Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Speaker A: All right, folks, welcome to the what the Futures podcast, recorded in the UPL studio each and every week. I've been looking forward to this episode the last couple of days. There's a whole bunch of stuff going on from a crop marketing perspective. We got some stuff going on from.
I don't want to call it a personal perspective, but some stuff's going on. We got a conference agenda. I've got Evan Boyle on the show from simple hedge. I got a doozy for you, so buckle up. Let's get into episode 49.
Hey, folks, welcome to the what the.
[00:00:38] Speaker B: Futures podcast, where we break down complex market trends into simple, actionable advice. It's your quick guide to better farming decisions.
[00:00:50] Speaker A: All right, folks, welcome into the episode here. Of course, this is the what the Futures podcast, your weekly dose of clarity in the complex world of crop marketing. I'm your host, Ryan Denis. I've spent my career working as a grain buyer, grain marketing advisor, coach, worked with farms across Alberta and Saskatchewan for most of my career. And the podcast is going to be a year old in just a couple weeks. We're going to make it to episode 50 here in season one. It's pretty darn good, I think, you know, if you have those weird elf episodes that I did, you know, way back last Christmas, there's more than 50, I suppose, but I don't think we'll get into that here again this Christmas. We'll see, but we'll see if the elf makes an appearance or not. Of course. I got a great episode for you here.
Before I go too far down the path, I know that ranting on the podcast is not, um. It's not fun for anybody. It's not really fun for the listener and not fun for. For me. Uh, but I just. There's just something going on here this week that I want to talk about. You know, hopefully. No, it won't be for the last time, unfortunately, but, yeah, we'll talk about that here in a few minutes. I got. I got to wrap my head around it. I've got Evan Boyle. Uh, of course, he's with simple hedgehouse. Simple hedge is a very unique app, and I wanted to say that it's for more of the experienced hedgers and traders out there, farmers with trading accounts, but that's actually not the case. There's a whole bunch of education in it, as well, and it's very much a learning tool. But I'll let Evan explain it here later on in the episode.
I've got the agenda for the conference. Okay, if you can believe that we. We got the agenda together, and it just. It feels like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders. It's a phenomenal agenda. I think that's what people are saying as well. And I'll go into it, help you get teed up for the conference here that happens December 3 to fifth in. In Drumheller, Alberta. A lot of crop marketing stuff to talk about as well.
17 million tons of canola. Production stats Canada is at 18.9.
Take a look at your charts, folks. Things are happening here, and it's not just in the canola market, either. There's a few other things going on, so we'll talk about some marketing stuff here as well. I've got PBR tickets to give away. That's professional bull riding here happening in Edmonton on November 8. Got some lunchbox cruise stuff. It's going to be a great episode. So let's, uh, let's get into a conversation with Evan.
All right, folks, I have a special guest this week.
[00:03:48] Speaker B: I've got Evan Boyle with simple Hedge joining me on the podcast. Evan, welcome to the show.
[00:03:54] Speaker C: Thanks for having me, Ryan. Happy to be here.
[00:03:56] Speaker B: So I'm excited about simple hedge. I've been playing in simple hedge here, but before we get into the nuts and bolts of what you're working on there, give me some of your background, like, where does Evan come from? Where have you been in western canadian agriculture? And give the listener some insight.
[00:04:12] Speaker C: Sure. My name is Evan. I'm the head of sales and hedging products here at Simple Hedge. Prior to simple hedge, I spent seven years with a major agriculture company working in Winnipeg as well as Alberta, on commodity trading and merchandising. So, lots of experience in western canadian agriculture, specifically around hedging and physical, physical crops.
[00:04:35] Speaker B: What got you into the industry on, like, the merchandising side? Like, is it something that you, you know, growing up, or, like, one day I'm gonna, you know, merchandise grain or buy grain or, you know, like, how.
[00:04:47] Speaker A: Do you get into that?
[00:04:48] Speaker C: Yeah, great question. No, it wasn't my childhood dream at three years old to be a grain trader. I had. I had absolutely no idea the industry existed. I grew up and went to school for. For finance, but always loved the merchandising and trading aspect of it. Always looking for different opportunities in the market, and was just really drawn to agriculture, mostly because of the people and the opportunity that I've got. So coming out of university, I had a great boss who said, listen, if you can do the math, I can teach you the agriculture. So that's how the journey started, and I've never looked back. It's been. The best part is, as I always tell people, it's the people, the farmers and people in the industry that you interact with. It's just awesome.
[00:05:39] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, that's a good point. We have not talked about the people very much lately on the podcast, and I got to get back to that because that's a super good, great point there. So, you spend the early part of your career here. You're still a young guy. You got lots of road ahead of you. But do you have any, like, from the merchandising side, I find that there's. There's little, you know, secrets or.
[00:06:03] Speaker C: Or.
[00:06:04] Speaker B: No, how do I say it? Like, we as farmers, we just don't know as much about the merchandising side. Is there any little things, tips, tricks, things that you've kind of learned throughout the way, throughout your time that you could share with listeners?
[00:06:21] Speaker C: I'd say a big one is there's still.
There's still lots of people.
I mean, you might think that the big grain companies, with all their access to information, know 100% which way the market's going in and out, and, you know, they're buying their grain, and the next day, the market goes up. You're like, ah, they knew that for sure. I can tell you.
[00:06:45] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:06:46] Speaker C: My secret tidbit that's maybe not so secret is, sure, they do have access to information, but every day, it's still almost a guessing game as to which way the market's going on a daily basis. In terms of long term fluctuations, yes, you may have some stronger, strong opinions on trends and things along those lines, but the up and downs and the daily volatility, sometimes you just shrug your shoulders at the end of day and say, hey, I don't know what happened. Looks like there's more buyers and sellers and more sellers and buyers in the market today.
I don't really know the answer to that. So I think there is sometimes a misconception that the grain companies and the big companies are. Are all knowing what's always the case.
[00:07:29] Speaker B: Yeah, for sure.
[00:07:30] Speaker A: Cool.
