Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome into episode 61 of the what the Futures podcast. I've got another great show for you this week. I think I say that every Friday, but another great one we've got.
Well, we've got some perspective around fertilizer markets with James Mitchell from the Crop Management Network. And I'm going to just say, folks, if you do not have your Fertilizer booked for 2025, please spend the 15 minutes to listen to this because waiting, I, we cannot find the reasons where waiting makes sense from a financial standpoint. All right, so I've got James here. We're going to go through all that. I also have Taylor Wallace joining me. Taylor's putting on a great grower event here in Unity, Saskatchewan. And to, you know, just great catch up with Taylor to talk about the farm a little bit, talk about, you know, a bit of their journey with their little guy Gabriel. And you know, I mentioned that on the show back last year, but you can and get, get the update there. And yeah, just some great initiatives here being seen across the prairie. So, Taylor, good on you getting something organized here for the growers in Unity. So that's, that's today's episode, folks. So let's, let's keep moving along here.
Hey, folks, welcome to the what the Futures podcast where we break down complex market trends into simple, actionable advice. It's your quick guide to better farming decisions.
All right, welcome in Here again, episode 61 of the what the Futures podcast, of course, recorded in the UPL studio. And I just, I need to remind you, February 15th, that is the deadline for the grower rewards program over at UPL. Reach out to your retail, reach out to your UPL rep, get signed up. It's quick and easy. 160 acres, the lowest benchmark to get in to a grower program here across the prairies. The upl, those are the folks. Go check it out and sign up before February 15th. All right, I got a lot of questions coming in here and lots of discussion around fertilizer and inputs, obviously tight margins. You know, I've been talking to a lot of growers about, you know, efficiencies and saving money as well. But, you know, I, James has been on the show a couple times in this past year. And what I appreciate about our conversations is that gets right, gets to it, gets down to it and is very transparent and it's tough to find in the fertilizer industry, I would say I'll just say that. And so, you know, if you're sitting here wondering about what can impact fertilizer prices moving forward.
That's what we're going to get into. So thanks for coming into episode 61 here. Of course. My name is Ryan Denis. I'm your host. I've spent my career working with farmers across the prairie provinces as a buyer analyst, advisor since 2009 and very thrilled to be putting on the Winter Futures Podcast.
I know that I don't ask a lot of listeners, but let's just say that friends don't let friends make bad crop marketing decisions. And if you can share this show with one of your buddies, maybe give them a little bit of peace of mind here when it comes to a crop marketing or farm business perspective, maybe I can help just a little bit. So go help your buddies out. Share the show with them. I appreciate it and I'm sure that they will as well. Let's get into it here with James.
All right, folks, I've got James Mitchell, CEO of Crop Management Network, joining me here once again on the show. We had James on a couple of times last year helping guide us through these very interesting fertilizer markets. And I thought with all the questions coming in, be a good time to have them on once again. So, James, welcome back to the what the Futures podcast. How is your day going?
[00:04:19] Speaker B: It's pretty early in the morning, so it's going pretty well so far. Thanks for having me back, by the way.
[00:04:24] Speaker A: Yeah, you bet. I don't record in the morning super early in the morning often, but it gives me a chance to have coffee instead of beer while I'm recording, so it's good. All right, James, so let's just get into it with a. With a hard one right now. I'm just going to throw it out there while we're still sharp in the morning here. I'm getting comments, I'm getting questions. Farmers. It seems like there's still a lot of uncertainty out there. Farmers aren't maybe buying fertilizer in the same way they have in past years. It's the end of January here of 2025.
What do you see over the next couple months here is holding on and not buying or committing yet. Is, is that the, is that the call?
[00:05:12] Speaker B: No. No, I don't think it is. We've seen fairly dramatic price increases over the last 60 days. We've seen widespread deferral in North America on fertilizer purchasing. And now we've got ourselves into a position where we're competing with India for urea tons globally. And that's going to be putting an absolute floor under the market and also for the most part pushing prices higher.
And I can, I can honestly say that retail prices in western Canada today do not reflect what wholesalers are asking for new tons. So.
[00:05:50] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:05:51] Speaker B: If you wait until spring, urea will have an 8 in front of it.
