Agridime Investment Review [My Honest Thoughts]

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Editor’s Note (May 24, 2023): The Securities Division of the Arizona Corporation Commission has recently taken action against Agridime with a Temporary Order to Cease and Desist as of April 18, 2023, along with a Notice of Opportunity for Hearing. This is important information, so please continue reading below for more details.

What’s the Temporary Cease and Desist about?

The latest known problem with Agridime’s business practices is that they haven’t properly registered their company as a dealer of securities. This matters because the way in which they conduct their business is effectively selling an investment, and thus must be regulated as one. They certainly may have started off as a company simply selling beef products, and they still do. However, starting at around or before 2021, they started offering their cattle not only as a beef product, but as an investment product. In exchange for investors’ capital, they would guarantee 15-21% in yearly profits.

What events led to the Cease and Desist Order?

According to public record, the Cease and Desist came about because an Arizona resident was interested in being involved as an investor and contacted the company via phone and email with questions. He was told that depending on the amount of capital put forward, he would be guaranteed returns of 15-21%, and the gains would be realized and paid out in around 1 year and 10 days. When asked about the risks of the investment, Agridime did not disclose any, further stating that the returns were guaranteed “no matter what,” even if the cattle died. This information was reported to the Securities Division of the Arizona Corporation Commission some time thereafter.

Agridime and its owner, Josh Link, have been “offering or selling and/or making, participating in, and/or inducing the sale of securities in the form of investment contracts and/or commodity investment contracts, within or from Arizona,” and those same aforementioned securities “were not registered pursuant to Articles 6 or 7 of the Securities Act,” which violates Arizona Revised Statutes (A.R.S.) 44-1841.

In addition to the offer and sale of unregistered securities, Agridime is also violating A.R.S. 44-1842 (Transactions by Unregistered Dealers or Salesmen) and A.R.S. 44-1991 (Fraud in Connection with the Offer or Sale of Securities).

What’s next for Agridime in relation to the Cease and Desist?

The Commission feels that the public welfare requires immediate action, so they are implementing a Temporary Cease and Desist, which stays in effect for 180 days. Additionally, the Securities Division is also pursuing a permanent Cease and Desist, as well as a requirement for Agridime to make restitution to clients and penalties of up to $5,000 for each violation of the Securities Act pursuant to A.R.S. 44-2036.

Josh Link has a right to a hearing opportunity. We’ll let you know when we hear more about the unfolding of events. In the meanwhile, it’s probably best to wait until things play out before deciding to do anything remotely related to Agridime.

Otherwise, here below is the previously written post before all of these events unfolded and were made available as public information to us.

What is Agridime?

Many people are looking for alternative investments that can offer a higher return than traditional stocks or bonds. With the recent volatility in the stock market, alternative investments are becoming even more popular. One alternative investment that is gaining popularity is investing in cattle. Of course, cattle investing is not for everyone, but it can be a profitable way to invest your money if you are willing to take on some risk.

Cattle investing is a bit like investing in real estate. You are essentially buying a piece of property (in this case, a cow) and hoping it will appreciate over time. Of course, there are always risks involved with any investment, but if you do your research and invest wisely, cattle investing can be a very lucrative way to make money. However, it does come with its risks and we’ll be tackling those as well in this post.

Agridime is an online platform that allows you to invest directly in cattle livestock. It was founded in 2017 and is owned and operated by a young couple, Tia and Josh Link.

Together, they started Agridime as a way to provide grass-fed, farm-to-table cattle via pasture-raised methods as opposed to traditional ranching methods. A few years later, they added the investment aspect to it, which we’re reviewing in this post.

In the Agridime investment program, you’re essentially buying a live cow, and you’re buying it online. With Agridime, you can choose the specific cows you want to invest in and how much you want to invest. How cool is that?

Agridime takes care of the rest, including the actual feeding and caring for the cows via the farmers that they partner with. Agridime essentially allows you to participate in the investment of cattle without getting into the actual day-to-day care of the cattle itself, all while being able to take profits at the end of it all. It is an investment in cows/calf/cattle as well as an investment in beef products.

How much does it cost to buy one cow with Agridime?

It currently costs $2,000 to purchase one cow through Agridime. Who knew? Personally, I had no idea what a head of cattle would even go for normally prior to looking into it. However, $2,000 isn’t easy to cough up for a lot of people, much fewer multiples of that, especially if you’re enticed by the guaranteed returns that Agridime boasts about.

Is there a minimum to invest with Agridime?

Agridime’s requirement is that you have at least $2,000 to invest with them. Beyond that, there are no other requirements or qualifications. You can buy 1 or 100 cows. It’s up to you. You do, however, have to buy in $2,000 increments, since you would have to buy a whole cow.