[00:07:30] Speaker B: Cool. That's. That's super interesting. Did you ever get together with your fellow, like, merchandisers and be like, okay, you know, we know this. The farmers don't know it. We're gonna go get them this week. Was that ever, like, the Monday rah rah meeting, the speech that you guys got as merchandisers?
[00:07:47] Speaker C: No, because I like that hesitation. No slight hesitation.
But for the most part, it's because, you know, I used to work for, used to work for a big, big agriculture company. But for the most part, you have to partner with farmers in this. And the best, oftentimes the best, the best time when you can buy something is when the farmer's happy and when, and when you're happy as well. So when it's a good price for, for farmers to sell, sometimes it works out for the agriculture companies as well because they have somebody on the other end that they can sell it to. So it's a bit of give and take working for a large company, for sure, because sometimes you're in a pinch, and instead of you being able to originate whatever you want from the farmer, the farmer's got the upper hand, where, you know, all you guys are like, hey, if I'm, I don't want to sell my grain to you today. And if you have a good relationship with your, with your elevator, sometimes, it might, might benefit the shoes in the other hand. I don't know if that's the right way to say it, but you know what I mean.
[00:08:54] Speaker B: Yeah, no, that works for me. That works for me. Okay. So appreciate your insights there. You're now over at simple hedge. Can you give the listeners just an idea on what we're talking about here?
[00:09:05] Speaker C: Sure. Simple hedge is a mobile platform that makes it easier for farmers to hedge their grain. And by hedge their grain, it's primarily dealing with the financial side of the grain industry, futures, options, those kinds of things. It's another tool that historically has been very confusing, I would say, in terms of actual execution. Understanding education simplified James to aims to bridge that gap by providing very simple platform farmers to start to understand how they can use these tools to actually reduce their risk on their farm, which is the common misconception that I see as well. Ryan, talking to plenty of farmers every day where it's like, hey, I don't know if I want to do this. It's too risky sometimes it's too risky not to. It's too risky not to be doing this. Where there's often a misconception that playing futures and an options market to protect your profit or protect your downside is adding risk when oftentimes it's subtracting it from your farm.
[00:10:14] Speaker B: So this is a new idea out there for western canadian growers.
If I was looking at the old way, what is the old way right now that farmers look at this?
[00:10:25] Speaker C: Yeah. So the old way is typically you would call up your, if you are using, there's a couple of ways you can access some of these pricing tools or features and options today. One of them is through a traditional brokerage, such as RBC or a couple of other guys out there.
[00:10:44] Speaker A: JGL.
[00:10:45] Speaker C: Yep, JGL Capital, who's actually one of our preferred, or our preferred broker in Canada. So that's one way to access it. The other way is you can access some of these pricing tools. They're called through elevators. But the main difference there is that typically these contracts are tied to your physical grain contract. So you have to actually sell your grain to the local elevator to be able to access, access some of these pricing tools.
That's the old way. And typically, if you're transacting with a broker or with the green elevator, you call them up. You talk to your grain rep or your broker, you place a trade sign on the contract, and then you sort of wonder, like, okay, what happened? Apparently I have, like, apparently I signed on the contract and I have this pricing option or future or something out there. But, like, what do I do now?
That's like the typical thing. And then you might get a call in, like a couple months, or you might follow up, depending on your relationship, and be like, hey, you know, I signed on that thing, like, a couple months ago. Like, what happened with that?
And the new way with simple hedge is you can call up your broker, JGL Capital, which is a partner, in this case, execute trades directly with them. Or you can send send communication through the app for JGL to execute on your behalf. And your app will update live with all your positions and hedging, and you can see it live, what your p and l is, exactly what's going on and how it actually counts against your. Your physical grain production. So there's no more. No more guessing as to what's going on. You can actually watch the fluctuations every day to see, hey, if I bought a put and the price of canola goes up, what happens to the actual option? And that's how you learn. It's not by there's only so many. I mean, what I found is there's only so many seminars you can attend. There's only so many four day conferences where explain stuff to you. But at the end of the day, sometimes you just got to jump in, take the leap, you know, get in there and just start spending some money and tracking, start spending a little bit of money to track your position every day to really understand how these things work and how they can affect your farm.
[00:13:06] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
[00:13:06] Speaker B: And you learn. You learn quick, especially when it's costing you some money. You pay attention and you get that education a little bit faster. I know when I chat with growers, you know, I tell them, you don't, you don't have to go whole hog here. Like you can do, quote unquote, a load or a contract and get, just experience it, feel it, feel the emotion as well of the market moving on you and getting that update, Evan. So right now, for what I would call the old way is I get a statement.
It gets emailed to me every night between like six and 08:00 p.m. and so that's my futures, my brokerage side. And then I also have my physical contracts for the farm in another spot. Are you telling me that these are getting like married together with simple hedge?
[00:13:59] Speaker C: Yeah, you got it. You can actually, you can enter both sides of the both sides of the equation, your brokerage, which is automatically pulled into the app, and then it's a couple of clicks to enter your production on what you sold and what you're growing the next year. And it actually marries them together. Because I think the most important part is seeing the whole picture of, hey, this is my total risk profile of my overall crop. And seeing both parts is like, you have to have both parts if you're doing them and seeing them together in one consolidated place in an easy to use app I think is pretty cool and something farmers and customers that we're working with have really enjoyed. The other part is that I know, Ryan, how does that brokerage statement that you get at the end of the day look? Does it make sense to you? Maybe it makes sense to you, but I don't know. You tell me.
[00:14:57] Speaker B: Yeah, it does now. But I have seen some statements from some of the brokerages out there and yeah, it's something for sure. Yeah.
[00:15:10] Speaker C: Let me be clear. I signed up for, I signed up for an account. It's not the brokerage statement, it's the, it's the statement with the, with the final guy who carries the funds at the end. And I've looked at these statements. I'm like, I have a finance degree. I have, you know, number of years in green merchandising. And I have no idea what, what you're trying to tell me here.
[00:15:31] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:15:31] Speaker C: So if I can't figure it out, half staring at this thing, I don't know, it's good luck. So I think that's the other part where simple edge can help, is consolidating your positions, giving you an idea of a live update instead of the end of day stage that you're getting, which just helps guys start getting into it, remove one barrier, one barrier at a time.
