Kitchen Window Bias & It's Impact on Crop Marketing Decisions

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Well, the growing season is well on its way here across the Canadian prairies. And we've got extremes, folks, farms that are mudding it in. And we have the complete reverse farms that haven't seen a drop of rain or very little precipitation here. This episode I'm going to talk about some of the bias that exists out there. Some of the market buys how your kitchen window can influence your decisions. I'm also going to get a little bit vulnerable this week and just talk about our farm scenario and compare that to the scenarios that we see in the L box. Crew, let's get into it here for episode 78 of the what the Futures podcast. Hey, folks, welcome to the what the Futures podcast, your quick guide to better farming decisions. Welcome, folks, into episode 78 here of the what the Futures podcast. Of course, recorded in the UPL studio each and every week. And we're going to talk a lot about the stress, the environmental stresses out there that are causing some different bias to appear in our marketing plans. But I also want to highlight a product from UPL called Wave Weather Every stress. Fortify your plants for improved uptake and resiliency. Stress less this season. Check out all those details on the UPL website or contact your local retail to get more details about Wave. All right, I have a great episode teed up here. I've got. It's. This episode has range. It has range because we're going to get very personal here on the crop marketing side. That's what this podcast is all about. It's about crop marketing. So we're trying to cut through the baloney out there for you guys and give you some actionable advice, ideas, strategies, risk management stuff. That's what it's all about. So we're going to get into that because we are at a bit of a crossroads here from a crop marketing perspective. It's a crossroads because this is what happened this week, all right? And there's nothing about this that's right or wrong. This is just what happened. Now you have kitchen window buys. I didn't Google how to say this properly, but it's. You look out the kitchen window and I've seen it my entire career. I have been, I've had a strip tore off me up and down multiple times because of the kitchen window bias. What I mean by that is I've had, where I live just outside of of Sherwood park. You know, we are now at an inch and a quarter of rain approximately. We've had three rain events. Central Alberta has had a couple rain events. What happened this week. And the reason that I got. I get torn down is you look out there and say, well, okay, like, our garden looks good here. The crops, when I drive into town, both sides of. Both sides of the road are looking good. You know, you go see a client an hour away, well, those crops look good, too. And you start to build that into your marketing plan and your. And your bias. And I've, you know, I. I tell the lunchbox crew all the time that, you know, I look at, you know, 21 million tons of canola or 20 million tons of canola or 19 million tons of canola. I want to know what that number is going to do as a whole across the Canadian prairies. Because within that, it will be too wet, it will be too dry, and it'll be perfect. It'll. That's what happens. So when I look at this, I'm, yeah, you're going to be exposed to one of those. But for me, I need to look at this big picture. And so it's hard when you hear a yahoo like myself say, okay, guys, you know, you gotta consider, you know, hedging some canola here or managing some price risk in canola. When you look out your window and say, I don't even have my canola planted yet. I don't even know how I'm gonna get it in the ground. The floater's booked, or I haven't had a rain yet. What's this guy talking about? Like, we're in a drought? Because you are. All right, So I used to get calls from guys to be like, what the. What are you on, man? Like, I. Your advice is completely out to lunch. Well, I'm looking at the big picture here. Now, here's the. Here's the interesting thing that happened this week, all right? This kitchen window bias. And I just have to say I have Dan Aberhart coming up later this episode from Growing the Future podcast. Dan's been a big help to me, and he's working on a great cause right now. Stars, which we all have been a part of. It's impacted all of us. The Stars Air ambulance. He's part of Rescue on the River. We're going to talk about that in this episode. I also have Kyle Platt with John Deere joining me. We're going to talk about John Deere Operations center, and we're going to talk about the mobile version. He is in charge of mobile mobility. He's a senior product manager with John Deere. Kyle's a great follow on social media, and we're going to get him on today's show as well. All right, but this kitchen window bias that I want to talk about here. So as a. You have a crop marketing firm, okay, there's, there's dozens of them here across the prairies. There's a bunch of them, right? And what happened this week was we had one firm where they've had rain and a fair amount of rain the last couple ten days or so. And those recommendations, they're flying out the door. They're flying out there. Sell, sell, sell where? Bump, big sales happening. Moving the needle here on not every crop, but on certain crops. Not wheat, I would say. I didn't see anything on wheat. But there things are good, right? You got to take advantage of prices. It's raining. Away you go. And then another firm sitting in an area that has had little, very little precipitation. The drought risk concerns are high. Pumping the brakes, not pumping them. Yeah, Hitting the brakes, stopping everything. Don't sell a darn thing. You know, we're in a drought. This market's going higher. Don't do anything. That's the advice coming out this week. That's the advice. Now here's the crazy part of this. This is why I want to talk about it. Because here's the crazy part. Within those two firms, they have clients that are struggling to plant their crop or they're in a very, very dry drought situation going on, or their crops are perfect. So that advice is coming at you. And that's the scenarios in front of those clients. Two totally different angles, two totally different things. I'm not saying, I guess one's going to be right and one's going to be wrong to some degree. I actually don't think of crop marketing like that because honestly, you can always be right. That's going to be a bit of a loaded statement, but you can always be right. You could sell, reown the stuff with a call option or something like you can participate. Right. Anyways. But that's what comes out. That's this kitchen window bias that comes out. And that's where for you listing as a farmer, I just want, I'm not here to, you know, poke at those other companies to be like you're, you know, what you're saying is not right. It's totally valid. But that's looking out their window. And that's what influence is. And it influences me and it influences the, the firms out there. And you just, you have to remember that when it comes to some of the advice you pay for and some of the perspective that you get, you gotta remember that we are all exposed to this kitchen window bias. Now, you know what, what I'll say to that as well is that it, the most important thing is, is you and your farm and executing your crop marketing plan. And so regardless of what's kind of coming at you from a research perspective, you should still have your crop marketing plan highlighted and marked down and reviewed. And you may take some of those opinions. But at the end of the day, this is your journey, this is your business, and these are your decisions. And I just want to highlight that what is happening outside your window is impacting others around you. And you also get a little bubble going where everyone at the coffee shop or at the visiting the retail or at the dealership is experiencing the same thing. So you kind of get in your own little world. And it's important to do that, to talk to each other and work through these stressful situations. But you also, you have to look much bigger picture. And I'm not sitting here telling you today, I will give you some thoughts and advice later on this episode to consider from a marketing perspective. But I just, I want you to think big picture. I'm not here to tell you that this market is going down in a big way or up in a big way. I will say, you know, my, you know, friend of the show here, Susan Stroud, had a great quote in her publication yesterday. I'm just gonna see if I can pull it up real quick. But high stakes stakes run highest in the summer when weather risks and production concerns uncoincidentally collide. That's a big word for me. With peak market volatility, the result question mark is a higher frequency of market highs during the very months when making a sale often proves most difficult. So what she's saying here is that the correlation between the market high is also in line with when it's the most difficult to make a sale during the growing season. You know, this May, June, July, markets are flying, highs are being made, and you're sitting there saying, it's dry out my window. Or it's hard. It's very hard. It's a great quote, though, a great comment. And so that's what happens. So time and time again, highs are made during the growing season with the most unknowns. You've heard me say this before. You got all these unknowns out there. You don't know what production is going to be. The market responds to that, respects that. Fear rallies. And then as that fear dissipates goes away, production becomes Real, then those numbers pull back unless it's 20, 21. Okay, so that's what I got here. For kitchen window bias, you have to make it your own. You have to look big picture. And I just wanted to highlight that example because that's real world today. Prairies sitting across in two different, two different modes of action here with the prairies still being the center of this. Okay, I'd love to hear your guys's take on this and I'd love for you to hit me up in my inbox. Ryanatthefuturespodcast CA what do you think of this part of this comment, this statement, this segment and where are you sitting from a kitchen window bias yourself? How are you sitting out there? Continuing on the same thread, but just giving some real life examples now. So of course I've got a group of farmers in the lunchbox crew. Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, B.C. and engaging with them each and every day and talking through all sorts of scenarios. And the extremes, they come at you as well. They're coming at me because you've got farms that are absolutely locking the bins. There's a big area of dryness concern. It's legit. Crop marketing in that environment is absolutely painful and frustrating and stressful. It sucks. And then in the next phone call that I get or the next text message is, hey, I really like where these canola prices are at. You know, my rain events have occurred here. Things are looking so nice out outside my window. You know what, what should I do? Is the advice. To be honest, guys, the advice comes out and again I'm looking big picture here and I'm saying, you know, canola November futures, let's say January futures hit 700. Like those are levels that are profitable that we haven't seen a whole lot of. We've seen that a handful of times over the last year. Like those are levels that are worth locking in. And if your crops coming along and looking good, you know that that's what you do. Now I went to and I've been spending, you know, the week here, the last, well, I guess two weeks now. But you know, just reviewing different strategies with growers to say, hey, like that's a great level, but do you want to keep, do you want to keep upside open at all on this sale? Do you want to just manage against lower prices? Are you just so happy with the price you're being offered? You just want to lock that in now and the next sale will think about a different strategy? What do you want to do? Because time and time Again, as Susan said, when market volatility is the wildest, when prices are climbing, selling decisions are the hardest. That's when prices makes those highs. So I sit here today say these are darn good prices. And yes, there's concerns out there from a production side, but I still look at the forecast with some optimism here for many. And I wouldn't say that we're in a major, major, knock on wood, Western Canada event yet, you know, there are pockets, but as Western Canada. So anyways, so when I get a call from a farmer in that situation that has had rain, it's trying to figure out the physical sale and then managing that other side. When I get a call from a farm that says, man, I haven't gotten anything here, but I know that rain wise, but I know prices are, are looking good. You know what, how do I tackle this? I don't want to do anything at all. I can't sell anything physical. And you can't when you're in a drought. But what can I do? And the conversations are similar, but yet no, you just look at put options. You look at, you know, selling futures in your, in your trading account. You look at something that does not have delivery risk or a buyout risk. That's what you look at. In that example, you could still manage, you know, price. You can still say, you know, I kind of want to do something here, but I can't. I feel like I'm handcuffed. Well, what strategy allows you to participate but also not subject you to a bio? All right, so that, that's the real world of crop marketing advisors today. Like those are the real scenarios that are put in front of them, guys. Yeah, like that's as real as it gets on my end here. And, and not that I want to speak for all advisors out there, but that's as real as it gets. Okay, now I'll get a little bit vulnerable here for you guys because I think it's important that you know, I talk crop marketing plan all year, I highlight it at a conference and I, I need to back it up with what, how we perform on the farm or what we're doing on the farm. Maybe not how our performance is per se. Who cares if you know, you don't care on that side. I'm sure you'd love to hear average prices and stuff throughout the year, but anyways. But what I want to talk about is our farm scenario today. Is that from a crop marketing perspective, we are in the area of drought. Our farm, our crop is planted. Our crop Was planted a few days faster than usual and we have not had any. On the far west side of our operation, we've had a couple of small rain events, but nothing substantial. And the reality is we have seed in the ground. We have not a lot of activity out there. We've got areas where the seeds struggling to germinate. You know, we are in a drought. At the end of May, we are sitting here in a drought. You know, it's easy to look out our window at the farm and say, all right, you know, we're in a drought, let's not do anything. Our conversations right now on the production side, you know, we are looking at our inputs are, you know, now spray season is, is coming. So our, our conversations are our meetings out there. Talking to our, our neighbors as well is, okay, well, you know, how do we, what do we do on the spray side now? What, what do we invest here on the spray side? You know, it's, it's the end of May, the long range, the two week forecast doesn't matter. If I look at BAM WX weather, if I look at the nutrient weather, if I look at weather network, it's all showing a big strip that our farm is involved with that has nothing here for the next 10 days. So that puts us, you know, into the second week of June. Now we know rain events that, you know, when the tap turns on, you know, what does that do it. Sometimes it turns on, doesn't turn off. But we're in that uncomfortable spot. We took a little extra insurance this year. I believe I've talked about that on the show. We have Saskatchewan crop insurance. We have insurance, we have Agri Enhance through AGI 3. Obviously we're just going to pump the brakes on buying any hail insurance at this time. Always like to wait on that one, which, oh man, I'll do an aside on this in the future. But not everybody waits to buy their hail insurance, which to me is very interesting. From that side we, we have the coverage. We took extra coverage this year and you know, we're, we're covered, feel okay on the insurance side of the equation. Now of course we want to go out there and give this crop its best chance and we want to go and do that, make the right call. So right now the agronomist is involved, obviously we're chatting with neighbors. We have neighbors that stopped planting crops. We have neighbors that pulled back, you know, the fertilizer, saying, I'm gonna go and spread it on later when it does rain. Sprayers are parked right now everyone's waiting for this situation to change. And so from a crop marketing perspective, you know, we went out and just reviewed all of our targets. So what, what did we have out for targets? And honestly we just, we canceled all the targets we had out there. And you're going to say, ryan, what are you doing, man? Like it's part of your crop marketing plan. You set these targets out a long time ago. When prices achieve. What are you doing? Well, at the end of the day, folks, events can be very, very small as well. But if you're going to physically sell something, then you also have to come up with that. And so I'm going to take the physical side out of the crop marketing plan completely right now. Completely. The only, the caveat here, the caveat is that with our, you know, crop or with our insurance partners, you know, we can, if the, if wheat rallies like a son of a gun here in June, we can go and look at locking some of that in and then, you know, maybe we, we have an AGI 3 forward protect discussion or something like that. Like there is a solution out there, but I'm just going to change it now and focus in on the brokerage account and the strategies that I can do on paper that don't revolve or result in a delivery and having to physically deliver this product. So we went out, we just canceled those targets. We're going to talk paper now. We're not going to expose ourselves to more physical. We reviewed all of our outstanding grain contracts for fall. We double checked with our buyers on what we had outstanding and what our commitments look like. And then from there, you know, figured out a percent sold. We haven't scaled yield back quite yet. You know, maybe that's just foolish optimism on, on our part, but it is only the end of May, things can happen and we could still grow a bunch of bushels. So we haven't scaled that back yet. We just know how many bushels per acre we have committed. So instead of a percent sold, it's more like, hey, we've got X amount of bushels committed on this crop. Now we reviewed that. We've got malt barley, green peas, wheat canola. We have all of that contracted. The green peas. Not a hedgeable crop. Act of God. Malt barley, not a