S. industry has proved more resilient to climate challenges; American farms have invested more, and their water supply—for now at least—is more certain. Relentless breeding of stronger rootstocks means U.S. pistachio saplings can grow to fruition in 4 years, rather than 7 to 10. Add to that improvements in irrigation and other technologies, and average U.S. yields have tripled to more than 3.5 metric tons of in-shell pistachio nuts per hectare, from just over 1 ton in 1980, according to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization. Iranian yields started in about the same place but never improved.
A plan to build a canal to Kerman, similar to one that brings water from the Sacramento River to the farms of Central California, never materialized. Even if it had, it’s likely that no canal could solve Iran’s problems, which are mainly about governance: More water would encourage the cultivation of more land, more production, and more strain on the water supply. The bigger problem, according to Madani, who now teaches at Yale’s MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies, has been the persistent failure to enforce regulations designed to protect the aquifers that feed Kerman’s pistachio groves. Shutting down the more than 400,000 unlicensed wells that farmers have drilled is politically unpalatable. Rather than penalize illegal drilling, the government has issued two blanket amnesties for unlicensed wells. Still, Madani says, “you could argue that for a system capable of attacking an American air base with its home-produced missiles after decades of sanctions, managing water and developing irrigation systems should be a piece of cake.”
Ravari knows these hurdles better than most. In the prospectus for his Georgian farm, Vinichio Valley, he includes satellite photos comparing it to the region around Lake Urmia in northwestern Iran in 1984 and 2014. Once the largest lake in the Middle East, Urmia is now a tenth of its former size. The hydraulic picture symbolizes a wider crisis for Iran that Environment Minister Isa Kalantari once described as a greater threat to the Islamic Republic than either Israel or the U.S.
Ravari, who says he was “born under a pistachio tree” in Kerman province, was among the leftist revolutionaries who fought the Shah’s regime before 1979 and then emigrated as they were pushed aside by the new Islamist regime. In 2003 he was invited back to produce a report on developing Iran’s rural areas. The 13-volume study took three years to write, according to Ravari, the last of which he spent living among poor ethnic Turkmen wheat farmers, in a pilot project to test the proposals the study came up with. The pilot succeeded, dramatically raising yields, Ravari says. But like Madani, his ideas struck resistance and he was put on a plane out of the country.
Asked where he’d go next if Georgia doesn’t work out, Ravari says: “Australia!’’
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