Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Well folks, where I'm hanging out at this week, yeah, it's very crispy here. Very dry, very crispy, but also a whole bunch of fun. How many jets are going to go by during this episode and are we going to get the thumbs up from any of the pilots? Stay tuned. Episode 87 right around the corner. Let's get into it.
[00:00:19] Hey folks, welcome to the what the Futures podcast, your quick guide to better farming decisions.
[00:00:32] All right folks, welcome into episode 87 of the what the Futures podcast. I am out on Cold Lake, Alberta. I'm hanging out at the base this afternoon. It's four wing cold, late and behind me you got the jets are going to start rolling by here. I'm actually at the visitor viewing area on base. Very crispy up here in the northern part of Alberta. So not in the UPL studio here today but instead checking out these magnificent aircraft and crew over on base. Let's see if we can get a better view of that.
[00:01:17] Oh, I even got a wave.
[00:01:21] There we go.
[00:01:22] How cool is that?
[00:01:25] There are three of them here. We've been in Cold Lake all week camping. I don't know how you live here without having danger zones playing in your mind 247 off the top Gun movie. I don't know how long you have to live here for that to come to change. Danger zones have definitely been playing a lot in my mind here this week as the planes fly overhead. So pretty cool here to see see these guys in action. I actually wanted to head out to the Camrose, the Camrose air show this weekend but just mixed up dates and then somehow pulled off our own air show here all week up in Cold Lakes we've been enjoying some camping and enjoying the jets flying over many, many times a day there I think about from a. Well actually just one quick thing.
[00:02:17] It's rare for me to drive north and see like hotter, drier conditions driving from Edmonton up into, you know, the Cold Lake region.
[00:02:28] Peas I'm sure are being harvested today. It's 30 degrees Celsius. I'm sure the peas are going to be coming off that we saw in town here. They were already sprayed coming into town. If not today, it'll be tomorrow. So you know, shout out to the farmers here in Cold Lake area and the drive up very dry, very crispy. As you can see behind me. Even the golf course in town here airways are quite brown and quite dry. So from a crop marketing perspective and we're going to see these jets fire here. So I'm far from airplane.
[00:03:00] My airplane Knowledge is very weak. So I don't even know what's coming across here in just a second. But it's been impressive this week watching these, these guys fly overhead and give us a wave down at the beach and stuff like that. It's been a lot of fun. I've got Will here with me as well, and we're just waiting to see a couple of these guys take off. Like, for me, where I. Where I live, like, we see the helicopters and stuff fly. Of course, we have the Edmonton Army Base, but that's one thing I was going to say while growing up around Edmonton. You see the, you know, the army guys, you know, going down the road every once in a while.
[00:03:42] You do see the odd helicopter above on their way to probably Wainwright at some time, I guess. But you also kind of forget that there's activity going on, there's training going on, and big shout out to all those that serve and help keep us safe and keep our borders safe.
[00:04:06] So we're gonna have a fourth one go join them here in a second.
[00:04:11] So as I was saying, folks, I just kind of view.
[00:04:15] I wanted to make reference of the discipline, the. The discipline of, you know, of your crop marketing plan.
[00:04:24] Obviously, the discipline that you need to have in the army is, you know, a bit deeper and personal and, you know, quite the dedication, but it's not that far off talking about the discipline of your crop marketing plan and your farm business plan. And so you think about what's transpired here in the wheat market in 2025.
[00:04:50] The reason we talk about wheat is because any buyer I speak to talks about how farmers are undersold.
[00:04:57] They have nothing. Grain companies have nothing on the books.
[00:05:00] Minneapolis spring wheat futures today, as I'm recording, have hit another new low and seem to be destined for another drop of 30 cents in the short term, 50 cents a little bit longer out. And there's even, you know, an argument to be made that spring week can go and, and even drop another dollar from where we're at today.
