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An Airbnb for farmland hits a snag, as farmers raise data privacy concerns
21–30 of 111 posts
Re: An Airbnb for farmland hits a snag, as farmers raise data privacy concerns
#22This is the first I've heard of Tillable. As described, it's not really AirBnB for farmland, it's a growing-rights exchange. The counterparty risk for landowners is substantial if it isn't mitigated somehow. A long-term relationship with the land is essential to keeping it healthy. The relationships between farmers and landowners often span generations -- that makes them ripe for disruption, but the many practices th…
As somebody who manages some family land, I wholeheartedly agree. Going back to 1830, there are only three other families we have trusted to lease our land. Some generations we lease their land. Other generations they lease ours. I’ve seen a cousin’s land destroyed for years by outside farmers. I know I could make some good money by leasing to an outsider for a few seasons, but they will use and abandon it, and it will take several seasons to recover. What’s the point in that?
Re: An Airbnb for farmland hits a snag, as farmers raise data privacy concerns
#23There is actually more to this than is visible on the surface. And I can’t talk about some of it. But here it is: 1. Climate Corp was part of Monsanto before it became Bayer. It was acquired by Monsanto. 2. John Deere wanted to buy Climate as well as Monsanto but that was struck down by US courts and Bayer bought Monsanto. 3. What was Climate Corp doing before? They had something called Field View where they charged…
Thanks for the extremely insightful context.
With so much first-hand knowledge of this situation, I’m having a hard time processing how you don’t have an opinion on it. It seems that this is exceedingly detrimental to the well being of literally everyone and everything involved except for those that profit from it.
Re: An Airbnb for farmland hits a snag, as farmers raise data privacy concerns
#24This is the first I've heard of Tillable. As described, it's not really AirBnB for farmland, it's a growing-rights exchange. The counterparty risk for landowners is substantial if it isn't mitigated somehow. A long-term relationship with the land is essential to keeping it healthy. The relationships between farmers and landowners often span generations -- that makes them ripe for disruption, but the many practices th…
As somebody who manages some family land, I wholeheartedly agree. Going back to 1830, there are only three other families we have trusted to lease our land. Some generations we lease their land. Other generations they lease ours. I’ve seen a cousin’s land destroyed for years by outside farmers. I know I could make some good money by leasing to an outsider for a few seasons, but they will use and abandon it, and it wi…
One could imagine sufficient contracts to preserve the land's value/health, but they would be difficult to write and add friction.
A lot of conservation/preservation is easier if you know you're going to be leasing it for years and the landlord is your neighbor.
Re: An Airbnb for farmland hits a snag, as farmers raise data privacy concerns
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I hope this doesn’t discourage farmers from using technology to improve efficiency, yields, profits, etc. Throughout history of settled humans, Farmers have always been at the brink of technological progress. The wheel, the plow, and all sorts of machines. It's a common theme to depict them as technologically backwards, but nothing could be further from the truth. Another common but misguided theme is to depict the…
> Farmers have always been at the brink of technological progress. You would think we would see more automation and fewer cows being milked by hand were this true.
I worked on a dairy farm for years. The jobs done by hand are done by hand for a reason.
Re: An Airbnb for farmland hits a snag, as farmers raise data privacy concerns
#26If the farmers have decades long relationship with the landowners this looks like a power play by tillable/VCs to get in there and take a recurring cut. They know the farmers have no option but to rent land and the VCs know it. So they are using their money to pay cash to landowners and get them on the site. Probability wise there is a 90% chance that the land will be rented by the same farmer as before because of la…
So, why would the farmer use it then?
Because he needs land to farm on, or he stops being a farmer and has to shut down his business.
He will now pay e.g. $1000. Tillable will offer $1100 upfront to the land owner and then "offer" it to the farmer for the low price of $1200. Since he can't just farm on some piece of land 500 miles away, he can either pay the new price, or stop farming.
Tillable offers no significant service here. It's not that there's a lot of land sitting idle because farmers and land owners have no way to come in contact, they are not solving a problem, they are just injecting themselves to extract rent with VC money.
Re: An Airbnb for farmland hits a snag, as farmers raise data privacy concerns
#27Is is too uncharitable of me to think of Tillable as a VC-funded vehicle to make sharecropping even worse than it already was?
Agreed, it seems like yet another iteration of a company that starts off by disrupting a market to make it more liquid, but whose endgame is becoming the dominant or sole rentier in that space.
Re: An Airbnb for farmland hits a snag, as farmers raise data privacy concerns
#28[deleted]
Re: An Airbnb for farmland hits a snag, as farmers raise data privacy concerns
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I hope this doesn’t discourage farmers from using technology to improve efficiency, yields, profits, etc. Throughout history of settled humans, Farmers have always been at the brink of technological progress. The wheel, the plow, and all sorts of machines. It's a common theme to depict them as technologically backwards, but nothing could be further from the truth. Another common but misguided theme is to depict the…
> Farmers have always been at the brink of technological progress. You would think we would see more automation and fewer cows being milked by hand were this true.
The primary method of milking cows in the US has been by machine for decades...
And most farms in the US are highly automated: automated sprinklers, automated tractors, automated planters, automated harvesters (of crops that are amenable to machine harvesting).
It's simply that there are a lot of food crops that are trivial for humans to harvest by hand that would require very expensive machinery and technology to accomplish with a machine.
Re: An Airbnb for farmland hits a snag, as farmers raise data privacy concerns
#30There is actually more to this than is visible on the surface. And I can’t talk about some of it. But here it is: 1. Climate Corp was part of Monsanto before it became Bayer. It was acquired by Monsanto. 2. John Deere wanted to buy Climate as well as Monsanto but that was struck down by US courts and Bayer bought Monsanto. 3. What was Climate Corp doing before? They had something called Field View where they charged…
And it's bad for everything, the environment, our health, the animals and many farmers. I'm sure you've read the Omnivores Dilemma?