Boris Volfman, Founder of Royal Innovative: “Among Turkey’s total exports to the UK, which approached 10 billion dollars in the first 10 months of 2023, agriculture is slightly above 1 billion dollars. During this period, agricultural exports from Turkey to the UK increased by nearly 5%. As a company that acts as a bridge between Turkish agriculture and the UK, in parallel with this growth we increased our business volume in the country by 55% in the first 10 months of the year. “With the possible update of the agreement, we expect a significant growth in agricultural exports between the two countries by the end of 2024.”

Volfman said that the current FTA between the two countries is important as it is the first of the free trade agreements signed with different countries after the UK’s exit from the European Union.

Source : Fresh Plaza

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But what about space weather?

While it seems irrelevant, space weather and solar activity should be a topic of conversation since it can disrupt technology used in agriculture, said Rebecca Bishop, the principal scientist at the Aerospace Corporation.

Bishop said space weather is that which occurs at higher altitudes, much like we have everyday weather close to the surface.

“The sun is also shooting out radiation and charged particles and as it hits the Earth’s magnetic field, it can produce different effects,” said Bishop, speaking recently on Kansas State University’s weekday radio program, Agriculture Today. “The more disturbed the sun becomes, the more likely some of those effects will reach us and our technology systems.”

Bishop said coronal mass ejections, or CMEs, are one type of solar activity where strong eruptions from the sun shoot charged particles (or ‘plasma’) that can take anywhere from 12 hours to a couple of days to reach Earth. Its effects depend on the time of day it hits and the orientation of the Earth’s magnetic field.

“The effects of space weather aren’t always uniform globally,” Bishop said. “It really depends on what the magnetic field is doing at your location. That’s why South America often sees a lot more severe space weather than the continental U.S., because they have a different magnetic field.”

With any weather event, agriculture is always impacted. Space weather specifically affects satellite equipment and transmitting technology.

“The way the global navigation system works is you have GPS satellites that are transmitting a radio frequency (to Earth),” Bishop said. “The ionosphere, which is a layer of charged particles that can affect radio frequency, can scatter, bend or reflect the signals. If the ionosphere is nice and smooth and uniform, the signals come right through without a problem. The moment there’s any sort of turbulence or waves in the ionosphere, the signals don’t get through the ionosphere and never reach GPS receivers on the ground or they’re corrupted by the time they reach the ground.”

K-State precision agriculture economist Terry Griffin says when farmers have technological issues with GPS systems, space weather may be the cause.

“If something’s not working, my first reaction is to unplug, plug it back in, restart it, call the dealer,” Griffin said. “But if it is from atmospheric scintillation where signals are scattered or reflected or prevented from coming through, what may help is just waiting it out.”

Bishop adds that GPS connectivity after a storm could be minutes or hours but not usually days unless it is a once-in-a-lifetime space weather event. Additionally, most ionosphere interruptions occur during the night and rarely during the day because the ionosphere is produced by the sun.

With GPS advancements, agriculture doesn’t stop when the sun goes down.

“We’ve been using GPS for a lot of our field activities such as tillage, for instance,” Griffin said. “Planting would happen during the nighttime, and some operations may do 24-hour shifts because GPS has provided that opportunity.”

During the day, a specific type of solar activity affecting agriculture — solar radio bursts — can create a blackout, Bishop said.

“The source of the space weather determines if it affects a county, state or the entire country,” Bishop said.

The growth of GPS systems in daily tasks means technology is now an integrated part in almost every aspect of human’s daily lives, Bishop said. “Any electronic system probably has something related to GPS, so it’s everywhere,” she said. “We’re moving right now into Solar Max. We didn’t think it would be that strong of a Solar Max, but it is surprising us and it’s picking up.”

Bishop said mankind heightened its dependency on GPS during the last two decades when solar cycles have been fairly quiet.

“Because of our reliance on GPS and GNSS on planter equipment, for example, in the springtime maybe during a Solar Max or some of the events that (Bishop) is talking about, we’re less reliant upon sunlight to do field operations, and our GPS isn’t working,” Griffin said.

At that point, he adds, “I have two choices. Put seeds in the ground that may not be straight, or I may start unplugging things, plugging back in and restarting in hopes of it getting a signal. But if it is something that’s beyond the equipment, I think it’s beneficial to understand what the source may be.”

Bishop added that the beauty of the Earth’s magnetic field is it acts as a shield and prevents most of the harmful radiation from reaching humans.

“It would take a really strong event to have anything that comes really low,” Bishop said. “There’s still some charged particles that do range inside the Earth’s atmosphere but they get captured on the magnetic field lines.”

Producers and others interested can sign up for alerts on the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center website to be notified when a solar storm is approaching, or when higher activity is expected.

The Aerospace Corporation works with precision agriculture professionals to better understand the end users needs, or the impact of space weather on technology.

Source : Farm Talk

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China remains the world’s largest importer of soybeans, and the leading international market for U.S. soybeans. The two countries have enjoyed a formal soybean trade relationship since 1982. The forum and letter of purchase intent mark yet another important milestone in soy trade – supporting Iowa farmers and meeting global demand for high-quality protein. Specific volumes of purchased soybeans will be announced during the formal presentation.

Key presenters and attendees include:

• Ambassador Terry Branstad, President, World Food Prize Foundation
• Ambassador Xie Feng, Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in the U.S.
• Acting Deputy Under Secretary Jason Hafemeister, U.S. Trade and Foreign Agricultural Affairs, USDA
• Kirk Leeds, CEO, Iowa Soybean Association (ISA)
• Jim Sutter, CEO, U.S. Soybean Export Council (USSEC)
• Cary B. Sifferath, VP, U.S. Grains Council
• Chen Ying, Director of Cereals & Oils Dept., China Chamber of Commerce of Foodstuffs, Native Produce and Animal By-products (CFNA)

Access the full agenda and list of presenters here.