[00:05:55] Speaker A: Okay. Okay. So what you basically mean is as a, as organizations out there, you have, you have so much that you're willing to move or moving at a certain price and then when you go and buy more, that number is significantly or higher than what it's been. Okay.
[00:06:17] Speaker B: Yeah. Typically in the retail business, as the market moves up, you're always selling inventory kind of behind what the current replacement price is. So if I look at what current replacement price is today, it absolutely should have an aid in front of it if, if there's going to be any margin in it for a dealer.
[00:06:34] Speaker A: Okay, sure, fair enough. Okay. And so you mentioned India and I get a little bit confused around, you know, India's involvement in the urea market. They throw a tender out there. They try to, it seems like by millions of tons or something at a time. What's going on with, with India? Are they buying more than normal? Is this kind of routine business? Is there any surprises out of that right now?
[00:07:04] Speaker B: Yeah, there's actually been a lot of surprises. So India has a tremendous appetite for fertilizer and in the last month they. This is their second tender. In the last month. A month ago they tried to secure a million and a half tons and only secured about 180,000 tons. Due to the process of their tender, they're obligated to accept the lowest bid. And about a month ago the lowest bid was so low that really no other participant was willing to match it and the tender was really a non issue. So now they've come back to the market again looking for a million and a half tons.
And since then the market has, global market on urea has appreciated significantly. So they have big demand and they have limited time to get the product and they don't have China as a reliable supplier to them either. So that's all put that all together and you have, you know, low supply, high demand, higher prices coming.
[00:08:06] Speaker A: Okay. And so if I switch to China for a second, China is still, my understanding is they've been a little bit on the sidelines from an export perspective. That continues to be the case.
[00:08:19] Speaker B: Yeah. It really seems like China's stockpiling not just fertilizer, but all critical minerals kind of hunkering down for what may come as a protracted recession. I mean, their Real estate industry is really crippling that country right now. So their focus is on keeping food affordable, keep keeping cost of production low for their farmers. So they've been a really a non issue on urea exports and phosphate. They've been limited as well. So that's kept the whole global market very snug.
[00:08:49] Speaker A: Okay, all right, if I switch gears now into, into the U.S.
so the corn market's been on a heck of a tear here. You know, corn futures rallying, corn yield getting pulled back the last few months. A little extra demand in there. So corn has rallied. That's putting up flashing warning signs of big corn acreage here in the US in 2025. I'm assuming that also is going to have an impact on the direction of urea prices. Is that accurate?
[00:09:22] Speaker B: Yeah, definitely. All fertilizer demand will be bolstered by higher corn acres. So, you know, P and K will also be drug up with that. So, yeah, 93 million plus corn acres is kind of the number that I've heard, which is an increase over last year and it will make the market very tight on fertilizer. You know, we, yeah, you look at phosphate and potash, especially phosphate at elevated prices, you know, Western Canadian phosphate and well, at least in Alberta here is 1200 plus. Retail dealers do not want to get hung with that number at the end of season on inventory. So everybody's managing things super tight.
So, you know, high demand again, low supply and low risk tolerance for carrying inventory doesn't lend itself to be a great situation going into spring.
[00:10:18] Speaker A: Yeah, for sure. Okay, so I don't know if you have any insight onto the, you know, what the American farmer is thinking right now, but if you're, if we're all sitting here staring down higher corn acres, you know, do you think the US farmers positioned already or positioned well and has their fertilizer kind of spoken for or are they also kind of waiting this out a little bit? Yeah, maybe it's going to answer.
[00:10:43] Speaker B: Yeah, I was just down in the US visiting with some other dealers at a conference. They felt like their fall application was down around 15 in general across the US not that it's going to be reduced application, but more deferral.
So my understanding is obviously corn prices are up. There is also some grower payments from the government early in the year, which was going to be supportive to fertilizer purchasing as well. So they see a normal application season coming ahead as far as rates go, but more acres to cover. So that should make it a high demand spring for dealers in the US yeah.
[00:11:24] Speaker A: Logistics come into play here as well, and a little strain on logistics which never, never leads to a cheaper price, that's for sure. So.
[00:11:32] Speaker B: No, it doesn't.
