Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: This week I've got a special guest. John DePape joins me. He's an industry veteran out there. We have a great discussion about canola strategies. Is basis going to hit minus 100 again here? Is it going to be like 2013? All that and more, including some crop marketing strategies to get you ready to rock and roll with your post harvest plan here. Let's get after it. Episode 94 of the what the Futures podcast.
Hey, folks, welcome to the what the Futures podcast, your quick guide to better farming decisions.
All right, folks, welcome into episode 94 of the what the Futures podcast. Approaching getting closer to 100 each and every week here, of course, recorded in the UPL studio. And we've got actually on the farm here this week. Harvest is cruising along here. We're into the canola now. We got a couple of wave trials now. We'll get some results here. I was looking at the, the maps on my, on John Deere operations last night and you could see some clear lines in a few fields, but it's been kind of chaotic. The farm, oh man, they took off, I don't know, about 500 acres of canola yesterday, maybe more than that. And so it's been, it's been going, going fast. Alrighty. I joked earlier this spring on one episode that, you know, it's hard to beat. It's hard to beat. We talked about wheat and wheat losing lots of money. And I kind of joke that we love growing wheat across the prairies and that it's a great day when you're harvesting wheat. It's just one of those great days. The sun's shining, you're just cruising along. And I got to experience that a couple times here this last week on the farm. And it was exactly as I said.
It was calm and it was smooth from an operation perspective, the flow, the pace, it just, it was a really fun day of harvesting. A fun couple days of harvesting. Yeah, sure. We got, you know, Finn and I were jumping into the combine and we got completely covered in, in, in chaff and dust, but other than that, it was smooth. And you know, you've got four combines going.
You know, the 780s are cruising along the cart pulls up auto sync, you're dumping the yield. Monitors showing you some wheat yields with three digits. The winds, well, when wasn't blowing really much, but sun shining, it's a dandy. A dandy of a couple days they're harvesting wheat. So I stand by my comment. We might be losing money, but, man, are we enjoying the day when we're out there. All right. Episode 94. I've got.
I've got John DePape joining me, of course, his latest project called the Trading Floor. Encourage you guys to check out our conversation and check out what he has to say. Some great insights on that platform and some wonderful characters contributing on that platform as well. So check that out. Positive moments for me this week. Again, I already said a great harvest day, a great couple of days, harvesting week. But Finn had his first combine nap and no, he didn't pass out on the floor. Like. Like that tends to happen. I've had quite a few naps in the swather or on the combine back in the day, but it was, it was, it was great.
[00:03:30] Speaker B: Great.
[00:03:31] Speaker A: He napped in my arms as we were going back and forth and, and just. Yeah, the joy on that kid's face. He loves farm equipment. We turned his, his car seat around on the drive and he got to see everything in a different way. And he was naming every piece of equipment as we drove down, down the highway. So it was, it was really good, really fun. And I want to wish my daughter WILLA Turns five on September 26th. And we've been celebrating the last couple weeks, lots of celebrating.
But we are checking out Gabby Cat, the movie in theater for this Friday. We're checking that out and having some cake and just enjoying turning five. So great birthday and happy birthday to my Wilhelmina.
All right, let's. Let's move along here in the show from a crop marketing perspective, folks, of course, looking for this market to find some lows. I know Canola showing maybe a little resilience here as of recording where we're trying to gain on the weekend. We'll see where we go. I've been talking about a little further decline yet. I think the harvest lows can be a little delayed this year with pace being a little slow out there compared to average. Not for everyone. People are getting done every single day. But it wouldn't surprise me to see this harvest low come in a little bit later this year.
We often find a harvest low for Canola in the month of September. So keep that in mind in your crop marketing plans. And then you tend to get a bit of a rally, a bit of a bounce here going into, you know, late October, November, you tend to get some type of rally.
And then on years like this where production seems plentiful, then you want to throw a little trade issue in here. The markets can go and look for some lows going into Spring, they can actually find what you'd call a bit of a peak in the month of November and then actually decline going into spring. So it, you know, we'll have to see what we get for a bounce and how we can take advantage of it. But it's not set in stone that you guys, you know, if you don't sell in October, November, that you'll get higher prices later on. You know, you'd expect that, but it's not set in stone. The one thing to consider here as futures rally is to just take note of basis. And John's going to talk about this in a minute, but he's very passionate about the basis side of the equation. Take a look at what your basis is doing and if you see potential gains possible in that. Yeah, I do. You know, I think we're getting offered like a minus 60, minus 60 something basis right now, minus 70 basis actually at one of our bungay locations. And I can't see that sticking around all winter. But yeah, I guess crazier things have happened from a marketing perspective here. Wheat, you know, this is not going to be that exciting for folks. But what I want to highlight here is that the offers we're getting are highlighting that your best price is delivering soon. The example I got, it ended up it was a 650Bungies or 650G. Three neighboring elevators, same offer, no surprise to anybody listening. But to go into November the price was lower. To go into December the price was lower. The only it didn't even make sense to carry it into spring using their, their prices. But I just need to give you guys that heads up and that warning that they did the same thing last year, maybe the year before. Sarah Koche and I were talking about it on an episode this summer about grain buyers and is this how they buy grain now moving forward? Do they not try to build that book into the future?
And you're seeing that right now. You're seeing no incentive for you to go and forward contract, no incentive for you to go and grab the spread in these futures but instead waiting for them to say here's our best offer, our best pricing. And by the way, it's for the nearby month. I don't understand or maybe I just won't say it on the podcast today cause I have a sense of what's going on. But it's a little frustrating because you think hey I don't want to sell it at 650 but you know there's a 7 plus later on I'll go And take advantage of that. And we're just not seeing that. Now, the way to tackle this, and I told this, I mentioned this to a farm the other day, is that, you know, if you, you just go and pick your, your futures target, go and get your futures priced, you know, go and get that part settled. And then when they phone you and phone everyone with their special for that month or for that time, that's when you say, hey, actually I got futures here. I need to take that and lock in, you know, get my, my price, get my net price.
And that would be the way to tackle, to tackle marketing some wheat here. Again, it's not all rosy with futures not doing much anything exciting, making new lows this week.
But once you get futures to a spot where you want to lock them in, then I would suggest you leave basis open for whenever that special shows up. Grab that premium.
[00:08:36] Speaker B: That.
[00:08:36] Speaker A: No, it's not a premium. That number tie the two together and that'll get you your net price.
[00:08:41] Speaker B: All right.
[00:08:42] Speaker A: Other than that, it's kind of, it's strange times right now. We're in that kind of, that harvest pressure, that gluta harvest.