hedgeable crop. Act of God over there. Wheat, hedgeable crop. Physical wheat sales made. But now what we do is fortunately the sales were made when futures were, oh man, I guess a buck 30 higher than where they're at today. So all I do is Go and buy a call option right near my, my strike. I don't have to buy it today at the money and, you know, make up that gap. I'm not speculating on that. I don't have to worry about that. I can go and buy a 750 call option for what? I didn't even look it up. It would be pennies that way. In a buyout scenario, I'd have that futures protection. All right, so that's what we look at on wheat canola, same thing. All right, You've got X amount of bushels contracted. You know, maybe the market's right around maybe a touch higher than where you're averaging. But you can go buy a call option and say, you know what, I'm going to manage the risk now against a buyout on that side. No one's going to take your phone call if you phone. If I phone my buyer here at the end of May and say, hey, things are tough over here, you know, we're really hoping we catch something in the next couple weeks, otherwise it's going to be pretty tough here to produce anything. I, you know, we may want to talk about a deferring a contract for a year or some type of buyout situation. They're, they're going to laugh. They're going to laugh just like they did in 20, 21 and say, yeah, thanks for calling. Phone us in September. Right? I don't know if you guys experienced that, but the good thing that I did is back in 21 was I recorded all those conversations and then I went back to them and said, hey, we started having this conversation on this day and I'm just highlighting where the futures were every time we talked about it, because we talked about it every week or two and you told me no every time. And that actually proved quite beneficial at the end of the day. So I guess we got to record some of those conversations as well if it gets to that point. So right now I'm just, all I'm saying here is that if there is some physical sales made on those hedge crops we want to manage, if this event, this weather event expands, if heat and dryness become a bigger concern, again, some of you are laughing at this saying, geez, like I don't, I'm mudding my crop in here. But this is reality, guys, you know, so if this event expands, if the markets get bullish, maybe a demand story, whatever it is, we want to protect against that big buyout. So you just go and you buy that insurance, those call options, you get yourself a little bit protected on that front. All right, folks, that's a little bit of vulnerability on my side here. And again, love to hear your comments. Love to get some more dialogue going on this kitchen window bias on how advice is treated out there for farms. And even if you have some discussion you want to have around what I just said about our farm scenario. Yeah, hit me up. I'd love to hear from you. All right, folks, that's enough rambling for me on this one. I wanted to get that out there, though. And let's turn now to a couple of great guests. We'll have Kyle, we'll have Dan joining me shortly, and let's get after it here for the rest of episode 78. All right, folks, I want to welcome Kyle Platner here to the what the Futures podcast. Kyle making his podcast debut with us. How's it going today? [00:24:37] Speaker B: Fantastic. Doing really well. Thanks for having me. [00:24:39] Speaker A: Oh, thanks for making the time. You are a great follow on X. And we're going to get to that in just a moment here. But before we do, I need to just ask right off the hot, in your opinion, Kyle, what is the most important or effective feature in John Deere Operations Center Mobile specifically? [00:25:02] Speaker B: Yeah, okay, great question. Yeah, I would say the thing we hear most often, it's. It's the ability for a busy farm manager to be able to pull the phone that's already in their pocket and then in 30 seconds understand everything that's going on across their farm. You know, are there any of my equipment that's throwing a trouble code that I need to be concerned with, or where's my equipment working, or how soon before the team's going to move on to the next field, or am I achieving the sort of productivity or job quality I expect? Things like this we hear. You know, I hear from a buddy all the time who says I check it 30, 40, 50 times a day. I'm just constantly the ability to just keep tabs on everything that's going on from anywhere. Right. Farmers live, we know this. They live on the go. So the beauty of Operation Center Mobile is that it's always right there with them. [00:25:49] Speaker A: So you wouldn't know this, but I live, you know, six hours away from our family farm where the action is. I'm a province over six hours away. And so I could definitely relate to that as I sit over here and check in on what's going on on the farm. It's really, really cool. Do you have any, any stories, anything top of mind of, of like A story that just caught your attention or like a testimonial from a farmer that just stands out? [00:26:20] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think of just off the top of my head, I had a buddy not so long ago who, in the hospital having a baby and was able to keep track of what's going on even while he's away. I know hopefully he was paying attention to what mattered most, when it mattered most. But, yeah, you know, still, there's a lot of downtime, as you know, in those situations. And so the ability to just keep tabs, even in a. In a context like that, where normally you'd be disconnected from the farm and what's going on. [00:26:46] Speaker A: And do you feel there's. From a size of operation, do you feel that there, there's, you know, any additional uptake on. At a certain scale, or is this kind of a tool that, you know, it. If you've got a tractor, a sprayer, your combine, you know, this is. That's what you need to get going on something like this. [00:27:10] Speaker B: Yep, absolutely. So we work across, of course, farm sizes that really span a large gamut. So I would say that you. We have customers on the smaller end who definitely love the ability to have their data with them when they're at the coffee shop talking with their fellow farmers. And we have farmers on the. On the larger end, on a large scale who need the ability to keep track of their fleet, what's going on. And it obviously becomes increasingly important as you're managing more machines, more people to make sure everything's moving along as it ought to be. [00:27:41] Speaker A: So, Kyle, you. You're very responsive on social media, on X, and that's why I wanted to have you on the show here. What caught my attention was that you were taking feedback, suggestions and brainstorming with farmers and others on X. And I just want to ask, what do you get the most out of those interactions? [00:28:04] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, great question. Yeah, it's probably been about, I don't know, 10 years ago or so that I took note of the conversation that was just naturally happening amongst farmers and others in agriculture, just on what at the time was called Twitter, obviously Ag Twitter, some called it. And I wanted to be where the conversation was happening and just kind of listen in. And then at some point along the way, I started posting about features we were developing. And then people just naturally start associating you with a product and then begin to interact at that level. And so people make requests and ask questions. And I feel like that really keeps me, keeps me grounded. I try to Pay a lot of attention to what are the things that people are asking for, what are the problems they need help solving. And it helps prioritize what we build. I keep, you know, I keep a folder on my, on my computer that's, that's categorized. It's actually a bunch of folders by category of all the screenshots. Anytime I see something screenshot it, put it in a folder. And over time I go through there and this thing stack up. It's like, okay, this is something that is clearly something that's top of mind for our customers. And it's just, it's a helpful way to just keep an ear to the ground. [00:29:18] Speaker A: You may not be aware of this, but last, I think it was last September, it was like September 5th, there was a request that you were like engaging in conversation and a request, a bit of brainstorming. And I think it's 24 days later you had the update and we're like, hey, we've made this, this change. Here's the update. Let me know what you think of it. And I, I don't know, I thought that was pretty cool to see that come across. [00:29:42] Speaker B: So, you know, I can't take credit for that. I work with an amazing team and there's nothing that quite motivates us as a team than real customer feedback and knowing that the person that asked for it is going to use it. It's going to solve a problem for them and hopefully make their life a little bit easier. So that's really rewarding for us. And so that's really what helps get some of those things through really quickly. [00:30:06] Speaker A: Well, my sister in law. I've got a comment from my sister in law to wrap up our segment. I'm going to save it for now, but it's. Yeah, you did some problem solving there as well for us. All right. No, let's just keep going down that vein here. So this podcast, Western Canada listener base, why don't you just tell us a little bit more about your role at John Deere. You as a person, you know, what drives