[00:05:24] And so when you come up with that plan every, you know, every fall or winter, when you start thinking about the next crop year, come up with that plan and you talk about when you're gonna sell, the percentages you're going to sell, the prices you're going to aim for, the prices aren't there. Falling back on the discipline of having your percent, you know, percent sold by a certain date, it helps move you along, it helps keep you on course, keep you on track, and it represents the discipline in your business. Plan, the discipline in, in what you are looking to accomplish this year. And I, I'm gonna say, folks, I, I'm guilty of it as well. I, I, this year, my wheat marketing is. It was a strength last year, and this year it's coming up as a bit of a weakness.
[00:06:29] You know, canola, barley, peas. I feel very much on plan with all those crops. But like many my wheat marketing, when my strikes weren't achieved, when my, when I looked around, prices on my, you know, pricing dates, they weren't, they weren't numbers that satisfied me or that encouraged me to forward contract. And so here I am sitting, like many across the prairies, feeling a little bit undersold and, hey, maybe even a little bit overwhelmed.
[00:07:07] So the discipline of creating that plan, sticking to that plan, executing that plan, you know, continues. It continues to, it highlights itself each and every year. And why it's important to stick to a plan, to create the plan and stick to the plan, stay disciplined. And it's certainly no different here in wheat marketing in 2025. All right, all right, folks, we're going to have one more, I don't know, bird. They're going to call it a bird take off here. I don't even know the proper lingo. I need to watch Top Gun again here.
[00:07:43] Get this figured out. Here we go. Number four, the training that goes on every day.
[00:07:52] Again, I feel a little bit isolated from it until you come up here and see, you know, see, you know, we were napping the first day we were here. Finn's going down for his nap. We're all taking a camping nap. And, you know, with this rumble, I'm like, is there a thunderstorm? What the heck's going on? Nope, just our, just our, our, our guys doing training, practicing.
[00:08:18] So anyways, very, very cool.
[00:08:20] All right, folks, pause a moment. For this week, for me, you know, taking the week camping, my very, very strong positive moment is that I like to. I got my earbuds in. I like to, you know, Chantal, sometimes I go to sleep before me. I'll stay up a little bit later on the campfire, have the earbuds in.
[00:08:40] And I have the earbuds in the other night and listen to music, and I go to mix a drink, and I turn around and behind me are three skunks.
[00:08:55] And so my positive moment for this week when I was camping, number one, I didn't soil my shorts. That was positive.
[00:09:08] Number two, they didn't spray me. I got of this, I got out of the situation in a calm way and you know, number three, I made sure to put the garbage away much earlier every night after that.
[00:09:25] So that was my positive moment. Of course, we had a great week camping, some great weather, some great memories made and, and of course, always nice to get away and have time with the family. All right, so that's my positive moment of this week, folks. If we want to talk crop marketing here for just a second, again, this is a bit of a vacation episode, so I don't have all my notes down here, but a couple of things I'll highlight is we do have the yellow P market gaining a little bit of strength, especially at Bungie vitera locations and G3 locations.
[00:10:04] So we are seeing some strength come in.
[00:10:07] What I'm hearing is it's for the first, you know, the first cars or so the first train, you know, that August train or two bids are climbing based on that, on some of that early demand. So I would encourage you to take a look at that and take advantage of some of that.
[00:10:25] I don't believe that yellow P strength will be there like it was last year through harvest.
[00:10:33] So just encourage you if you need to generate some cash flow that you, you work on that and get some of those sold here. In this little climb in prices, they're not stellar prices. Obviously prices were higher a few months ago, but they did recover, you know, 50 cents in some regions.
[00:10:54] Other than that, from crop marketing, I'm seeing wheat basis improve here just a little bit.
[00:11:00] You know, I, I believe Vitera was playing it very shy, very cautious on, on new crop bookings, waiting for this deal to finish up. And so if you work for the, the Bungie now, the, the new Bungie just encourage you to go and you know, do the right thing. If you're a merchant whistler with Bungi and the new company, just do the right thing and go buy some business. Do pull like a, do like G3 has done for the last, you know, decade or so, just under a decade for some locations. But go and buy some business, go buy some, some goodwill out there. You've been, you know, we've seen what you've been doing here the last year.
[00:11:41] Not super competitive at many times throughout the year.