In some locations, you can't even, you can't move a stitch of grain. You can't move. I got a rye contract here that's gonna, that had a two month delivery window that ain't moving on time. All right. I've got, you know, wanted to move a commodity the other day. I couldn't do it in the timeframe I wanted. Like you are getting jammed up at certain spots, but on the flip side, you're also getting, you know, wined and dined a little bit here. You're, you're having. I got a phone call from a buyer this week and I want to highlight this because this is an extreme. So I had never sold this organization anything and they didn't know anything about me. They phoned and they're like, hey, they have my name there, Ryan. I'm like, yeah, like, hey, just checking in, wondering how your crops are wondering, you know, yields, quality, like so on and so forth. And I'm talking like, this guy has no idea who I am.
And not that he should, but I've never sold them anything. And he's trying to feel me out in the conversation, right? And then finally it comes around to, hey, we really need to buy oats. And I'm like, oh, that's great. What's your price?
Sucked, you know, 385 was the price.
And he's like, how's your oat crop this year. I'm like, yeah, we don't have any oats, but, you know, thanks for calling. My point here, guys, is I am on that list. I'm like, when I worked at Vitera, I had a list of. I don't know what was on that list.
I don't know if it was 800 or a thousand people.
And in your. You had your top hundred that you could see you're consistently communicating with because they make a note, right? I talked to Ryan on this day. I talked to a farmer on this day. They make those notes. So I'm like, down, way down on this guy's list. And he cold called me to feel me out, to figure out what I had to try to buy these darn things. He needed to buy them, and he needed them delivered within three weeks. I got a call from our wheat buyer. Hey, our G3 elevator. Hey, we want to buy some wheat here. What do you think is 650?
Well, I think nothing of it.
P And H was 7. So, you know, like, anyways, moving on. But they're making.
They're. They're trying to buy some business right now. So that. Is that a little, you know, should we have the bubbles going, the goal light going, saying warning, warning, you know, red flashing lights, something going on here.
We found our harvest lows, guys.
That's what's going on. We found some harvest lows for the time being, and we'll see. But it's a positive sign. It's positive that. That we're starting to see some of this. All right, so again, I got cold called. I hope you're getting cold called as well. And in fact, I was chatting. I chat with a few advisors regularly. And. And one mentioned, I think Brittany mentioned, with all bushel mentioned, that she was kind of seeing similar things. Getting cold call a cold call or getting a company she hadn't heard from for a long time, reaching out. So that's interesting, folks. I'm just saying that's interesting.
[00:12:02] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:12:03] Speaker A: And that's positive. All right. It's kind of realizing now I look like the offensive coordinator for the Arizona Cardinals today. I've. I know we're two and one. I know I've got playoff aspirations here, but, man, I got to figure out my wardrobe a little bit better. You guys are going to think this is an Arizona Cardinals advertising clip, social media clip. Anyways, okay, you know, seeing a recovery in lentil value. Seeing a recovery in.
In yellow peas, green peas, maple peas. Again, this is all along the same lines of just Finding that, you know, locking up the bins and finding a bit of upward, upward adjustment in price trying to get the bushels out of the bins. Right. So, so it's good, it's a little bit of positivity here for us on this, on this positive Friday. All right folks, I got blown up here a little bit on, you know, lots of YouTube comments which I appreciate. Subscribe to the YouTube channel. Are you remember my goal is 500 by the end of summer. Well, summer just ended this week and we have over 620 subscribers on YouTube. So thank you. Keep hitting that subscribe button and continue to find us on your, your podcast platforms. Find us wherever you, you tune in from the tractor cab. And again we, we appreciate you. So anyways, some comments on social or on YouTube here we got, you know, markets may have bottomed out. I got that comment today. Maybe we're 90% harvested. The price of wheat is 715 a bushel.
I'm going to wait to buy a steer. Cattle prices record highs. Anyways, keep them coming folks. I appreciate all of them. And I did get an email, I want to acknowledge this email. I gotta find it here real quick. But I did get an email and basically saying Ryan, this came from Aaron. Aaron, thank you for the email. But farm in Southwest Sask looking for some insights on the things we grow here, lentils, Durham and chickpeas. Thanks. Love the show Aaron. Aaron, appreciate the email 100% noted. We did talk about some lentils today. So check mark for the show.
But I am going to, I got some new guests that will be joining us for season three.
I am going to attempt to find another specialty crops person to join us regularly. Chuck does a great job monthly. We'll try to fit in another one. And Aaron, if you didn't check out the live show with Chuck from a few weeks ago, it's on your favorite podcast platform. It is there. It's sitting there. We cover a bunch of crops in that episode. So go and check that out. But keep em coming folks.
It's great to get emails. It's great to get the interaction and answer the questions. Also the voicemail this week we're gonna from Taylor, we're going to hear from John, we're going to hear from Jerome. Three more voicemails coming in of course sponsored by the Crop Marketing Made Cool conference which is coming up December 9th to 11th. And we're giving away I guess this is going to be what next week we're giving away on the episode here. John Deere Multi Tool two yeti cups. All you have to do is go to what the futurespodcast ca that's the website.
Click on the send voicemail button. You'll get entered to win. You let us know your percent harvested. You'll get entered to win those prizes. Maybe some liquid courage to go along with that. So thanks to Taylor, John and Jerome and let's hear from from those folks right now.
[00:15:39] Speaker C: Hey Ryan, I just wanted to give you a quick harvest update and thank you for doing all you do. I really appreciate it. You do a great job on your podcast.
We are 45, 46% done here. We have a couple hundred acres of oats finish, but other than that, all our cereals we done, all our pulses are done and yields have been above average. So I feel blessed about that and I just wanted to thank you. I pre sold a lot more this year than I normally would have. Mostly on your advice I guess. I was 50 sold and now with her.
[00:16:09] Speaker B: Hey Ryan, your beauty John here from Prairie West Farms in Tofield, Alberta. 65% complete here.
Got about 350 acres of swath canola left and the balance would be standing and should be ready to go when we get to it. So we're just slowly picking away here and the weather's been amazing. Hooked me up with some tools, thanks.
[00:16:40] Speaker A: Hey Ryan, Taylor Wallace here, 75 done for us in the Unity, Saskatchewan area.
[00:16:47] Speaker C: Hey Ryan, it's Jerome here, south piece area. Crooked Creek, home of the Cricket Creek donuts. Best donuts in the world. If you're swinging by, stop in. We're sitting at about 90% harvested. Got a couple days going left and at the end it's in sight. Beautiful harvest weather. Everything's been coming off dry. Good quality peas and wheat were both just below farm averages, but kind of better than expected for the dry year. Canola's been coming off like exceeding our expectations. One of our better crops maybe was seeing a little bounce in futures the other day seeing like say 640, looking out a little ways, seeing some bids of 14 bucks.