[00:11:33] Speaker A: So is there, is there anything. I don't want to say glimmer, I hope, here to lower urea prices heading into spring, but is there anything that you could look at to say, hey, this is a wild card, or this could come out of left field. Is there anything that stands out that could be, you know, supportive towards some lower pricing here?
[00:11:52] Speaker B: No, I wish I.
[00:11:55] Speaker A: Hey, honest answer is good. Yep.
[00:11:57] Speaker B: You know, as a fertilizer dealer who's holding inventory, I mean, you never want to see a market go backwards in this position. But when we head into spring, there's been enough challenges from Western Canadian producers that they're more forward sold at this time of the year than typical just due to, again, their production challenges. So urea in Western Canada is very tight and.
[00:12:23] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:12:24] Speaker B: Yeah. And you can't rely on imports in April and May to backstop any shortages of a Western Canadian producer. So, yeah, there, there really is no glimmer of hope for, for lower prices unless our Canadian dollar was to massively appreciate over the next 60 days and. All right, I don't foresee that at all. Probably the other way.
[00:12:48] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm not in that camp. Yeah, for sure. No.
[00:12:51] Speaker B: So, I mean, and if our dollar continues to depreciate, that's just going to be add added pressure to prices.
[00:12:57] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Another reason there. Okay. I had to ask it. I had to ask the question because you just never know. Right? Never know.
[00:13:04] Speaker B: I would actually add. There is one nutrient that typically is abundantly supplied that is extremely tight, and that's sulfur.
[00:13:11] Speaker A: Oh, okay.
[00:13:12] Speaker B: The US Corn grower has had an increased appetite for sulfur over the years. We've had some severe production challenges in Western Canada on ammonium sulfate. And it is extremely tight and it is extremely expensive.
So it could challenge urea prices, which I have never seen in my career. Wow.
[00:13:33] Speaker A: Yeah, I've been sleeping on that one. I haven't noticed that. Wow. Okay. Yeah. Again, I'm looking for some glimmers of hope here, James. And another one, not happening.
[00:13:43] Speaker B: I want higher commodity prices. Let's hope for higher commodity prices.
[00:13:47] Speaker A: Let's get higher prices and do a, a dandy job of selling. All right, sounds good. Okay, so we're recording this on. I think it's January 24th or 25th. Can't remember the start of the day here, but Donald Trump has been in office for the Last four days and we'll see what happens here today. This is Friday. Any concerns or things that we need to be paying attention to from a Trump perspective when it comes to fertilizer?
[00:14:15] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, I think there's lots to be concerned about. I do hope that cooler heads prevail as far as when it comes to food production and the cost of growing food in the US I definitely think that fertilizer will get cut out of this tariff scenario. Canada's is the most important potash supplier into the U.S. they supply 50% of the U.S. imports.
The damage to the U.S. grower by putting a 25% tariff on potash, I don't think it can be overstated. So in my, my perspective, I really think that fertilizer gets cut out. I think Trump's an excellent negotiator. I think, you know, start high and try to reach some sort of compromise where he still wins and we don't lose too much on other segments of the business. But I really feel fertilizers will get cut out.
[00:15:12] Speaker A: Okay. And then so for us, we take Foss, comes from the US Into Canada. Right. That's our biggest one. I guess from a political perspective, anything there we should be concerned about, or I guess it would be in response to pot. Yeah, I'm not sure what if there's any concern there.
[00:15:31] Speaker B: Phosphate, we're already in a tariff situation. The US has countervailing duties on a number of producers in Russia and Africa.
One of the interesting things is you can bring phosphate into the US and put it through a bonded warehouse which states that this product is not destined for the US and it can flow through to Canada tariff free.
[00:15:54] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:15:55] Speaker B: So, you know, we're already navigating a tariff situation with phosphates coming from the US So we seem to be doing okay with that right now. And I think the phosphate thing will continue to happen. Again, I don't think any additional tariffs are going to hit the fertilizer market. At least I hope so. It makes no sense to affect the cost of food production.
[00:16:18] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, okay, I caught a headline here. I didn't actually read the article and I'm going to misquote the headline, but it was just something about the potash market being like waking, like something about waking the sleeping giant or something like that, or, or something along the lines of the potash market has been like, very, very quiet, but to be on, on high alert here and I guess potentially, you know, based on, on politics. But is that the only reason that potash would, would have a Extra eyes on it right now from a price perspective or is there anything else there that I'm missing?