This event is open to the public. Attendees must register prior to the event to participate. To RSVP, visit https://fs18.formsite.com/USSEC/US-China-Ag-Forum/index.

Source : Morning AgClips

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The September ruling by the EU to maintain registration of glyphosate for 10 more years seems a positive move, but fact that glyphosate was on the chopping block at all is a reason to better understand and support the role of science-based regulation and policy for agriculture, says Erin Gowriluk, president of the Canada Grains Council.

The Canada Grains Council brings together all facets of the grain value chain for consensus building and collaboration, creating a forum for internal discussions and finding alignment on common issues, Gowriluk says. Pushing for sound science as a foundation of policy and regulatory decisions is one issue the group champions.

As Gowriluk sees it, it’s important because governments can choose to go one of two ways — stick to the science to achieve agriculture and environmental targets based in fact, or buy in and fuel the misconceptions around agriculture and the environment to appeal to constituents. The latter leads to wasted time, misinformation, and policies with unintended negative consequences.

Highlights:

• Sound science is a keystone of grain regulations and trade, and has a role in regulatory decision-making impacting trade
• Science-based decision making leads to more favourable outcomes, achieving agri-environmental objectives and targets
• Governments can respond to science-based policy decisions by leading with science or leveraging misinformation to appear aligned with constituents
• Right now, Mexican farmers are frustrated with government policies that don’t consider their perspective, and there are EU policy decisions impacting food security and glyphosate use
• Non-science-based policy can have unintended consequences, such as negative impacts on food security, decreased production, and increased costs.
• Concerns about climate change lead to increased focus on sustainability in agriculture
• Canadian farmers rely on glyphosate for sustainability practices, a ban could impact trade and commitments.

Source : Real Agriculture

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Facing elevated input costs and economic uncertainty, American farmers and producers deserve access to new export markets and higher prices for their products to succeed and grow. However, it is evident—from its poor policy decisions and clear disorganization—that the Biden administration is more concerned with imposing mandates on our families and burdensome regulations, like the EPA’s Waters of the United States rules, on our farmers than exploring new trade opportunities that will benefit our economy and agriculture community.

Just like he’s done with energy policy and foreign affairs, President Biden has forfeited the initiative on free-trade agreements to our competitors, who are actively expanding their economic relationships. American producers need lower tariffs and new markets to sell their goods, but the Biden administration is instead wasting time on eliminating non-tariff barriers, which are unenforceable and therefore essentially meaningless.

The United Kingdom, Taiwan, the European Union, and half of Asia are all eager to start discussing substantive free-trade agreements, yet the Biden administration is only interested in pointless “dialogues” and “frameworks.” Many of these engagements are small, reactionary measures to ease the global uproar caused by the protectionist provisions in the Democrats‘ nearly $1 trillion Inflation Reduction Act, which fueled the inflation crisis the administration swore it would resolve.

The reality is that the global competitiveness of American agriculture depends largely on new export markets. For example, countries with which we have negotiated trade agreements import far more American-grown corn than those which we have neglected. Negotiating new trade agreements means fewer tariffs and fewer regulatory barriers for agricultural exports, opening new markets and making our farmers more competitive. We are missing an opportunity for our corn and soybean growers and our entire agriculture community to benefit from diversified trading partners. As our global competitors pursue new agreements, American farmers are getting left behind and our goods are being artificially restricted from markets that we can—and must—develop.

Nowhere are President Biden’s failures on trade policy more evident than Mexico’s biotech corn ban and Brazil’s skyrocketing tariffs on American ethanol.

In 2020, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador proposed—in violation of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA)—a total ban on biotech corn by 2025, leveling unfounded accusations about the safety of genetically modified food. Mexico doubled down on this decree in February, and the Biden administration dragged its feet, never fully utilizing the dispute settlement tools available through the USMCA to address the issue. It wasn’t until August 17 that it formally requested a dispute settlement, six months after the latest decree. This issue remains extremely problematic for American corn growers—a quarter of whose exports go to Mexico every year. Some reports estimate that this move would eliminate roughly 30,000 American jobs and drain $30 billion from our economy.

In the same vein, Brazil implemented a 16 percent tariff—which will jump to 18 percent next year—on American ethanol exports. This reckless decision will seriously disadvantage our farmers, ethanol producers, and rural communities across Iowa, Illinois, and throughout the Midwest. Even more absurd is that Brazilian ethanol producers have access to our Renewable Fuel Standard, yet our producers are prohibited from accessing Brazil’s biofuels initiatives, an inherently unfair and uneven ordeal. That’s why we joined forces in a letter to U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai, urging her to leverage her power to end these ridiculous tariffs and hold Brazil accountable for its unfair and costly treatment of American corn growers and ethanol producers.

The House Ways and Means Committee—on which we serve—is responsible for trade policy and oversight of the U.S. trade representative. President Biden himself has yet to mention the issue of biotech corn with Mexico, and USTR’s responses to the Committee on tariff reductions and new trade agreements have been wholly insufficient. American farmers and producers deserve a strong voice and a seat at the table when it comes to enforcing existing trade agreements, holding foreign countries accountable for destructive trade barriers, and developing new market opportunities.

It’s time for the Biden administration to wake up. The 20th century afforded our great nation unprecedented economic preeminence, but that advantage has long been deteriorating in the face of rising competition. China has negotiated 10 free trade agreements over the past decade. In an increasingly competitive global economy, we can’t afford inaction.

As members of the House Ways and Means Committee, we will continue our work to secure new economic opportunities for our farmers, establish new trade agreements with underleveraged nations, and demand better from President Biden and his administration for the sake of American agriculture and our farm families.

Source : News Week

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