And I was thinking, man, we fought pretty hard to get 14 bucks last winter. Should a guy move on something like that. Of course it's, you know, dropped again. But it just made me think, are we catching a falling knife? Are we harvest lows? What's our prognosis?
[00:17:45] Speaker A: All right, well those, that's always fun. I appreciate those voicemails coming in and getting to hear your voice. And thank you John. You're a beauty as well, my friend. So thanks for that. Thanks for that comment. All right, now, let's keep it going here again, continue your voicemails with percent harvested. That's great for right now. I already have the prize lined up for next month, so we'll switch it up here in October. But away we go. All right, folks, let's get into it here with John DePape from the trading Floor.
All right, folks, let's welcome John Depap here to episode nine. 94 of the what the Futures podcast. John making his podcast debut. John, how's it going this week? I appreciate you jumping on the show.
[00:18:35] Speaker B: Well, it's much like many other weeks, except as you can tell, I've got a bit of a cold, so hopefully I make it through the interview.
[00:18:41] Speaker A: Well, I appreciate you gutting it out for us today, not taking the day off. Appreciate that, John. So we will try to keep it nice and light for you here. We've got what I find a couple of fascinating topics that I want to cover off today. So before we get too far down the path, though, John, I want to just talk about a project that you have on the go called the Trading Floor.
I wonder if you could give us and the listeners a little context about what you're, what you've been working on and, you know, some of the characters that you've got on, on that platform.
[00:19:17] Speaker B: Yeah, sure.
I'll tell you how it started.
I run a hedge program. I call it Advanced Grain Pricing, where I work with a broker from Ventum Financial, David Derwin. I've known him since we were on the Trading Floor.
And it's a program where we actually put the hedges on for farm clients.
As one guy said, you're not going to be calling me up all the time and telling me what I should be doing? No, we're just going to do it.
Okay, great. So it's, we have fairly strict protocols. It's all about hedging, it's all about risk management.
So we would, we put on hedges periodically and I can explain, you know, basically that process. But each week I would send out a recap of the week, a view of the market, what happened to the market, where it's going, and, and I found that I waited till Friday for the get the full week's price prices, and I'd work on it over the weekend and then maybe Monday and sometimes if things got away, on me Tuesday. Now I'm writing about something that happened a week ago, and I thought, this is terrible. What I've got to do is find a way to, as we used to say, in the business I used to be in, toss the newspaper, better get it out to them when it's timely.
And that was the genesis of the training floor.
I wanted to have a medium where I could, if I see something happen market, I go, oh, hey guys should know this. Click, click, click, boom. Done. It's. And it's out there. Yeah. And the guys I've got in that program really appreciate it because as you can imagine, it's more timely. Then I thought, well, why don't I get more guys in on this? It doesn't have to be the guys that are in my heads program.
And so I've opened it up to whoever.
And part of the underlying theme of doing that is I see a problem with price transparency in the market. I want to find a way to get better price information out to farmers. Grain companies won't give it.
They post prices. But we all know that those aren't necessarily where the deals are happening.
Maybe like GasBuddy will get, get the people on the other end of that transaction to help. So we're working toward that. We're not really there yet. But what I really want to do is start to have an interactive community where we start getting cash price information from our farm members and then we make it public and not their individual sales. But make, make public what's really going on. Sure. By public I mean I'll give it to anybody, you know, the government, the news media.
You know, I think it, maybe it's from my days working at the commodity exchange. I think price is a public good.
And that's so, so I just see that could be my role and you know, to give some value to farmers. You're right. I write not every day, not every week. When I see something worth worth talking about, I write it. And I have a few other people that contribute as well. And I'm looking for more.
[00:22:31] Speaker A: You know, I had a farmer tell me this well over a year ago now, but.
And this isn't to say that the folks that write the 30 page reports every Friday that they're not of value. They, they certainly are at times. But you know, the farmers, and actually not just in the last year, but over my career have said just give me something that I can digest quickly because I gotta go and get the crew going. I gotta go and deal with this issue over here.
I've gotta go and make a decision over here. So just give me something quick that I can know what's going on and trigger a decision or not or a decision to do something or not do something in my mind. So I'm certainly with you on that one.
So just to go back for a second. So trading floor is something that farmers in Canada, Western Canada can access. Canada, US what's the area that you're focusing on?
[00:23:29] Speaker B: I have no restrictions, but my focus is on Western Canada.
I write mainly about Canola.
I also write about wheat because what I write about is futures, futures and options, derivatives, hedging.
So I'm no good to you if you're going lentils. And the other thing I wanted to say, your comment about all these people putting up reports, I'm no Greg Costell. I'm not Chuck Panner. I don't feel there's a need for another voice there. Those guys do a great job.
Greg's retired now, but a lot of people out there telling you a lot about the market.
My background, my wheelhouse is I'd like to educate people about how the market works. Sure. And so if you look at what I write about, it's not really going to be the same as well, the market went up, it's bottoming out. And we can talk about some of the things I've just recently written.
My background is in grain handling, risk management, and I did a lot of consulting work on.
On the whole brain handling system.
So put that all together and. Yeah, I just think there's a role and possibly need for just more basic understanding of how the market works.
[00:24:48] Speaker A: Yeah. And I'll add to that as well. I get Chuck's information. I subscribe and get and read his stuff every week with something that if it doesn't hit my inbox at a certain time, I'm searching for it.
[00:25:01] Speaker B: Right.
[00:25:01] Speaker A: So there's definitely a space for it. And especially on the specialty crops.
[00:25:06] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:25:07] Speaker A: There. If there's. There's a lot of information for that. So. All right, let's talk about the trading floor a little bit more. So you have a cast of characters on here. Like who? So you said you're going to write on canola and wheat. If it ever gives you a reason to.
Who else is contributing?
[00:25:24] Speaker B: We have Trent Clarenbeck, who you know, and I think many of your listeners may know him. I'm not sure who introduced us, but he is, as you know, a technical analyst.
I'm a fundamental analyst. And so I thought it'd be a great fit because he's going to talk about things that I would like to know.
And so he sells his newsletter. So what he does on the training floor is give some ideas and.
And let's Be honest. He's using it as a promotional tool to get people to sign onto his 100. Yep. His newsletter. But what I'd like to do, and Trent and I've talked about it, is have his newsletter available for his subscribers on the training floor. We can have that so that they can just go to one, one place, get his material, get my material.
We also have. Well, David Durwood, who's the futures broker that I use. Yeah, He. He puts on something there that he puts out everywhere else. And some. Some of it's. Well, it's. It's all pretty good. We had. I had a good friend of mine, Jeff Boyco, who is a currency trader. He and I worked together trading Forex and he had a.
He's got a daily email just giving his idea of where the market will go and where you should hedge, that kind of thing. And I had it on. We had some technical issues that we haven't overcome.