[00:11:45] And so, you know, do farmers a solid here across the prairies and go out there, buy some business, you know, shake some hands, introduce yourself again and get after it. All right, so we got that. So the other thing with wheat marketing, folks, you know, if we get better basis out there, which I'm anticipating, I still need just to be aware that you hear this all the time. But the trend is your friend, okay? The trend is your friend.
[00:12:15] And basically when you look at a spring wheat chart, you know, we fell through, I talked about it a minute ago, but we fell through some, some key support here. I had a good, a good debate, got into it a little bit with, with one of the brokers that I chat with and I just said, hey, Minneapolis spring meet was at 605. I said, hey, I'm just gonna short this a little bit. I'm gonna sell this market.
[00:12:45] And, you know, they were passionate enough that, that the price was going to stabilize as globally wheat prices have, I guess all kind of stabilized in the, in the same region. But my point to them was that basically, hey, I've got, I don't have enough coverage on harvest is around the corner here.
[00:13:12] And you know, I looked at seasonal charts. I looked at what the market's done in the month of August here, the last number of years.
[00:13:21] I don't get the warm and fuzzies on a wheat rally, you know, in the next few weeks here. I hope, I hope that's wrong, but I certainly don't.
[00:13:32] And so I, to me, I think we're going lower, lower in the short term here. We will get that harvest rally. We will see a better basis offering from line companies. But I think futures wise, we're still making our way lower. So the trend is your friend, guys, and don't forget that. It might not feel good, it might not look good, but it can still help you in your crop marketing and your crop marketing plan.
[00:13:59] All right? Other things to note here, old crop Canola. We are seeing demand at your crush plants for August. There is a shortage out there. That's. And it's no surprise to anybody. Stocks are tight. Crushers are looking, you know, values again. Futures flopping around here, but values for some guys, you know, in the 15, this being a 16 range, I would say I don't think 16 and a half triggered anywhere that I've seen canola futures. We are still at a very important point here in the, in where we're sitting, 700 futures as of recording. We can't break above that on the November contract.
[00:14:45] In fact, friend of the show Trent Clarenback, talking about playing a little bit more defense here in the short term, and I don't disagree with that. Made a recommendation here this week to, to do a little bit more contracting, bought a little bit more price protection as well heading into harvest. And again, I can't stress enough how important your canola marketing is if you're gonna pull off a 60 bushel, a wheat crop, a 50 bushel wheat crop that's worth seven or eight dollars. If you're going to pull off, you know, a 50 bushel wheat or a pea crop worth nine dollars, you know, these, these don't pay the bills. These are negative margins. And so if you can look at your canola number, I asked you to do this a few weeks ago, look at your canola number and see where exactly you need to be to break even on the entire farm. Because that is a very important number for you. If you can figure that out in a plan, Recipe for success.
[00:15:44] The break even for 20, 25, that, that's a big win. All right, so know that number, know your canola marketing, don't sleep on it. And make sure that you get that figured out sooner than later.
[00:15:57] It could be the difference between a positive year or break even year to a negative margin. All right.
[00:16:05] Okay.
[00:16:07] Well, folks, that's it for this week.
[00:16:09] Thanks for hanging out with me here at up in Cold Lake.
[00:16:15] Short and sweet vacation episode. Of course. Tried to do some recording here before holidays but didn't quite work out. So CFB Cold Lakes where I've been hanging out the history of 4 Wing. It's been cool to check this out.
[00:16:29] Thanks to everyone who serves. So we certainly appreciate you.
[00:16:34] And yeah, I'll be back in studio next week recording as per usual in the UPL studio. So hit the like button. Subscribe on YouTube. We're trying to get to 500 subscribers on YouTube. I think we're at 420. Head over to ryand ca check out the website. You can get conference tickets or at least get your application in. Been moving tickets regularly here, so if you want to get get into the action in Moose Jaw December.
[00:17:04] Yeah, put it on your to do list. All right, folks, for the what the futures podcast, my name is Ryan. Thank you to our special guests that flew flew behind us earlier this episode and be back in studio next week. Cheers.
