Leaf Agriculture has raised $11.3M in funding as the company sets out to create the mecca of agricultural data.
Who? Leaf Agriculture is a farm data management platform that aims to change how producers farm. Think of it as a central hub for all the data from all of the different aspects of agriculture.
Back it up: The data speaks for itself. In 2023, farmers were collecting data on 72% of all available farmland in the U.S, which is up from 33% in 2013. Meanwhile, 42% of farmers reported last year that the data had a major influence on their farm management, up from only 10% in 2017. This data collection is leafing previous crops in the dust, as yields continue to improve tremendously.
How? Think big picture: seed and chemical, biotech, crop insurance, you name it. Leaf partners with many big names from various facets of the industry to house all the data together. Data is constantly being collected from all aspects of the industry to improve existing products and services while creating technology to make farming more efficient.
Circle back to the money: The funds will be used to expand Leaf’s products, bring more partnerships to the table, and grow its team. One of the big investors is Spero Ventures, which led this round.
Soundbite: “Crop insurance companies use Leaf to precisely determine the planted area from the data generated by the machines operating on the field. This is an extremely high quality source of data, and Leaf helps bring data from any tractor (hundreds of incompatible file formats) to a single, consistent format, allowing insurance companies to deploy their precision programs on any farm.” — Leaf CEO and co-founder G. Bailey Stockdale
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Congress to EPA: What’s Your BEEF with Meat Packers?
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is considering new regulations that take aim at meat and poultry processors.
And some members of Congress have a BEEF with the EPA’s proposals.
The proposed rules: In late January, the EPA released the details of its proposed “Clean Water Effluent Limitations Guidelines and Standards for the Meat and Poultry Products Point source category.”
Huh?
Basically, the EPA formally published its proposals to combat wastewater contaminants that come from slaughterhouses.
Okay… that makes more sense.
At the heart of the rules proposal is a concern from environmental groups about nitrogen and phosphorus pollutants that originate from slaughterhouses. In some cases, the wastewater goes directly into waterways. In other cases, the water goes to municipal wastewater treatment facilities.
But not everyone is on board with the EPA’s suggestions…
Congress responds: Last week, two U.S. representatives—Eric Burlison (MO) and Ron Estes (KS)—pushed back against the EPA and introduced the “Banning EPA’s Encroachment of Facilities (BEEF) Act.” If passed and signed by President Biden, the law would prohibit the EPA from finalizing, implementing, or enforcing the rule.
According to the lawmakers, the proposed rules place undue burden on small processors—costs that can be absorbed by larger companies.
Soundbite: “The… proposed regulation isn’t just an attack on family-run small businesses, it’s an attack on rural communities,” said Burlison. “These meat and poultry processors are the lifeblood of our communities. The BEEF Act… lets these hardworking Americans do what they do best, produce safe, affordable food for our families.”
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