So he may be back, but he's not there now. And we have Marketplace Commodities out of Lethbridge. Yep. What I said to them was, whatever you put on Twitter, put it on the training floor.
The way I look at it is on Twitter or X, you're showing it to everybody. 99% of them don't even care.
But everybody who's on the training floor will. Will have an interest in what you're saying. The other one is Johnson's Grain. They have a daily email.
We were putting that on. They've changed their format. I've got some technical issues with it right now. What they do is they send out an email with a link to their website.
And I thought, well, I could maybe put something on there. But it's. Again, we've got some things to work out and I have a few others that I really can't talk about that I want approached. And we're talking about adding.
So we want it to be a place where I've got a colleague, a friend who is into inputs and I've talked to him quite a bit. He'd love to have use it as like a blog, but I'm reluctant at this point because I want this to be just about grain markets. Just about, yeah. And I may go there because often we're looking at fertilizer, you know, and other. But I say we. I mean, sometimes I look at that. So that's the idea, is to provide some snippets of information from a variety of sources all in one place. And I guess the foundation of it is the stuff that I write so.
[00:28:20] Speaker A: You'Re, you're covering some fundamentals on a couple of the heavy hitters from an acreage perspective. You've got some technical analysis which of course Klarenbach covers everything on the technical side. So you're getting a little lentil, mustard, chickpea love there if you want it. And then you've got some feed grains coverage, some brokerage coverage as well with Johnston. So a nice little variety of information coming at you. And the other thing I'll add is when I get, you know, when I'm scrolling X, I might see the Marketplace video, but if I'm not there at the right time, I might miss it. Where it's, if it's sitting in my, my messages, I'm going to catch it. Right. So I, that was one thing I kind of noticed here as well.
[00:29:04] Speaker B: Well, yeah, the thing, the thing I like about it is whenever any of us post anything on the trading floor, the users of the floor get a notice on their phone or an email or whatever. So they can ignore it and look at it later, but it's there. Whatever I've written, everything I've written is there, archived. You can go back and see what I was saying about the Keller market a year ago if you want. Yeah. When I started it. So.
[00:29:27] Speaker A: And I think there's a comment spot as well. Right. Where folks that see the info can submit a comment.
[00:29:33] Speaker B: Yep. The farm users can't start a post, but they can start a comment. Yeah, I'd like to see more interaction. We get a little bit, but yeah, yeah, we're whole.
[00:29:43] Speaker A: I'm always same thing. I'm always looking for more interaction as well. So. And how can farmers, if they're listening to this episode, we're going to talk about, about some of the big topics here in just a second. We're going to talk about a negative $100 basis and we're going to talk about potentially a strategy here as well. But how can farmers access this, this platform? How do they get a hold of you? How can they reach out?
[00:30:06] Speaker B: Well, it's, it's the trading floor, I guess the web address is the trading floor. All one word, circle. So the reason it's Circle is the, the app that I'm using is, was developed by a company called Circle. So. Okay. And that should get you there. There's a free level, you can take a look at things. But if you want to be a full member, it's, you know, right now I'm charging six and a quarter a year.
All right, sounds good with that for what it's worth, you get the combine app for keeping track of inventory and sales. Sure, sure. Okay.
[00:30:45] Speaker A: Fair enough. Good stuff. Okay, I want to throw a whopper at you here just to. To get, get going. Maybe before I throw this hundred dollar, negative hundred dollar basis question at you on Canola, do you want to just give us just a little bit more background?
I called you. You know, we met kind of for the first time. We had a phone call and. And I, you know, I knew, I knew, of course I. But I did. I made a mistake. I. I accidentally labeled you as an old Canadian Wheat Board guy in our conversation. So could. Could you just set the, Set the record straight here on where, where you've been and where you stand?
[00:31:26] Speaker B: The Wheat Board has clearly played a role in my history, in my past, when I worked at Cargill as a trader.
Very familiar with the Wheat Board. Yeah, when I was a trader on the floor, there was still an issue. Some people don't realize that the Wheat Board used to trade barley futures at the Commodity Exchange. And not when I was there, but before and when I worked for the exchange. Interestingly, we wanted to see if the Wheat Board gave up barley.
Were we, as an exchange, equipped to handle the risk management, the instruments we had.
And so that's when I got to know the guys at Sparks because we hired them to do the work, that analysis. And then I worked. I left the exchange to work for Sparks. So as a consultant, I did work for.
If you're going to talk about the wheat port, I'll go there. I did work for the Alberta government.
Did a couple of studies. I did one study on barley wheat.
They tried to get me fired over it. So I thought, I'm doing the right thing, pushing the right buttons. And then, you know, afterwards, when I was on my own, around 2010, we had a Wheat Board farmer director election. And I wrote, I started writing again. You know, it's. It's. Maybe it's in my DNA. I just wanted to provide information that I knew people weren't looking at. Yep. Or couldn't access a blog, I guess, about the Wheat Board. And I use the term, I call myself the CWB Monitor. So it's an interesting story. I thought, well, I should write one a day during the election.
And Blair Rudder, who was executive director of the Wheat Growers at the time, called me up and he said I was sending them to everybody in my mailing list. He said, these are great, John, but what's your plan? I said, well, I'm going to write One, at least one article a day during this week board election. And he said, aren't you afraid you're going to run out of material? I said, you're kidding.
I wrote over 100 articles.
At least one a day, sometimes two.
And when I was finished, the election was over. I had 20 more ideas of stories that I hadn't even finished. I know it irritated them. I knew a couple guys that were former elected directors on the, on the board. Jeff Nielsen was one, for instance. They told me that I was real irritant at the board of directors level, so that was a good thing.
So that's my exposure to the wheat board. So, yeah, I was enemy number one at one point and. But no, I was not a wheat board person. But you know, it's funny, you live in Winnipeg and you tell people you work in the grain trade and they go, oh, you work for the wheat port.
Yeah.
[00:34:18] Speaker A: Or when did you work for the wheat board?
[00:34:19] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:34:23] Speaker A: Are you going to write a book, John? Did you write a book about this?
Did you archive those articles?
Is there a way where the youth of today, the college kids, could grab some of that and learn some of our history? Or are they all hidden?
[00:34:38] Speaker B: Well, it's interesting you say that the youth last two winters, not this one, but last two. I taught at the University of Manitoba in the diploma program, financial risk management.
And last year I mentioned the wheat board and nobody knew what I was talking about.
Wow.
It's not like they thought, oh, I've heard of that.
They didn't know what it was. And these are kids from the farm.
[00:35:05] Speaker A: So we're there.
We've made it that far now.