[00:15:52] Speaker B: Yeah. The one thing that I run into quite consistently is people forgetting what they have, what they've done, especially when it's partnered with a line company. Because when you're chatting with those folks, it's someone who's out there procuring and buying grain. And then they happen to have 350 customers and they happen to have a couple dozen with a few different trades on or a few different scenarios, strategies working. It, you know, it's, it's a lot. It's a lot for someone to handle. And so I also noticed the, you know, I've had farmers where they get a grain check or a mystery check is. Those are always fun. I love when my dad calls me and he's like, yeah, we just got a check here. And I have no idea what it's for. And I'm like, yeah, that was the put option that we got rid of. So, yeah, sorry, dude. There it is.
[00:16:43] Speaker A: So that's good. What?
[00:16:44] Speaker B: It's a check, but it also happens the other way, too, when it's a negative and a subtraction. So I see that where people forget, and when you forget the odds of your success of this strategy, it's got to dwindle, right?
[00:16:59] Speaker A: So.
[00:17:00] Speaker C: Absolutely. Yeah. And yeah, there are, there's a couple, especially with the line companies, a lot of the tools that they do, that they do offer are, are interesting. But personally, I think there's some advantages to keeping your financial separate from your, from your physical in some cases. And a couple of the reasons are not having it tied to a physical grain contract does give you a little bit more flexibility in terms of tracking it, getting in and out, things along those lines where it's just like a little bit just removes another barrier that if you're like, hey, you know, I've owned this put for number for a number of months. I've got a good amount of money on it. I just want to get out really fast. Like, you can do it within, like, instantly, right? You can go out where it's not the back and forth, the calling, the haggling. Sometimes things along those lines. And the other one I found with not having it tied to a physical is that, you know, come harvest, you do have similar protection if you do hold it until harvest. And it does keep your options open in terms of if you have multiple grain elevators or crush plants around you where you can still look at. Look at different opportunities at the last second, maybe someone's offering a different special that's like protein or grade or something along those lines leaves you open to really increase that flexibility and choose who you want to market with instead of being tied to a specific elevator at the end of the day.
[00:18:29] Speaker B: Yeah, we've seen a couple interesting scenarios for the 2024 harvest here. You know, the one that really stands out for me is all of a sudden this, you know, sprouted canola situation popped up. And if you've ever done a little bit of homework to check discounts based on sprouted canola, what you're going to find is a complete different number from everybody that you talk to. And so, you know, that's one example. If you have that contract with that company, you might just be taking a, what they're giving you instead of what's the, you know, the best price or scenario out there.
[00:19:06] Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. It's a great point. Yeah. When you're linked to some of these contracts and when you're growing something and you have to bring it in and unfortunately, the specific quality aspect they're, they're in abundance of or they just really don't want. This year you can get hit pretty hard without having that flexibility on the back end to market wherever you want.
[00:19:28] Speaker B: Yes. Okay.
[00:19:29] Speaker A: So, all right. So what's cool in crop marketing here for the last portion of October? Well, honestly, folks, there's a few things going on, but let's talk about, let's get into the canola, why don't we? Hey, as it is actually a little cool right now to be checking out this canola market, the trade, never seen everyone so excited that canola closed above the 200 day moving average. It was like seeing everybody celebrate in the streets when canola futures did that.
But I'll say that some very well respected people, agencies, analysts in the industry, you know, they are talking about a 17 million ton canola crop. And I know my numbers been stuck in the know, I've talked about 17 on the pod as well.
I did look at some of the research and some of the, the estimates out there and yeah, I might 18 might be a touch high here. We'll see. But I, you know, you throw a 17 into s and D, you throw obviously a phenomenal export pace now crush at eleven to 12 million tons. Exports at some people are at seven. I think I have seven in my number. Some people are as high as eight.
Yeah. Carryover declines into next fall. So. Yeah, so that's interesting.
But also, take a peek over at rapeseed. I don't know if you guys like, I use bar chart on my phone and I select that customize my own menu and it's free. Anyone can do it. And if you don't do that, I'd recommend it. It's really easy for checking markets.
But rapeseed having a wonderful October rally as well. So we have that. That's supportive. Malaysian palm oil futures on Wednesday of this last week hit their highest level in over two years on supply concerns. The veg oil complex is waking up here a little bit. All right, so that's good. That's positive. I put in the email to you guys this week that, hey, you know, big week for markets here. Some pivotal moments and that one moved to the right direction. Wheat not so much, but canola did. So, yeah, we'll talk about it more here in eating your veggies on the wheat side. Little quieter out there, I would say.
But then you get these flashes of premiums like we had a wild one in Alberta for number 214 where it hit like 850 a bush will deliver right away. And that blew the doors off everybody by like seventy cents a bushel. Okay. A big overpayment. But they needed the wheatley. And it's relaxed a little bit for many of us where demand maybe demands there. But I almost look at it like the buyers now are sitting back and saying, all right, these farmers are going to be, oh, man, I'm picking on them again. Oh, Jesus. No wonder they don't want to come to the conference.
These farmers are doing their dirt work. They're going to finish up their dirt work and then we got them, they'll start delivery and that's, that happens quite often. So we'll see. Maybe if farmers don't sell right away, we'll get another little run higher here in basis and some of these wheat premiums as well.
I look at the wheat chart, the setup's not great on the wheat chart. It's not exciting. And unfortunately, the wheat markets can just be very, very quiet here during the winter months. There's just once the winter wheat in the US and Russia goes as a dormancy, there's just not a lot to talk about. Right. And so sometimes wheat marketing, we get a little bit, kind of hit that snooze button for winter and it kind of looks like we're, we're leaning towards that right now. So I like targets. You know anyone I talk to you about wheat? I like setting targets. I like being prepared for when that buyer needs a bit more wheat. And if you've got some volume, you can go have some fun with that as well. And again, if you've got low protein, you know, go and say, hey, I've got some lower protein stuff, but I want to be paid with no discount. And set your target like that. And it does work. Had a bunch of targets hit in the last little rally where a 213 and a 212. The same level. Price level hit. All right. Eleven five, same price. Hithennesse. It happens. Okay. What else do I have? Yellow peas, flat green peas, 16.
