Tag: agriculture

#19 Jed Dunham – Kansas State U.

Vets In Ag Podcast
#19 Jed Dunham - Kansas State U.
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It’s impossible to hide poor work on a farm

Our guest this week is Jed Dunham, a consultant with Kansas State’s Office of Military and Veterans Affairs. After graduating from Kansas State in 1996, Jed spent the next several years working in a variety of industries; from building playgrounds across the Midwest, heavy construction in Montana, coaching lacrosse in Virginia, working to bring veterans into agricultural educational opportunities, and riding a bicycle 4,600+ miles across North America. Once back in Kansas, his background as a historical researcher uncovered an incredible set of stories involving WWI soldiers. This work did more than just bring their lives to light again, it showed how their individual stories told the narrative of an important developmental time in American history.

This collection of stories, which Jed has called 48 Fallen 48 Found, led to the formal dedication of a World War I Memorial Stadium on the campus of Kansas State University in 2017. Jed continues to honor the sacrifices of our past through his work with Kansas State’s State Military Affairs Innovation Center.

Have a listen and weight-in how you think these soldier’s stories can best to told.

Episode 11 – Mark Bishop – ACP Capital Markets

Vets In Ag Podcast
Episode 11 - Mark Bishop - ACP Capital Markets
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It was like a knife fight in the closet.

This from our guest today, Mark Bishop, as he described a complex Brazilian farmland assignment they worked on during the height of the financial crisis, which including hiring armed guards to protect the asset.

Mark Bishop is a Managing Director and Partner with Aldwych Capital Partners, a specialized merchant and investment bank focused on cross-border capital raising, M&A, and advisory assignments within the real asset sector. ACP is heavily concentrated within this sector in large scale agribusiness, water, and energy as well as related components of the value chain including transportation, logistics, storage, and power generation. They also work opportunistically in the defense/security and special situations areas.

In this episode, Mark talks about his original involvement with the veteran community in New York and how impressed he was with their innovation and dedication to helping other veterans. My sense is that this was an uncommon virtue within the everyday world of investment banking that Mark immediately lacked onto this and the sense of servitude it demonstrated.


It also speaks to what originally drew Mark to agribusiness and investment banking within the emerging markets in the first place – the sheer complexity of the asset class and how intellectually interesting it was. There are some people who seek the harder problem simply for the challenge and the rigor required to solve them – Mark is one of these people. The harder the problem, the happier he is.

Have a listen as Mark talks about the fog and friction of war is very much something you have to contend with in the business sector, especially if you’re operating in the emerging markets.

Episode 8 – Ben Martin (USMC) – Dauntless Wine Company

Vets In Ag Podcast
Episode 8 - Ben Martin (USMC) - Dauntless Wine Company
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“I was white knuckling it down the highway with a 1,000 gallons of wine in my flatbed…”

What you’ll find in this episode with Ben Martin – Founder and Winemaker at Dauntless Wine Co – is a love of education, history, and a spirit of perseverance that often places him in situations like the one described above.

Dauntless is a veteran-owned and operated winery in the Willamette Valley of Oregon whose ultimate mission is to give back to warriors in need by offering them a place to learn about agriculture and an opportunity to heal.

Ben’s story of transition to agriculture is filled with some colorful detours along the way – from driving a truck load of AK-47s and 1,000 gallons of wine down the interstate to a recognition that a first-time job in retail sales following three deployment in a combat arms profession, including the invasion of Iraq in 2003, is probably not a glove fit.

But what always seemed to make sense to Ben was the desire to make his community more resilient through agriculture. This mentality launched Ben into a dauntless journey of problem solving, hand-on education, and the need to continue the veteran’s historical pursuit of agriculture and all the benefits it provides.

I hope you enjoy this episode as Ben describes “wine as bottled history”.