[00:16:56] Speaker B: Well, interestingly enough, Belarus just announced a production cut of 1.1 million tons. That's likely market in the first half of the year. It, it shouldn't be a major blip. I mean western Canada has, you know, close to half of its total capacity idled right now. So I mean it wouldn't take much to replace that production cut from a Canadian producer standpoint.
[00:17:20] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:17:21] Speaker B: I, I don't really see potashes as at risk of taking any huge jumps. And you know, the suppliers also they front loaded the US full of potash in to prepare for tariffs. So there's a lot of potash inventory in the US right now just sitting in rail cars and warehouses.
[00:17:42] Speaker C: So.
[00:17:42] Speaker A: Okay, okay.
[00:17:43] Speaker B: The potash market, to me it feels fairly tame right now.
[00:17:47] Speaker A: So you say there's a bunch of facilities idle or production idle. You know, what would it take to get those up and running again? Is it just economics, just price or any other reason why they're idle?
[00:18:00] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean I would say potash producers are the most disciplined producers globally. They match supply and demand very well.
So you know, if they were to see if prices were to rise and they saw an opportunity, they would, they could bring on more capacity. But you know, prices get to be soft where they don't feel like it's economical to run. They'll idle capacity. So they're very, I would call them responsible producers as far as creating shareholder value.
[00:18:29] Speaker A: Okay. All right, let's see here. I know I have a couple other ones for you. I think we've covered all that very, very well.
I think it's too early to talk about what the summer could bring. So I think we'll park that and visit that again in the future. We'll get you back on maybe sometime in spring or shortly after spring like we did last year. I wanted to bring up, you know, we talk about facilities and, and you know, production cuts in some areas and things like that. But now there's talk of a, of a facility being put in Western Canada, a grower owned type facility. I don't have all the ins and outs. I haven't read all of the, the articles and the press releases. But you know, do you have any insight on something like that? A farmer owned urea facility or nitrogen facility? Maybe it would be a better way to put it.
[00:19:21] Speaker B: Yeah. You know, first of all, building any facility in Western Canada is extremely challenging right now.
I think you could talk to at Least one company building a crush plant that when they put their budget together versus what it is today is, you know, 50 to 100% more than what they anticipated.
So you know, that's the first challenge in building any facility in Western Canada is the cost of doing it and trying to keep it on budget and on time. And honestly, Western Canada can be an excess producer of nitrogen. We can export up to 400 to 700,000 ton of urea a year. So it would be a very challenging environment to build a nitrogen facility in Western Canada when we already have excess production.
So I think that's my 2 cents on it. If I was wanting to invest in a nitrogen facility, I might buy stock in Yara.
[00:20:32] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, 100%. I just think of the, of the process and the, the way the process has been presented across the prairies and I, to me it's just a little bit backwards. I, I would just think that when you're on a campaign, and these are just my words, not James, but when you're on a campaign to raise funds that you have some other players involved prior to going to, you know, the farmers out there, that, let's be honest, margins are tough right now. So I just, I don't know, I just don't like the way the process, I'd like to see it flipped where they get a big player involved first. And, and if you can't do that then I just question, question what, what the end game is here. So anyways, those are my words, not James. Okay, so James, let's, let's keep moving on here. I've got, so we have a FOSS price roughly and now in central Alberta we said approximately twelve hundred dollars a ton. And you know, I'll just say folks remember markets change for crop prices. They also change for inputs as well. So this, anything we talk about from a price perspective you need to verify locally because it changes very quickly. So fossil around 1200 is that, does that statement we could put out there? I guess for now.
[00:21:49] Speaker B: Y, Y, absolutely. I would say 1200 would be on the, would be on the lower side of the market. Sure.
[00:21:55] Speaker A: Okay. And, and what about for urea out there? What are we seeing ballpark? I, I, I wrote down like seven and a half, 750 bucks a ton. I don't know if I'm low, but.
[00:22:05] Speaker B: No, I would, I, I think today that that would be a fair price if you were willing to take it before spring.