That's pretty flat as well. Maybe up a little bit on the green peas. Maple peas, though. Getting reports in central Saskatchewan that maple peas are $20 a bushel again. So that's a little bit higher market for our maple pea growers. And then the last thing I had here for what's cool in crop marketing is oats.
And, you know, I got a message from an oat buyer today that obviously, the messaging, the way I took the messaging, was that they weren't having a lot of success buying at their posted bids. All right, so what do you need to do? You need to raise those bids. Right. So they were fishing. What target would you set? Is it acceptable for us to ask what target would you set for us to buy your oats? I think quality is still a wild card. Everyone's trying to figure out milling quality out there, so, yeah, oats. I saw some premiums in central Saskatchewan as well.
I'm gonna say it's on the uptick here just. Just a little bit. All right. So that's what's cool in crop marketing for this week. And now a word from our show sponsor, John Deere.
Did you know you have a precious commodity on your land? I'm not talking about crops. I'm talking about your data. Every day, your fields and machines are giving you valuable data, and what you do with it can affect costs and yield potential. Thankfully, there's John Deere operations center. It's an online farm management platform where you can connect your equipment, your fields, and your operators. It's a single place to stream all your data, a place where you can monitor equipment, track work in the field, even analyze your results. Check it out at John Deere dot ca. All right, folks, hit that subscribe button for me, why don't you? I post weekly updates through email or on the podcast. This thing goes out every Friday on YouTube. So go ahead, hit that subscribe button on YouTube or wherever you get your podcast. Thank you very, very much for doing that. Okay. I wanted to jump. Let's. Let's get. Let's go through this agenda here for the conference. Real quick, someone asked me, what are you playing on the tv now in the background? That's a CBC show called Dino Kids. I'm really diving into this whole dinosaur theme and that's what I've been playing. I played Jurassic, Jurassic park the other day, a couple last week I think was Jurassic park in the episode. So, you know, kids show to maybe more aggressive show. Anyway, let's get into the agenda here. So the conference is held at the Badlands community Center. Now you need a ticket. The tickets, everything's being mailed out. Okay. So you can't just show up and buy a ticket. Unfortunately, we are going to be sold out. We're not going to be set up to sell tickets there, so you do have to buy them in advance. But we're going to be at the Badlands community Center December 3. We kick off registration at 05:30 p.m. all right. And then from six to nine is our opening night reception sponsored by Robobank. Okay. In our keynote, I mentioned this a little while ago, but Roxanne Livirse, the head of Rob O Bank Canada, her title of her presentation is what is your risk tolerance? Roxanne's actually going to join me on the podcast here in two weeks. I think she kicks off season, season two of the podcast. So we'll get into it then over. We've got grazing boards, we've got the bar open. We also have a little something special that night as well. So we're, we'll get into, we'll ease into things, but we got some fun for that night as well. Okay. Day two, we get going with a hot breakfast at 08:00 a.m. you need that good breakfast, right? In case you had a late one the night before. We've got Terry Becker, president of backswap management.
He's going to be our keynote at 09:30 a.m. there's a little bit of stuff in between there, but he kicks us off at 930. Do you know where your financial efficiencies are or aren't? That'll be Terry's presentation. From there we've got our first breakout. It's going to be at 11:00 a.m.
jGL capital effective, effective broker farmer relationship or simple hedge an easier way to your crops. Those are the first two you have to pick one to attend. We're going to split the group up. We got lunch with Bernie and the boys. So that's hamburgers and chicken burgers. Phenomenal place to grab lunch and drum our next keynote at 01:00. Chuck Penner with left field commodities. So what are the odds?
Data for market decisions. Chuck's presentation is going to be a little bit different than what he's done in the past. I'm really looking forward to that one. You're gonna have your notepads, your books. You'll be taking lots of notes during that one. I can just sense that the next breakout session is we need to talk about our relationship making the most out of working with an advisor. All right, so Alan Gubeau with combine, CEO of Combine, is presenting there. And then a cheat code for grade marketing with Trentin Clarenbach of Clarence back research friend of the show.
Then breakout session number three is beat the buyers, optimizing strategies to increase success. And that's my buddy Kyle Sinclair with producer profit. And then Cam fizzakis with GB fuels. He's a fuel broker. And I'm pretty pumped to have Cam join us because he is super excited as well to talk about fuel markets and a bit of a guide on how and when to buy diesel for your farm. All right, we'll wrap it up with positive moments again on December 4. And then I've got prime rib dinner sponsored by UPL.
And then that night, we have some fun as well.
All right, the next day, the last day, we've got, oh, let's see here, 915, another keynote. That's egg I three.
The future of grain sales, contract insurance through forward protect. A lot of folks looking forward to that one. And then our last breakout session is making sense of it all, which is Nathan, who was on the pod last week, his experiences in crop marketing, and then another JGL capital presentation in regards to futures and options strategies. All right, a little bit of a intro to showcase futures and options. And then we've got a couple sessions in regards to making a crop marketing plan. We're actually going to sit there as an entire group and we've got some things teed up where you're going to create your marketing plan for your farm. So you can see you're going to gain a whole bunch of knowledge and then implement that at the end. We've got workbooks. We've got a whole bunch of stuff for attendees here to create and execute that crop marketing plan for 2025 and beyond. So that is the agenda, folks, that we've all been waiting for. And again, just thankful for everyone participating.
[00:31:53] Speaker B: So simple hedge. Again, just going back to the app here, is there any thing that you, that stands out for you is like your favorite feature or, yeah, your favorite part of the app.
