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An Airbnb for farmland hits a snag, as farmers raise data privacy concerns

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Re: An Airbnb for farmland hits a snag, as farmers raise data privacy concerns

#41

Post by tsimionescu »

MattGaiser wrote: post #38
jelliclesfarm wrote: post #16

There 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…

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

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

Re: An Airbnb for farmland hits a snag, as farmers raise data privacy concerns

#42

Post by PeterisP »

luckylion wrote: post #26
_2d30 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

If the farmer is willing to accept a $1200 price, then what prevents the land owner from charging $1200 right now? All the factors you list which push the price up apply just as well for the current owner-renter negotiations.

The scenario you describe is possible only if there is a lot of land that's severely mispriced / underpriced - in which case the price should and would get corrected, and after that the arbitrage opportunity disappears because, as you say, the land owner can come in contact directly with the farmer and make arrangements.

Re: An Airbnb for farmland hits a snag, as farmers raise data privacy concerns

#43

Post by derekbreden »

tsimionescu wrote: post #41
MattGaiser wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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

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

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

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

Re: An Airbnb for farmland hits a snag, as farmers raise data privacy concerns

#44

Post by lucb1e »

jelliclesfarm wrote: post #16

There 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…

With formatting:

"""

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"""

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

Re: An Airbnb for farmland hits a snag, as farmers raise data privacy concerns

#45

Post by redis_mlc »

kitotik wrote: post #23
jelliclesfarm wrote: post #16

There 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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Re: An Airbnb for farmland hits a snag, as farmers raise data privacy concerns

#46

Post by TeMPOraL »

MattGaiser wrote: post #37
swiley wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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

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

Re: An Airbnb for farmland hits a snag, as farmers raise data privacy concerns

#47

Post by pas »

SequoiaHope wrote: post #35
jelliclesfarm wrote: post #16

There 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…

Wow thanks for this info. What a shitty situation. Venture capitalists buying land to rent it back to farmers seems like the exact opposite of the kind of innovation we need. I work for a small farming automation company. I’m designing a solar powered weeding robot. when you say “small scale” farming what do you mean? Its still early for us but it feels like we need to target farms that are hundreds or thousands of a…

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

Re: An Airbnb for farmland hits a snag, as farmers raise data privacy concerns

#48

Post by TeMPOraL »

ISL wrote: post #24
onionisafruit wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Trust is probably the greatest optimization humanity has ever had. Which is why I'm wary of the ongoing trend of removing the dependency on trust in all matters of life.

Re: An Airbnb for farmland hits a snag, as farmers raise data privacy concerns

#49

Post by wjnc »

kitotik wrote: post #23
jelliclesfarm wrote: post #16

There 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.

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

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

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

Re: An Airbnb for farmland hits a snag, as farmers raise data privacy concerns

#50

Post by TeMPOraL »

PeterisP wrote: post #42
luckylion wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

If the farmer is willing to accept a $1200 price, then what prevents the land owner from charging $1200 right now? All the factors you list which push the price up apply just as well for the current owner-renter negotiations. The scenario you describe is possible only if there is a lot of land that's severely mispriced / underpriced - in which case the price should and would get corrected, and after that the arbitrag…

> If the farmer is willing to accept a $1200 price, then what prevents the land owner from charging $1200 right now?

Basic human decency? These are often long-term relationships between neighbours, whose families lived next to each other for decades or hundreds of years.

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