you, where do you come from? Just more of your story. [00:30:34] Speaker B: Sure, yeah, absolutely. So I grew up and actually still live in rural central Illinois. Both my, both my grandparents were farmers, but my dad did not go to the farm. He worked his career, IBM and so computers, technology, always surrounded by that from, from an early age. And I knew I wanted to do something in that area. So, you know, but I also grew up surrounded by agriculture. Combine rides in the fall, 4H, FFA. All of those Things. And so, you know, after I graduated college and looking for a job, I found myself at the intersection of technology and agriculture. And that's been a really good fit. I love agriculture. It's this industry where you have rich tradition and yet adoption of technology. Right. Where tradition meets the future. And so it's a really great place to be. I've been at John Deere now for about six years, been focused on operation center mobile that whole time. So my passion is building hopefully powerful but simple tools that help hard working farmers around the globe be, be more productive. And then of course, I can't neglect to mention that along the way, got married to my best friend, my bride Heather. And we have five kids age 11 and under. So that's awesome. A big part of my life is, is being, being a dad. [00:31:48] Speaker A: That's, that's a fun household, lots going on every day. So that's awesome. Well, I appreciate that. Appreciate that. Kyle, can I ask, do you have a beat or a handle on how, how planting went in your, in your area, how things were going? I think it was a little bit wet, maybe just south of you guys this year, but how to go kind of in your backyard there? [00:32:09] Speaker B: Yeah, there were, there were some delays but you know, once things got going, things are pretty well done around, around this area. So yeah, after a few weeks of dealing with some rain farmers were able to get in and get the acres in. So yeah, things have gone smoothly. [00:32:27] Speaker A: Good stuff. Good stuff. All right, I want to turn our attention here to more about getting familiar with Operations Center. If you're going to your local John Deere dealership and you want to open this door a little bit, like what is the best way to just get engaged or introduced to Operations Center? [00:32:54] Speaker B: Yeah, great question. I mean, so you mentioned already that we have an incredible dealer network. So I mean one great way is to go visit your local dealer and have them show you what the digital tools are capable of and, and show you in person how these things, it's really not just about mobile, but how these things work end to end all the way from the solutions on the equipment itself to what you can use in the digital tools off board. And of course another great way that you can do right now, apart from visiting the dealer is just jump on YouTube and there's a ton of really great video tutorials. A couple searches will pull up a number of videos that are worthwhile and then don't forget about. We have a great knowledge base. It'[email protected] and I use that myself. Honestly, I get asked all kinds of questions that sometimes, sometimes are outside of my area of expertise. And so it's like, oh, okay, well, or I just need to refer someone to here's how to accomplish this or that task. And so I use that resource a lot and find it super helpful. [00:33:57] Speaker A: Awesome. All right, appreciate that. And can I just throw in here as well? When you look at Operations center, there's obviously desktop version and then there's, you know, the mobile version. Are you part of both, type of both teams? Or, or is I. Obviously, they. They're together to some degree, but is there, you know, you know, let's grab our, our, our phones here and, and dial in specifically to that user experience. How does that kind of come together? [00:34:29] Speaker B: Yeah, so I, I spend my time focused on Operations Center Mobile, but work extensively with my coworkers who work on Operations Center Web. So I care a lot about the web experience, but my focus is on mobile specifically. And, you know, we're really trying to, to not necessarily replicate every single thing you can do on the web on mobile, but just trying to take the ones that are most common, most helpful to have with you on the go all the time and really trying to find the right balance of what to have in mobile versus what to have in web. [00:35:01] Speaker A: All right, cool. All right. So, you know, I think of Operations center for myself. These are the words that come to mind for me. I, I think about, you know, management, I think about decision making, I think about efficiency. You know, those are three. And I wanted to toss it over to you to ask what words resonate for you when you think of Operation Center. [00:35:23] Speaker B: Yeah, man, you hit the right words. I mean, you're touching at the heart of lockout. Yeah, right. I mean, you know, agriculture, it's always been this sort of complex, delicate blend of tradition, intuition, and trials and lots of checking of the weather and stuff like that. Right. And it's a, you know, it's a thousand things to manage, a thousand decisions to make. It's hard to overstate the challenge that farmers face every day. And so our, our aim is to, to build tools that help farmers navigate that sort of complexity. And so, yeah, efficiency, management, these are the types of things. We're trying to build a platform that farmers can run their farm on, from making, making plans to ensuring that their equipment is set up for success when they, when they enter the field, to monitoring the work as it's happening through the season, all the way to simple tools for, for optimizing decisions by looking at all the data that's being collected across the farm. So all of it's there to. To really help farmers be more profitable, more productive, and hopefully get the tech out of the way. But the purpose is not the technology. Right. The goal is to. To give a farmer more time at the dinner table and not more buttons to press. Right. And so, yeah, that's. That's what we're trying to achieve, I think. [00:36:35] Speaker A: Like, I wrote down simple here as well. I. I don't think that's exactly the right word that I'm going for, but that, you know, that easy, not easy, ease of use, like, that's also something that in our farm conversations, like the ability to go and do something. It's very. It's simple to go and use it. [00:37:00] Speaker B: So we're trying for that. I mean, we're trying to take things that, you know, it's like the best technology. The best tools are like a good pair of boots, right. If you're thinking about it, something's wrong, it gets out of the way, it does its job. That's what we're trying to accomplish. And so, yeah, making that as simple and easy to use as possible is something I think about every day. [00:37:23] Speaker A: Awesome. All right, I got a couple more for you here. I appreciate your time today, Kyle. When I look at the features that have come out recently, I need to ask, is there anything on the horizon, something. A sneak peek or anything you can give us a little teaser on here for this summer? [00:37:42] Speaker B: I mean, watch out in the space, without getting into too many specifics, watch out in the space of logistics. I mean, I know that that's something. That's a hot word among. Among farmers, and for good reason. We are going to make big investments in that space over the next year. And so we want to make sure that everybody in the operation has the right information at the right time to be at the right place at the right time and keep the operation moving along as efficiently as possible. You know, imagine that the tender receiving an alert, knowing that they need to be at the sprayer in 15 minutes or they're going to be out of product, or making sure that, you know, for example, I know that the team is going to be finished harvesting the field in about 20 minutes, and I need to think about moving them along to the next field. Things like that, that really help provide answers at the right time so that a manager can make sure that the team is where they need to be and saving, really reducing idle time, reducing unproductive time, and maximizing the amount of time that they can keep running. [00:38:48] Speaker A: All right, awesome. We are going to stay tuned for logistics folks. That certainly perked my ears as well and I'm sure it did for the listeners. Okay, before I get into a bit more of a funny one here, is there or what would you maybe suggest here when it comes to you know, analyzing some of the, the data that is collected or, or taking or maybe going from, you know, call me like a beginner user to a more advanced user. Is there a path or resources there? And we talked about YouTube, we talked about was it Knowledge center as well that you brought up? Is there anything else that kind of can get you to that next level from a user, you know, a pro up to a pro user level? [00:39:38] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. I mean it begins with a lot of people are already collecting all this data, right? They the ability to collect yield maps for example has been around for well over a decade and so a lot of times people have connected equipment and just aren't looking at the data. And one of the beauty, beautiful things about operation center, mobile Operations center web, click on a field, click on a click, right? Pull up last year's harvest and just review. There is a ton of