[00:32:05] Speaker C: My favorite feature for sure is, I would say, being able to do some scenario analysis with, with specific options. So if you're, if you're completely new, which a lot of, a lot of guys are, that we're introducing to the app, it's a good way to, good way to get an idea of how a put or a call can actually impact your total farm profit. So it's pretty cool. You just click on a specific put after you've inputted some of your farm details. And we actually have some sliders on the app where you can slide the price to the left, slide the price to the right, slide the percent hedge to the left, to the right, and it'll automatically do all the calculations for you. That'll immediately tell you, hey, you know, if the price decreases by 15% and I purchase this specific put look, I can expect that my profit per acre will be higher with the trade than without. So it's really nice to have all those calculations just done for you to give you a quick and easy idea of, hey, you know, this is actually how an option works and this is how a put works. If the price does this or if the price does this, just helps to really get guys, once they see the graph and their mind starts, you walk you through some scenarios like, oh, okay, you know, I understand how it works now, where previously, you know, it, heard about it, they sort of understood it, and then all of a sudden, you know, they see the graph and ten minutes later, these guys are, guys are put option experts.
[00:33:29] Speaker B: Yeah, you bet. Nice.
[00:33:30] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:33:31] Speaker B: I, you know, I'm scrolling through the app while we're chatting here as well.
[00:33:34] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:33:34] Speaker B: And so, you know, if I'm a grower and, you know, I don't have a brokerage account open right now, a simple hedge, is there a way where I can start that process through the app as well?
[00:33:48] Speaker C: Absolutely. Yep. If you go to, if you do have the simple hedge app open, all you have to do is go to the far right, you'll see a little guy on the bottom, and you can start, start opening your account that way.
[00:34:02] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:34:02] Speaker C: First step is to submit some documents there. Then you'll get a call from me. We'll set up, we'll set up a call with our preferred broker in Canada, JGL Capital, and we'll get you guys, we'll get you guys opened, opening an account. And if you're in the US listening to this, we'll figure it out as well.
[00:34:20] Speaker A: Okay, cool.
[00:34:22] Speaker B: And I noticed you've got some cost of production information that populates in there. Do you want to give us just a quick little update on where that info is pulling from?
[00:34:30] Speaker C: Yeah. So we try to make it so when guys are first starting out that you enter.
The thing that I know about farmers is you don't want to enter data. You guys are already entering data and like 900 things. And there's nothing more frustrating than opening an app and being like, hey, I ought to fill out like 14 forms to get me to the starting point. So what we did was take an average cost of production data, cost of production data for each province to get guys started for each drop. Those are provincial averages adjusted. So if you don't know what it is, it at least gives you a starting point to be like, hey, I can adjust up or down from here. And yeah, if you're in the US, it'll be adjusted by state, taken directly from USDA.
[00:35:16] Speaker A: Okay, nice. All right.
[00:35:18] Speaker B: Farmers are going to know their cost of production because it's part of the exercise here at the crop marketing made cool conference, which you guys are going to be attending. So we're going to dial those in nice and tight on those break even numbers. So I'm excited to have you guys come over to Drumheller. Any insight on. Actually, I've been asking everybody what is your walk up song for your presentation? Like, what music do we have playing in the speakers when you're walking up to the stage to do your talk?
[00:35:45] Speaker C: Oh, man, you're putting me on the spot here. I don't know. Given the hat, it might have to be tragically hip, but I'm not sure yet. Yeah, let me think about that. I'll get back to you. I'm always partial to AC DC, but I don't know, I might go with some old punk rock offspring or something like that country. I don't know. We'll see. I'll see about it.
[00:36:11] Speaker B: I think I have 55 songs I'm trying to work through on my, my walk up song right now. So I got a bit of a range there. But man, there's. There's a couple good ones like, I think for. For Trent. We were going to do, uh, can't stop by the chili peppers. And then trying to think of what Nathan ended up deciding on. He went with the highway to hell. I think was AC DC was 1st first one. I can't remember if that's what he. You decided on.
[00:36:36] Speaker C: That's inspiring. I like that.
[00:36:37] Speaker B: Could do like, what is it? More money, more problems from. Was it mace or some rapper from the nineties, you know, could do something like that.
[00:36:47] Speaker C: But I do. I do like that. Let me, let me look into that. I'll get back to you.
[00:36:51] Speaker B: What are you going to cover in your presentation? Don't give us all, everything here.
[00:36:54] Speaker A: We want people to show up.
[00:36:55] Speaker B: But like what's the give us like the Cole's notes version?
[00:36:59] Speaker C: I think for the most part we're going to teach you or show little bit about the app and how it can be just that easy and easier way to hedge your crops and really start off with, hey, you know, this has historically been something very confusing and there's tons of misconceptions about hedging that we're going to address head on, such as the boogeyman that everyone hears when you, when you hear about hedging, which is margin calls, you know, nobody wants to. One of the most common reasons I've heard as to why guys haven't got, why guys don't have brokerage accounts or haven't started to sign up. So I think stuff like that, a couple misconceptions about hedging and how we can actually get you started and show you how easy it is. Yeah, I'm excited to be there, Ryan, awesome.
[00:37:47] Speaker B: Thanks for your time today, Evan. I know canola had a good day today. Do you have great day?
[00:37:52] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:37:53] Speaker B: Anything market wise that you noticed this.
[00:37:56] Speaker C: Week, it's green, so more buyers than sellers. Ryan, on that.
[00:38:02] Speaker A: Nice.
[00:38:02] Speaker B: I'm going to quote that on Twitter.
I'm taking you on Twitter for that one.
Yeah. I don't know exactly. Like, I saw some ev stuff between China and Canada that maybe was a bit positive towards relations or.
[00:38:18] Speaker A: We'll see.
[00:38:18] Speaker C: Yeah, it's interesting. Like, the canola exports have just been absolutely wild cruising.
[00:38:25] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:38:25] Speaker C: But I've always sort of thought that, you know, when I worked for the large ag company and you see a massive, massive scare in the future where they might shut off exports, you just bring forward every possible physical sale into the near term that you can and shuffle everything so you get it out before that possibility. So the thing is, it might not all be, some of it might be new sales, but a lot of it might be taking sales that were already planned for Nov Djan and just pulling them forward.
[00:38:58] Speaker B: See another merchandising trick and write that one down.
[00:39:02] Speaker C: So we'll see. Especially if you had, you know, you had wheat planned with your local elevator to move in September and October and all of a sudden they're like, ah, you know, we actually want your canola instead. I guarantee you they had shuffled some stuff around, maybe had boats that were planned for September, October that were wheat, pushed them out, brought canola forward.