How much can you sell the cattle for through Agridime?

If you sell the cattle, you can expect to get around $2,300 to $2,400 for it. Simply put, that’s a $300 to $400 profit on each head of cattle.

If you buy ten cows at a total of $20,000, you would earn a profit of $3,000-$4,000.

That’s a 15-20% return on your investment. Quite a healthy return, indeed. Keep in mind that the exact amount of profit you make will depend on the price of cattle when you sell them. Cattle prices can fluctuate, so they state that you could be earning a little more or less than the estimated profit. Recently, with all the inflation going on, you’d possibly be earning more since the price of cattle would be going up as a result.

How do I qualify to receive 20% on my investment instead of 15%?

If you invest in 20+ head of cattle, they claim you will receive 20% on your investment instead of the usual 15%. It goes up to 21% for any investment more than $1 million.

How long do you have to wait before you can decide to sell your cattle?

Great question. Cattle take time to raise properly and ensure that it is ready to be sold onto the market. If you’re the type who doesn’t like to wait too long, then you’ll be happy to know that it only takes a year for your purchased cow to be ready for sale.

When you combine the potential return of 20% on your investment and couple it with the timeframe of one year, that’s a 20% return on investment each and every year you invest. This is a very attractive return, especially when comparing it to other investments. For example, the stock market has averaged a return of around 10% per year over the long term. With Agridime, they’re saying that you’ll be pulling in twice that return. You’re doing in one year what the S&P 500 generally does in two years.

Is there anything special about Agridime cattle?

As much as we’d like to think there is, no, there isn’t anything particularly special about Agridime cattle. They are raised and nurtured in a humane way, and their resulting beef products are of great quality. You can check out reviews of their Agridime store and beef products online; they’re generally highly-praised on this front.

How does Agridime pay you?

When you sell your cattle, you will be paid by bank wire ten days after the sale. That means you don’t have to wait all that long to get your money. This is an advantage because it allows you to reinvest your profits quickly and continue growing your investment if you so choose.

Does Agridime take any fees for buying or selling cattle?

Agridime doesn’t charge any fees for buying or selling cattle. That means you get to keep all of your profits. There are no hidden fees or charges. This is another advantage, especially when comparing it to other investments. For example, mutual funds and ETFs often charge fees of 1% or more depending on who’s managing the fund. That means you could lose a significant portion of your profits to fees alone with other investments. It may not sound like much, but in the long run, even a 1% fee is a big deal and can really put a damper on the full power of compounding working for your money. Is this too good to be true? Sometimes, it does sure sound like it.

Does Agridime insure your investment?

Agridime insures every investment against death, disease, and theft. There’s no worry about a cow dying and you losing your investment as a result. If anything happens to the cow you’ve invested in, you will be compensated for your loss in full. If true, this gives investors peace of mind and allows them to focus on making money rather than worrying about their investment. At no point do you have to worry about the health or safety of your specific cattle.

What are the risks of investing in cattle through Agridime?

As much as Agridime does its best to ensure you get your money’s worth of investment through them, there are still some inherent risks to watch out for.

• One risk is the possibility that cattle prices could drop. However, you can minimize this risk if you diversify your investments and don’t put all your eggs in one basket.
• The other risk to consider is that Agridime isn’t like an institutional bank. It isn’t FDIC insured by the government in case they go underwater. If say you invested $100,000 to invest in 50 heads of cattle, you could potentially lose all of it. That’s right, it’s possible you would not see a cent of it if the company were to disappear one day for whatever reason.
• Last, but most definitely not least, is the lack of payment verification online. As far as lack of payment verification online, this landscape seems to be slowly changing. We previously said that because the company has been around since 2017, you’d think there’d be some sort of discussion around how much someone’s cashed in on it at some point in the last few years. It seems more and more people are coming forward with evidence of payment, so we may soon have to include this section as part of the pros of investing with Agridime.

Pros and cons of investing with Agridime: The pros

There are a few reasons why one may want to invest in cattle via Agridime. Let’s dive into some of those reasons:

• Investing in cattle is a great hedge against inflation. That’s because beef prices, along with everything else like food and gas, tend to go up when inflation increases. By investing in cattle, you’re making sure that when inflation numbers go up, your investment is benefiting from it, despite the rest of the world being negatively affected by it. In short, your cattle investment will protect your money from losing value.
• The beef industry is booming. As a result, the demand for beef is high, and it is only expected to increase in the coming years. This means that cattle prices are likely to continue to rise, leading to healthy profits for investors.
• Beef is a staple in the American diet. It’s one of those things that everyone expects to be on the store shelf, and it’s not going away any time soon. The cows you invest in will be butchered, and the beef will be sold to grocery stores and restaurants the same way it’s always been for a very long time.
• It’s a way to diversify your portfolio. Cattle are not as volatile as stocks, so they can help offset some of the risks in your portfolio. And, since cattle can be bought and sold relatively quickly, they offer an excellent way to get liquidity into your portfolio if needed.
• Agridime allows you not to have to raise the cattle yourself. You needn’t be a farmer or a rancher. That means you don’t have to worry about the nitty-gritty of caring for cattle, including feeding and watering them. It’s all taken care of by farmers who take part in Agridime’s program. You’re simply investing in the farmers who do the bulk of the heavy lifting.

Pros and cons of investing with Agridime: The cons

There’s a few reason why you shouldn’t invest in Agridime:

• As mentioned above, there was previously a disturbing lack of verified payments, but this may be changing over time. Investors are starting to reach out to us with evidence of payment, which is possibly a good sign. We’ll see if they can continue to stay true to their word of handing out payments with healthy returns in a timely manner. For now, we’ll keep this in the “cons” section, but be sure to check out some examples below of investors showing evidence of payment.
• Not FDIC insured, but this isn’t the biggest deal if the company is legit on its own, as there are many investments that aren’t FDIC insured but can do well.
• There aren’t a lot of similar type companies that exist, which makes you wonder why. Perhaps if cattle were truly this profitable, why would they need to partner with you to co-invest and give up 15-20% of profits when they can just partner with a lender and give up much less with a lower interest rate to borrow. Something to think about.
• Plus, there are ways to expose your portfolio to something similar to Agridime via your online broker. For example, the iShares Global Agriculture (COW) ETF exposes you to companies that are involved in meat including cattle, along with other agricultural products such as farm machinery and fertilizer. Plus you’d be in an investment with a larger entity that’s been around in business longer.

Who is Agridime best for?

If you’re really thinking about Agridime, we’d say that the ideal investor for Agridime is someone who is looking for options outside of traditional investment vehicles like stocks and bonds. Perhaps you’re just looking for something different, or perhaps you truly believe that cattle investing will pay off better due to it being a higher-risk investment.

If you find the following to be true for you, then perhaps you can consider Agridime:

• You like the fact that it’s a simple, straightforward, and easy-to-understand investment.
• The basics are covered in your portfolio, but you still have some extra cash lying around.
• You’ve done some research and truly believe that Agridime as a company has strong financials and can stay afloat.
• You’re trying to add an inflation hedge to your portfolio.
• You’re sick of the fees you’re paying on your managed funds, and the fact that there are no fees involved in Agridime transactions really appeals to you.
• You know something about the farming industry that entices you to invest in cattle. After all, didn’t Bill Gates just buy up a lot of farmland?
• And lastly, you can afford to lose the money, and you really want a 15-20% return. Because hey, the S&P 500 sure doesn’t seem to be returning that this year.

No matter your reason for investing in Agridime, you need to make sure this isn’t your main investment vehicle. I say this because no matter how good the return is, this money is not in any way, shape, or form covered or guaranteed by the government should the company go under. However unlikely it is, $1 million invested in this could really turn to $0 given the right set of unfortunate circumstances. Money invested in the S&P 500, on the other hand, statistically would never turn to $0 unless the world were to burn, or something close to it.

How long has Agridime been in business?

Agridime has been in business and operational for over 5 years, since 2017. However, the investing program was started by Agridime more recently than that.

Where is Agridime farm located?

They are located in Fort Worth, Texas, and have 17+ employees.

Is Agridime legit?

And has anyone been paid or scammed by Agridime?

Agridime seems like they’re participating in a reasonable investment fundamentally, but as a company, we’d be wary. If the company guarantees 15-20% returns, that seems like a great, risk-free investment that they could do themselves without partnering with people like you and me. You’ve got to ask yourself: Why do they need me?

And if the cattle loses value in a given year, will they cover your guaranteed 20% by digging into their own pockets to pay out the difference? Something tells me probably not. Even if they did, it doesn’t guarantee that at any given year they’ll just decide not to pay out their investors due to a declining market, despite their guarantee.

On top of that, it’ll take a year to find out if they’ll keep their word and pay you back your capital plus 15-20% ROI, since nobody seems to be confirming only a few people have confirmed that they’ve gotten paid anywhere online. However, this seems to be changing over time, and we are getting more evidence of payment, but not enough to be completely and 100% convinced.