information insights that you can get just by browsing through some of the data that's already been collected and then of course getting a bigger picture. There's in mobile we have a tool called Analyze and in web there's a tool called Work Analyzer. Allows you to kind of get the big overview of how things went over the course of a season. Quickly answer which which of my varieties perform better than another? Or which of my fields was I more efficient on or less efficient on? Or comparing operators or equipment. Really easy tools to slice and dice the data that you're collecting. [00:40:37] Speaker A: All right, that sounds great. Perfect. Okay, so here's just a quick one. We're tight on time here but I want to say on our farm a hot meal is very, very important for the crew at dinner time, suppertime. It's very, very important. And my sister in law, she's not, wasn't originally from the farm or the area. So you know, saying to go to grandpa's half, you know, it didn't quite didn't exactly know what that meant. Right. Or whatever the names were. And what I could say now is she told me to mention this is that everybody gets a very hot meal now because she knows exactly where she's going. Perfect dinner time when it's time to bring out that meal. So that's, that's why it exists That's. [00:41:26] Speaker B: This is why Operation Mobile exist. Make sure that get the hot meal. [00:41:30] Speaker A: Yeah, I thought that was, that was good. I, I thought that was a good one, so. All right, Kyle, I appreciate you coming on the. With the Futures podcast. Anything else that we didn't cover today that you want to bring up? [00:41:40] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, look, we'd love to, you know, have you visit your, your local John Deere dealer. Love to have you use Operation Center Mobile and web. We're going to continue to build fantastic tools. We'd love to hear your feedback on what we should build next. And we can't wait to show you what we're working on. [00:42:00] Speaker A: And could we put a little plug for your X handle, your social media handle? How should people get a hold of you? [00:42:06] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. So you can find me at xyleplatner and be happy to try to answer your questions and I post there when we release new features. [00:42:15] Speaker A: Awesome. Well, thanks again, Kyle. Thanks for your time and appreciate you coming on the show and look forward to a follow up here in. Yeah. And maybe the next four to six months or something like that. We'll absolutely. Or when we see something pop up, I'll reach out. [00:42:30] Speaker B: That sounds awesome. [00:42:31] Speaker A: Thank you so much. [00:42:32] Speaker B: You bet. Take care. [00:42:36] Speaker A: All right, folks, positive moments for this week. I'm gonna leave best for last year on this one. So I'll start with a couple things here. I. The end of May rolls around and May 28, I look back at something I did. I guess it's 2019 now. 2019 was a very challenging year for my wife and I. We lost our firstborn. Talked about on the show before, but Eva, our firstborn, arrived and passed. So that was March 3rd in 2019. And I, I was not in a good spot. I was not in a good spot. I was running crop marketing business. We had, you know, three of us on the team working with over 100 farms. And from a time perspective, you know, when you're the person that does all the analysis every day, writes content every day, puts content out every day, it just, it was, it was difficult to get back into the groove of work. And, you know, I, I didn't have a lot of grieving time. I didn't have the time I needed, that's for sure. And so what ended up transpiring during that is I got an opportunity to meet with Farmers Business Network and they wanted to acquire my business. And until March 3rd, the answer was no. The answer was no the entire time. And we talked, but there was no interest. When April rolled Around though, we took a more serious look at, at it and life had changed, events had happened, life had changed. And I'm still at that point going back in April, I'm still a bit of a mess, you know, myself, my, my wife. It's tough. And so what happens is we, we start getting more serious about negotiations. I'm looking at life a lot differently and I get an opportunity to jump on an airplane and go and pitch. We have a rough idea on evaluation, we have kind of a process in place and now is the time to go meet, do the pitch and see if this is going to go through. So I jump on an airplane, I don't tell my team what's going on. I just jump on an airplane, I head over to San Francisco and yeah, get there. Next morning I wake up, go to FBN's office and on my personal Facebook page, it's just a picture of the old tractor in front of the FBN office in San Carlos, California. But I spent the entire day, it was supposed to be a couple hours and I just sat in this room, really fun office space, but I just sat in this room and I. People were just coming in, all these people me, all these people. And I was just pitching for like six hours. We had a lunch break in there, but I just kept pitching. They had a big whiteboard, they're writing everything down and all these people just kept coming in, meeting everybody there. I just kept pitching crop marketing in Canada and then after, yeah like mid afternoon, they released me. I went and watched a baseball game and the rest is history. We ended up closing the deal in August. So I call it the pitch of a lifetime. And obviously life changing events happen to put me in that spot. But that's one of the gifts when you go through something like that. The gift was the change in perspective, change in life and for the better. My kids today benefit from that. I'm home each and every day with them and very fortunate to be in this spot. So the deal, deal of a lifetime there for me. A second positive moment for this week is Lunchbox Crew turns one year old by the time you listen to this June 1st, Lunchbox Crew turns one year old. And my version of crop marketing. I'm just, I'm always looking to make it better. Definitely not settling on where it's at today. But you know, I just to see all the farmers that I've met this last year, to see the, how wide of an area that, that we're working with, to see the engagement within the group now, everything's just building momentum each and every month. The I hope the service gets a little better each and every month. We always look to make improvements, but I also see the engagement with the group improving each and every month. And it started, folks, last year, day one of the Lunchbox Crew. It's like, guys, welcome. This is a little unprecedented, but you need to sell wheat. So welcome to the Lunchbox Crew. Sell wheat. And it's. And then the next day was, I need you to sell more wheat. And then the next day was, you know what, guys, we need to sell a little bit more wheat. And you know, just think about this farms that I maybe haven't met before. I don't know a whole bunch about yet. At that time in the first week, what came out of my mouth was I need you to sell as much wheat as you're physically comfortable with and I can help you manage around the risk side, but I need you to sell as much wheat as you can. So very weird to start, but where were futures at that point? A buck 15 higher than where they're at today. It's our best sales. We made futures first, contracts, waited on the basis forever and that's where guys got $10 wheat. So. Yeah. Anyway, so I'm, I'm excited about the Lunchbox Crew. One year old and it's been a lot of fun. My last one, my most important one, Wilhelmina, going to be five here in September, had her first dance recital. She's an Irish dance. We're French, but they don't have a French dancing program. French. We're not known for our dancing. Not organized dancer. We're great dancers. Just not organized dancers like that. So Willa hit the big stage at the Dow Auditorium. A packed room. I've got some great videos I've been sharing with everybody. And she was the youngest on stage and also the shortest on stage. And she did amazing. She was so excited. She wanted to get on stage again the next night. So I guess we have a performer coming in the family. So super special and a great moment for us. All right, folks, so I've got Dan Eberhardt joining me on the what the Futures podcast here. Dan, making your what the future's debut. Welcome to the show. [00:50:00] Speaker C: Longtime listener, first time caller, my friend. I'm so excited to be in the UPL studio. I've been loving what you're doing, watching you right from the launch and huge success. Congratulations, my friend. [00:50:10] Speaker A: Appreciate it, Appreciate it. I, I want to start off, Dan, so I, I'm sitting in, in the garage Studio. And so folks tuning in. So, yeah, I decided I'm going to do this podcast and try to pick a name. I not thinking much about the name, but quickly realizing that if you go into Apple podcasts and type in futures, you're going to get hopefully what the futures at some point. But growing the future is what shows up first. And I was wondering if Dan was going to have a problem with us having Canadian podcasts in agriculture that closely related. But you were fine with it, Dan. So thank you. [00:50:50] Speaker C: I'm really happy. You know, it's still a relatively small community and you know, I got a big, big spike in listenership when you launch, so thanks for that. I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna run. [00:51:01] Speaker