[00:35:09] Speaker B: Yeah. So these are 18 year olds. And you know, they would have been alive at the end of the wheat board, but they would have been like four, so nobody's talking about them anymore. We survived, but, well, I got to.
[00:35:20] Speaker A: Be a grain buyer while the wheat board was, was around, so I got to experience all that. And I also got to sell as a farmer with the Canadian Wheat Board. So I got the mystery payments 18 months later where I'm like, where is this from?
But anyways.
[00:35:36] Speaker B: Alrighty.
[00:35:37] Speaker A: So you spent some time trading on the floor as well. You've. You said you work for Cargill for a period of time you've been, you know, independent or I don't know if independent, self employed, kind of doing your own projects for the last number of years though, if I gather that correctly.
[00:35:55] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:35:56] Speaker A: All right, well, I want to talk about, I want to talk about this negative hundred dollar basis. Because there is, you know. You know, and I can speak about it from our experience right now as well. Like, we are harvesting, and I have to eat crow on this because I was the one saying we're a week away from a devastating drought on our farm. And then, you know, fast forward a couple months and.
And sheepishly, our yields are phenomenal, the best we've seen on our farm. So I don't know where I screwed that up, John, but I think I learned a lesson in 2021, I learned that one rain in June doesn't make the crop.
And in 2025, I learned if you're gonna have a drought, have an early one because your crop still has a chance.
[00:36:43] Speaker B: So I understand the, The. The forest fires helped as well with all the smoke.
[00:36:49] Speaker A: It's been making its surrounds here over the last day or so. But I tell you, like, where I live, we had a. We didn't have a lot of smoke this year, just the way it worked out. You know, my friends down the road are harvesting the biggest crops of their careers.
[00:37:09] Speaker B: So the jury is out on that one.
[00:37:15] Speaker A: For me at this time. Yes. All right, so the $100 basis.
Are we headed there, John? Is that where we're going in the next couple of weeks here with this big Western Canadian crop?
[00:37:30] Speaker B: I think the reason you're bringing that up is because some people started comparing this, what looks like a record crop to 2013, which was a record.
And we did hit 100 under on canola, something similar, I think, on wheat, too. As I wrote on the training fork, is history repeating itself.
So one thing, our basis levels now are wider, particularly in the first half of a crop year, because of freight rates are different. The rail freight rates are higher in the fall.
And so that's going to have an impact on basis. But so we're, you know, average right now. Average posted basis right now, the way I figured is about 60 under. So we're not far off.
Yeah, the thing is with in 2013, the reason we went to 100 under, and actually it was worse than that. Those of you that were around it got to the point where some companies stopped bidding at all.
[00:38:26] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:38:26] Speaker B: They didn't even. Didn't even put out a price.
We just can't. We can't buy it. So 100 under is bad, but nothing is even worse.
That was simply not because. Wasn't just because of the size of the crop. It was because the infrastructure wasn't prepared for it.
And so that was the approach I took with the piece I Wrote, how are we different than we were in 2013?
Well, we're significantly different. We have much more handicap capacity. The terminal capacity is higher.
Canola, the crush capacity is a greater proportion of the crop. You know, in 2013, I think the carryout on wheat was something stupid like 5 million or 7 million tons, I can't remember, gotta look it up.
But canola was just over 2 million.
So thanks to the crusher, we were able to clear that market reasonably well given the circumstances. But in the meantime, when the railroads were not hauling grain as fast as they should have.
Yeah, we hit 100 under and are we going there again? Boy, if I knew that.
I think it's going to be a function of whether the railroads are prepared for the crop. Yeah, I mean, you know, when it comes right down to a basis, it's really a function of capacity.
And if you've got, if you have excess capacity, which we tend to do, even the basis will be totally different than if you have, if you're running out of capacity, you know, so it's all a matter of capacity. And that's not just handling, it's shipping. That's the key.
[00:40:09] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, we had in 1314. So I was in my like third year of crop marketing working with farmers and I remember the December stats can coming out and just, just hammering the market. It just, everything got crushed after that and some companies went to a no bid, are no offers, no nothing, no buying. And then do you remember for that short period of time where the one company came out and said, yeah, we'll let you sell to us, but you have to buy an input. Do you remember that?
[00:40:45] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:40:45] Speaker A: That only lasted a couple weeks. And then a few folks, farmers were like, wait a second, is that legal? Can they do that? And everyone quickly changed tune. But by the time we got to the spring and summer, things had improved drastically, hadn't they?
[00:41:04] Speaker B: I watch basis and spreads a lot because the same thing, you know, it's a, it's a relational, it's a relationship. Yeah. In fact, you know, okay, we're talking about 100 under. We're at 60 under right now.
Nav. Jan spread is 13 under. So you know, we even use the same language. And that year we, when you got to 100 under spreads went to what we call full carry. There's only, there's a limit to how wide they will go and, or can go. And, and so we went, actually we went just beyond full carry on Canola on every spread. Not Jan, March, March, May and so on.
So what I was telling guys then was, they're frantic. They can't sell their canola. And I said, well, I can't help with cash flow but sell futures.
So we would sell nav futures as a hedge, roll it to the Jan. Spreads weren't as wide, price wasn't as high. So I think went off. Jan, we got $10. Jan, Marge, we got $10. And every time you do that, every time you roll a short position in a, in a carry, you improve your hedge by, by the spread.
So, you know, we added $10, another $10. We added basically a buck a bushel to our price and we avoided the hundred under.
And when we hit 20 under, I was saying, well, I think it's time to pull the trigger. You can't do that on your whole crop. I understand that. Yeah, My focus tends to be on what you can sell or will sell in the last third.
And so that's what I was.
That to me was it worked out real well. I'm not saying I was a genius, but you can't sell it. And the market, I could tell the market was going to pay you to store it through carrying charges.
So that's what we did. And so we got better than average futures price for the year. And next year, a buck a bushel on the cure and then instead 100 under, 20 under. So guys were doing quite well on that.
And I guess that kind of triggered something in my mind that there are ways to wade through this. And the reason I wrote what I did the comparison was because a friend of mine called and said, we're really worried. We're just getting into there our canola and it looks great. And everybody's, are we not heading back to 100 under, like in, like in 2013? I thought, okay, maybe that's something we should look at. So, yeah, I, I, you know, an old trader at Cargill, once I was listening to this, hear this in the back of my mind, it's never, he said this. It's never as bad as it seems. It's never as good as it seems.
So it looks like the sky is falling. Stay calm and take a look at the different options you have to work your way through it.
So even in those dark days of 2013, there are ways to get around it. I love talking about this because I used 2013 as a case study in the course I taught at the university because it was fascinating to me, the canola. We went to full carry on wheat. You would think, yeah, we're not moving wheat. The wheat spreads Will go to full carry. Well, wheat was.