[00:22:10] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:22:11] Speaker B: Again, where we see replacement values and where we, we bought inventory for later in the year, we Definitely will be looking for it to start with an eight.
[00:22:22] Speaker A: Yep. Okay. And then separately, I've just caught the a headline of just UAN prices also climbing here recently.
Are you guys seeing anything? I know you guys move 2800. Is there anything on that price that would be different or.
[00:22:38] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, not, not really different. But In Western Canada, UAN typically represents a two and a half cent spread to urea.
So you know, UAN is, is heading north of $500.
[00:22:52] Speaker A: Okay. And then we said sulfur was really high. I don't know what the numbers are for sulfur at all though. And I know there's different, a whole bunch of different ones. Right.
[00:23:04] Speaker B: There's different sulfurs, there's dealers with different positions. What I will tell you is if we were selling off replacement costs today, sulfur would have a 7 in front of it. So. And, and that market has been, has been very hot.
[00:23:21] Speaker A: And then the last one here is potash. I have not looked at potash values at all.
[00:23:25] Speaker B: So yeah, it's, it's in, you know, I would call it mid to high five hundreds.
[00:23:29] Speaker A: Alrighty. Okay, so James from the Crop Management Network, appreciate you coming on here. Do you guys have anything going on over the next couple months? I. Any events or anything you're going to be a part of?
[00:23:40] Speaker B: Yeah, we hold a yearly business seminar in Camerose at the Camerose Regional Exhibition. This year it's on March 6th. You know, we have, we have a large trade show going on there with, with suppliers and then we also have a number of key speak keynote speakers this year and.
[00:23:59] Speaker A: Oh, awesome.
[00:24:00] Speaker B: The headliner for us this year is Machine Repeat.
[00:24:02] Speaker A: Awesome. Well, that'll be good. He's a blast to have on stage. Yeah, that'll be fun. Right on. So that's a Thursday, March 6th. Then if people are interested in attending, should they pre. Pre register call down to one of your locations or. How do they do that?
[00:24:18] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, you can call down. We're going to have a, a real social media blitz on the seminar. Everyone's invited. So watch for us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter. There'll be an RSVP available there.
[00:24:35] Speaker A: Perfect. March 6th with machinery. Pete, good stuff. Thanks, James, for coming on the show and being candid. I always appreciate your comments and I hope growers listen to the segment more than once. If they need to buy fertilizer, we'll just say that. So thank you so much.
[00:24:48] Speaker B: All right, thanks for the opportunity.
[00:24:54] Speaker A: All right, folks, I've got Taylor Wallace joining me this morning from Unity, Saskatchewan. Taylor, how's it going?
[00:25:01] Speaker C: Oh, really good. We've been trying to move a fair bit of grain lately, and the roads have been terrible, but, yeah, that's just part of the game. You don't know what you're going to get. So we're getting it done anyway.
[00:25:13] Speaker A: Good stuff. You know, it's been a little while now, a couple months since that facility in Unity went idle. That one buyer. Has that changed the landscape at all from your crop marketing perspective or have you noticed it or. Not really.
[00:25:28] Speaker C: Well, definitely change the landscape of what we do. We would forward contract a lot of grain with them. You know, we'd be talking to them about 2026 shortly here, you know, so.
[00:25:39] Speaker A: Yeah, and that.
[00:25:40] Speaker C: Obviously that's changed.
[00:25:41] Speaker A: So.
[00:25:42] Speaker C: Yeah, it's really changed where we send. Decide we're going to send trucks. It was a really convenient spot during harvest.
You know, there's a lot of condo storage there. You know, they had a dryer that they weren't scared to use and stuff like that. So it really is change things around here for sure, and not just for us. So.
[00:26:01] Speaker A: Yeah, fair enough. Fair enough. You know, you talk about 2026 like, I've had a few questions come in about 2026 and some of the values out there, not to say that they're. They're super attractive, but they're getting there. Right. And to find the dance partner of a grain buyer that will do something for 2026 in the next couple months are far and few in between. You know, some of the more established companies are like, no, no, no, no, no, we're not touching. We barely want to talk about the fall of 25. We're definitely not touching 26. So.