Sometimes you can try and play those games because you see what's potentially on the horizon. So you push as much canola as fast as possible.
[00:39:36] Speaker B: I don't have. I have no clue. I don't have a crystal ball. I wish I did. But, you know, when guys started phoning or phoning, jeepers messaging, saying, hey, they want to take my October and November canola already, you know what's going on? I was like, ah, yes, I think I see what might be happening here. So it's a guess.
[00:39:55] Speaker C: I mean, I don't know.
[00:39:57] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:39:57] Speaker C: I'm not as. Not as. Not as involved in that world as I. As I once was, but it's. I could. I could definitely see it happening.
[00:40:05] Speaker A: So we'll see.
[00:40:06] Speaker C: It'll be an interesting year.
[00:40:07] Speaker B: I got one last merchandising question for you. All right.
[00:40:10] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:40:10] Speaker A: One lot.
[00:40:10] Speaker B: One last one.
[00:40:11] Speaker C: I'll do my best.
[00:40:13] Speaker A: Do you.
[00:40:13] Speaker B: So you're dealing overseas here. What type of hours does a merchandiser keep? Like, when do you work? Are you on a different time zone than us normally, or how does that go?
[00:40:25] Speaker C: Mostly depends on the product you're selling. So if you're doing a lot of overseas stuff. Yeah. Oftentimes you are taking late night calls from whoever it is you're trading with, which can be sometimes like ten to 01:00 a.m. depending on. Depending on who you're talking to. If you're. Most of your. Your trading partners are domestic, then you're generally working pretty standard hours.
[00:40:54] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:40:55] Speaker B: Makes sense.
[00:40:56] Speaker C: Yeah. So it just depends where the customers are, your specific product.
[00:40:59] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:41:00] Speaker B: Cool, man. All right, well, I appreciate you coming on the show this week, and we'll see you down in drum.
[00:41:04] Speaker C: Yeah, thanks for having me, Ryan. Appreciate it. We'll talk to you soon.
[00:41:07] Speaker B: You bet. Take care.
[00:41:08] Speaker C: Bye.
[00:41:12] Speaker A: Okay. Positive moments for episode 49.
Well, number one, I honestly, having the agenda come out, sending that out and putting that across social media, that was huge for me this week. It was huge because I myself, I'm very proud of the people and grateful of the people that stepped up and put their hand up and said, hey, yeah, we're going to come support your event. We're going to come speak. We got some big players to come, and I'm just super proud of that agenda. And I'm so excited to put this on the conference itself. We have a lot of the big stuff done. So we're just working on the small stuff now, that very detailed stuff, which is key in your experience when you come to the conference again, this is being, you know, made with farmers in mind. Someone asked me the other day, you know, what's your ratio of industry to farmers? And I'm like, the industry is the presenters. You know, like, there were. We're at one industry person for every, like, twelve farmers or 13 farmers, something like that, you know, maybe even a bit wider than that. Some of these things that you guys go to, 60 40 towards the industry. I heard an 80 20 towards the industry as well.
Right? So a lot of industry folks love the industry, but not for this conference. All right? Last positive moment, my wife took me shopping, all right?
In fact, I am.
I got this shirt shopping.
Not this zip up that I forgot to take off before recording, but the shirt. And it was a little bit desperate for me. So just think about it or just sympathize with me for a moment here. But some of my shirts, some of my clothing, and this is the same thing with my dad, all right? We were looking at, like, Christmas pictures, and I'm wearing the same shirt three out of four christmases, okay? I look at my pictures of my dad, you know, when we were younger, and I'm like, dude, you wore that shirt for a span of 15 years. And I could see it like six times in these family pictures, right? It's a great shirt. Obviously, you keep it for that long, but I'm. At that point, I'm getting to be an old man. And now I'm at the point I was looking at my shoes, I'm like, what did I. What's the last time I bought new shoes? Like, holy smokes. So she took me shopping. I got some new shoes, new boots, a new jacket. It's kind of like a kid going to. Going back to school, you know? So that was positive moment. We had some fun at the mall this last week. All right, folks, before I get too far in the episode, I do need to give just a quick cheers to the boys back home. I forgot to mention this in the last episode, but we, we wrapped up harvest on the Friday and it rained later on that day into Saturday morning. And we got together with some of the boys back in rural Saskatchewan, and they drink beer out of bottles there. So, you know, it's, uh, it's a little bit forward to me. Everything comes in a tall can at my place, but I'm having a beer and a bottle on behalf of them. And we had a great time that night. Had had a few beers and talked farming. All right, housekeeping for this week.
Got a couple things here, as per usual.
Let's start, you know what? Let's start with some fun stuff. Let's start with a giveaway here. Okay. So apparently at some point last year, a very long time ago, I acquired some tickets, a fair amount of tickets to go to the professional bull riding event in Edmonton. Edmonton at Rogers Place. And I've got a bunch of tickets to give away because I kind of forgot about it. So they're on the drink rail. So on the, the upper part of that first of the lower bowl is what, how you would say it? They're in the corner along the drink rail. Okay, just visualize this with me.
You're sitting there. Right behind you. It's slightly to the left, but right there is the bar and the food, actually. And then right behind that is the bathroom. Okay. When I was at Roger's place the other day, I ended up sitting right around that section and I was checking the note. It's going to be great seeds for bull riding. So Friday, November 8. It is in Edmonton, Alberta. So you know, you're gonna have to travel if you, if you want to go. But all you need to do, if you are interested in these tickets, I'm gonna give them away as fours. Okay. Four tickets per. I'm gonna do three giveaways. So that's twelve tickets total. All you need to do. I have not brought up the text line in a very long time, but go to 1855-606-1889 text in the word bull.