It is Minneapolis. And so what we did that year because the railroads basically decided where things were going because of car turnaround times and so on, we, we starved the US wheat market. We didn't ship any through the middle of that year. We didn't ship any wheat to the US because the cars would be out of serve. You know, the cycle times are too long. Right. And the railroads were under a lot of pressure.
So we shorted that market and it inverted, you know, so here we are with tons and tons of wheat that we're carrying the market to carry and it did the exact opposite. Yeah. And I think that's why we see. And this may be a topic for another day, we see wheat merchants not dealing with wheat futures and pricing the same way as Canal.
Helpful to know that the way you approach wheat, it's a little different than Canola. I don't think they use Minneapolis wheat like they use Canola.
[00:45:14] Speaker A: No, I don't think, I don't think so either.
[00:45:16] Speaker B: The.
[00:45:16] Speaker A: I was actually looking today, so my phone, I'm getting a little hits from the grain companies about the specials, right?
[00:45:25] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:45:25] Speaker A: And so I was looking at Bungi. I've been saying Bungie Vitera on the show, but Bungi.
And the price of wheat they offered was 650 a bushel for a 1 red 13 5. So I started to look at the carry like, okay, well if I hold this to November, December, like what could we, what could we see?
And there was virtually nothing there for carry. There was no, there was no better price. I had to go till next, you know, late next spring to get like a 680, which doesn't make any sense. So even the wheat market right now is a little bit.
It's how it ran last year where they just came and filled, you know, on demand, hand to mouth. Seems like they're setting up that same playbook for this winter again.
[00:46:13] Speaker B: Yeah. You know, I think the confidence level of and basis on Canola is totally different. So deferred basis, they'll give you a decent, decent basis on wheat. I think it's the confidence level. I've noticed that cash prices, deferred cash prices, if you chart them, it's relatively flat, like you're saying. But if you look at, if you look at the futures market, there's a really good carry in wheat right now.
So the way around that is if you're looking at deferred prices, sell the futures because the futures are at a premium.
And the basis I Won't say it will improve, but very likely it will improve. And you could lock in the basis later.
[00:46:55] Speaker A: I.
If I were a betting man, that's what I'd be going with right now, because that's what they've been showing us for the last year and a half or two.
[00:47:04] Speaker B: So that's what the market is telling you to do. So. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:47:07] Speaker A: All right, folks, I strongly encourage you to check out that article. John covers the differences between 2013, 14 and, and this year. The difference in crush capacity, the difference in country space, the difference in. In export terminal capacity. And honestly, after that, you got it. We all have to remember that the rail, Rail, there's now a monitor for railroad performance. Right. I can't remember the name of the website off the top of my head, but I was looking at it the other day. But how many cars are moving and how fast are they unloading? Like that all came into play after that year.
Now, sure, there's some bushels out there, the way it looks.
And each farm has their own plan on when they need to physically move this, when they need to cash those checks, all that stuff. You know, I, I do see the fear out there, John. Like, you know, I was chatting with a farm the other day in central Saskatchewan, and his buyer's message was, we're the only game in town buying Canola. If you don't buy your space with us for November, December, you're not going to have a chance to in the next few weeks. And I wouldn't say that statement is wrong. Like, I think that if you want to move November Canola, you're going to have to be a little bit more aggressive. But again, it kind of boils down to your plan, your farm's plan.
[00:48:27] Speaker B: Yeah. And they're not wrong by saying, you know, we're the only game in town, which is unfortunate, but.
And I know that guys I talk to, that's what they're concerned about having being in the queue, because back in 2013, they, some of them were. And they still, you know, they had, I knew guys had October contracts, delivery in October, and they didn't move them until March.
And so, yeah, an extreme time.
That's no guarantee. But I, I keep hearing that. I, I tell guys, oh, sell deferred, you know, roll the hedges, and they go, but I need to move it. And, you know, off the combine or early.
And I said, well, I'm just telling you what your other options are. I'm not going to tell you not to.
That's what you need to do that's, you know, that's not my role. Yeah, yeah, fair enough.
[00:49:18] Speaker A: I have been very active in writing Canola calls this year. 820 calls, $800 calls, 750 calls, $700 strikes. It's worked very well. You've been talking about writing calls as well or selling calls.
Why, why do you like them, John?
What stands out for that strategy? And you did write a piece on this as well not long ago on the trading floor. But what stands out with that strategy?
[00:49:48] Speaker B: Well, as I mentioned earlier that I have a thing about target contracts. You sign a cart target or grain pricing order, whatever they call them, with a grain company, you're committed to that company. If something better comes along, you have to cancel and then take advantage of the other deal.
I just find also in terms of the market, the health of the market, when you sell to. I'm not going to name names a company on a target, the market doesn't know that that's there.
And by the market, I mean everybody. Okay, so you know that you've sold 500 tons to Bunge at X committed. Well, Bunge at that price, they know they've got 100,000 tons.
So what we're doing by signing targets with them is you're tilting the market power in their favor. What I've noticed is sometimes we'll get to a cash price, we'll raise to a price, and it won't be obvious right away, but then the basis will start to fade, will start to widen.
And once you look into it, it's because everybody likes Kirk. We used to call them magic numbers. 10, 50, 11 round numbers. Nobody puts in a target at 1037.
Always round numbers. So they tend to accumulate.
Well, a grain company has the option to reach up and trigger those targets if they need them, if they're above the market, or if their bid price moves up to the point where that target is triggered just because their bid price is there.
Well, if they don't really want it, what they'll do is they'll fade their basis or widen their basis so that if the futures market takes them into those, those magic numbers, they get triggered. But it's a better basis because what they're doing is they're. And hey, I've got some very good friends who are with green companies, you know, fairly senior guys. I'm not saying anything. I, I do the same thing.
[00:51:58] Speaker A: They probably don't listen to the show, John, so we're fine.
[00:52:02] Speaker B: But. So basically what they're doing is if they're if they, if they're going to be forced to buy it because this target, they're going to do it at a better basis.
So they're exploiting the nature of farm marketing, which tends to be flat price.
So many farmers I know, they ignore basis.
It doesn't matter to them. Just give me a price.
Tell me. This spring he got canola sold at 15 bucks for fall. This was last spring. He was really happy about it.
I said, what was the basis? I don't know. So I looked at a 70 under.
Yeah, and. Okay, well, could have done what I said before. I'll get into targets in a minute or calls. He could have sold futures and wait for better basis. But then you may not have room in the queue in the fall, so he had to do it. 15 bucks is great.
But anyway, so targets, I don't like the idea of targets with individual companies because as I say, it skews market power in their favor. And the market doesn't know, the market in general doesn't know where all these targets are.
Companies, the bigger they are, the more information they have.