Episode 5: Bill Ashton (USN)

Vets In Ag Podcast
Episode 5: Bill Ashton (USN)
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My guest today is Bill Ashton, the USDA’s Military and Veterans Agricultural Liaison Program Manager. Bill was born and raised in New York City where he joined the Navy right after high school and spent the next 10 years as an enlisted sailor. Most of his career was spent either onboard or supporting the submarine community.  Following active duty service, Bill continued to service the Navy, this time as a civil servant where he was the Program Manager for the Navy’s Pay and Personnel Program.  After 14 years in this capacity, he then became the Director of Security for Naval Sea Systems Command in Washington DC before joining the USDA in January 2018.  This position was established by Congress in the 2014 Farm Bill with Mr. Ashton serving as the first full-time government employee to hold this job.

We covered a lot of ground in this interview, from how skills Bill learned in the submarine community were brought forward into the ag sector to an overview of the impressive amount of veteran and career-focused initiatives at USDA. This episode is filled with stories of how Bill was plucked from different professions to turnaround and lead groups in completely different fields; a skill set he attributes to his time in the service.

Be sure to listen through to the end of the interview where Bill describes his thoughts on hydroponics aboard submarines; it’s really fascinating.

Episode 4: Chris Narayanan (USMC)

Vets In Ag Podcast
Episode 4: Chris Narayanan (USMC)
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From ag consulting firms and brokerages to Wall Street investment banks and agribusiness power houses like John Deere and INTL FCSTone, Chris brings such a broad perspective that I think this episode has a little bit of everything for everyone.

We sat down with Chris Narayanan – currently an Extension Farm Management Specialist at the University of Tennessee Institute for Agriculture. After earning his bachelors degree from Texas A&M in Ag Economics, Chris then spent the next ten years as a Marine Corps infantry officer. Following his time in the service, Chris then went back to school to earn Masters in Rangeland Ecology and Management as well as an MBA from the University of Texas. This then ultimately launched Chris into the private ag sector where he has been working in a wide variety of sub-sectors within the ag industry for the past 15+ years.

One of my favorite parts of this episode was listening to Chris describe what he called “kitchen table” moments with farmers. I think this is something many transitioning vets seek but struggle to find after they leave active duty service; a way to connect with their profession in a way that is meaningful and service-based.

Have a listen to find out how Chris finally found this balance.

Categories
Agricultural Investing Argentina Articles South American Agriculture Uncategorized Uruguay

Global Farmland Index/Prices – Savills World Research

A great report just released by Savills World Research last month describing the state of global farmland from 2012 to the present.  The report is based on data from 15 different world agricultural markets and is designed to provide comparative data on global farmland prices and market summaries.  Here a few highlights from the report

  •  The Global Farmland Index recorded an average annualised growth of 14.8% since 2002 and 6.6% over the past five years.

  • Farmland values are less volatile than other commodities and were significantly less affected by the credit crunch in 2008.

Global Farmland Index Graph

  • South America showed a 17.5% annualised growth since 2002.  The above graph shows South America was only outperformed in index growth by Central Europe; now facing extremely unstable times due to the Brexit.

  • The report describes an innovative way of benchmarking farmland prices to account for regional variables or more specifically investment spend relative to output by determining the cost of acquiring land in order to grow a tonne of wheat. Our ‘land cost for wheat production’ league (Figure 3 below) takes the average value of farmland in 2015 and divides it by the average harvest wheat yield over seven years (2008 to 2014). By taking a seven year period it allows for any weather fluctuations to be accounted for.

Cost of Land Graph

  • Note that Uruguay and Argentina have some of the lowest costs of land per tonne of wheat values.

  • Investor interest and demand to diversify investment portfolio’s will remain strong. Farmland performance tends to be counter-cyclical to other assets

Bottom Line to Investors

  • Agriculture is a long term investment to iron out volatility.

  • Diversify your portfolio to spread risk across different regions

  • Due diligence, especially with a range of cultures, political administrations, ownership structures, tax regimes, foreign investment regulations, is essential to understand global markets.

  • The right asset in the right market will yield positive returns for the investor in the long term.