“Tierra del Fuego isn’t the most obvious place to look for clues about how rapidly Argentina is changing. Yet the country’s southernmost and least populated province has just pulled off a sharp policy U-turn that hints at a much broader national shift.

Earlier this month, the local legislature overturned a 2021 law that had banned all salmon farming in Tierra del Fuego, reopening the door to an industry that until recently was deemed off limits. Environmental concerns had driven the original ban, making Argentina the first country in the world to effectively prohibit intensive open-net salmon farming to protect its marine ecosystems. Yet the economics were always awkward: Argentina imports almost all the salmon it consumes from neighboring Chile, which embraced the industry decades ago and has since become the world’s second-largest producer, with annual exports exceeding $6 billion. A familiar Argentine missed opportunity.

The ban rollback reflects the shift in political winds under President Javier Milei — and a recalibration of the production-versus-environment tradeoff. The libertarian leader’s pro-business, deregulation-first agenda is pushing long-frozen projects back onto the table. In Mendoza, a province better known for its world-class wines and sweeping Andes views, a copper project rejected 14 years ago on environmental grounds is regaining political momentum. Big mining is now betting on Argentina’s vast untapped reserves as the next frontier in the global race to secure critical minerals. This comes on top of record oil production from the Vaca Muerta shale patch in the country’s south, where deal-making has surged since Milei took office.

What’s happened in Tierra del Fuego isn’t just about salmon. It’s about a country reassessing where ideology ends and economic realism begins. After more than a decade of stagnant growth, virtually no private-sector job creation, and policy distortions that pushed Argentina to the brink of hyperinflation in late 2023, the country is reclaiming a sense of economic rationality.”

From Bloomberg.

“The cow at the edge of Tony Louters’s dairy farm in Merced, Calif., held 11 gallons of milk and a secret: In the next 48 hours, she would become sick.

On many farms, the health signs would have gone undetected, costing hundreds of dollars in lost milk. But thanks to a high-tech collar that each of Mr. Louters’s 700 cows wears around its neck — fitted with movement sensors and Wi-Fi — he learned the cow’s diagnosis at 5:30 a.m. when his computer pinged with an alert about its biometric data…

The devices are part of an industry known as precision farming, a data-driven approach for optimizing production that is booming with the addition of A.I. and other technologies. Last year, the livestock-monitoring industry alone was valued at more than $5 billion, according to Grand View Research, a market research firm.

Farmers have long used technology to collect and analyze data, with the origins of precision farming dating to the 1990s. In the early 2000s, satellite imagery changed the way farmers determined crop schedules, as did drones and eventually sensors in the fields. Nowadays, if you drive by farms in places like California’s Central Valley, you may not see any humans at all…

The new products are helping farmers reduce costs as tariffs and inflation raise the prices of farm equipment and feed. They also allow farmers to do more work with fewer people as the Trump administration cracks down on illegal immigration.”

From New York Times.

“InnerPlant, the seed technology company engineering crops that communicate their needs, today announced the world’s first real-time detection of an early fungal infection in soybeans through its CropVoice disease alert network currently deployed across Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska and South Dakota.

CropVoice sensors were triggered by a fungal infection in Yankton County, S.D., and northern Cedar County, Neb., and sent out the first-ever disease alert to farmers, indicating that the field was infected. The alert provided affected farmers with confirmation of an infection weeks before symptoms were visible in the field, giving them ample time to take action to protect their yields.

CropVoice uses InnerSoy™ sensors – soybeans genetically engineered to emit an optical signal when infected – to take the guesswork out of farmers’ disease management decisions by sending real-time alerts via text when an active infection is detected near their fields.”

From CropLife.

Summary: For nearly a century, corn production in the United States has far outpaced population growth, thanks to relentless agricultural innovation. While global elites warn of food scarcity and promote insect-based diets, American farmers continue to feed the nation—and the world—more efficiently than ever, defying the narrative of resource collapse.

Corn has a rich history stretching back thousands of years to Mesoamerica, where it was domesticated from a wild grass called teosinte. Indigenous peoples in the Americas developed corn through selective breeding, making it a cornerstone of their diets, cultures, and civilizations. After Christopher Columbus introduced corn to Europe in 1493, it spread rapidly across the globe, becoming a dietary staple and key ingredient in countless cuisines.

Today, corn is the most widely produced grain in the world, with global production exceeding 1.2 billion metric tons. The United States leads the world in corn production, consumption, and exports—accounting for 31 percent of global output with 377.63 million metric tons, according to the USDA.

Over 95 percent of animal feed for US livestock—such as cattle, hogs, and poultry—comes from corn, which makes up roughly 40 percent of all corn used domestically. Despite this abundance, the Davos crowd would have us believe that our survival hinges on swapping steaks and burgers for worms and insects. Under the banner of “sustainability,” they propose shuttering our Texas Roadhouses, Dickey’s Barbecue Pits, and Chick-fil-As to make way for bug burgers. But are we really running out of beef, chicken, and pork?

Hardly. Corn is a foundational feed for producing those delicious meats. In the 1930s, US corn yields averaged 26 bushels per acre. Today, that number is 179.3 bushels per acre—with top-performing farms reaching an astonishing 624 bushels. That’s a 589.6 percent increase in yield over 88 years. One acre today produces as much corn as nearly 6.89 acres did in 1936, freeing up 5.89 acres for other uses—from conservation to recreation. Yields continue to rise at about 1.75 bushels per year, doubling every 31.6 years thanks to a 2.21 percent annual growth rate.

Meanwhile, the US population grew 165.6 percent between 1936 and 2024—from 128 million to 340 million. Yet every one percent increase in population has corresponded with a 3.56 percent increase in corn abundance. If each American consumed one bushel of corn in 1936, it would’ve required 4.9 million acres of land to grow the crop. Today, even with 212 million more people, it only takes about 1.9 million acres. We’ve reduced land needs by 61 percent. We’re growing smarter much faster than we’re growing people.

Corn was selling for around 68 cents a bushel in the 1930s. Unskilled workers were earning around 28 cents an hour. That would put the time price at 2.42 hours. The USDA currently estimates the season-average corn price at $4.20 per bushel for the 2025-2026 crop year. Unskilled workers are earning $17.17 an hour putting the time price at 0.24 hours or around 15 minutes. The time price has fallen from 145 minutes to 15 minutes, or almost 90 percent. For the time it took an unskilled worker to earn the money to buy one bushel of corn in 1930, they get 9.7 bushels today.

MIT’s Andrew McAfee highlighted this trend in More from Less, predicting continued innovation in agriculture. He’s even backing his confidence with a $100,000 bet: that by 2029, the US will produce more crops than in 2019 while using less land, fertilizer, and irrigation. If you think he’s wrong—and believe the World Economic Forum’s bug-eating future is inevitable—there’s your chance at easy money.

So yes, you could try a worm with your next meal—but there’s no reason to think we’re running out of corn or the land to raise your next steak, wing, or chop.

Find more of Gale’s work at his Substack, Gale Winds.