So I thought, well, really, and I've told guys, really what you're doing is you're selling Vitera or Cargill or Richardson, a call option on your cash premium. That's what you're doing, but you're not getting a premium for it.
Functionally, it's the same thing. So then I thought, well, why don't we just sell call call options instead of the target?
So I call it a synthetic target. So you pick a 700, 720 or whatever, collect your 25, 30 bucks depending, maybe 15, like that. And if you, if your target doesn't get triggered, if the market doesn't go there, if you had had it set a cash target with a company, it wouldn't get triggered. This doesn't get triggered, but you still have the premium that you collected. And if you do get it triggered, then that's what you wanted in the first place. Yep. So to me, it's, I know it's not a black and white perfect comparison, but to me it's a very effective way to achieve basically the same thing and actually, you know, make a little more money.
[00:54:13] Speaker A: Yeah, I was going to say, like in the meantime, like my, my example from, from this year in the meantime is that, you know, I've been collecting premium along the way and the strikes have always been above what, what's been offered. I haven't done anything at the money, but I've been collecting along the way. And you know, there's times where I've sold or written a call and then a few weeks later it had dropped so much where I just cashed out most of that value and you know, still want the market to rally. I still want it to climb. I still want to sell more physical bushels at a higher price for this year, next year.
[00:54:48] Speaker B: So.
But yeah, interesting point you made. So write calls on the knob futures and then you could do it on the Jan in the March. And we in our heads program, we looked at doing some nav.
Right. And then the last thing we did was a more little more complex strategy where we sold out of the money calls, we bought at the money puts and sold out of the money puts.
We've got a floor plus, plus a target. Yeah. And excuse me, you do that because the put would have cost about $35. Yeah. Because we sold the other money put and the call, it was $9. A lot of things you can do with options.
[00:55:32] Speaker A: All right, John, well, I appreciate you jumping on the show for us this week and it's great to see you even though we're in different spaces. Oh, great to see you and, and, and have you join.
I called you the original gangster a couple of weeks ago when it comes to crop marketing because, you know, you're, you're out there. I would say you're out there. Even, you know, the Canadian wheat board monitor just also proves it, you know, fighting for growers, ruffling feathers in the industry, looking for transparency. And I think those are all kind of crop marketing gangster type characteristics. So, so I appreciate, appreciate you coming on the show. And she some light on a few strategies again, the trading floor folks. You can find that online.
I've been enjoying that, that community so far, just learning and getting some insightful strategy and information from, from John and the folks on there as well, the other characters.
So John, I appreciate it. I hope we can get you on the show here again real quick to keep talking strategy.
[00:56:39] Speaker B: Absolutely.
As you might have noticed, I don't mind talking about this stuff.
Awesome.
It's a lot of fun just talking about it. So appreciate the opportunity and anytime, just give me a call. Hopefully my voice would be a little better next time.
[00:56:53] Speaker A: You bet. Thanks, John.
[00:56:54] Speaker B: Okay, cheers.
[00:56:59] Speaker A: Well, folks, I, you know, I sit in the combines this week as I mentioned earlier, and not that I want to pick on family by any means, but you know, I'm sitting there looking at, like looking at her operators and you know, mom's. Mom's kind of the lead combine operator. Out there. She's been operating equipment for a long time. And I actually want to get her on the show one of these days to just talk about why, why she's in the cab of the combine, what, you know, what made her, what influenced her to be out there running equipment. And so not to pick on our operators or family, but my uncle Allen's out there who, you know, my uncle Alan worked in construction. You know, he'll build you, build you a shop, build you a building, renos your house, whatever. Like, that's where he worked. He wasn't operating equipment.
And. And then our other guy, Trevor, a heck of a guy, probably listen to the show here, you know, a real beauty of a guy out there, you know, but for Trevor, like, you know, he's. He works in the, you know, in the.
[00:58:00] Speaker B: The.
[00:58:00] Speaker A: The.
I was going to say the legal system, but he works in. In the pen. Like he's a guard in the pen. Like he's. This is a guy that's been driving combine his whole life, and he's a smart enough guy, but, you know, it's not the sharpest one out there in the. In the field, but it's going. We're going back and forth. We. There's no hitch. We got a young guy, exchange student in the tractor on the cartoon. We've got just fluid. It was like poetry out there.
And I was like, how the heck. How do you get to this spot where you can kind of take anybody, not anybody, but take people that, you know, haven't been running equipment their whole life and throw them in these big machines, these half million dollars machines, whatever they are, and work so seamlessly.
And you look at technology, you look at, you know, auto sync between the card and the combine's a pretty big one.
You know, there's been lots of buzz around, you know, weight knowing exactly what's in the card at any given time.
Like, there wasn't even a lot of dialogue between people, like barely any hand signals anymore or on the radio. Like, I Remember driving a 7720 with a 3 ton pulling up beside you and working the radio the entire time between trucker and combine operator, right? And like here it just was so smooth. And I just look at how far technology's gone, how fluid and efficient and seamless, you know, John deere operations center is, and not just John deere operations center, but everything within that. And it just made me realize that even someone like me can drive a big fancy piece of equipment and look like a pro. So uncle Allen and Trevor, you guys are looking like pros out there, and we certainly appreciate, appreciate all your expertise and driving skills here at Harvest time. Well, folks, harvest photo contest running for a couple of weeks yet.
Couple of weeks, but it's been. You guys have been on fire here. You have been on fire. Lots of entries coming in. You can actually check out all the pictures. Ryandenee, ca. You can check everything out there.
All you got to do is take your harvest picture, go to the website, upload it, put in a little bit of information, and you get entered to win a trip to Halifax, Nova Scotia. We're talking flights, hotel, we got meals at the, at the event, the curling Olympic trials. You get tickets to all of that. And like I said a couple weeks ago, if you're like, that's a lot of curling, Ryan, I don't know if I can do that.
Hey, these are your tickets. Get more family and friends involved, go as a group, whatever you got to do. Split it up with some people. I get it. But it's a great package. It is the best package out there for a harvest contest. There's nothing that's beating this from what I can see. All right, so we're coming up to deadline for photos here in the next couple of weeks. Get them in, get them submitted, get yourself a chance to win this great package for these Olympic curling trail tickets. Halifax, Nova Scotia, you're going to have a blast. You're going to have a beer at the Moose Head. Moose Head Beer Brewery. You're going to have the lower deck. You're going to go and party at the lower deck one night. Last time I was there, there were five bands playing at the same time in different spaces. I'm sure it's different in winter time, but anyways, you're going to have lobster rolls. Going to have a great time. So, yeah, get your entries in.
And fingers crossed, we'll have a curling expert joining us in the next week here on the podcast.
And so for eating your veggies for this week, I can't stress this enough.
Number one, I want to put on here that.