And that's it. That word leads to some positive vibes for our markets. We love the bull market. We're gonna go watch some bull riding on Friday, November 8. If you're in town, if you're coming to Edmonton anyway, hey, why not put your name in for the draw again? We're gonna give away four tickets per winner, and we're gonna draw three different winners. I'm going to draw for that for next week's episode, which I'm actually recording. As per usual, it'll be on the 30th. So let's put 06:00 p.m. on the 30th. You got to get your text in the word bull to 1855-606-1889 and that'll get you in to potentially win some tickets to watch some bull riding. Last time I went to a bull riding event, it wasn't Edmonton, and the bull hopped over the fence while we were there. We were. We were not in. We didn't have that greatest seats. We were in the upper deck. But that bull went and did some damage. Some people got hurt that time. That was the last time I went to a bull riding event. So I'm sure that won't happen this time. Definitely not at the drink rail. We'll be fine. We will be fine. All right, how do I address this next part?
All right, so I'm not going to spend a bunch of time on it today, but I do have a little bit of an update here. I did respond. So Kevin Hirsch wrote an article in the western producer about a company, a broker that was late making payments to farmers. Didn't name the individual or the company because he said that, you know, the folks in charge were doing their best to get everybody paid back. Okay, so I got two parts to this.
The one part is that I was also fooled by that individual. If you guys remember, in the podcast, I talked about it and their marketing person reached out to me immediately and said, hey, no, we're trying our best here. We did have hiccup. Remember back then? It was accounting hiccups. It was, oh, yeah, we just made a mistake. But it's nothing major. And I, you know, I gave them the benefit of the doubt. I said, hey, they reached out to me. They were proactive. You know, maybe things are okay, actually. And that was not what happened. So I did message Kevin on x and said, hey, man, like, maybe try calling the 1800 number over there, because last I checked, nobody's picking up. And, you know, yeah, they, they fooled me. Don't let them fool you. And we'll go from there. But the second part that I wanted to mention here, and I'm talking about eggfinity, by the way, in case you're wondering.
But I. I was thinking about this last week, and I want you guys, you know, this is part of the show where you guys, you can participate. Of course, you could text in the word bull and win some tickets to PBR. But I just want to know how this sits with you, because I was sitting here last week and I was thinking about a situation and what happened or what transpired.
I'll say is that.
So the buyer side. So a broker brings together the two parties. They bring together the seller or the farmer in this case, and they bring together the buyer and broker a deal and help with logistics. Okay. It's about networking. It's about information. Could be a very great process to be a part of.
But what started to bother me is that imagine that you were a buyer that paid eggfinity directly, and then you found out that they weren't taking your funds and paying that same farmer that had delivered that grain on to you. Okay, are you following what I'm laying down here?
And then continuing to do business through eggfinity in that same way?
And you might sit here and say, ryan, they didn't do that. You're crazy, man. That never happened. No, it did happen. It happened a lot where the buyer continued to do business through eggfinity with all of this going on. And you say, well, you know, Ryan, you know, maybe they didn't know. Okay.
Maybe some of them didn't know.
But yet in specific cases, farmers reached out, you know, back door to figure out this paper trail. And those businesses continued to go down those same channels with egfinity, with this situation mounting in the background and getting worse. So I, not that I feel like I have an axe to grind every week, and I hope I don't come across like that, but buyers, I'm actually, I'm a little bit disappointed in you as well, because many of you knew what was going on and yet you still decided you still continue to do business in that way.
Just think about it, folks.
If that, if the situation was to move grain, take fresh current funds, pay old farmers, old, should say old farmers, old accounts, payable old settlements, take that fresh money to pay the old stuff. And that continued for quite some time.
It happened. And buyers, I don't know who you all are, but I have some questions for you if you want to have a conversation one day, because that does not sit well with me. All right. Now, there's a whole bunch of other stuff going on in the background that I can't talk about on the podcast today in regards to some updates over at that stony plane office.
But I may have some special, special guests joining me in the next week that can shed more light on it.
But there has been some developments. And for all those that have been negatively impacted by what's happened over there, you know, I'm with you. I, I feel for you guys. And, you know, I think that if we want to, you know, if we want to talk about, put on our big boy pants here and talk about, you know, something in regards to the industry, you know, you guys, farmers pay into, you know, different groups and organizations that have a voice on behalf of the farmer. And I just think there's something here that needs to be addressed because a broker should not be able to be in a position where they become a buyer and are not held accountable to anything that shouldn't, that loophole that's out there shouldn't exist. And I think farmers, I don't know if it's the commissions that have the strongest voice, but someone has to figure this out. And I hope it's talked about this winter at, you know, at the conferences and meetings that we're all going to attend. All right. Okay. I better move on from that one. If I keep talking, I'm going to get in even more trouble. Oh, I got to pick on the grain buyer just one more time here. Just real quick in this episode.
Oh, man, I'm being way too harsh on the grain buyers today. Anyways, a while back, grain buyer reached out to a farmer in the lunchbox crew, and he said, hey, I'm not calling everybody, all right? I'm phoning phone in my group. I'm phoning the farms, and I've got some advice for you. And the advice is, you need to sell all of your canola at, let's call it 1290 a bushel for June of 25. It's the highest price I have on my sheet. There's stuff happening. The market's going to crater. I called you to give you this advice, and I'm just looking out for you. Okay? Now, that's not word for word, all right? We might get word for word on that one later on at the conference, but that's not word for word on this podcast. All right? I paraphrase it.
All right, so what happens? The market climbs.
The market climbs like a dollar a bushel, dollar 50 a bushel, and is climbing. All right? So, hey, it happens.
Same buyer reaches out to the same farmer and says, hey, I'm not reaching out to everybody here. I'm just reaching out to the people that it says, you got to sell all your canola at. Whatever it was. Let's call it $14. Like, as a farmer, I have some questions for you.
Like, is that like, a fool me once, you know, shame on me, fool me twice? No, I keep butchering those. I think it's the other way around, Scott, you're gonna have to check that one for me. Scott is my. What do you even call those things? I'm not good at them. Whatever. Scott calls me out on them all the time. But, Scott, check that one. Let me know how to fix that.
But, you know, it's like, what do you do with your buyers when it comes to market intel and market information? Like, that one, to me, when. When he sent it the second time, I was like, hey, you don't. You don't have the right to do that. You already told us to sell it all, you know, a couple weeks ago before it rallied. Like, you don't have the right. So I'm asking you, this is where you can participate.