A: Sure, sure you did. I. So I'm sitting, I'm sitting on the same stool here since the beginning. I have to change the stool up because starting to impact me a bit here. But anyways, so Dan invites me to record with him. Like, hey, Ryan, I know you don't start for a bit, but come record. I'm sitting here and I've got no, I've planned everything. I've got some lights, I've got my camera, I've got a little background going. Actually, I didn't have the camera yet. I was staring straight up on my. Off my laptop, but no Internet connection. I'm gonna do a podcast in my garage and I'm launching shortly and Dan figures out with me that you got no or very poor Internet connection. So you gotta fix that. [00:51:47] Speaker C: I love being part of the journey. Yeah. And it was like, yep, yep. That was like, well, maybe we should circle back when you've got, you know, Starlink or something. Like come back, you know, when you get hooked up. But look at you now. You obviously got a Internet connection because I see you all the time. [00:52:04] Speaker A: Hardwired, hardwired Internet connection. So. Oh yeah. [00:52:08] Speaker C: Eureka moments, eh? [00:52:09] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. [00:52:10] Speaker C: Now you're 100 episodes in and you're. [00:52:12] Speaker A: Old pro and well, getting there. But yeah, it's, you know, you try to grow a little bit every week, you know, with you, when you put your show out, you just try to do just a little better every week if you can. And some weeks it doesn't feel very good, but others it feels great. So, yeah, hopefully going the right way. [00:52:31] Speaker C: Tim Hammond told me when I started, 100 episodes, bro. 100 episodes. Find your voice. [00:52:36] Speaker A: Yeah, I read that. I read that. Another podcast I follow brought in some creators and yeah, they said the first hundred are not, not junk, but it, yeah, it takes 100 to really get going. So anyways, Dan, I appreciate your support at the start and the welcoming, even introducing me to my now editors and all the support that you've given. So I certainly appreciate that. All right, so Dan, you know, obviously part of the Aberhart Group, Aberhart Egg Solutions, the Convergence Conference, Growing the Future podcast. You got a lot of stuff going on, dude. What are you working on this week? [00:53:17] Speaker C: Well, pretty exciting stuff. I am raising money to get back from the river. And by that I mean I need to be rescued on the river, literally. So I've been calling on my network for a very good cause. Abrahart Ag Solutions and Growing the Future. We got involved with STARS, a 2018 egg in motion when we lent our stage to none other than the Field of Stars event. So suddenly this stage that we had rented to do some crazy stuff with got transformed into this 1200 person event that's continued to evolve. This year is going to be killer. It's moved into the prairieland park and hopefully, I don't know, have you had the opportunity to attend that amazing event? [00:53:56] Speaker A: I have not attended yet, but I have seen it growing and seen it change venue and seen the amazing, you know, even the opportunities there to raise money, like the sponsors stepping up some of the really unique packages that get offered. I've been keeping tabs on that for sure. [00:54:14] Speaker C: I love it. Well, we hope to see you there. And they're working on raising a half a million bucks. But that was my start with Starz and one of the neat stories about working with them. I didn't really know what it was about, Ryan, until we were on the stage for the third day of presentations on a Growing the Future stage. And I was interviewing the STARS folks and there was a STARS helicopter that landed next to our tent as we were doing this interview. Somebody at the show had a life threatening moment and they ran out, got this person, got them help. You know, it's all about helping as quickly as possible. And it just became very real for me at that moment. And we've been involved with the committee ever since. In fact, Nicole Dubey, who I work with at Abrahd Ag Solutions this year, she's the chair and you become part of the family. The motto is we are all stars. So whatever level that, that we get to contribute at or whatever level, I guess we could ask your, your treasured listeners to contribute to this awesome cause on it's, it's you're contributing to something fantastic. And again, being part of this, I got tapped to be part of this rescue on the river. And. Okay, so I got to raise 50,000 bucks. I'm going to get flown out tomorrow. It's May 29th. Is tomorrow. We're recording this on May 28th. [00:55:27] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:55:27] Speaker C: I'm gonna get, you know, woken up at 6:00am by, you know, the star staff. They're gonna secret me out to this remote location on the river via this helicopter. Right. It's gonna be like, you know, just like a war movie or something, like, you know, and we're gonna be, you know, flying over the landscape to this remote location. And there's three of us. Okay, three. [00:55:46] Speaker A: Three. So you got company. [00:55:48] Speaker C: It's a little bit of a competition. It's a little bit of a survivor thing. It's a friendly competition, I take it. I mean, we'll see about the temperament of the other participants. Like, I know I'm cool, but get a little bit heated in the, you know, survivor moments. But so we go out to this remote location. We've got a series of challenges, Ryan, and it's really about raising awareness, experiencing the whole stars thing. You know, we get a chance to call our heavy hitters or VIPs from. From the river, and then we'll come back, we'll get shined up, and we'll have a banquet as well. But for me, I had a couple business strategies here to raise money. You know, I. I had my rich buddy list of which you were on there. I think I called you for the rich buddy strategy, right? No, I think I called. You got the call treatment. [00:56:36] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:56:39] Speaker C: And then, you know, we were offering some business services in kind to help raise money, but we're. I've also offered to shave this beloved beard, this power totem, the source of my strengths. [00:56:49] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:56:49] Speaker C: And really the center of my dating life. 4. 4 stars. So I might come back bald as a baby. And I'm just. I never haven't used shaving cream, and probably before COVID So, yeah, it's going to be interesting, but it's. It's all for a good cause. And it. I really found Ryan and reaching out to my network again for this rescue on the river. I just have been reminded the power of this service and how close it is to the Prairie Heart. Yeah. The stories that have come up are epic. [00:57:20] Speaker A: Yeah. I've. I'll share one a little bit later here as well. But before I do, I want to get back to the beard for a second. So you're. Are we talking 20. 2019 this start? 2020 like, is when. How long has this beard journey been? [00:57:36] Speaker C: Yeah, I think it is. It feels like longer. It's funny how, you know, it's a whole thing in my life, and. And I kind of chuckle over it, but, I mean, what else are you going to do when there's a global pandemic, but, you know, get a puppy and grow a beard, Right? Like, those are your strategies. And since then, it's just sort of become part of the Persona or, you know, whatever. I mean. But it feels like a big, big deal to be getting rid of it. And I know Janelle, she's just chomping at the. She's super excited. She's like, I'm a little bit nervous. I don't know. Has she ever shaved anybody on a helicopter? Personal question, but we'll find out. [00:58:11] Speaker A: You're gonna find out, dude. [00:58:13] Speaker C: Yeah, I might have a few nicks, like, a few wounds, but hopefully they have some big bandages in the. In the red helicopter. [00:58:18] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, you'll be fine, you know. Yeah. [00:58:22] Speaker C: Stop the bleeding there. [00:58:23] Speaker A: Just a flesh rune, anyway. You'll be fine. So, like, when it comes to the beard, like, are you. So, like, my wife bought me beard oil. Okay. And so. And I'm like, really, hon? Like, I just. Not quite, but okay, I got beard oil. Like, what. What's part of your routine here? Like, this just doesn't happen on its own for you. Like, what. Do you have any special work? Special, like, I don't know, the shampoo or something or. [00:58:53] Speaker C: Yeah, there is a special comb, you know, and you gotta. This wax is so thick, you know, you gotta. You gotta rub it between your fingers, like, get it hot kind of thing. [00:59:03] Speaker A: Oh, wow. [00:59:03] Speaker C: And then it goes on. And then there's actually a hot brush if you want to go to the next level. But to be honest, for the most part, I'm pretty natural. You know, you can put a lot of product in it, but at the end of the day, it should be curving your way. It's important to trim it in such a way that it kind of goes with the grain, just like you're cutting, you know, when you know how to cut, like, roast beef properly. It's kind of the same category as a man, hopefully. You know how to cut a roast beef properly and you know how to trim your. Okay. Yeah, no, you know, you. Yeah, you can find anything out on YouTube today, including how to trim your beard, but it's kind of. Yeah, it's kind of taking shape, and I haven't. And there's people, too, that