[00:26:32] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, I can understand what the amount of volatility. Nobody really wants to stick their neck out, but from the producer side, you want to start. You know, once you start, margins are there for that year. We want to start looking at what we can sell, so.
[00:26:44] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, exactly. You bet. All right. I wanted to. We're going to talk about this great event that you're putting together in. In Unity here in. In February. But before we get to that, I just had a personal question to ask you. I. I was wearing the Gabriel shirt on the show a little while ago. It's in the regular rotation. How's Gabriel doing? I know last time we chatted right before Christmas, you guys were getting out of the hospital. How's the little guy doing?
[00:27:12] Speaker C: He's doing really good. Thanks for asking. Yeah, we're, you know, there's a lot of appointments and stuff. We still gotta do. But, you know, as far as how he's doing, he's. No, he's thriving. He's doing great. He's gaining weight. And, yeah, it was quite the ride through harvest and into Christmas and, you know, getting out of the hospital on the 21st and, you know, being able to spend Christmas as a family. You know, we had four months basically where we couldn't have both of our kids in the same room because our oldest, you know, kids under five are not allowed in the NICU and Virgin, and, you know, we couldn't have them both at the same time, so we had to compromise. But it was really nice to get out. But, yeah, he's doing fantastic. There's things to manage, but it's all good. Thank you for, you know, wearing the shirt and raising some awareness. And if it's not us, it's always somebody else, you know, with a story. Right. And, yeah, I know it's near and dear to you as well, so it's. It's good to share those stories sometimes.
[00:28:10] Speaker A: So that's one thing that. It just didn't cross my mind a whole bunch until you experience it. But the NICUs and the teams of doctors and specialists out there, they're doing this every day. And if it's not one of us, it's somebody else that's there in the care of these folks. And it definitely puts things into perspective for you when you spend some time in those departments and with those people 100%. Can people still grab shirts or does the campaign slow down or. Where are you guys at on that?
[00:28:46] Speaker C: Marina and Tori are pretty accommodating there at Freckled Honey, so I'm sure if you put in an order, they'd probably make it happen. I shouldn't speak out of turn, but.
[00:28:53] Speaker A: Yep. Yeah, fair enough.
[00:28:55] Speaker C: As far as I know, nobody's. They haven't said no yet, so.
[00:28:58] Speaker A: All right, well, they are great shirts as well, so I'll put that in the show notes here. Okay. So I wanted to talk a little bit about this event. You know what's inspired you? You know, you farm in unity. You got, you know, great farm neighbors out there as well. Great farming community. You know what's inspired you to put on this. This meeting and. And, you know, giving you the. The gumption to put it together?
[00:29:23] Speaker C: Well, I worked in industry for a while. I did egg retail previous to coming back to farm. And what people will still ask me, do you miss the job? Do you miss the business? And I say, yeah, in some respects, I do. Certainly the people, and then also to the access to information that you get when you're in industry is. Versus being a producer. There's just those networks and connections. So I find at the producer level, you have to go searching for it, whereas at the industry level, you're exposed to it more. So I thought, well, why can't we just do that ourselves and bring some of that down closer to the producer level, find out what we want to do. Because typically, like, I've been asked since putting the. The word out there, who's putting this on or who are you working with? And I said, well, it's just me, but obviously with health and, you know, it's just, I don't see why a farm farmer, group of farmers can't just do find out, get the people they want to come in and speak, you know, don't have to go find a meeting that, you know, maybe there's only one thing you want to talk about. Bring in people that you want to see.
[00:30:32] Speaker A: So.
[00:30:33] Speaker C: And honestly, I've been thinking about doing this for a few years.
[00:30:36] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:30:36] Speaker C: And then you put it out there on your podcast last summer that, you know, let's have some community events. Let's see that. I think I was still watching the episode when I emailed you and said, yeah, yeah. So I jumped on it early and, you know, and then a mutual friend of ours, Nathan, offered to help as well. Well, I kind of cornered him and then he. He didn't have the heart to say no to me, I guess. So, yeah, between you two guys, we've been putting this thing together, and I think, I think it's going to be great. I'm. I'm excited with the group that we have lined up. And honestly, basically everybody said yes right out the door. Yourself and Trent and Kyle and Joe and Ryan from mnp, they were just all, yeah, let's go for it. So it's been. Been great that way. Easy.