You know, what do you, what do you guys do with the information you get from grain buyers? Is it good information? Thumbs up? Is it information you don't even consider? You know, you give it a thumbs down. What do you guys do with grain buyer information? Because I tell you my experience, and I probably drive the grain buyers.
Well, I don't know if I drive them nuts when I'm dealing, but it's very to the point, right? I. It's a text. You gotta have a paper trail, folks. Gotta have a paper trail. It's a text. Boom, boom. This is what I'm doing. This is what I want to do. Hey, let me know when it's done or whatever, or it's just logging in and doing something on the portal. Right. But I'm just curious what you guys do with that information from your buyers, because I just.
A lot of. There's a lot of advice going around this year, a lot of advice from a lot of different buyers. Just wondering how you guys handle it. So let me know. Let me know your good experiences, your bad ones, and I'd love to read those, some of those on the pod in the future now. All right, what else do we have here? Okay, let's just do these quick two little things, and then I'll come back to read the agenda in its entirety. All right. But the conference, again, thank you. Everybody who stepped up continue to sell tickets every day. Obviously, it slowed down from the start, which is expected, but, yeah, we asked the event the other day just to reshuffle the tables, to see what numbers could look like.
Yeah, we're getting very close now. If we do make it to October 31 without a sellout, by then, the price is going up to $999. Okay. That's until November 15. We are done selling tickets on November 15. Or if we sell out. And I did, you know, I got a text today from one guy's like, hey, I think we're taking five. You know, if we get a couple of those that come in, yeah, it's going to be pretty much over. So it is going to sell out. This is not a sales pitch. I'm. I'd love to have you there, but it's up to you.
Yeah, it's going to sell out. Okay. Lunchbox crew is opening up October 25 again, check it out on the website.
It's $395 a month. This is my plug to my crop marketing program that I have running with the crew. So $3.95 a month or four grand a year again, you can go join the vip list at Ryandini Ca. We're going to open that up October 25 for one week only. That's it. This is how we do it. Because I want people to come in, get acquainted, get started, and I don't like having people join every week or every month. I just like doing it in blocks. I don't know when we'll open the next one. I would assume at the end of the year. All right, that's it for, for my long housekeeping for this week. I was chatting with a grower the other day and he said, ryan, but listening to the podcast, you know, for the last year, and I noticed, you know, you kind of hint towards what you, what you would do on a crop marketing side, but you don't really give, you know, specific advice.
And there's a good reason for that, folks. There's a good reason.
I don't know who's all listening to the podcast on any given day or week, and I don't really have the right to give you that advice. It's your farm, it's your operation, it's your cash flow needs.
But if you are looking for a little bit of guidance, you can head over to the lunchbox crew.
That's Ryandine ca. Click on consulting. We are opening up the lunchbox crew for one week starting October 25. We're going to close it on November 1. If you want specific recommendations, if you want a sounding board, if you want clarity in these markets, just come visit the lunchbox crew and we'll get you set up. Okay, let's get into eating your veggies, brought to you by the lunchbox crew. Intake again October 25 for one week. Check out Ryandini CA for that. Let's go with, well, two things and then tugging cheek one. Number one, I know the canola markets rallying. We've got some strength around it. Outside oil seeds are climbing as well.
But it doesn't mean that you can just look away here and not pay attention for the next while. You need to be hyper focused, hyper aware of what's going on with the canola market. Because maybe I shouldn't say it like this, but many of us, we're flirting right now with that line of profitability or negative margin on canola.
So, you know, when your canola yields weren't quite there. And I know some of you cringe. Say doh, I wish I was close to that line. My yields weren't there. I'm not near that. But you know what I mean folks, a lot of, a lot of you are flirting with that line right now. So this is, you know, this is important marketing at this time on your canola. And I still, I know I'm, I'm watching the charts. I'm letting the market do the work. Yada yada. That's what they tell you. And I, yeah, when it pulls back I'm going to be Johnny on the spot making a sale. But I also have an idea on, I have a few targets at least, mental ones set in my mind here, uh, because I want to get some sales on in this rally. I really, I still do. Even though the stats can, is going to be bullish, still want to get a sale on at least a small one here. Um over the next week or two is what I'm thinking. Second thing for this week for eating your veggies, yellow peas, I would be sweeping out the bins myself. I don't know if we talked about that last week, uh, didn't look like it, but sweep out the bins on yellow peas and I dont mind being a marketer of pulses in general. That includes red and green lentils. I like selling those crops right now. I really do.
Then the other thing, lets add one more here. So before, but ive been diving into, on the consulting side, been diving into crop marketing plans, diving into crop rankings for next year. Ive been looking up, you know, stamp seeds has a general purpose red wheat. So I've been diving into that a little bit because our PNH will put that in their CP program and so we've been doing some scenarios around that. Forage peas came up as well.
All I'm saying is that it's the time where we're looking at rankings, where we put crops, what do the margins look like? And I know many of you are applying fertilizer so some of those plans are already baked in for a lot. But I am making some tweaks and adjusting some acres and really diving into that and I think it would be great if you are as well. Then lastly, just, you know, secure your tickets for the conference. Again, I know one of you or two of you is going to call me mad.
You're going to be pissed off when I tell you that we're sold out. And you know, just don't be that one. Don't be the guy that's mad at.
[01:04:42] Speaker B: Me when we do sell it.
[01:04:43] Speaker A: Alright, alright, that's it for eating your veggies for this week. Alright folks, if you found this episode useful, please share it with a friend, neighbor, colleague in your local egg community. Spread the word. I really do appreciate it and if you can go and hit that subscribe button or the like button, that really helps me out as well. Apparently that's what they tell me. Prices may change, strategies may change by the time you listen to the podcast. So I just need to say that here because these are markets that change all the time. All right, most of this is recorded on a Wednesday. If you'd like to be a guest on the show, send me an email again. I've plugged the website plenty of time but Ryan, Denis, CA is where you'll find my projects. Have a great weekend folks.
I'm out.