I work with or whoever, or even my nine year old daughter. Like she doesn't know me that way. And in fact, I wanted to tell you too. Like my 9 year old daughter Ivanka is extremely concerned about my safety, how much money is being raised. She's looking at the website every day. She asked her friend at school, Whitney, she said, Whitney can only give $10 because they're moving. I'm like, that is no problem. [01:00:06] Speaker A: Huge. [01:00:06] Speaker C: Appreciate it, you know, so, but, but yeah, all that starts over tomorrow and I have to start from scratch. My, my dating life, my, my beard, you know, what products I'm going to use. Like I'm going back to my roots, literally. [01:00:20] Speaker A: Yeah. You're definitely going to want to check what routine to go with Zeal starting on Friday or I guess for the banquet. Right. You can't mess around. You got to be ready to go tomorrow. [01:00:28] Speaker C: I was trying to plan ahead. Like I better pick up a shaving kit because I don't know if she's got shaving cream there or what. I just seen a razor. Like you're gonna go after this bad boy with a razor? Are you serious? [01:00:39] Speaker A: Could. You're on the river. I'm thinking maybe a fishing theme. Like it might even be some type of, you know, knife of some sort from a tackle box or something. You never. [01:00:48] Speaker C: Hunting knife. Yeah, could be a hunting knife. [01:00:50] Speaker A: Could be. Who knows what they have in that helicopter. They probably got wicked stuff in there. I would think so, yeah. Challenge rescue on the river. Is this something that's been going on for a long, like a long time? Do I know others that have been in this situation as well or just brand spanking you? [01:01:08] Speaker C: It's been around a very long time and it's a really interesting flywheel with stars. How they provide this incredibly excellent level of life saving service. But part of that is getting donations from the private sector. So a good portion of it's covered by the public sector. But they always need to be raising money especially for the level of care that they go to. So they are very competent not only at saving lives, but, you know, raising money to do so with the higher level quality. All in all, and I don't know exactly what date it goes back to, I don't have the history on it, but I know you can look way back. This is something they've been doing a long time. And speaking of one of your wonderful sponsors that because a big generous green heart, God bless him. John Deere. I sold John Deere for 13 years. Wonderful, wonderful machinery. Very close and Dear to our. Our. Dear to our heart. At home there, too. They gave a friend of mine, Marty White, who's the big shot ends brothers. They gave stars 50,000 bucks when he did it last fall. [01:02:12] Speaker A: Wow. Wow. [01:02:13] Speaker C: Right? So that's a really big deal. And I don't know, I mean, hopefully they got their money out of getting Marty back from the river. I don't know. Roi, your big ROI guy. [01:02:23] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [01:02:24] Speaker C: You know, was ROI worth it? I guess somewhere in their spreadsheet sell. No, but. [01:02:29] Speaker A: Oh, wow. Wow. All right, that's. I'm sure, I'm sure they figured it out, calculated it out. [01:02:36] Speaker C: They could also send me 50,000 bucks tomorrow as well. I have no. I mean, I sold a lot of John Deere sprayers. [01:02:42] Speaker A: Well, they'll have to do the ROI on that one, Dan, so. Yeah, don't hold your breath. All right, buddy? [01:02:46] Speaker C: The pitch on the what the Futures podcast was worth it alone. [01:02:50] Speaker A: Yeah. Oh, man. So, so if you're, if you're listening to this podcast, we're going to send this out on our socials here Thursday as a clip as well. Get, you know, get some awareness on the day, the day of. But let's say you're, you're catching this episode on Fridays, which typically goes on Friday morning. I'll try to get out a little earlier, though. How can people engage with rescue on the river? How can they find out some more details? Where do they go? [01:03:18] Speaker C: Absolutely. So go to your browser and type in rescue on the river. Ca. And then you can click on my face. It still has my beard. And you click on the donate. Oh, you can donate to any, any one of the other participants as well. But yeah, go on there and donate. And then it's all pretty streamlined from there. And my understanding is Friday, the donations will still be live. And of course, anytime you want to make a donation to Stars, it's all golden. [01:03:46] Speaker A: Yep. Yeah. 100. If you're listening to this next in the next weeks, don't be a stranger. Stars flies every day, so they need. [01:03:54] Speaker C: If you're listening to this 100 years from now, in the future, you can still give to Stars, I'm sure. [01:04:00] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. So I've got my, I've got my story, my stars story. And I've shared this a few times in the past, but you know, in, in, you know, the Prairies, you know, seeing the helicopter fly overhead where my in laws live, actually, it, it, there's, it's one of the, the flight paths to the north of Saskatchewan. So you, you know, you See the SARS helicopter quite often there. But my brother in law, it's going to be, I think it's six years ago now, he wasn't feeling well and he went to our, our local hospital which is, you know, in Roster in Saskatchewan, I don't know, 40 minutes north of Saskatoon, like not far from, from the big city. But he went in respiratory. They, you know, they okay, we'll keep you in here for a little bit and see what's going on. And it just got worse and worse. You know, over 24 hours it got worse and worse. So they, they called STARS and they said, hey, we just want to give you, keep you on alert here. We've got a situation. We don't need you at this moment, but we just want you to. I don't know how they do it, but you know, we have a situation that we may be phoning about at some point today. What ended up happening is STARS was, was flying and the, the, I think, I don't know if they call it a mission, Dan, but the mission got called off and they were circling back over Rostern. They said, well let's just check in on that guy down there to see what's going on. And at that moment he was going into, he was having a severe episode. Things were deteriorating quickly and if STARS would not have landed in that moment, my brother in law Brady wouldn't be here. They were able to get him intubated and stable and off to Saskatoon. And you think like Saskatoon to Rostern's not that great of a distance. You know, an ambulance, you know, would have done it in 20 minutes or 30 minutes. Right. But there was no time for that. This was helicopter, he took his helicopter ride into Saskatoon, was in intensive care for I don't know how many days after that. And he's here today. And that's amazing. They said if it wasn't for that check in, they don't know what, how things would have played out. And for those, you know, listening, what ended up happening is he, he got hantavirus, which, which is something that you, you hear of every once in a while. But you think about, yeah, and working in an old garage, you know, like we've all done many times. And he got hantavirus and his, what was he, mid-20s at the time. His, his young body fought through it and yeah, he's here today. So STARS is very close to our family as well. [01:06:55] Speaker C: That's wonderful. And that is the theme that I've gotten over and over and talking to so many people this week, as I've reached out is this person would not be here if not for stars, or that person would not be here from Stars. And I had a Hutterite who reached out from Alberta, actually, and he intimated that he had, I believe it was a grandson that was born three pounds and today they're six and a half feet and getting married. If it weren't for Stars. And I had a mother from Mooseman reach out and say, a year and a half ago, my son had a motorcycle accident and this week he's graduating or this spring he's graduating if. If not for Stars. And even I wanted to give a shout out to a fellow that I've been working with on trading. You guys talk a lot about grain marketing and stuff like that. A Dwayne Sidor and I have been working together on raising some money. He's been trading my account and we were taking the profits from day trading last week or so and putting it into this fundraising. But they had a situation close to them. The extended family just happened yesterday. It was. It was a farm accident. Very serious. I won't go into details out of respect, but it hit so close to home in such a timely fashion that, you know, it really had a big impact. And actually my nurse was on that. That mission, the nurse that I'm working with at the rescue of the river tomorrow. So we are all intertwined in this thing. You know, we're all so close. I always joke it's, you know, one and a half degrees of separation in the farming community. Not. Not six degrees of separation. [01:08:29] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:08:30] Speaker C: And I think we'll learn. I'm really interested for the experience tomorrow. I think part of what we'll learn too is the margins of error, like how. How much time matters. Because we got. My understanding is there's little challenges, like you got to use math to kind of figure out how to get there and how to do SOS from the ground and different things. And, you know, their work