<story><title>An Airbnb for farmland hits a snag, as farmers raise data privacy concerns</title><url>https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2020/02/24/808764422/data-privacy-concerns-are-raised-after-startup-tries-to-rent-farmland</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jelliclesfarm</author><text>There is actually more to this than is visible on the surface. And I can’t talk about some of it.&lt;p&gt;But here it is:&lt;p&gt;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&amp;#x2F;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.&lt;p&gt;I am a small scale farmer interested in small acreage Ag robotics to save labour. But no one was interested even though food is important and Ag is a big deal in the USA.&lt;p&gt;No investors, no traction, no interest and I have no qualms about cold calling...and down that rabbit hole, I found out that diff between food farming and commodity crop farming.&lt;p&gt;In reality, there is no agtech for food farming. In the USA anyways. Agtech is about land, inputs and mostly commodity crops. And speculation markets.&lt;p&gt;I don’t have an opinion. Maybe this is more efficient. Maybe it’s not a good idea. And this kind of Ag isn’t even what I am interested in and I just stumbled upon this while trying to figure why Agtech is such a big deal but I can’t find interest in automating food production.&lt;p&gt;It is pretty fascinating how Big Ag has managed to consolidate and rein in together. The players are still the same and it’s a few big corporations that will control this sector.&lt;p&gt;Many of the players and VC companies and start ups are well known but it’s not really necessary to drop those names. But anyone can connect the dots if they invested some time. It is literally a web ..six degrees and all that.&lt;p&gt;Back to the article, expect ‘family farmers’ to be separated from their land in the near and near-distant future. Already a lot of American farmland is owned by foreign countries&amp;#x2F;investors, pension funds, insurance companies, university wealth funds and hedge funds.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>lucb1e</author><text>With formatting:&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;&amp;quot;&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;1. Climate Corp was part of Monsanto before it became Bayer. It was acquired by Monsanto.&lt;p&gt;2. John Deere wanted to buy Climate as well as Monsanto but that was struck down by US courts and Bayer bought Monsanto.&lt;p&gt;3. What was Climate Corp doing before? They had something called Field View where they charged farmers to collect and collate data.&lt;p&gt;4. All precision Ag, Ag robotics and farm data collections have two big industry ‘partners’: Wall Street and Farm input companies.&lt;p&gt;5. Now add farmland to Precision Ag&amp;#x2F;Ag robotics.&lt;p&gt;6. This is a kind of consolidation of land, inputs, data and machinery.&lt;p&gt;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.&lt;p&gt;7. It goes back to Wall Street because big Ag is commodities.&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;&amp;quot;&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;(Command to format, since this comes up regularly: sed &amp;#x27;s&amp;#x2F; \([0-9]\. \)&amp;#x2F;\n\n\1&amp;#x2F;g&amp;#x27;)</text></comment>
<story><title>An Airbnb for farmland hits a snag, as farmers raise data privacy concerns</title><url>https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2020/02/24/808764422/data-privacy-concerns-are-raised-after-startup-tries-to-rent-farmland</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jelliclesfarm</author><text>There is actually more to this than is visible on the surface. And I can’t talk about some of it.&lt;p&gt;But here it is:&lt;p&gt;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&amp;#x2F;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.&lt;p&gt;I am a small scale farmer interested in small acreage Ag robotics to save labour. But no one was interested even though food is important and Ag is a big deal in the USA.&lt;p&gt;No investors, no traction, no interest and I have no qualms about cold calling...and down that rabbit hole, I found out that diff between food farming and commodity crop farming.&lt;p&gt;In reality, there is no agtech for food farming. In the USA anyways. Agtech is about land, inputs and mostly commodity crops. And speculation markets.&lt;p&gt;I don’t have an opinion. Maybe this is more efficient. Maybe it’s not a good idea. And this kind of Ag isn’t even what I am interested in and I just stumbled upon this while trying to figure why Agtech is such a big deal but I can’t find interest in automating food production.&lt;p&gt;It is pretty fascinating how Big Ag has managed to consolidate and rein in together. The players are still the same and it’s a few big corporations that will control this sector.&lt;p&gt;Many of the players and VC companies and start ups are well known but it’s not really necessary to drop those names. But anyone can connect the dots if they invested some time. It is literally a web ..six degrees and all that.&lt;p&gt;Back to the article, expect ‘family farmers’ to be separated from their land in the near and near-distant future. Already a lot of American farmland is owned by foreign countries&amp;#x2F;investors, pension funds, insurance companies, university wealth funds and hedge funds.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>kitotik</author><text>Thanks for the extremely insightful context.&lt;p&gt;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.</text></comment>