There hasn’t been any proof that they’ve scammed anyone so far, so we give credit where credit is due. We think that if investors got scammed, they would most definitely post it online. Again, only a few people have stated that they have been paid, but they do exist and seem to be increasing over time. Still, I’d prefer to wait for more evidence that Agridime works the way it markets itself and that investors do actually get paid their dues.

Update (December 2022): A user on Reddit by the name of u/LoveNotWar3113311 has graciously provided a screenshot of Agridime having successfully paid them for their investment after a year.

This screenshot shows a return of 15%, just as advertised by Agridime. Consider that the S&P 500 has been significantly negative during that same time period.

Update (January 2023): Another reader has graciously reached out to us and emailed us a copy of their Agridime contract with a screenshot showing they’ve been paid by Agridime LLC in a timely manner. His contract was set to finalize and deliver on December 4th, 2022, and as you can see in the screenshot, the money looks to have arrived in the bank account promptly on December 11th, 2022, exactly seven days later.

Here’s the contract:

Evidence of payment:

According to this screenshot, Agridime seems to have paid back the principal of $2,000 plus a 15% return on investment.

Another update (May 2023): It seems more and more readers are reaching out to us to let us know that they’ve received their payment. One of our readers sent us another screenshot below to show that he got his initial $2,000 back with $300 in returns for a total return of 15% for the year:

15% returns per contract seems to be consistent from what we can see.

Another update (May 2023): I previously wrote the following:

“Who we’re keeping an eye on: There is one other Reddit user we’ve got our eye on by the name of u/davidlovesarson who has a contract that was due in March of 2023. We’ve reached out to him and hope to get an update on that soon. Keep in mind we have verified to the best of our ability through post history that any Reddit users we mention are genuine Redditors and not simply shills for Agridime the company. Of course, if you find out otherwise, please contact us with why you think so, and we’ll update our post accordingly.”

As it turns out, u/davidlovesarson, contacted us after reading our post and graciously provided us his screenshot of evidence of payment.

He invested in not just one, but four contracts back in February of 2022 for a total of $8,000. As you can see, he was supposedly paid $9,200 for a return of 15% over one year. Since according to this his contract ended around the end of February, he received his money in roughly 2-3 weeks, which is a reasonable timeframe. u/davidlovesarson was also offered the option of being paid either through ACH or wire.

We suspect we’ll be reaching out to him again this summer as he has five more contracts to be due around then, so be sure to check back on this post during that time.

Agridime store reviews

Agridime, the store, which sells mostly beef, has tons of great reviews. Many have even switched from the famed Omaha Steaks to Agridime.

Here below, you can see that someone has posted a picture of their Agridime beef on Reddit, which shows a yellower piece of fat that is typically found in a grass-fed cow.

Ny strip from agridime
by u/Head_Rip1759 in meat

Overall, the consensus seems to be that the Agridime store has well-priced beef that is quite rich and tasty.

Other alternative investments to explore

If you can be an investor in cattle, surely there are other commodities that could prove lucrative in a consumer-investor model that you haven’t thought of, right? And you’d be correct. Here are some alternative investments to explore if you’re interested in these sorts of non-traditional investment opportunities:

• Vint – investing in fine wine
• Vinovest – also investing in fine wine
• OurCrowd – investing in pre-vetted startups
• Yieldstreet – investing in the private market, including real estate
• NFTs – investing in digital assets in the Web3.0 space
• Metaverse ETF – investing in anything related to the metaverse via a traditional ETF by Fidelity

Keep in mind that although we’re listing alternative investments, we’re not necessarily recommending them. We encourage you to learn more about each of them in further detail through our links above before putting any money into any of them.

In conclusion

If you’re looking for an investment that’s different from traditional options, then Agridime hits a few interesting points:

• It offers the chance to invest directly in cattle, which is a tangible asset with real value.
• It’s an easy-to-understand investment. Cattle are raised for food and sold on the market to be eaten by consumers.
• It’s a great way to hedge against inflation.
• There are no transactional or management fees.
• It boasts a return of 15-20% on your investment.

However, really consider the following points of contention:

• If the company goes under, that investment could disappear completely.
• If the cattle lose value in a given year, will they cover your guaranteed 20% by digging into their own pockets to pay out the difference? Something tells me probably not.
• Why are they partnering with potential investors like you and me if the returns are so great that they’re willing to guarantee you a 15-20% return on investment?

These are really things you should consider, and in my opinion, they need to pass the test of time for a bit longer to really earn the public’s trust.

The information provided in this post is for general informational purposes only and should not be considered as financial advice. The content is based on the author’s understanding and interpretation of financial concepts and may not be applicable to your individual financial situation. Before making any financial decisions, it is important to consult with a qualified professional, such as a financial advisor or accountant, who can assess your specific circumstances and provide personalized advice.

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