[00:31:21] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, I know, you know, I can't speak for Kyle and Trent specifically, but I know they enjoy being out there and, and having the opportunity to do this type of stuff and myself as well, so that's great. Did you ever get this is all about business, which is different. Did agronomy stuff ever kind of pop into your mind for this one, or were you just thinking, let's focus on numbers for 20, 25?
[00:31:45] Speaker C: Well, to be honest with you, there's a lot of great agronomists in our area, whether they retail or third party. I feel like that's more their domain. And they do a great job of it. And I didn't think I could add a lot to that conversation. But I also feel the business side seems to be getting a lot of interest lately. And there's just so many different avenues you can take with it. And that's why I decided we should call it beyond the field, because it's going to be outside of growing the crop for the most part. You know, maybe we'll dive into it a little bit, but there's so much we can cover. And I think as farms progress now, and I'm sure you're seeing it too, with the marketing and how guys are picking it up, I think there's going to be quite. Agronomy is really evolutionary now. You know, there's just small tweaks here and there to really maximize. You know, we haven't seen anything real revolutionary. Revolutionary on the agronomy side, I don't think since we started. No till. Whereas now there's going to be a lot of changes on the business side, whether it's access to capital, financing, you know, maybe it's investment stuff like that, where guys value add. You know, there's going to be a lot of different things that come into the farm business, I think, lately, and it's just going to be something to keep an eye on. And there's so many different ways you can take it at the producer level. So that's really what I wanted to get into.
[00:33:02] Speaker A: Yeah, well, you know, I think, you know, if I can add a comment to that about, about things maybe evolving here, changing. I think that, you know, we got out of the Canadian Wheat Board era and what we saw offered across the prairies from like a crop marketing perspective. We saw a lot of newsletters and those continue and we saw a lot of, hey, I'm going to hire an advisor dedicated to my farm. They're going to work with 30 or 40 other farms. So I'm going to be a part of that group, pay them, you know, 10 or 15 grand and rely on that organization. And I. What I see evolving here is a little bit of a hybrid where, where farmers are taking notice of a couple of different folks and saying, hey, I'm going to build a team here to help me. And realizing that not one single person can call this market right all the time. I'm going to build this roster of people. And I think that's a difference. I don't. I think everyone in the past relied on one newsletter or maybe one or two and, or. Or that one person, I think that's gonna change. So we'll see.
[00:34:12] Speaker C: But that's one thing I think you're absolutely right. And as the producer themselves gets more sophisticated with marketing and more comfortable with it, they can, I think the panel of people like you say becomes more helpful because it just adds context to what they're thinking. Whereas before, you might have somebody that you trust to call the shots, you know, and walk through that market with you and you're more or less, I wouldn't say, beholden to what they have to say. But if you're a little bit more of a sophisticated marketer, you can just use those as opinions to craft your own plan. So I think, I think you're right. I think that's the way it's going to go.
[00:34:49] Speaker A: So you've got M and P, you know, coming to speak first. Do you know roughly what they're going to cover in that in their topic or what they want to get accomplished? Have they given any insight quite yet? I know it's still early, but just.
[00:35:02] Speaker C: And I think they're still fine tuning it, but I know, yeah, I wanted them to focus on financials and ratios and how when they're coming up with their, you know, they do benchmarking and stuff like that and how they rate and compare. You know, numbers are great. And I know they'll say this too. You know, numbers don't lie, but they don't necessarily tell the whole truth either. So there's always some context involved. So I think, I hope they bring that they start talking about maybe it's their, you know, lpm, you know, labor, power, machinery, land building, finance, you know, how they break out, where your expenses fall in your operation. And then also when we get into these years, then maybe we gotta, you know, tighten the belt a little bit, what levers you can pull and when and what you need to look at to do it properly, I think, and to be effective. Because, you know, there's a lot of things when you get into tight years where you can maybe cut back but, you know, do you want to, you know, shoot, really shoot yourself in the foot, you know, save money, one year to pay for it for five. So they bring some of that knowledge and what they see across their clientele.