is. Is very technical. And. Yeah, I wanted to share too. I've been terrified to take on this whole challenge, man. Like, I just, you know, it's been hard to really feel confident enough that I can raise enough money or do enough or am I worthy or kind of been having panic attacks about raising enough money. But I know that every dollar matters. And I started thinking a lot about. There's a lot of people that are so brave that do this. Whether it was flying the helicopter for the first time. Can you imagine going to your first accident that, you know, some of us can't. Aren't built for. And some of us aren't built to be podcasters either. But there's not. There's less, you know, physical danger in being a podcaster, unless you're terrified of public speaking. Was. Lots of people are. But, yeah, like, I think about what these people had to push through for the bigger purpose, the bigger goal to save lives. Their moments of doubt, their doubts, you know, their doubts and fears. And I just think, like, whatever I'm feeling, it's so worth it. And getting the feedback from the community has been so worth it. I talked to a farmer yesterday that's got stars in their succession plan. They're going to leave money to stars in their will when they die because that's how they feel about it. So it's amazing to be part of something so great, and these stories will continue. And it's that feedback loop. The more we can invest in this, the better health care we can get. And, you know, we all talk about, well, we don't have to get into debatable, you know, public health care versus private health care, but this is a way that you can vote for your dollars to have a better quality of life and health care for us in the real communities today, period. Like, when you write that check, that's a vote for, I want better. I want better care today. I want me and my loved ones and my community to have better care today. Boom. [01:10:33] Speaker A: Awesome. Well said, Dan. I can't say it enough. You know, our. Our thanks go to the crews out there, risking their lives each and every day as well, and. And all the amazing things that they accomplish, what they get done in a day, in a week, just blows me away on what they do, so. All right, Dan. [01:10:54] Speaker C: Thanks, brother. [01:10:54] Speaker A: Appreciate you coming on the show. Appreciate you spending some time with us, folks. I'm gonna throw the challenge out there. I know it's a busy time of year, but when you get the GPS set, when you're going down that straight line or just pull over safely. Let's do that instead. Let's pull over safely. Check out rescue on the river. I threw a couple hundred bucks in there for you, Dan. [01:11:15] Speaker C: Appreciate it. [01:11:16] Speaker A: Get you. Get you going a little more. [01:11:18] Speaker C: Two whiskers. Two whiskers, brother. [01:11:19] Speaker A: Yeah. So I challenge a few others out there listening to do the same, so. Awesome, buddy. [01:11:26] Speaker C: Thanks, man. I appreciate it. [01:11:27] Speaker A: Thanks for all the help as well. Getting this what the future's off the ground. [01:11:30] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:11:31] Speaker A: On my side, so. [01:11:32] Speaker C: I'm so proud of what you built. [01:11:33] Speaker A: It's Beautiful. Awesome. Good stuff. [01:11:35] Speaker C: Thanks, man. [01:11:38] Speaker A: All right, folks, for eating your veggies this week. I got a couple things written down here. I got a couple wheat things just to, to put out there. Like number one, these old crop wheat specials, you've seen them. For some of you it might be in the low eights. For others it's mid eights. And for some of you it's high as nine in central Alberta. But they come out this week. It was Cargill couple days ago. Was Patterson Vitar's in the mix as well. G3, they all come at you, the price is super low. And then the special looks amazing because it just, it might be a buck higher than the posted bids. It's just the actual price of the market. It's not a special, it's just where the market's at. We all know that because the specials all pop up in the same way each and every time. But what I want to say here, guys, is that you have to take those. In my opinion, you have to take those. I know you might want to gamble on some weather here moving forward. And wheat ending stocks are going to be pretty darn tight here, you know, one of the tightest that we've seen. And at some point these grain companies are going to finish up their sales and they're not going to have that train that they desperately need to fill and pay that big premium. You, in my opinion, again, seek the advice of a professional. You gotta clean up your old crop wheat sales on these specials. You just take that. You can always be bullish, buy, call, option, do something on the brokerage side. You can always try to be bullish over there, but clean up those wheat sales or at least hate to say this, look at that basis and grab that again, I'm not a big wheat bowl right now myself, but clean up those sales. The next thing I know, I said on our farm, we, you know, we closed all our targets off. But if you have, if you have good growing conditions right now, again, I don't think the event in western Canada is big enough to move the markets yet at the end of May here. I don't think it is. We'll see in a few weeks, but I don't think it's quite there. I would still be. If you're getting rain, moisture vents, you're off to the races here. I would be setting those weed targets. I'm not saying to go and set them 10 cents above posted bids. I'm saying look at your crop marketing plan. And if you had goals here, of prices $0.75 50, $0.75 a buck over the market. Go and get those targets layered in. Get ready. Take advantage of strength of its coming here in June. Put yourself in a position here to get ready for that. Then. My last one is just a big crop marketing review here as we go into June. My crop marketing workbook, you know, I have cash flow review and update for the next six months. That's what I want to get done here in the month of June. Get my fall cash flow figured out because I'm going to have to make some sales here for fall. Most of us will review your outstanding targets. Again, if you're sitting in a drought in northeast Saskatchewan, you know, you may be reviewing those to cancel them like we did. But if you're sitting here with moisture, you may be reviewing those to just double check what you got and tweak them. I've got, how is your crop progressing? Any reasons for a plus or a minus? You flip over to June, you start to get a sense on what's coming. Now, events happen that improve or deteriorate that potential. But you can already put a plus or a minus. We have a little minus in here right now. That's the reality. Right? But you take the time to do that. If you got a bunch of pluses, your crop marketing plan will be influenced by that. Revere market buys. Are we going higher or lower? You should be doing that when you wake up every morning. But every week explain to yourself why. Why do you think the market's going higher or why do you think it's going lower? And if you think it's going lower, then you know what to do. And then check prices for delivery. Even for the fall of 2026. I made a wheat sale. I got a wheat sale on. For the fall of 2026, believe it or not, I got a wheat sale on. And the joke is that I've got more wheat sold for next year than I have for this year, which it's a little bit criminal if you think about it. But anyways, that's. That's a joke. All right, that's it for eating your veggies here for this week. All right, folks, thanks again for joining me here for episode 78 of the what the Futures podcast. I told you we'd have range in this one. We've got vulnerability on a crop marketing plan. We've got fundraising efforts from Dan and the rescue on the river. And we also have a great guest in Kyle joining us from John Deere to talk about technology and John Deere operations center and. And the mobile version of that. And so, yeah, thanks for, for hanging in there. I'll update you guys on the hockey pool next week. We did have some changes. We got a leader, leaderboard change there. It's a tight race. It's almost a two horse race right now. Looks like it's going to come down to the wire for two. Two guys here, one in Alberta, one in Manitoba. So we'll see who. Who ends up on top. What else do I have here? Oh, conference. You can go Ryanden ca the website. Got a little refresh here. You can apply to the conference. When I see your application, we'll review it. And I just want to say the application is not like figure out are you smart enough to be here or anything like that. The application helps create content. You know, where do we focus in on the conference? Crop marketing, Make Cool conference. And it's also the gatekeeper. We don't want just a bunch of sales reps sitting in there. Like, good on you for taking a look and being interested. But we want farmers in those seats. That's what this conference is for. There's what, 150, 160 seats total. And we want 160 farmers if there's 160 seats. That's why we do the application. You can do that at ryandani ca. Yeah, I don't think I have anything else there that's new on the conference this week. All right, folks, I appreciate you share this with a friend. If you found it useful, hit me up. Ryan withFuturesPodcast CA. Let's have some dialogue here about kitchen window bias and how you're tackling marketing on your farm. And I'll check in next week. I'm out.