Just doing the math, pencil to paper.
Crop you grew, bushels, you harvested, price you're expecting, maybe you've sold a bunch of it already and price moves aren't going to impact it. And just get those dollars figured out and find out where you sit. You know, my goal on the farm this year was 6 million bucks, right? 600 bucks an acre. That was our goal. Life is easy at that when we hit that.
And so I was. We Got into the canola here on the weekend, and I thought, well, now I have an idea on where canolias are going to come in. A very strong idea. So what do I need in my canola to hit my goal? Or how far away will I be from my goal? Or do I have a path to being above the goal I set for at the beginning of the year? This is a poet. You make a plan and you figure out how to hit your plan in all the decisions you made all year. How do you.
How close are you? And how does that feel right now? We got a. Prices didn't give us a boost. Of course. Anything we've. We pre sold, it was. Was a win.
It doesn't matter if it was a green pea, malt barley, wheat. Like some of you guys have $9 wheat this year, right? $8 wheat. We have $8.42 wheat on our farm, right? You have canola forward contract at 15 bucks. Anyways, anything done early is a win. So I'm sitting here, I'm like, okay, let's figure this out. I know my dollars that I'm going to generate on my malt barley, my green peas, and my wheat. I have enough sold. I feel comfortable in a budget. Even if you don't, though, you can still budget a number and see where you're at. And then for us figured out, okay, here's where a canola is coming in. So what do I need to sell the rest of my canola at to make my 6 million bucks? Can I do it? Do I have a path to it? And I do. I figured that number out.
And, you know, it comes in at averaging on our canola 12 and 12 and a half ish on our canola sales this year. If we do that, we found our path to 600 bucks an acre. We found our path to 6 million bucks across the farm. I was offered in that price range for canola this week. I didn't do anything, but I was in that range. And so I could have sold all our canola this week at 12:50 and hit our plan. That is peace of mind. That is relief. We're fortunate. We're fortunate that we got these bushels. We're fortunate that mother nature cooperated. I was. I. I have to eat crow here. I was. We were in a drought. We were in a drought. What I learned this year, number one, you know, I can be an idiot at times, but number one, I learned that if you're gonna have a drought, have an early one. Like, not that it's Perfect folks. But we had an early drought and it started to rain in June, mid June. And then here we are with some, some big yields. I learned in 2021, one rain in June is not going to make your crop.
I learned that mistake thinking here's a rain and way we go. And we didn't get near average crops that year, not even close. Learned a lesson there. Learned another one here in 2025.
Anyways, peace of mind. Fortunate I'm not here to brag. Fortunate to find peace of mind. Also fortunate that we have canola sold and hedged so the 1250.
I have breathing room here. This market can go down like I, I really need to.
I'd have to screw up in a major way to, to not meet our goal. But what I'm here to say for eating your veggies, my long number one in eating your veggies this week and maybe we'll just have to keep it to number one for this week. I do have a second one I want to say, but it changes how you approach the rest of the year. I figure out, I figured out that I could sell everything at today's price, use my average prices still come up 5% better than my, my goal. 5% better than my goal. Thank you Mother Nature for that yield. 5% better than the goal I set out to do. That is peace of mind. That is a no brainer. That is me physically moving all this crop out, getting it gone before Christmas and saying, you know what, we hit our goal, we had 5% above our goal. I could still be bullish, I could still participate in this market, I could still figure out how to add to that total. I might just get it all gone though physically and move that risk over into the trading account. Again, folks, if you're sitting here saying, well Ryan, you're a real jerk, we're not getting that same scenario. I'm getting. The number I figure out boosts that canola price I need by a whole bunch. That isn't achievable and I'm losing money this year. I get it. I understand. But you can also take that information, go over to your lender, to your partners in your business and say, hey, this is what I'm looking at right now.
This is what I'm setting up for the year. And you know, if, if you don't want to take pen to paper by any means, you have a platform. These platforms like Harvest Profit, always evolving and keeping your information up to date, that's all you have to do is update those numbers. Take a look and say, here's where I'm at. Seconds to do that. Absolute seconds in your platform. So, number one, folks, you want to make your crop marketing plan moving forward. So I think this is a great exercise to do. If you're in a loss, it arms you with information to go to your partners and say, this is what we need to get through this year. This is what we're going to look for from a lending perspective. This is what we need for a timeline for repayment, whatever it is. But also, if your mother nature's giving you the win here to go from the red to the black, red ink to black ink, then you can sleep at night. You can still figure out how to be bullish, folks, but you can sleep at night. All right, eating your veggies. Number two, 2025, the year of the grain deal again. Okay, I'm talking to you, Durham guys, I'm talking to you. Hard red spring wheat. You know, wheat guys, variance out there of quality. Maybe it's oats. Little finicky with oats, but there's something there that you could look at bleaching on lentils, peas maybe, but we had, what, five years of harvests without any moisture events or without any big changes in grading. That's different for 20, 25. So first thing, don't give all your good quality wheat away off the, off the field. Don't chip all that out and say, I'll deal with the rest later.
Once it's in the pit, you can't negotiate with it anymore unless you have a lot bigger stick than I do. But you can't negotiate with that. So keep your good stuff in the bins. Haul them, your questionable stuff. Leverage. Leverage that as best you can.
And it's the year to put everything on the table and say, all right, what's the best deal for my farm? Shop it around.
All right? Don't just go to your. Your usual suspect out there. Shop it around. See if anybody would like to earn your business moving forward.
And it happens. These are the years where these things happen, where you might say, hey, I haven't dealt with this company for a while. And they say, you know what? Welcome back. Here's what we're going to do for you. We'd like to keep you around for a little longer. Here's the deal. This is a year to do that. All right, folks? Yeah, grain deals back on the table for 20, 25. If you want to talk grain deals or scenarios, man, I'd love to hash out some scenarios this fall. Provide some clarity on what type of deals are being offered out there. Okay, last thing here for eating your veggies again, folks.
Maybe the bottoms are in on some of these crops, but it doesn't mean prices can't work lower. So you just.
Crop marketing is 365. It's every day. But prepare yourself for what a post harvest rally could look like, what the bounce could look like, and put yourself in a good spot moving forward. All right, all right, that's it for eating your veggies here for this week. Now, just to end this week's episode, great conversation with John and I'll get him back on the show here as soon as we can. I appreciate your time. Appreciate you joining us from the cab or wherever you are. If you're not combining anymore, you're out there doing field work. Definitely. The work isn't over until. Until it freezes. And yeah, we got looks like a couple good weeks ahead of us yet.
[01:10:07] Speaker B: So.
[01:10:09] Speaker A: Yeah. For the what the Futures podcast, folks, my name is Ryan and I'm out of here. I'll see you next week.