[00:36:09] Speaker A: Awesome. Perfect. All right, so you got them up, you got. Trent Clarenbach's going to be there, technical analysis. Kyle's going to provide some fundamental analysis out there. I'll be trying to tie it all together in my presentation as well. How can people, you know, I got an email from, from A listener from like two and a half hours away, maybe three hours away, saying, hey, I want to go to this thing. How do they get their spot saved? And yeah, what's the process there?
[00:36:36] Speaker C: Well, so far I've been having people just text me personally. It seems to be the easiest way. Get a hold of me. You can either put my number in the show notes. My number is 306-210-9954. I might regret giving that out, who knows?
[00:36:50] Speaker A: But we'll see.
[00:36:51] Speaker B: Yeah, we'll see.
[00:36:52] Speaker C: Guy can always change the number if they have to, but I'm sure it'll be fine. You know, the people in this industry are pretty good, so we've been just doing it that way. I thought that was easier than, than email at this point. Maybe if we are lucky and get to do this a second round, maybe we'll get a little bit more sophisticated. But that's the best way right now is just get ahold of me directly.
[00:37:12] Speaker A: So I was going to say when, once you're done securing 300 seats for this thing and you're like, oh, yeah, I guess next year we'll do email.
[00:37:19] Speaker C: But yeah, it'll be a learning, learning experience for sure. But awesome.
[00:37:24] Speaker A: So kicks off 8:45 with registration. I know you got a great lunch planned and you got coffee and snacks as well. So folks, you got the number there. Reach out to Taylor. February 20th is what I have in the calendar here. That's right. Thursday, I believe it is. Yeah. 8:45 at the Unity Community Hall.
[00:37:45] Speaker C: Community Center.
[00:37:45] Speaker A: Yeah, center. Okay.
[00:37:47] Speaker C: Yeah, it's. If people are looking on a map, it's above the rink at the northeast corner of town, so right up against Highway 21. So get there pretty easy. And yeah, should be a good time, I hope. And we're, yeah, working out some details right now, but it should be great.
[00:38:05] Speaker A: Perfect. Sounds good. All right, so one more question for the farm. You know, 2025, I think you were a three crop mix in 24. Are you guys adding a crop in this year? Doing anything different for 2025 or keeping it simple?
[00:38:20] Speaker C: You know, my brother and I were talking about this and you know, my brother does a lot of the marketing. I know you know Riley pretty well, but we were going back and forth in the end of last year getting done the peas, which way my year went. That's the only thing I really got to work on. But I always said, you know, we need to get rid of these things. But after. And they're greens and that's all we grow is when we put peas in and then after looking at the numbers and I'm sure you know where I'm going with this. Well, the acres, they went up for next year, but we're still the same. 3 cop mix, canola, wheat and peas and go for it.
[00:38:55] Speaker A: So, hey, you know, pea offers are coming out right now, and the green pea prices are.
They're not bad. Like, they're a pretty good starting point out there. Around 13 and a half, $14 a bushel. So I don't blame you.
[00:39:09] Speaker C: Yeah, we can't complain with that. So hopefully they get better from there.
[00:39:14] Speaker A: All right, Taylor, thanks for coming on the show this week. Appreciate you giving us some context around your event in unity. And hey, farmers, if you're tuning in saying, hey, I want to do. I want to talk about this or think about something like this, reach out to the show here as well, and we can see if we can provide any help or guidance because getting farmers together is always a good thing. So thanks, Taylor. Appreciate you coming on.
[00:39:37] Speaker C: Yeah. And I want to thank you, Ryan, and, and you know, any. Any of your listeners that got interest, by all means, even if you just got a question, shoot me and shoot me a text and do what I can. No, I appreciate your help with this. And yeah, let's go for it. Have fun.
[00:39:51] Speaker A: Awesome. Good stuff.
All right, folks, that wraps up episode 61 for us. I am.
I've been on the beach all week, so this is a good one to get out. While I was taking advantage of some sun and some sand, again, prices change, strategies do change as well, so please seek out the advice of professionals out there. I want to thank James for joining me. I want to thank Taylor for joining me as well, giving us some perspective about that grower meeting. And hey, if you have any questions for the show, it's ryanothefuturespodcast. Ca love to hear from you. Love all commentary. If you have any feedback, it's also appreciated. But for episode 61, I'm out.
